Upstream - S2E14.5: Robocop 2

Episode Date: December 15, 2022

It's girls night! That's right, Alice and Abi are flying solo and are excited to do their makeup, talk about boys (female) and watch a girly film... wait a minute, Devon swapped the DVD out for Robocop 2 before they left! That bastard.  In a futuristic 90s Detroit, the experimental "half man, half robot, all cop" Robocop has been incredibly effective. Desperate to recapture the success of Robocop, the OCP decide to create Robocop 2. But they fuck it up and it sucks. This is genuinely the plot of the movie. ------ THE WINTER OF CONTENT We're joining the war on christmas... on the side of the RMT! Mick Lynch needs your help to secure concessions from the government to make the trains in this country slightly less fucking awful, and you can donate to the RMT's strike fund here: https://www.rmt.org.uk/about/national-dispute-fund/ If you do feel you have money to spare, please consider supporting your local food banks with money or time! donate to the Trussell Trust here: https://www.trusselltrust.org/make-a-donation/ or the Independent food aid network here: https://www.foodaidnetwork.org.uk/donate Additionally, please consider joining a renter's union like ACORN, as rising mortgage rates will surely result in rising rent, here: https://www.acorntheunion.org.uk/join ------ Consider supporting us on our reasonably-priced patreon! https://www.patreon.com/killjamesbond ------ *WEB DESIGN ALERT*  Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/   Kill James Bond is hosted by Alice Caldwell-Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com and https://twitter.com/killjamesbond  

See Robocops off-warranty. Let me just be the first to say... Goal's Night. Yay! It's girls' nights again because Devon, a one-third of our podcast, has selected an expo movie, which this is Robocop 2, and then not been here to record for it,

leaving the two of us to do Sunday Night Robocop. Yeah, we're excited. It's Girls Night where Paintergon ails, we're doing like Korean facial masks. We were gonna watch a girly film called Bridget, like Bridget, Jens is diary, but like a mischievous younger brother, that's brother spelled BRX, THXR.

Devon has removed the girly movie, not a girly movie, but the girls movie from the DVD case and left us with Robocop 2. I know, we have to watch Robocop 2 instead and just make that girly, but we'll do our best. Because Devon is a then-girl friend's house. Devon's getting, Devon's on Domelyve. Devon's getting a robotic tear dome.

We have sort of a a robust dome leave policy here as an employer. Yeah. And so like all three of us have done this. We've all taken time out. We've all taken dome sabbaticals. But now I'm sorry. I'm the consuming pussy.

I'm not the pussy that consumes everything. Fuck. Fuck. The different movies could what do you mean? So this is really going to be like a test of our, we only do the sequels unless it's funny, rule, right? Because Robocop 1 is a better movie. It's a more interesting movie.

Like essays have been written about Robocop. I've found two essays written about Robocop 2 and neither of them are very good. Yeah, this is interesting. This film I thought it was better than I thought it was going to be, but not quite. I mean, I want to rewatch Robocop one, which is fair, I might do that. I have to this podcast. It's interesting. I guess also, like this idea of us only doing sequels in less, you know, apart from where it's funny, this is the sequel of sequels. Like, This is something that Robocop 1 was like, quietly more successful than anticipated. The studio Orion had no money. And so the second that happened, they greenlit the sequel and they started production

on it immediately. Was there like a cartoon as well, like a line of children's toys, which was hard because Robocop 1 was that really hardcore? Oh yeah, I had one. I had the little like OCP crews at two. Children's toys, which was hard because Rubbercup one was that really hardcore? Oh yeah, I had one. I had the little like OCV crews at two. But yeah, no, they really like cashed in very heavily. And it's interesting because like this phenomenon of sequels

is something that's only really made possible by James Bond movies. Like Hollywood sort of got scared off of sequels in the like 40s and 50s. And it was only really bond in the 60s that made people think Oh, we can keep doing see really oh yeah, at least that's what that's one thing that I read Um, if you're gonna do a sequel like Robocop is a good film to do a sequel to and it's also a good point You can jump in on the second one because you know what Robocop wants about. It's in the title like

Is it he's a robot who's a cop. As the post is put, he's half man, half machine or cop. That's a perfect prompt to go with. One thing the original movie did was in universe commercials for a suitably grim and subversive product, and that's what we jump into this with the car alarm that electrocutes people who prefer to steal your car. So this is the LADVIRT sprinkled throughout the film, which is like World Builder and extremely on the nose satire, which as the creation philosophy to you by, I can't throw

a stone in this enormous glass house. No, this is, this I see. Someone else did. I'm like, this does kind of kill the pacing slightly, but it is funny. No, this is, it's not as, it's not implemented as well. For one reason, which is we get a couple of those commercials and then we get the news, right? And it is very revealing right, the news stories that we get because the first one is, this is a movie written by Frank Miller.

And if you're not familiar with Frank Miller, he's the reason why everything is bad now. Really? Yeah, sort of. I know him for was doing very large square Batman. Yeah, he did very large square Batman. And then sort of is the reason why everything is grim dark now. It's sort of that's the legacy of Frank Miller. In particular, if you wanna talk about movies, both Sinsitty and 300, are his sort of like, are the best examples of his kind of like,

nihilism, sort of borderline fascism, misogyny, this sort of like affected cynicism. And so this is, I think it's one of the first movies that he actually wrote in a screenplay for, because they couldn't get Paul Verhoeven, the director of the first one back. They got Irvin Kirchner, who directed Never Say Never Again,

and also, yeah, and also one of the Star Wars after George Lucas checked out. That's interesting, because like politically, Never Say ever again, if I recall was a bit of a fucking shit show. The politics of this are confusing and not great, I would say, but they're not as bad as never said ever was. Yes, yes.

