Rebooted
Four film majors finally put their degrees to good use. Join us as we dive into revived cult classics, modern missteps, and live-action cash grabs in an attempt to tackle the single most important question in modern cinema: Did that really need to be REBOOTED?
Rebooted
Robocop (1987 and 2014)
As the conversation unfolds, we tackle the evolution of the RoboCop franchise, comparing the original's satirical edge to the more action-packed 2014 reboot. We muse over the reboot's attempt at nostalgia and the challenges posed by a PG-13 rating. From reminiscing about the classic's iconic scenes and sequels to debating the reboot's shift in tone, we leave no stone unturned. Along the way, we entertain the possibility of a RoboCop and Terminator crossover, humorously dubbed "Robonator," blending the best of both dystopian worlds.
Our discussion also takes a futuristic turn as we speculate on what lies ahead for RoboCop, particularly with modern themes like AI and machine learning on the rise. Imagine a version of RoboCop navigating today's media landscape, complete with social media and reality TV twists, while still delivering on the dark humor and societal critiques that made the original a cult favorite. We wrap up with a whimsical nod to other reboots and explore how embracing absurdity, much like the Fast and Furious franchise, could breathe new life into RoboCop.
Also, what happens when you mix the gritty world of RoboCop with the playful antics of the Muppets? Join us for a hilariously chaotic journey as we reimagine the 1987 classic through a Muppet-tinted lens. Picture Peter Weller as the human amidst plush robot parts, with Kermit as Ann Lewis and Miss Piggy in a delightfully unhinged role as Clarence Boddicker. And just to spice things up, we've cast Statler and Waldorf as the villainous duo of Dick Jones and the Old Man while Fozzie Bear tries to keep some semblance of order. It's a mash-up no one saw coming, but you'll be glad you did!
Tune in for laughter, thoughtful insights, and a generous dose of 'what if' scenarios that keep the conversation both engaging and entertaining.
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Welcome to Season 3 of Rebooted, where four former film majors making a podcast about Hollywood's favorite pastime rebooting, recooling and nostalgia milking. Every movie except Back to the Future. I'm Andrew, former film major and now a director of marketing.
Speaker 2:I'm Jessica, former film major and now a barista.
Speaker 3:And I'm Rob, former film major and also a director of marketing.
Speaker 4:I'm Mike, former film major and now I'm a software engineer.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, okay, hold up guys. What we got to do right now, we got to recast the original robot RoboCop. Robot RoboCop has a Muppet movie.
Speaker 3:Okay, so this is the 1987. We're doing the original, absolutely.
Speaker 4:But you realize that RoboCop has to be half man, half Muppet, oh of course, absolutely.
Speaker 1:He's going to be stuffing when he gets, when he gets his hand blown off, stuffing is going to fly out.
Speaker 2:Wait, so does he start out as a Muppet and then becomes half human, or Hmm?
Speaker 1:I don't know, I didn't think that one through.
Speaker 4:Peter Weller merged with Kermit the Frog.
Speaker 1:Something like that. I think so, yeah, sorry. So who's going to be Alex Murphy then? Is it going to be Peter Weller, merged with Kermit the Frog, or we got other ideas?
Speaker 2:I feel like he should be merged with Gonzo because, like, just the nose, like nose.
Speaker 3:I feel like you could do the nose and that if he's going to be a cop, he'd be the bear, right, oh good point or um.
Speaker 4:Or um Sweetums.
Speaker 3:He'd be big and mighty then it would be, the robot parts right, like the robot parts of Sweetum.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'd be like a Frankenstein Muppet going. Oh man, maybe we should just make Peter Weller it again and he can be the one human, because I think it's getting too weird. Otherwise, yeah, alright.
Speaker 3:It starts to get like David Cronenberg.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but like, instead of like a robot body, he's just like different stitched together pieces of Muppets, so like Kermit's arm and like Fozzie's body.
Speaker 1:Oh no, yeah, this is like. This is the puppet where the Muppets take Cronenberg.
Speaker 4:Yeah how about?
Speaker 3:Mike, it's a Muppet whore if he can be the Muppet cop and so the robot part of him is like plush, so it's like made of like. It still looks like a robot, so it looks like metal, but it's made of like metal material rather than like actual metal. So he's like that part of him like comical, like stitches material rather than like actual metal.
Speaker 1:Okay, alright, I say that works.
Speaker 4:Like comical, like felt, like stitches.
Speaker 1:So he's going to be a furry. Right, so it's Peter Weller. When he's normal Peter Weller, then, after he gets turned into Robocop, he gets turned into a furry Peter Weller, perfect.
Speaker 2:I love it. I thought you were saying furry. Peter Weller was regular.
Speaker 1:Peter Weller. No, no, no, furry. Peter Weller is gonna be a robot copy. All right, ann lewis, who's who which? Which muppet we got for ann lewis? Oh, I, I kind of want it to be kermit, yeah all right, we'll do like what they did with the uh 2014. Do a gender swap, make that kermit maybe a little, a little bit of um.
Speaker 1:Uh, we'll get. We'll get him in like his little cute, little cute like uniform with his little yeah cop hat, and he'll be like you know like, yeah, make it really confusing for kermit and have, uh, boddicker, be miss piggy.
Speaker 3:Nice, she has that level of unhinged but charismatic right wait what if?
Speaker 2:Gonzo is Boddicker and all his like gang is Camilla's that's pretty good too.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, all the chain.
Speaker 4:Camilla's holding. Like Tommy guns.
Speaker 1:I'm afraid to ask because I feel like the answer is just going to be the two old dudes. But who's going to play Dick Jones and the old man? Statler and Waldorf have?
Speaker 4:to be All right, they have to be the villain, right. I kind of feel like that's like.
Speaker 1:Like that's kind of like going to a hot dog stand and ordering a hot dog.
Speaker 4:I mean, why wouldn't you order a hot dog at a hot dog stand Like?
Speaker 2:that's the reason you go to the hot dog stand.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, right, well, but what about what?
Speaker 3:about the, the younger guy. So there's like Dick Jones is like the old man bad guy. And then there's like the old old man who's the like Fozzie Voice of reason. At the end it would be fozzie, absolutely yeah. Yeah reason at the end it would be Fosse, absolutely yeah, so you have Statler and Waldorf fighting each other. They could be the two characters they could be, I think, the other guy they have to be Dick and Jones, the co-presidents like.
Speaker 2:Bob, and like Jacob and Robert Marley, you take one character Like Bob, like Jacob and Robert Marley, the.
Speaker 4:Christmas Carol. You take one character and you split them because they're conjoined lovers, and the old man is definitely Fozzie absolutely.
Speaker 2:And then the big robot, the one that's like that they can't use because he kills. The one guy is Sweetums.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:That plays into the clumsiness coming in through the walls which they can't use because he refuses to kill, because Sweetums is actually a big softie.
Speaker 1:And so who's going to be Clarence Boddicker's or Miss Piggy's or her henchman email?
Speaker 3:We thought maybe it was going to be Gonzo. Oh right, I'm sorry, that's right. So who's going to be? We thought maybe it was going to be Gonzo. Oh right, right, right, I'm sorry, that's right, that's right. So who's going to be?
Speaker 1:Gonzo's main henchman. No, it's called main henchman. He has like a named one.
Speaker 2:He has like a main one Rizzo, rizzo. Yeah, absolutely, you're right.
Speaker 1:What about Leon Nash? Who's going to play old Leon? That was very wise.
Speaker 2:Probably Skeeter.
Speaker 3:Scooter Wait which one is I keep thinking Muppet Babies.
Speaker 1:Which one's the one that's actually a Muppet Skeeter's from a cartoon.
Speaker 4:Skeeter's from Doug. Skeeter and Skeeter were brother and sister in Muppet.
Speaker 2:Well they were brother and sister in the cartoon, or cousins or something.
Speaker 1:You guys have it here first. This is the 2024 Robocop remake done by Tesla, featuring Muppets.
Speaker 2:So then the flashback scenes is Miss Piggy as his wife.
Speaker 4:But where do Bunsen and Beaker fit in? They're the ones that made it.
