That's right you heard me. AWFUL. They are uninspired and lazy!
“But hang on a minute,” I hear you holler, “you be trollin'! Those are timeless classics that will never go out of fashion.” Well lets not get ahead of ourselves. Those are but a clutch of the unfortunate few to suffer what every movie-making auteur's mother scared them with at bedtime when they were but Super-8 totting teens – the dreaded remake!
If you were lucky enough to have had an idea that spawned a successful franchise of sequels then, well done! – A reboot is probably already whisking its way over to you right now to kill that something good you once had. (That is if indeed those hackneyed sequels haven't done that already)
“But hold on there negative nelly!” – Not all remakes and/or reboots have sodomized good taste: The Departed, Insomnia, Batman Begins/The Dark Knight and Casino Royale to name but a few. You would be exactly right. Those were were all great movies and what makes them such outstanding exemplars is that at the heart of all of them they had men with a vision carefully guiding their course. Someone who made smart decisions and knew the source material and characters inside and out.
Recently, Jose Padhilla, the name behind the excellent, Elite Squad and Bus 174 was unveiled as the new head-honcho behind the reboot to, 1987's, ironworks with a badge, Robocop.
Like Christopher Nolan or Martin Scorsese before him, Padhilla seems pretty smart. And if he is serious about this particular endeavour he would do well to heed a few ideas that this fan would consider important.
REAGANOMICS
What made the original, Robocop, so compelling for most was, at that particular time in 1987, America was struggling under the, Reagan Administration; suffering the demoniacal voodoo economics and gradual decline of life. The crumbling infrastructure of, Old Detroit, where, Robo, ruthlessly dealt out steaming hot bowls of justice was symbolic for the waning economic climate. The themes involving corporate greed and corruption in the film embodied by, OCP, were scary concepts for most as this concentration of wealth and total control mirrored real-life almost completely. Like in the film the mostly poor inhabitants of, Old Detroit, are continually promised a better life with the imminent construction of, New Detroit, but ultimately get dicked around and continue suffering.If, Jose Padhilla, is smart and he wants to reach the more worldly demographic of today he has to include something that audiences can not just relate to but feel the pain and burden of like in, 1987 . Perhaps, Padhilla, of course not literally transposing the themes from the original film so as to look desperate, could conjure up something similar in terms of our current economic woes.
2012 is a spendthrift year for us; due to budget cutbacks this new, Robo, might suffer from poorly manufactured parts shipped from foreign sweatshops. The director could even inject a sly, socially satiric element to do with wars fought overseas for entirely unjustifiable reasons (reminiscent of the news broadcasts glimpsed in the first film) and make a bold statement about the greed of not just big corporations but everyday living too. Robocop, himself could even run on overpriced unleaded.
ALEX MURPHY DIED FOR OUR SINS!
Christian symbolism worked for the original film; it was probably one of the things that made it so endearing.How could you not notice the allusions, Verhoeven, was trying to impress on the audience when, Robo, in the final climactic battle between his arch-nemesis, Clarence Bodicker, wades ankle-deep in the filthy stream giving the impression of actually walking on its surface? Or the drug factory scene where the baddies kick-back and make some home brewed narcotics before, Robo, fucks their respective shit up – A parallel to, “Cleansing the Temple”. Drugs being the new currency and factories the, “temples” which now have the most influence on contemporary, commercially obsessed, society. And if you are feeling particularly analytical you could even compare big-bad, Dick Jones, to Satan. Rebelling under the, old man's (God), power structure.
Unfortunately this might not actually work for the reboot since most audiences are craving gritty realism and edginess. However one capitalising point the reboot could cash in on was the drawback the original motion picture had in way of its lack of emphasis on, Murphy's, former life as a human being. At the start of the movie we jump straight to his first appearance at the station-house as the cocky, young-blood and it's not till after his resurrection we finally glimpse flashbacks at the family he left behind. What proved most infuriating of all was his lack of interaction with his family. Meaning all we were seeing were a series of vague flashbacks of someone's smiling son and wife.
In my opinion the reboot would do well to ditch the religious allegories and instead opt for something that gives the character a more resonant, emotional conflict, i.e. portray, Alex Murphy, as a loving, committed family-man who by some immortal sense of duty, instead of spending time with his wife and son, willingly takes a dangerous shift on patrol notorious for gang violence. Imbuing the film with gravitas as, Murphy, slowly recollects his long since moved away family and the guilt attached to having had accepted such a dangerous job despite knowing the risks.
A meaty choice of direction, Padhilla, has claimed he will develop is the more nuts-and-bolts approach to building a robot policeman. Such an endeavour could ultimately prove more beneficial; reminiscing the torture he had to endure at, not only the hands of his executioners, but the abattoir of the laboratory. This could in fact be better for the, “big reveal” that would inevitably come at the end when, having since discovered his human alter-ego, Alex Murphy, Robo, pulls away the helmet for the first time and we get to see the extent to which his humanity has been chiselled and played with. I can picture some, Grindhouse, splashes of gore and blood from his time in the lab as he painfully articulates what it was once like to have been a human being.
ASSERTION & ADVERTISING
I distinctly remember going to my mother when I was young and asking if heart disease on my father's side of the family could be fixed with a Sports Series Heart by Yamaha! That was the power of assertion. Paul Verhoeven is a master of it! I am so convinced that had he actually worked in advertising he would have risen like the third Reich to be a warm and cuddly, Joseph Goebbles.Who doesn't remember the, “6000 SUX with reclining leather seats, goes really fast and gets really shitty gas mileage!”?
Back then I couldn't even drive and like hell did I have the resources or means to attaining one but all I knew was that I wanted it! Verhoeven's expert use of razor-sharp satirical advertising could be interpreted as drawing parallels to unreliable products already on the market back in'87 -- symbolic of the ambition of the times but ultimately doomed to fail due to lack of financial stability.
This kind of technique could work quite well if transplanted to the reboot. Perhaps use ad-segments to push products that instead of capturing the poignant failure of the 80's parodies the ravenous expanse of technological advance to farcical degrees. The, i-Pad, for erectile dysfunction that plugs into your genitals or an economy trip to the McDonald's on Jupiter's moon Io, that breaks down due to shoddy outsourced engine parts.
As a fan of the '87 original those are the kinds of things I would personally like to see in a reboot. I can postulate that the most likely reason most remakes/reboots fail is due to the lack of insight most directors and writers have with the fans.
I am very sure that had, Hollywood, paid heed to what all of us had been saying there would be no bad movies.
We are the experts after all.
