Hey, remember when we saw “Green Lantern’s” horrible costume for the first time and people said “uh-oh, this is a sign that the movie is going to suck?” And then other people said “No, wait and see, you can’t extrapolate a terrible movie from a terrible design choice for the main character?” Yeah… “other people” turned out to be WRONG.
Supposedly, THIS is the new Robocop. Presumably it’s not a “complete” version of the costume (it comes without saying that there will be CGI components to him, as there were for Iron Man, but this probably gives us a good idea of where they’re “coming from” in terms of design. (Supposedly he has a “normal” and “SWAT” mode, people are assuming this is “SWAT” mode.)
I wouldn’t have thought there was a way to make the concept of “cyborg police officer” look hopelessly generic… but it appears they’ve found a way.
I like BAD’s observation that he looks kind of like a Stealth Bomber, which will likely be the “realistic” explanation for this utterly-uninspiring heap. Helpfully, he pretty-much looks like Christian Bale’s Batman without the ears and cape, so it’s feeling like susipicions that we were in for a “Nolanization” of Robocop (likely sans the good script/direction/acting benefits of the real thing) are well-founded.
Understand, my issue with this remake (other than the fact that it shouldn’t exist, period) isn’t that these things are going to end up DIFFERENT; but the likelihood that a film that was exciting, original, creative and FRESH in it’s era is going to be reconcieved as generic in this one: A “new” Robocop, ED-209 etc? Theoretically could be cool. A Robocop that looks like Nolan-Batman and an ED who looks like a Bayformer because “that’s what’s trendy NOW?” Red flag, major red flag.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
He kinda looks like one of the Majestic 12 soldiers from Deus Ex.
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I feel exactly the same about this as I did about the Total Recall remake. It's not so much that a remake is an inherently bad idea, but this just looks so boring and uninspired that I just don't care about it.
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Why is it when someone tries to copy something successful, they always have to go for the most superficial aspect of it? Scraping of the sides instead of looking at the core of what makes it it good, I mean.
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But how can you say that this remake shouldn't exist? After all, revisiting Paul Verhoven material worked out SO WELL the last time, and we've seen remakes as a whole be nothing but unqualified successes over the last couple years…right?
Seriously though, this obsession is head-scratching even from a bean-counter standpoint. WB gave $160 million, tons of marketing, and a PRIME release date to an original sci-fi concept in 2010 and was rewarded with Inception, a movie that did HARRY POTTER-LEVEL BUSINESS.
…And no one learned a damn thing from that.
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My only problem with it, is that it looks too “designed”, like this is just one Robocop model, from a series of Robocop models, instead of being an experimental cyborg, who moves around in an extremely (can't find a better word for it) robotic way. This one looks like it can move like a human.
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maybe itll be fine
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biggest problem; he doesn't look like a cop, needs way more blue, he looks like the bastard son of Iron man and Batman
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Let's look at the bright side. They could have made him completely CGI. A soulless, rubbery, CGI construct. At least they seem to be keeping it mostly in the practical effects realm.
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I need more before I will tie someone to the stake and look for a match, but at the same time with this current look its going to alienate people that were fans of the original Robocop. I didn't expect to see the same suit for technology has changed, but right now it looks more like a superhero costume, instead of a prototype cyborg.
I think the part that bugged me the most is the fact he looks like he still has a human right hand.
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Bob, stop trying to make “Nolanized” a term. It just makes you look like more of an egotistical douche than you already are.
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James, stop trying so hard to find something awful about everything Bob writes.
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Dustin: when Bob finally gets his massive ego in check, I'll stop.
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You know those political cartoons of Republicans pointing to the now infamous Clint Eatwood invisible Obama chair?
If someone did one of Bob pointing to an empty chair shouting “Look out! Comic Book stripping, imagination hating Nolan influenced another movie again!”
It would sum up my feeling about the term “nolanization”. As rational people know, Nolan didn't strip away anything from the comic books….but gave them plausible reasons for being.
Blaming him for studios going that route without recognizing that actual effort has to be put into the script/acting/directing/score ect. is like blaming Spielberg or Lucas for the cookie cutter assembly filmmaking of Hollywood productions without the heart these directors did (at the time at least)
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@james
Pot meet kettle.
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It's…it's…
…it's so astoundingly boring I can't think of a single thing to say about it. As the 7:41pm Anon poster pointed out though, this looks too 'clean' to work as the one-off experimental prototype that RoboCop was originally (and that I was under the impression was the purpose of this one too), instead coming off as something that rolls off an assembly line 30 times per hour. Unless this is building towards OCP spawning a friggin' army of RoboCloneCops to take down Murphy, I don't see why the went in this direction.
For the record, I would forgive this completely if they gave him the jetpack from RoboCop 3.
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I like the helmet (it just needs to be a different color), it does remind me of the original, only a different variation. But the rest of the costume is depressingly bland. Oh well.