Speaker 1:We'll call it Audible and we'll include Gary Oldman's character from the new one in this remake.
Speaker 2:So that's why wouldn't bunsen beaker be the scientist that put him together?
Speaker 1:well, why can't they be dr norton from the new one?
Speaker 2:I don't know who's?
Speaker 1:what's the sweetest chef gonna do he'll work in the background making sushi for them. So all right, he works. He works in the background making sushi for them.
Speaker 3:So, alright, he works in the cocaine warehouse. There you go. Yeah, he's cutting cocaine he's cutting.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well, that is, like I said, coming 2024 from, funded by Tesla and Tesla will be the corporation. Alright, well, let's go ahead and get this good old 24, funded by Tesla and Tesla will be the corporation.
Speaker 2:All right, well, let's go ahead and get the good old summaries here from Jess to keep this old ball moving In a world where crime and corruption run rampant, witness the transformation of Officer Alex Murphy into a cyborg enforcer armed with modern armor and a new origin, navigating the blurred lines between man and machine while confronting contemporary issues of surveillance and corporate influence. Join us as we delve into the evolution of RoboCop across decades, exploring the timeless themes of identity, power and the pursuit of justice. I'd buy that for a dollar.
Speaker 3:I really don't like how they snuck that into the second movie, but it was very par for the course. It was very bland. I wouldn't buy that for a dollar. It's nostalgia bait.
Speaker 1:I mean, all reboots are nostalgia bait though.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's very true, I didn't even try to cover it up, andrew.
Speaker 4:Some reboots are. We're sorry, we're going to fix it. Dune says hi.
Speaker 3:That is true.
Speaker 2:I think the biggest problem for this was that it went from satirical to straight up action movie. It's so funny to say this, but it like let's make robocop a gritty reboot, when it's the original is not not gritty like it's it's the definition of gritty but like it's like let's reboot it but make it serious they were like that.
Speaker 3:Violence was too over the top but what else? Do you expect?
Speaker 1:from 2014 reboot, you know like I think it was, it was of its time, right, it was trying to tell this gritty action movie, whereas 1987 was trying to do this, you know, like a shock, shock value of all, like blowing a hand off.
Speaker 4:Wasn't like total recall, recall, like reboot, kind of the same, like time right? Yeah, it was about the same time director they just kept going.
Speaker 1:And hey, paul verhoeven, we're gonna just redo your movies why don't we get a redo of uh starship troopers then?
Speaker 3:because that was like 10 years later, so we're we're due for one now, though that's true.
Speaker 2:I think there's one in development, but that doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of Hollywood.
Speaker 4:It's probably going to be a requel at this point.
Speaker 2:So and also the problem is also that they made it PG-13 because the studio was like we need to recoup our money, so let's make it PG-13. And I think that things have changed in the last decade with that. But it's like make a good movie that people want to see and it doesn't matter if it's PG-13 or R Like. Your problem is that now people aren't going to come see it because it's a crappy movie.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's interesting that you point that out, because it's like we're going to recoup our money, but it domestically grossed 58. The 2014 did off of a $100 million budget. Now it got 240 worldwide. But it's like, if you think about it in terms of like marketing and all the stuff they had to do to produce, that it's that's not recouping your money. By making the that pg-13 rating, it didn't end up really working out for them that in a 49. You know tomato rating well right.
Speaker 1:you know, I thought it was interesting because and I don't know if they just it was just imdb not reporting the domestic correctly. But the domestic for the original was like not even a million dollars more than the gross listed, uh, or sorry, after the domestic, the worldwide was not even a million dollars more than the domestic. And I was like so did the original one not really get released worldwide or did have a very limited release, and then, and then the remake is like this massive success overseas. I, you know, I don't know, it was just, it was kind of interesting. It's either that or you know, imdb just had the wrong information interesting.
Speaker 4:It's either that or you know. Imdb just had the wrong information. It's possible it's the internet. Could have been written by a seven-year-old, you know yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But this, this is a movie. The original is one that's not gonna get a lot of people because it is, you know, it has at the, you know like. It has that little cronenberg scene where it's like that or he's covered in the toxic chemicals and it's you know, you know gore and stuff, and so it rated r. So I mean it does make sense, especially for 1987 not to have made a lot of money, but it definitely was popular enough to make. What was it?
Speaker 2:two sequels and then the reboot I think it wasn't there an animated I don't know, but there was also an animated tv series and it's like there were games too.
Speaker 1:Now that you say that, I do remember there was Robocop, robocop 2 and Robocop 3 and then the remake, so there was three total of the original and then the remake.
Speaker 2:Now they progressively went, you know, further and further downhill and they got rid of Peter Weller did they get rid of Peter Weller, or did Peter Weller get rid of them and Peter Weller get rid of?
Speaker 1:peter weller.
Speaker 4:Did they get rid of peter weller to be like peter weller?
Speaker 1:get rid of them the only thing I remember from robocop 3 was that his arm turned into a massive gun, like a massive, massive gun, and I don't even remember like kind of gun, how or why? Um no, it was like I'm gonna have to look it up. I'll we'll look it up and post a picture on our social. That's a cute cue for rob, but I'm fairly certain. I remember. I'm fairly certain. I remember it was like a massive gun.
Speaker 3:It feels like I replaced his arm that feels like it definitely was, like we're gonna just swing the opposite direction of the end of the first movie, which was like, yeah, humanizing murphy.
Speaker 4:They're like no, go back, make him a gun okay, actually they basically made him megaman, did you find it I?
Speaker 1:found it, I'm gonna see if I can drop a picture in our chat, but we'll definitely make sure 90s. We'll definitely make sure that rob posts this picture in our social definitely knew where I was going with this.
Speaker 3:I started typing in RoboCop 3 gun and then it was like arm yeah, you can look at the chat guys.
Speaker 1:You'll see it right now Do you mean arm Clippy comes up.
Speaker 2:That was that's like.
Speaker 1:All I remember from that movie is his arm being like this massive gun.
Speaker 4:So look at those shoulder pads though, too. That's yeah.
Speaker 1:I wasn't like a big robocop fan, so I'm not even sure why I saw it. I just know I had and I was like, okay, are those like?
Speaker 4:are those like vertical takeoff engines on his shoulder. What is what I don't remember?
Speaker 1:the movie very well, mike, I just remember and I may have seen it on it as like a tv movie. So, um, maybe this stuff was edited for tv. Maybe that's rob one side. So, yes, all right. Well, uh, I wanted to move on to our discussion questions, because you know that's what we like to do here, is talk about stuff. So I had a little question I wanted to throw your guys way and I want to talk about the. So the evolution of Murphy from human to cyborg and the conflict he faces with Omnicorp, which I believe Mike put in as OCP for me. So I didn't forget, I did.
Speaker 1:I didn't forget so his relationship resonates very differently in each film. So do you guys, how do you think that? Including more of his family, so his relationship, resonates very differently in each film. So do you guys, how do you think that? Including more of his family, his emotion and the inclusion of his eventual advocate of Dr Norton, which is played by Gary Oldman, do you think that? How does that change the film from the original? Does it change for the better or for the worse? Do you think it's worth it? It's needed, needed.
Speaker 3:What do you guys think? Well, I I would say the kind of the first thing I felt about the 87 film in regards to that with the family, like not really being present, uh, in the film is there's like this very hard. It's there's a much graver sense of loss with him in the original film because he goes into his old house and it's like it's been put up for sale by like a virtual realtor with the little tv screens and he's having flashbacks to his time before, but them not physically being present in the film to like interact with him. Just it's very unsettling. And so it is a very different feeling you get from the 2014 film because is still seeing his family and they still love him. They didn't like just abandon him, and so there's a lot less of that like hollowness to it, like he has this.
Speaker 4:He has this end goal, this thing he's fighting for near the end of the film, once he's kind of been able to overtake the machine part of himself and like in the first one, right, they're very much trying to keep sort of like, keep it under wraps a little bit, like trying to like keep him isolated from his family too, to sort of like manage, manage some of his like programming, so to speak.
Speaker 4:And I feel like the difference in like 87 versus 2014, like it would be a lot harder to keep that secret in 2014 with, like you know, social media and like just like things being more connected in general, like if he's out there on the streets, like word would get back to the family. So it's like it kind of makes sense that his family is like more involved, just because the nature of like communication and like the connected nature of our culture would like it would be more problematic for them to try to keep him from his family than it would to let his family be present. Like it would be really bad press if the family found out it was like hey, they're keeping him from us and now suddenly they're getting told and all this other stuff.
Speaker 3:So it's like I think that I think it all makes which happens in the 2014 movie where she like goes to the press and it causes a whole uh big dramatic scene and they're trying to like do damage control on their side.
Speaker 2:So I do think that it's like there's this, though, big difference between like, especially if you look at the endings. It's like it's kind of silly in the remake that it's like, oh my gosh, he overcame because of love, but in the original it's like he wasn't, he was, he was a robot, and the only reason he was able to take down the bad guy was because the bad guy got fired and he still had his programming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but didn't Harry Potter save the world because of love?
Speaker 2:And you hate that why is it different? Why would Robocop get a pass if you hate that Harry Potter did it.
Speaker 1:Well, I didn't say Robocop got a pass for that. I think one thing that is interesting too about the difference between the movies is that in the 2014 one, there was definitely this need of like, having to have Alex Murphy like buy into this concept, whereas in the original one, the 87, it was just like Alex Murphy's like OK, I'm RoboCop, the contract says that they can put me in a Robo suit and that's just the way it is. I am now this mean gray fighting machine, whereas in the new one it was I'm doing this so I can be with my family still, I'm doing this so we can still have our dad and husband and things like that and it was like it was definitely came across differently because it was. It was like he was fighting for to be a part of his family still, and things like that he didn't even robocop.
Speaker 2:In the new one, like he caught the bad guy at his opening where it's like, oh look, there's a murderer. That's just like front and center, rest him. But like then there was the movie, he wasn't robocopping, it was all like this oh, let's talk about the science, like let's talk about the doctor, let's talk about the corporation, let's do this, let's go, let's go back to this. And it's like what's the point? He wasn't robocop, he didn't do robocopping. Like he didn't shoot a bad guy in the dick through a woman's skirt, like where's that stuff?
Speaker 4:how, how much of the like new take, though, of like trying to like win him over and like pitch him on the like this is for my family. This is how much of that is like almost in some ways, like a little bit more like bleak and sinister, that they're like leveraging that against him to like create the perfect cyborg well, not even, and not even like so much.
Speaker 1:The perfect cyborg isn't the perfect way to get around the law, right? That was their whole thing we we are getting around the law by having the machine take over when the visor comes down, but he thinks he's still in control, so even he doesn't know we're skirting the law. You know, and and I thought that was interesting he's a he's a machine who thinks he's alex murphy.
Speaker 3:Right, that's a great line. Yeah, it is super bleak that that's kind of how the corporation interacts in this movie, as opposed to the original, where it was like the company is doing pretty sinister stuff and really in the original robocop like they basically just wipe his personality, like he's just he's the machine, because the whole point in that movie is that crime is so bad in Detroit that cops want to go on strike and they need to come up with militarized instruments to be able to like fight back on crime, whereas in the remake it's really more about the corporation just wanting to make a profit and they're already making a profit overseas with all these other militarized robots and the only way for them to be able to get it through to america is that to go around this, this law that's already here, manipulating the public with a human, human-ish face that is like.
Speaker 2:An interesting difference is that in the original the what they wanted did not work because it was still killing people even when they complied. When the new one, it did work, but people just weren't accepting of it because they needed that human element. So that is an interesting different. I feel like in the 80s you could get away with like yeah, I mean, if it works, nobody's gonna care, just do your thing. It's the 80s, but yeah, like now. They'd be like it was the 80s.
Speaker 3:It was the 80s in the 80s they they go the 87 version, they go out of their way to make detroit look like, oh, like it's kind of grimy and there's a lot of crime, and in the new one it's like Detroit looks pretty good, like.
Speaker 2:I know I was gonna say like they need RoboCop.
Speaker 3:Do they need a RoboCop? I mean, the only thing that seems like a problem in the remake is that other cops right, the corrupt cops, yeah, yeah yeah, I mean, you're definitely the first one felt it was very much like Demolition man version of LA.
Speaker 1:this was like you yeah, I mean, you're definitely the first one felt was very much like Demolition man version of LA. This was, like you know, that picked up and dropped into Detroit, kurt Russell escaping from New York, futuristic 1999.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Turned into a maximum security prison?
Speaker 4:Why haven't they remade that movie? Why haven't they escaped from New York?
Speaker 1:They might still I feel like that's the thing, though.
Speaker 2:You have these 80s movies that are silly, they're satirical, they're something. Then you remake them and they're just cookie-cutter action film and it's like if you would have just made a robot, cookie-cutter action film, whatever. But to be like this is RoboCop, it's like, like it's not, it's not you, it's just I don't know. It's just so boring just to have the same thing they take themselves too seriously.
Speaker 4:I think that's that's the key is like they're trying to be this like grand action, blockbuster, right. They're trying to be like tom cruise, mission impossible, and you know, yeah. And like born movies and you're like just like embrace the campiness, like be campy like you can be a low budget action movie and be fun to watch.
Speaker 4:You don't have to like you don't have to like go for awards like to you know, like, just have fun with it. Like embrace the fact that the premise is a little bit silly, make it a campy movie, because people will watch that and people will like it.
Speaker 1:Like it doesn't have to be like pretentious film, but do you think they could do that?
Speaker 4:like and as I think, of 2014.
Speaker 1:I really don't think it can't be fun. A whole action movie would have made it. You know what I mean. We, the, the, the 2014,. The low budget stuff that was making it was like um, horror, low budget horror, and and I just don't think the low budget action would have made it like the eighties were a special time, and I don't I mean that, of course, begs the question why remake it then? But you know which is?
Speaker 4:which is what we do here right to your point, though, like like I guess campy may not be the right, the right choice of word, because you hear camping, you immediately associate low budget. But I'm looking at like fast and furious movies. Right, fast and furious movies have big budgets. They're absurd and that's part of what makes them so fun and so appealing. They, they, they, they're just, they're out here to have fun. Like how absolutely ludicrous can we be with these cars, right?
Speaker 4:let's embrace up space with family and ludicrous was in fast and the furious, like and there was ludicrous right, if you like, if they did, if they did robocop in 2014, like that, like, like the like, gratuitously over the top, let's be insane, fast and furious kind of approach that I feel like that lands totally differently and I feel like that's right in line with like what 2014, like you know, campiness was of like, let's just have fun.
Speaker 3:But here's the deal, mike. Here's the deal, and we'll. We'll get a little bit more into the listener questions a little bit later, but I want to pull something from it now, which is they weren't trying to make a campy movie, they weren't trying to make a Robocop reboot, they were trying to make a campy movie. They weren't trying to make a robocop reboot, they were trying to capitalize off of iron man. They made, uh, one of the blandest superhero movies I've ever seen. They tried to make robocop this to be like an origin story of like, like an iron man type, like a superhero, and it plays like one of those kind of like diluted, early MCU. We don't really know what we're doing. This is, before you know, the full on connected universe. This was like right after the Avengers came out and they just thought we can make RoboCop like a superhero movie and make it PG-13 so it's accessible to everybody and we'll make tons of money and let's get Samuel L Jackson because he was in the Avengers movies.
Speaker 4:That's an interesting take.
Speaker 2:And here's the thing, the Samuel L Jackson scenes I think would have if more of the movie would have been that, not even even just like other, because we were, even at that time we were in the 24-hour news cycle. We had this, the cnn's, the, the fox news, the, you know, msnbc. What they could have had the whole it that, throughout the whole thing, just have different views of it from different, and that could have been the satirical part of it and they wanted they. Instead, they just focused on his family, which, yeah, really just watered down the whole thing. It was that's and I think they would have done better without the family there, but it worked for the original robocop and it just it dampened what they did with the remake, because they always was like I, I got to save my family, my family's got like and that's. That's boring.