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A friend of mine who gets in touch with the effects company, has stated that's not the final design, or even a design that's gonna be used in the movie. The final one, and let me quote him, is “The final has chrome, is robotic, and is designed by some insanely badass artists”
I'm honestly kind of off-put at how critics have reacted to the suit so far. It's a shitty suit in the photo no doubt, but everyone's jumping up and bragging like this test suit somehow conveys how the rest of the film will come up. I'm sorry, but Devin's article is fucking trash for jumping the gun without much knowledge. A lot of work is being put into making the suit, so it's incredibly unfair to judge it before it's even finished.
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I like the Daft Punk vibe of the helmet, but beyond that it's incredibly boring.
So boring, in fact, that I'm tempted to wonder if that's supposed to be Robocop himself, or one of countless, faceless goons modeled after him that he has to fight.
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Reading this made me have a thought. All of these movies getting made now that are remakes or cash-ins from Gen-X/Y's collective childhoods. Are they bad because they're bad movies or do we go into them already having judged them as being wholly unnecessary and bad in the first place.
Look, I'm not gonna try and defend Transformers or any of the other movies that have come out. In fact, I've only seen the Transformers Trilogy so those are the only ones I can really comment on. But, it's a thought.
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I'm not gonna lie – I AM going into this biased. To me, Kane Hodder is Jason Voorhees, Robert Englund is Freddy Krueger, Ah-nold is the Terminator, and Peter Weller is Robocop. It's hard to get past those iconic performances. Okay, I guess you could make arguments against Hodder, but he's still MY favorite Jason. I can't help it, though. I tend to tie actors to their characters when they do such a great job of them. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter also comes to mind. So when us old fogeys bitch about remakes, just remember that…well…for a lot of us, these roles were SORT OF A BIG DEAL.
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Follow-up: Robocop, as it was, kicked ass. Lots of ass. It'll be hard to forget that.
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Is it possible that what we are actually seeing is the new body armor for the police? I would feel a lot better if that were the case.
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Wasn't the original movie a comment on the times.
And they have said that this one will do the same. So obviously Robocop wouldn't look like his old form and he's going to be more agile.
I'm not defending this as I am still against this film even being made as there is no need. No one said they should make a new Robocop film.
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I've got no problem with the suit. The organic shape of it reminds me of the exoskeleton armor from Crysis.
The only thing I would like to see different is if they came back with CG and gave the armor a more chrome-like or metallic finish like the original Robocop
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RE: B.L.C. Agnew…
There's a noted difference between taking a sure, safe shot and making a risky venture. Inception was a risky venture. Avengers, for its genre, was a risky venture. Robocop is a way for a studio to:
– Hold on to the rights to a film
– Generate revenue based on name that will pull the old audience to the feature like a trainwreck draws spectators
– Interests the unexposed and unknown audience that are just looking for a popborn bite between the work/school week.
Re Anonymous (Disliking “Nolanization”)
Yes, it's a stupid attempt to coin a term. Especially since the formula has been in works for ages. Monkey see [the original], monkey do [a watered down imitation of the original with intent to profit as highly as the original]. That's all Bob is supposedly commenting on—the imitative structure of people and how it relates to this corner of the movie industry.
Re: That suit…
Really hoping that's not even the 1.0. Needs color. LOTS of color. And lose the Dredd faceplate.
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Looks like a New 52 Justice Leaguer, more armor plate segments pleeeze! Did Jim Lee design this too?
On that topic, why this sudden push to re-make Paul Verhoven movies? First Recall, this, and supposedly Starship Troopers later on. Does Hollywood think their no-name, work for food directors they inevitably hire think they can even come close to the brilliant satirist style that Paul achieved with those?
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Looks like the Crysis 2 nano suit and the Judge Dredd helmet. Not a good look… But, I will wait for a trailer before I make any assumptions or decide if I want to see it or not. It's looking like this is gonna be a On Demand Rental though.
I knew there was no way they could get this right. It should have just never been re-made.
Robocop is a Icon of the 80's/90's and looks the part. Bringing the character in to today means updating the costume and the premise (See Transformers) there for is destined to fail (see Transformer) because the people that loved the original Robocop will be looking for similarities in the remake, and when there are none and the movie doesn't look nor feel like the movie it was trying to remake it is destined to fail. I'm pretty sure this has NO chance of making it past this first movie… then again I thought the same thing with Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and GI-Joe and those are all getting sequels. They are gonna re-make American Psycho which makes me want to kill somebody. It's one of my favorite movie's and they are going to completely destroy it. Christian Bale got it absolutely PERFECT the first time around… there is no way anyone can top that. I hate Hollywood.
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Do you know how the Halloween remakes were pretty good and overall watchable because Rob Zombie had a genuine reverence and love for the source material? And his own take on it had ideas that come from that reverence?
This looks nothing like that.
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