Speaker 4:It's boring. I have to say, I didn't make the superhero like connection thing myself, but like you saying it, I'm like thinking back on it Like that's, that's exactly what it was Like. Let's, let's set up a franchise, let's establish a character, give some, give some lore, just build a universe, and then go from there because that's what's hip and that's what's going to sell, and then it flopped because they didn't do it right.
Speaker 3:And if you look at it from the story perspective you look at, you have, like we normally break down the central conflict and we talk about the societal context and the technological context. But part of the societal context, in a meta way, is how we all just collectively as a public, shifted over to superhero movies and went in so hard on that that robCop took on a lot of that for this reboot.
Speaker 1:Some of you did. I'm still in it.
Speaker 4:I am too, especially with Deadpool coming out.
Speaker 3:I'm saying kind of generally as a public. The zeitgeist there's post-Avengers 2012 superhero movie is like a pivot point. Geist. It's like there's there's post Avengers 2012 superhero movie is like a pivot point, I think, for cinema to just go OK, this is what blockbusters look like now. If you're going to make a big movie, it has to be like this and it's been like that for the last 10 years.
Speaker 2:If it would have been made even just a couple years later, what would the extended universe have been? Because DCEU is still trying to do it.
Speaker 4:They wanted to do it for the universal monster. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. What?
Speaker 2:would the RoboCop universe have?
Speaker 4:been. You know what would happen, right, if RoboCop would get bought up by Disney and get pulled into the MCU.
Speaker 3:I would just love to tell you all a little bit about a Sega Genesis game that I played when I was a kid called Robocop vs Terminator, and so that's probably what would have happened if they would have done Robocop and Terminator in the same universe.
Speaker 1:So who would win between Robocop vs Terminator?
Speaker 3:Terminator Probably Termocop versus Terminator Terminator probably Terminator, probably Terminator you guys like straight up don't believe in Robocop.
Speaker 4:Well, I just really believe in Schwarzenegger that's true.
Speaker 1:Mike's got a bumper sticker.
Speaker 2:I believe in Schwarzenegger, I mean now, mike doesn't know this because he's not a real film major. But and if you, don't want spoils for Terminator 2, mike, take the headphones off. But the only way to destroy, like I'm just going to say that, just think about the only way to destroy the Terminator in number two. I agree.
Speaker 4:I graduated.
Speaker 3:Jerk. Wow, if Terminator 2 taught us anything, jess, it's that the only way to kill a Terminator is to make it feel feeling With love.
Speaker 1:With love, I mean, that's like a Robocop.
Speaker 4:That you have to destroy him in Mount Doom. That's the way to disrupt most robots, right? You make them feel feelings, yes. Or you make them play tic-tac-toe and they realize there's no way to win. What is?
Speaker 2:love.
Speaker 3:I know that Jess said Mountain Doom, but I heard Mountain Dew.
Speaker 1:I heard Mountain Dew as well that's.
Speaker 3:The only way to kill a Terminator is with Mountain Dew with carbonated citrus beverage.
Speaker 4:Do the dew only if you forget their way. In rain mode, you're coming with me only if you forget to put the don't, if you, only if you forget to put them in car wash mode, though all right.
Speaker 1:So how does the portrayal of justice and ethics and the role of technology and law enforcement differ between the original, uh and the remake? I mean, and even now, with the changes, now, 10 years later, you know things like drones and all that kind of stuff that's come into play. How does that really kind of change or differentiate between the two?
Speaker 2:I think that did, you know, change things because there's a lot of public opinion in real life scenarios where we used drone strikes and there's a lot of controversy around that. I think that I think that's a big thing about it is that is, taking real life scenarios where that is a thing that people are legitimately worried about and putting it out there but you're talking about modern day settings and drones.
Speaker 3:You watch that opening broadcast Samuel L Jackson's talking about. He gets to talk to the Pentagon on live television, which is kind of crazy. And then they're like let's take you to Tehran and we'll show you what we're doing, like they literally for that time period, what like Iraq, afghanistan, like these urban landscapes looked like, and then showing you autonomous robots, policing, and it's basically like the difference between the 87 and the 2014 film is like 87 is we're still concerned with the Cold War and nuclear warfare concerned with the Cold War and nuclear warfare, and that's why we have like a random commercial for a battleship board game, but it's about nuclear annihilation. And then in the new movie it's basically showing that the United States is a police state that can't control its own populace kind of that seems to be the vibe in in the 2014 film is 2024.
Speaker 3:It hadn't changed much is that we have this, we're the police, the policemen of the world kind of sense, and we don't have any other power. They don't really talk about any other country having any kind of say over anything that the government is deciding in the United States, and so it kind of makes it feel like we've, as a nation, pacified everyone else and now there's only one market left for this mega corporation to go to.
Speaker 4:The thing that I think is interesting is you're talking about, like, how technology has changed and like.
Speaker 4:I feel like, like Andrew made this point I don't know if he I don't remember if it was like early on a recording or if it was in discord but something to the effect of like they almost like remade it too early because technology and stuff has changed so much since, even since 2014. And I feel like the the thing that is interesting to me is that I think if you remade robocop now, you, you would probably see the human element removed entirely and you'd have a robot driven by machine learning, right, ai, almost going like minority report levels of like crime, like law enforcement, like preemptive intervention, like or chapping, like studying I haven't, I didn't see that one, so I don't know but, um, but like, like studying trends to like predict crime and stop it before it happens, and like preemptive detaining, and you'd get I feel like that's the route that that like the next reboot of robocop would go, or even if they were like to, you know, make a sequel to this one, you know 10 years later or just reboot.
Speaker 2:It equal the or equal the reboot.
Speaker 4:I feel like that's the way RoboCop would go. Now is like the human element of him would be gone entirely, and it would be like the ethics of the AI versus like is it okay to make a cyborg that is partially controlled? It would just be like, hey, is an artificial intelligence the way to go?
Speaker 2:I mean, I saw stealth you know that would be interesting to have like a robocop that has, like you know, the ai element or whatever, and then it just starts to, you know, have that human emotion and see the difference in that yeah, so like it's like then love saves it or it goes rob's route and that becomes the like robocop terminator tie-in, where the ai, the robocop ai, evolves into the terminator and then arnold schwarzenegger has to come back to destroy robonator right, and now you've got, now you've got your franchise.
Speaker 4:Now you've got your franchise, now you've got your universe Robonate. We've done it.
Speaker 2:We did what Hollywood couldn't do.
Speaker 4:We did it. We did it everyone.
Speaker 3:Robonator sounds like the title of a TV show on King of the Hill. It's like okay, I'm going to go watch Robonator.
Speaker 2:It does. It sounds like one of those crossover sci-fi channels, the Sharktopus.
Speaker 4:Sharktopus Anaconda versus Mediegator.
Speaker 3:Python versus.
Speaker 1:Crocodile, since we're talking about it and we had to set up for our Poison Nostalgia, so let's say we're remaking this again. What elements of the classic Robocop do you believe are essential to maintain in any future adaptations, and how do they contribute to the enduring appeal of the franchise?
Speaker 2:I think we're at a point where we could make a movie that has that satirical from the original but like, also extremely meta. So, like you could have all these elements where you you're cutting to different, you would cut to, like the fox news, you know, versus cnn, but you would also go into, like these late night pundits, you are like, you know, like that late one, like the late night talk shows, like colbert and john stewart have your instagrams and your tiktoks.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, you have your Instagrams and your TikToks and yeah, you have your like reality shows where it's like a discussion there, like you know, like, even like Real Housewives of Detroit. They're like real cyborgs of Atlanta and I think you know, I think it and you know we're back into that, like you know, goriness, that the 80s movies like that could do, and you know, goriness, that the 80s movies like that could do. And you know, like with Deadpool and stuff, you can have that, like I said, like fourth wall, breaking meta humor, and it would work. Now.
Speaker 3:I think one of the kind of going off the meta humor and modern day influence or culture kind of of what you and mike are talking about, also with these reality shows. Um, I think one of the things you have to keep in robocop is the fake news segments. Like you're talking about the fox news and the, the cnn or whatever the, the og 87, it was like just like a regular news broadcast who are really flipping about violence, and then this one it's like the like pundit guy who's like super biased towards this one company. I think A different layer that might come about through that, though, would be what if your, your news broadcasters were AI fake influencers now on social media? There's like AI powered, like it's like a AR, ai generated person that can talk and they make like make some person thousands of dollars. I could see like the news broadcast being fake too, and some of the parts of robocop could talk like tackle the growing artificialness of all of our existence that we rely so much on this technology that are we more machine than the robocop?
Speaker 4:see, now you're kind of like inching close to bringing like Matrix into the shared universe too, and I'm kind of here for it.
Speaker 2:Oh see, I thought I was going WALL-E.
Speaker 1:WALL-E, mike would still be here for that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know honestly you know, they lived a good life in that space station. They couldn't walk, Mike. They didn't have to walk, Andrew.
Speaker 1:They didn't have to walk, andrew. They didn't have to. They still have arteries.
Speaker 4:They still have Michael, all right moving right along my new dystopian butcher that tickled you, andrew.
Speaker 2:That was fun, but did. Did anybody else think that Valen in the remake was like a discount wish version of, uh, donald Logue, donald Logue could have played that part I actually don't know just wait on my IMDB's Donald. Logue he was. He was the partner in Gotham.
Speaker 4:Oh, he was. Yeah, no, come on.
Speaker 1:Bullock Got to pull a. Mike nerd reference Harvey Bullock.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he was great in that role, by the way, loved him.
Speaker 1:As they say, opinions are like androids cold and heartless, yet inevitable. Mike, you're up first.
Speaker 4:There's something about like the original that's just like. It's just classic science fiction, right, like it's just good, what you don't agree I'm saying? You gave a weird look, you threw me off my game, man, it's not science fiction. It is, though he's a robot cop. He's a cyborg. How is's not science fiction? It is, though, kind he's a robot cop, he's a cyborg. How is that not science fiction?
Speaker 1:because it's a man in a suit. Even when the first movie came out, it wasn't that far off of being possible.
Speaker 4:I feel like, I feel like that's still fiction. I was gonna say I feel like the blending of man and Machine is like grounds for a sci-fi camp episode, sir.
Speaker 1:Maybe if it was more like the remake is more science fiction than the original. I don't know.
Speaker 4:They had his lungs floating in sacks. The lungs are sacked.
Speaker 2:That's not what our lungs do anyway.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right, Like that are literally what they do they float in sacks?
Speaker 4:no, they oxygenate your blood. That's that's how they anyway. Um no, there's just something like. There's just something like classic, appealing, like maybe sci-fi, sticking with it movie about the original. I feel, like we said earlier, the remake wasn't awful. I didn't hate it. I feel like maybe Rotten Tomatoes audience is a little bit harsh on it, but I like action movies, so maybe I'm a little bit biased. I also feel like, just like everything else in that era, it I'm a little bit biased, but I also feel like it just just like everything else in that era, it took itself a little bit too seriously. Embrace the fun, right, be more, be less. Like, look at how action-y we are and be more fast and furious, be absurd, be ludicrous, roll with it. People will have fun. People are going to complain about it. I mean, look how successful the fat, fast and furious franchise has been because they're like let's, how crazy can we be? Like, do that, and it lands totally differently. That that's my, my take they went into space all right speaking, going to space, rob, what do you?
Speaker 3:think. I think that Mike makes some good points about the difference between the 80s film and the 2014 film, and it reminds me of another reboot that we covered from the 80s slash the 2012s, with a Marvel-esque appearance by Chris Hemsworth Wolverine oh yes, I forgot yes very much the same thing, was worse, wolverine. Oh, yes, yes, very much the same thing.
Speaker 4:Yes, that's another great example.
Speaker 3:Yes, 100% the 80s version of Red Dawn. Over the top, a little campy, some violence. Didn't know where the PG-13 rating was.
Speaker 2:It was made because of that film.
Speaker 3:And then the new one in this same time period, 2012, 2014,. Just kind of takes itself too seriously and the protagonists are kind of bland. And that is how I feel about these two films as well. The 87, it just has personality. The RoboCop feels like it's more real because it's practical effects, it's not floating CG visual effects and he's just like turns into like moldy, moldable plastic when he moves, like in the 2014 film, which is a lot of CG at that time, it just once stuff starts moving really fast, it just doesn't look realistic anymore. And so, like I the 2014 Robocop uh, alex Murphy, he just doesn't feel as real to me as Peter Weller's version did, and so that's why I like the original. It knew exactly what it wanted to say. It had a lot of stuff to say about corporate America and policing and who was really being hurt by those things, which would be working class people and even the police officers who were working within the system, and so I really like that.
Speaker 3:I don't feel like the 2014 film ever really like decides what it really wants to be, because and it was it didn't stop to ask if it should do something, it only asked if it could. You know that's. That's just how I felt about it. I I don't. I didn't really like the remake all that much. I was bored with it, but really loved the 87 version Very good.
Speaker 1:Was? Was his suit actually CG in the remake?
Speaker 3:I thought it was a bunch of times in it, just anytime he was moving more than a walking pace.
Speaker 2:For sure I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure, the scene where they take apart his body. So you see his one hand, his lungs, in his face.
Speaker 4:I think that was cg oh, you mean those weren't his real lungs exposed?
Speaker 2:to everybody, floating in balls of sex.
Speaker 4:Wow, they fooled me.
Speaker 3:You know I just thought, Joel, really you know Joel Kinnaman, he just he's a method actor.
Speaker 2:Andrew's so mad at me.
Speaker 3:Cut it out, don't worry, he's like. That was very quippy, we don't do it on that other podcast.
Speaker 1:That was too much at my expense. I'm cutting it out.
Speaker 4:Andrew leaves the jokes at everyone else's expense, but cuts out the jokes at his expense.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, that's the editor's prerogative alright.
Speaker 1:Well, speaking of CG Jess.
Speaker 2:I'm all real baby well, yeah, you are oh boy, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I put in my notes that the 1987 film I'm just crying, we can't get it together, okay. So I think the I think what basically sums up the movies is that the 1987 movie, robocop is a robot who's also a cop, and the 2014, robocop is a robot who's also a cop, and the 2014. Robocop is a cop who's also a robot and I think that's like a very Like specific, you know, description of them, because he, you know, in the original he has all his memories Erased and he's just this very, you know, does things by the book. He, he's a robot, he has his programming. He can't go against his programming, but in the remake he's still has his memories. He still, you know, tries to go along with who he was as a cop and a person and then, like, at the way we said, in the end, love saved him. So I think that's a very you know, that's very distinctive how these two are.
Speaker 2:Um, I I've said before I really think that they should have stuck with some the satire, have more samuel jackson sprinkled throughout or, like I said, had to have different um, you know, newscasters throughout. You could have seen the two political, because it was sam jackson was obviously for robocop, where it would have been interesting to see the other takes on it. But you know, I will say the sam jackson parts they had to have, just, you know, done that on a set when he was doing the capital one commercials. Because I, I, when that started I was like dang, this feels like a capital one commercial with sam jackson. And then I remembered when we saw this movie, me and andrew, originally, like when it first came out, I remember us talking about like wow, this is like his capital one commercials. Well, because it was, it was the day the capital one commercials back then.
Speaker 1:I don't think they have this anymore, but it was. It was the Capital One commercials back then. I don't think they have this anymore, but it was like him on a circular stage and he's like walking around, talking. Well, there's like videos behind him and he's like what's in your wallet? And it's exactly what this was. And Jess is right, it was like they were. They were like what's your wallet, robo Cops, your guy.
Speaker 3:You know your wallet Robocop's your guy.
Speaker 2:They should have had that movie tie-in commercial. It's not hard to have been purposeful. I can't imagine it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. Speaking of purposeful, are you not done?
Speaker 2:I'm not done. There's a lot of problems with the remake. It's just, like I said, very, very cookie cutter action film and it's just, it's just. So. Many of those exist where, if you want to just go see, turn your brain off and go see an action movie. There's plenty that come out.
Speaker 2:If this would have been just a regular robot action movie without the robocop name, I think it would have done better, but the fact that it had that stamp on it that this is robocop, then it's not gonna be fun.
Speaker 2:So I definitely think the original is better and like there's so many, there's so many nostalgia points that I've only seen each movie once. But I know so much more of what about the you know nostalgic scenes of the original robocop, like I said before, the shooting of the bad guy and the dick, because through the woman's skirt, like that's so iconic when he, when Dick Jones is falling out the window and his arms are, you know, three feet longer than they're supposed to be while he's wailing around, like all these things are so iconic. The only things I remembered from the new one were that you know, you saw his, they took away and you'll saw his lungs in his hand and the fact that he, when he escaped, he ran into like a rice paddy field, like that's the two things I remembered from this film. Yeah, and it's like that's those aren't. Those aren't memorable All right Speaking for nothing.
Speaker 3:Oh, sorry, I was just going say that for me it wasn't the lungs like inflating and deflating. When he was in that scene where he's like freaking out. It's near the end where he has that sobering reminder he doesn't want to see himself anymore and you can see him swallow, like he has a lump in his throat, and you can see his esophagus swallow and it's like very unsettling, but also like somehow a little bit more emotionally impacting when it gets a little closer in on him. For that, rather than the like oh gosh, he's all he's lungs, it's like the emotional part of it there was. I was like, oh, that's like something they probably couldn't have done back in the day?
Speaker 2:Okay, if I remember, did they actually show if he captured, if Valen went to prison? Because I for the life of me don't know what happened to him.
Speaker 4:I don't know if he went to jail or not.
Speaker 3:I don't know if he killed him.
Speaker 2:I don't know what happened to him. I don't know if he went to jail or not. I don't know if he killed him.
Speaker 3:I don't know what happened to him. I'm pretty sure he killed him.
Speaker 2:I don't even remember. It was so unmemorable. There's like five villains in the remake. It's so hard to follow it.
Speaker 4:It's better than three problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so for me the movie is like here's the thing I I really enjoy the original robocop it's classic, it's fun, it's everything you want in a movie. No, not science fiction in a movie.
Speaker 1:It's everything you want in a movie and, uh, I think the thing because, rob, you've had some very strong feelings about the new Robocop but for me it's like I really like Joel Kinnaman, I really like Michael Keaton, I really like Gary Oldman, I like Michael Williams, you know, I like Samuel L Jackson. Like there is so many actors in it that I enjoy in just seeing them in things that like I almost give the 2014 more of a pass than I should because it it is like a, it is like a kind of a it's it's got good visual effects. I enjoy, like the this, a lot of the police scenes when they do them. I enjoy, like some of the, the play with Gary Oldman and he's again a chameleon, as he always is, and I just there's so much about it that I I want to like it and like I was looking forward to seeing the scene with him all opened up again, because I just I love that kind of idea and concept for for that.
Speaker 1:And so it's hard for me to like really hate on the movie totally and be like it was awful, especially because I like those actors, but at the same time it's it doesn't hold a candle to the original Robocop, because it can't, because it's. It's a different movie as much as it's the same movie and it is actually a reboot. It's such a different movie that it's hard to be like they're the same.
Speaker 3:That's my take on it you make a really good point about just the the collection of actors in this film. There are, like you're saying, you've Gary Oldman. Joel Kinnaman is doing a great job in like what he's really good at, samuel Jackson, michael Key all those are really great individually and individually the performances are good and I think where it fell apart for me too is like the collective of it. It's like when those all come together it's like there's like good stuff here but the film just doesn't get there. It doesn't become like the sum of its parts.
Speaker 1:Well, and for me, the hard part is is that I don't actually feel like. I don't feel like it would make a good robocop movie if it was just a little better plot, just because, again, robocop almost feels untouchable because it's so classic and it's so built in that like it is what it was with red foreman, you know as this crazy bad guy and yeah he actually stuck his foot into someone's ass.
Speaker 1:Right, and you know, I like Ronnie Cox too and he was a good bad guy. He's the perfect bad guy for that, you know. And so, like it's, it's so funny because it's like don't remake Robocop, just don't. It's like Back to the Future, don't remake it because we got to cancel our podcast. But I mean like, just don't. It's like Back to the Future, don't remake it because then we've got to cancel our podcast.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. Don't remake Robocop and just make a different movie about. If you want to tell a story about putting robots in America as police, tell a better story of Chappie in America, there you go, remake Chappie in America.
Speaker 4:There you go.
Speaker 1:Remake.
Speaker 2:Chappie, you can remake that one.
Speaker 1:Chappie was. So Chappie was amazing for the first 15 minutes and then it sucked, you know. And Chappie was based on a short film that was like the first 15 minutes of Chappie. So you know, that's where it was, but like that would be a much more interesting movie, I think, with these actors and in American things like that, then trying to remake something as untouchable as Robocop. So, that being said, I would give it a four point five on the scale.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And the remake would be about 8.5.
Speaker 2:So there you go. It is illegal to do the periodic table. It's not the periodic table.
Speaker 4:The periodic table.
Speaker 1:Alright, so our keynote listeners. Robert has brought us thrice the questions, thrice the comments, thrice the game, a Mike Rogers original, rob nail him out for us.
Speaker 4:I did. Didn't bring us Thrice the Game.
Speaker 3:I did not bring Thrice the Game. Actually, you could probably check it out on jammerfun if you want to find Thrice the Game. Maybe it'll be there by the time this podcast episode.
Speaker 3:I don't remember what our release schedule is for some of our games, but there's a lot coming down the pipeline so we want to want to cover my base bases here. Yes, I am the king of the listeners, that is, that is me, and we do have three great comments from our listeners. And then Andrew will have, in great ironic fashion, for Robocop, a murder robot after that. And so our first one comes from Justin D, and he has a question for us and he says do you think the new Robocop is stronger than the original or has the concept of technology just advanced to make the movie Magic more realistic? So maybe like fizzles out a little bit?
Speaker 2:I do think that advanced to make the movie magic more realistic, so maybe like fizzles out a little bit I do think that they did make the new one more not hurtable, but only because of the technology that's in there. It's not necessarily that he's more resilient to the bullets and stuff, but more that he has the technology to avoid the bullets, because he had that scene where he was training and he was like avoiding all they're, like don't let him surround you. And he didn't because he was programmed not to he was like, uh, christian bale from equilibrium.
Speaker 1:It was in that training scene, though they specifically said the the robots had, like, smaller calibers so they couldn't hurt him as much. Uh, I, I think so for me, as much as you want to say, sure, yeah, the new one is obviously more powerful. I feel like the fact that they made such a big deal in the original one that you know he was made out of this titanium alloy that like, which probably isn't as strong as it sounds, but it did back in 1987, you know it, they actually went into the movie trying to be like this is how tough he is we're. In the new one, it was just kind of like he's in a metal suit. So, yeah, he's tough. You know he's a tough guy, he's a tough cookie to crack. So I, I guess I feel like the movie didn't make him seem more tough from a plot standpoint. I think the original, from a plot standpoint, made him feel like he was tougher from from an actual visual standpoint.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they look about the same, talking about the magic and it becoming more realistic. It's like he wasn't as special in this movie because there were all these autonomous robots, the EM-208s or whatever. There was the big ED-209 guys who were like from the original movie, but tons of them, and then you had these human-looking ones.
Speaker 3:We'll call them the Chappies. Yeah, they were the Chappies, the Chappies, they were already. They kind of grounded it in that universe. It's like, oh okay, well, he's not special, it's just, basically, the military envoy guy was like you have to make a suckier version for the United States to be policed with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's actually a really good point. I didn't think about it until you literally just said it here, but you're right, think the reason why also I feel like the original was stronger and tougher is because, you're right, there were so many of the chappy guys around that just didn't make. He just didn't feel special like he just looks, like you said, he's just another one of them, you know, and so I think you're right, I think that's what it was, that that fizzled out his cool potential yeah, and then they, he like called him tin man and played the wizard of oz song.
Speaker 3:It's like it was like it kind of brought him down. Yeah, to like real levels. It's not like in the 87 movie where he comes walking down this side hall and all the cops are like racing to go see what he is. Yeah, it's like oh my gosh, what is that right in this universe? It's kind of like hey, he's like, he's like the chappies, he's like the chappy, but there's a face right he's the aldi brand of hey, aldi is great, yeah, he's the, the Kirkland brand.
Speaker 3:The Kirkland brand, oh my gosh, what do we got next, rob? All right, our next comment comes from Aaron and he. He had a few different things he wanted to talk about he. He was kind of thinking about it in terms of someone who'd watched it a while, so he thought about Samuel L Jackson being very hammy, which I would agree with. Just the opening shot being Samuel L Jackson. Also, them covering over the lion roar with him coughing and like doing his vocal exercises was very cheesy.
Speaker 1:Oh see, I disagree. I like that part right. I like I liked when they went over the logo with him doing the x-rays. It just kind of like I don't know. I like it when they screw with the intro logo. It's like uh what was that? Was it resident evil, where the lady standing with the torch and the zombies come up to attack her and she whacks them?
Speaker 4:You know I don't remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that seems like a comedy zombie. Yeah, not a Resident Evil. Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 4:I don't think Resident Evil, I think Zombieland. I just like it when they do that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Or there's even that like the Matrix, how it like fuzzes it out to green. You know, in P in pitch.
Speaker 4:Perfect how they sing the uh universal pictures theme song.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that one too, although samuel jackson did get his uh motherfucker thrown in there, although it was beeped but he did. It was like down.
Speaker 3:Uh, aaron had one more comment that he wanted to talk about, and that was that the challenge with the remake is that they didn't really change it enough if they were going to change it, so they had already retreaded something. Robocop is like this one of one, as aaron was saying. It's like very novel and interesting for its time. He he compared it to maybe doing something where it's like Tron versus the Matrix, where you they're a similar concept of like going into software, but the environment and the theme are completely different. And so if you're going to change it and this is something we talked about earlier where it's like RoboCop is it's one of one thing and, as Andrew said, don't just don't do it, don't remake it. Or you had this other kind of concept that you could have just done and it'd be different enough that we'd be talking about this as if it was an adjacent instead of like a full on reboot.
Speaker 4:So there's our extended universe movie tron and matrix the tron and the matrix, another tron, yeah, tron yeah, it's interesting because I'm not, I guess I'm not entirely sure what the question is here, but I I think it's more uh, more of a comment aaron is is hitting on.
Speaker 4:You know, the thing that we've, the thing that we've been saying all along, is that the 2014 was just like kind of a misstep, and the matrix thing is actually is actually an interesting point.
Speaker 4:Um, like the, the matrix resurrection was that title of the new one right in many ways, like truly retold the story of the first matrix it was. There were like like major parallels to the first story that was told, but like wrapped up in a modern In, and I feel like you know the the RoboCop thing. Just to go back to what I was saying earlier about if, if they did RoboCop now, I think, like you know, if they had waited, you know, another 10 years and done RoboCop now instead of in 2014, then you can get the like AI based reboot that I was like hinting would happen if they were to do it now and like remove the human element entirely and go around the like ethical controversy of like AI versus not, and it's like you can tell the same story and have the similar beats, but you put like a modern skin on it and I feel like that kind of thing like like would land, you know, a little bit, a little bit differently. I do still think they can't take themselves too seriously.
Speaker 4:But yeah, I think uh, yeah, I, I think I would agree. I think there was a way that they could have done the reboot, but they didn't take it.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, that brings us to our last commenter, derek, and this was the commenter that I alluded to earlier, the superhero. And so he talks about RoboCop in 87 being kind of like a cyberpunk, robotic sci-fi film, and then the 2014 being more closely resembling like a superhero comic book movie, which very much a sign of the times in 2014. But he also touched on that the 2014 doesn't really it doesn't generate the same kind of sympathy for the title character that the original did, um and, like he said, like he says here in his comment, he says that the 2014 remake um, it offers plenty of things to like um, but it doesn't really offer anything for you to love. And so that was Derek's comment on it. He that's kind of his rating of it. Um, he likes the original um and the 2014 one. He just he liked some things in it but didn't really enjoy it overall, but the thing he gave you to love was love that saved the robot.
Speaker 3:It did save the robot.
Speaker 1:You know, I will say, I think, as a dad, that's where I disagree a little bit with Derek, just because I think there was some very almost heart-wrenching scenes with Alex Murphy and his kid, know, or even with his wife, and you're like, oh, they'll never get to touch again, essentially they'll never get to have an intimate moment again, and and and being, and it's like he's like he says, I'd rather you killed me because it's like you, you know, and that's. I was just like, that's like I think kind of like an emotional moment for me as a dad to be like, yeah, if I, if I could still, you know, I don't want to leave my kids or my wife or my family, but I don't know if I could and if I could not after a serious accident, I couldn't touch them, I couldn't emote with them, I couldn't do the things that I do with them as a dad. Like to me, there was a lot more emotion in that than in the original, where his family just was absent and you didn't. They think you're dead.
Speaker 4:Period, full stop, you know well, I think that's a good point, like circling back on like the, you know, like it feels more like a superhero movie kind of thing, right, like this was in that window where everything's a franchise, right. They're like everything's getting like sequels and trilogies. There really aren't you know a ton of like one-off things that are kind of floating around right, because the MCU is exploding and everybody's like we got to have our major tie in, you know series like long running thing, and I think like there's so much of what the remake is like that you were saying, rob, that's like establishing a character, it's setting up a universe and it's building a world that you know maybe somebody was hoping would you know, do well enough to like green light, a second and a third movie where I think you would start to see more of the like stuff to love about the character and then. But then like, because you like drew the iron man comparison, the thing that iron man did differently is like iron man set up a franchise like it didn't necessarily tell, like it told a an origin story for a character and opened the door for more things to come.
Speaker 4:But there was so much of what iron man did as a super as like the like, I would argue like the first of the modern superhero movies in a lot of ways. Right that like right like that moment at the end where he's like he's got the note cards and he throws them and he's like I am iron man and everybody goes nuts it. It's like like there were, there wasn't anything like that like explosive, like oh my gosh in this movie to really like propel it into, you know, a second or a third outing that would, you know, potentially have solidified the character and made the character more appealing. Oh, you know, over time, yeah, it doesn't really.
Speaker 3:It doesn't really. It doesn't catapult it into like, oh, we're gonna get another sequel. It almost feels like at the end of the movie well, that's it, that was the RoboCop story and maybe we feel like we might not get a another movie out of the title card at the end right, he's gotta be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean they gotta keep keep that going, gotta be murphy all right.
Speaker 1:Well, as rob uh hinted, we do have our hot takes with a murder robot and, um, you know that was that's meg three and dropping some hot takes on us. And this, this times, this week's, this episode, wherever you want to call it hot take was I love RoboCop Not surprising for a murder robot, and then I've never seen the remake. Oh, it was a weird hot take, but it's what. It's what the murder robot gave us. So, just for a little extra kicks and giggles, I went and asked the other murder robot I know, which is, of course, open AI and uh open AI's hot take was.
Speaker 1:Robocop Isn't just a sci-fi action flick. It's a sharp critique of unchecked capitalism and the dehumanizing effects of corporate power.
Speaker 3:So there you have it. I didn't realize. Your open AI wore a monocle.
Speaker 1:You remember Ass Jeeves?
Speaker 3:Did you tell him your name is actually Ass Jeeves yeah.
Speaker 1:Dear open AI, you will now be Ass Jeeves and I said understood, here we go Just passed away. So that's what we got from our, our murder robot here. So, all right, wow, let's take a go ahead and go ahead and take our moment here and talk about upcoming movies and things we're excited to see. Uh, and then if you guys want to check back real quick on anything you talked about previously, you wanted to see and you did end up seeing, you can mention that real quick. So, mike, why don't?
Speaker 4:you hit us off. I mean, at the time of recording this, I am still itching for Deadpool. We're about a week and a half away at this point and it's just getting everything you gotta get that.
Speaker 1:It's checked out.
Speaker 4:No, I need this movie yesterday.
Speaker 1:I'm jacked it's almost uncomfortable how much you talk like this you're.
Speaker 2:Hugh Jacked man, oh boy no, but I'm also.
Speaker 4:I'm also kind of excited for the Dogman movie. I think that's going to be a fun movie to go see with my kids.
Speaker 2:Oh boy, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:At least you didn't knock yourself out this time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I feel like I've done that before. That's a story for another day.
Speaker 1:No, I heard it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're like a story for another day, a previous day, a previous day.
Speaker 4:Yesterday. Yeah, no, I'm excited. I'm excited for Dog man. Like, not as like. I can't wait to go see this movie myself, but I think my kids are going to love it. And it can't wait to go see this movie myself, but I think my kids are gonna love it and it's gonna be a fun movie to go see, to like take my kids to and like make a a family like movie night out of it like get popcorn, get snacks and just watch like a really fun movie.
Speaker 1:Kids movie was it that one where batman's dog meets someone else's dog?
Speaker 4:okay, good super pet, no, no that's super, that's um, yeah, that's super. Pets. Batman ace meets crypto okay that was actually like kind of entertaining as the a dc nerd. But no, no, this is a. Um, it's a. Like a. It's a. It's a movie adaptation of a series of graphic novels for kids by the author of the Captain Underpants series. I'll be passing on that, I think you're.
Speaker 3:I feel like.
Speaker 4:I feel like your kids. I feel like your kids would dig Dogman in a big way and I actually think you would do.
Speaker 1:I think there's aspects of this that I'm not into the whole Captain Underpants thing, so I'm pretty sure we whole Captain Underpants thing I'm pretty sure we have one of the books. Oh boy I don't like wearing Underpants. Fetch 22, lord of the Fleas, okay. So really, what I was saying is that these books are just dad jokes. They're just dad joke titles.
Speaker 4:There's a lot of dad, dad jokes there's a robot in the books called 80 HD. Um, it's it, it's, it's entertaining. I, yeah, yeah all right, rob.
Speaker 1:What are you looking forward to?
Speaker 3:so, uh, looking forward to alien Romulus, I'm I kind of I'm hoping that it uh is good. I this episode might come out around the time that it's in theater, so, uh, I am hoping it's it's good. It does seem to kind of harken back to the original two, um little scarier uh, and kind of sticking more to the horror side of things, and also to go back to something that I talked about wanting to see.
Speaker 3:We talked about Furiosa and I did end up getting to see that and after watching it I text Andrew the very next day and said do you want to talk about this? And I freaking love that movie. So I really enjoyed Furiosa.
Speaker 1:I don't know why you waited a whole day. I was ready to talk about it as soon as I got to the theater. It was that night, it was processing it, but it was a really great film, and Will, it was at night, it was processing it.
Speaker 3:I would have. It was a really great film. It's in the schedule now for season three. I freaking love that movie. Really. It's good. It's so hard to say you have Mad Max Furiosa and you had Furiosa. There was that big gap between those two films that really scared me, like, oh man, is this really gonna? But it was.
Speaker 1:It was a great film I think what it was and I think one of the reason why I think got a little panned and whatnot was is that if you didn't, if you weren't like a fan of, or I should say, if you didn't want more of the story of Furiosa, the film did very little for you. Right, it wasn't just, it wasn't another fetch quest movie like the original one was. It was a story about Furiosa. So if you didn't really care about the character Furiosa, the movie did nothing for you. But I really like the character Furiosa, so it did a lot for me.
Speaker 3:It was perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was great. It was great, jess. What about you? What are you looking forward to?
Speaker 2:So I this is a new looking forward to and it's funny because it's actually in theaters now. But I had not heard at all about the Nicholas Cage long legs movie and then all of a sudden it started blowing up on like my tiktok and reddit and I'm like I want to see this movie what is this?
Speaker 2:it's a psychological horror movie where he's like a serial killer and I think there's like a like, a like a supernatural element to it. So I'm it apparently. It's like incredibly freaky and now I really want to see it.
Speaker 3:Can I see a daddy long legs? Was it on your fat page?
Speaker 2:I don't know, it was on my flip page.
Speaker 1:On your fat page.
Speaker 2:Stop it. No, I want to update my list to also add this movie of things.
Speaker 1:I want to see.
Speaker 4:Okay, all right, add this movie of things I want to see. Okay, alright.
Speaker 2:Well, and I also want to see the new M Night Shyamalan movie Crap.
Speaker 1:Shyamalan Ding dong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm curious. I'm curious about it. I'm a little excited. I want to see it.
Speaker 4:The only Shyamalan movie that I remember actually liking was Sixth Sense. You didn't like the half-meat.
Speaker 2:What Shyamalan movies, what no I?
Speaker 4:liked the Sixth Sense. That is the one that I liked.
Speaker 2:You didn't like Avatar the Last Airbender.
Speaker 4:Oh, you shut your mouth. Nobody liked his airbender.
Speaker 2:That sounded very dirty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was like a euphemism. I heard one.
Speaker 4:Nobody likes Shyamalan's airbender nobody likes sham lam's ding dong what well, surely not nobody, but anyways.
Speaker 1:So for me I what for me? I saw a trailer just recently for a movie called lee starring kate winslet uh, who is? It's a story of the character named lee, who's a fashion model photographer, and she becomes a war correspondent for vogue during world war ii. So it's. It looks really good, it's good it's got annie sandberg in it weirdly, but he actually looks like good in it, like so being a dramatic actor yeah, and it's like kate winslet and um alexander skarsgård so I don't know.
Speaker 4:Like a biopic, like, is it based on the true story?
Speaker 1:I well, I, I don't think so, but I mean, it's kind of take like take the movie Civil War and put it in World War 2 and you got something um not much, but it could be a life form Rob got it so anyways, that's, that's what I'm looking forward to. I also saw Furiosa what was it called?
Speaker 1:again, lee. I also saw Furiosa, like Rob did, and I am still looking forward to Twisters, which is out in the next couple days. I believe the marketing department released a bunch of tornadoes on our area to advertise for it.
Speaker 4:You should see the map man. One of them went right by me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We delayed recording a day that was freaky.
Speaker 1:I was like see the movie late, recording a day. Because yeah, I was just you're funny seeing a movie. We had taken the kids down to the basement and my parents were down there with us and as we were heading upstairs I said to my dad I said, man, this is a pretty good marketing for the twisters movie. And he says to me oh, they're making another one. And I'm like yeah, gotta listen to my podcast pop just scream we're going in so, anyways, that's my movies, alright.
Speaker 1:Well, that's going to do it for us in this episode. We want to thank you all for listening and would like to remind you to check out our website, wwwjammerfun.
Speaker 2:That's j-a-m-rfun cut what jess I've seen www.
Speaker 1:Okay, that threw me off. All right, mark. And be sure to follow us on our social media, which you can find in the description for this podcast down below, because they are wild. There you can interact with our good, good social boy, rob, who knows all about the social media because he is the oldest one here. That's how it works. That's how it works. That's how it works. That's right.
Speaker 1:All right, well, thank you all for joining us once again. And remember, check out our Patreon, check out our social media and, most importantly, let your friends know that you love Rebooted, and maybe get a T-shirt to let them know you love it too, or a hoodie, you know, or a hoodie, if you're Mike. We'll see you in the next episode where we're going to be talking about those good, good angels from Charlie Bye.
Speaker 2:Bye Murphy.
Speaker 4:Bye, sam Eagle, we'll go. Sam Eagle, sam Eagle. Ray Wise played the devil in Reaper, the TV show I know.
Speaker 1:But actually I think I really feel like Samwise and Raywise and San Eagle could be the same person. I could see it. What tickled?
Speaker 2:me. I made you like guffaw from your belly me yeah, when I said Wally, you were like you're laughing, nice Old man.
Speaker 1:I'm not an old man. I don't know why that reminded me of. Then we'll get our pants off and we'll sing a song.
Speaker 2:Honey, here's my pants. Why can't the Lego movie?
Speaker 1:do it.
Speaker 2:Wait, did the Lego movie come out the same year as the? So Lego movie do it. Wait, didn't Lego movie come out the same year? So Lego movie could do the satire. Let's do the different things, but RoboCop didn't it did come out the same year.
Speaker 3:Let's get it together no-transcript.