So our news headlines are, the Amazon has been irradiated because someone built a nuclear power plant in it and so just you know burning it down out of spite like we did in real life. Yeah, it's the power plant's melting down and then we get this nice beat where the news really says environmentalists are calling it a disaster and the other news really goes but till they always, I mean it's kind of glossist past it. It's like okay this is the kind of world we're living in. There have been a series of terrorist attacks

due to a cult forming around the most addictive narcotic ever designed. We're doing the War on Drug. Yeah. And it's, I guess, like crack is the idea. Yeah, this film, what do they sell about a CIA? Well, possibly. I mean, that would be a more interesting tack for this to take.

Yeah, this film doesn't really engage with the politics of the War on Drugs, which were spoilers, listen, if you're listening to this in the early 80s, very bad indeed. And this sort of cult that has grown up around New York and is doing terrorism to preserve it is led by Kane from Command and Conquer. I'm not sure who's robbing who there. Oh, yeah, did we, did we mention the drug is called nuke? Yeah, yeah, shit. Love it. And sort of like bald guy go to you. I'll blow you away, man. Mm hmm. Sort of like mystical hippie, evil vibes. And yeah, big, David Sereney vibes from this guy.

Yeah, for sure. He's got the skulls behind him. Yeah, and I'm breaking by rule of not making fun of people. Right. And because of like, this movie is like in many ways the opposite of Pressions in a terrifying glimpse into the future that never was, they defunded the cops, the cops on strike.

Yeah, I was like, immediately I was like, based. And the reason why Detroit police on strike is because Omni-Consumer products, the sort of evil global mega corporation from the previous movie, has bought out Detroit police. And they're cutting their pensions and they're casting their salaries by 40% to which again, good, based. And so we literally have a picket line of cops outside the police station not going to work because, you know, their blue collar work has quite literally. And, you know, the executives don't care about the little guy. For exactly, yeah. Yeah, this is, this is, this film has interesting thoughts about the relationship between

the police and corporations. Yes. And also, interesting thoughts about organized labor too, which we'll get to. But because the cops are on strike, Detroit is an anarchy. And we see this, we see a woman get robbed. The guy who robbed her. We also need some Nazi graffiti. Yeah, we do. The graffiti to be Nazi. I was like, okay, interesting. We see it's like a swastika painted on a box of the Wall Street Journal, which is, of course, America's sort of like highest icon of these things being defiled in this way.

Guy robbed the woman, then gets robbed himself. He gets the shit kicked out of him by two sex workers, which is you know, the robber robs an old woman and then has a great time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's too extremely hot women just kind of like me on a Saturday night fives. Kick him and spin him and then I was like, damn, lucky bastard. Yeah, exactly.

And you know, you think for a second, ah, based community justice, but instead it was like, damn, lucky bastard. Yeah, exactly. And you think for a second, ah, based community justice, but instead it's like, it's this sort of like Hobbsian war of all against all, right? Yeah, and they're stealing the money in order to buy a nuke. We also see that a gun shop, a gun shop gets robbed and the owner gets killed, and then they're like,

the cops are on strike, we can do whatever we want, but then of course, in the distance, there are sirens. And our police car pulls up one of the robbers who is still in a bazooka. Bazooka's the car twice. Just fucking annihilates it. Sick as hell. Also, providing one of my favorite genders in a movie,

which is when a cop car gets destroyed and the siren gets sad, when it goes like, woo, I love that. I don't know why I do, but that's genuinely one of my favorite things. It's cool to make cars into cops. If cars knew what cops were, they wouldn't be them. But having had his car blown up, Robocop exits the vehicle.

Of course, Robocop punches his way out of the wreckage. And if you don't know what Robocop looks like, to the eyes, he's definitely more robot than Copp. My dude is like a bitch. He's like a fridge. He's huge. So like, the closest analog for our sort of zoom listeners is Iron Man, but without the bottom half of the like mask. And also like,

Iron Man could like move flexibly like a man. Robocop walks like, could you could you also walks like a fucking dipshit. It has to be said like, I'm like, how the hell are like, could you like see three PO? He really like that. He walks like a dipshit.

Yeah, I like it too, because I'm like, I thought they were making fun of cops. I was like, oh yeah, like obviously as a cop. He like robots. Like an idiot like yeah. Peter Weller apparently consulted with a mime who was like an essential part of his preparation

for this role in order to just in order to do the like, it's like exaggerated robotic movements. That's really cool. And that mime gave him some famous advice, which was. So he wrote a comment. And R render on a podcast, but it was, but it was my, my, my, my, my, my, my,

my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my,

my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my,

my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, puts it away, he goes, I mean, like, twirls it and puts it back inside his leg. And we see a couple of things happen. First of all, they shoot RoboCop many times. Bullets do not harm him. And they never seem to look at the, they never seem to shoot at the bit of his face that you can clearly see. Yeah. And he shoots them back and kills many of them in response.

And my concern, just as sort of like, I'm doing a fun bit here, which is, what if we apply a sort of like rules-based liberal order to Robocop here? If bullets can't harm him, and they're not threatening anyone else, like they've already killed the gun store, and he's dead, what is his legal justification for shooting them?

Like, he has none. It is a purest fascism. Well, threatening party. Oh, wow, I suppose. No, part row, part machine, all cop. That's where exactly. And this gets me to my next point, because he shoots them apart from one who he leaves alive and immediately just torches, just in the field, by withly lifting the guy out by

his nose. And if I did time this from a start of movie to torturing a guy portrayed as like a good, I guess, necessary thing, it's like eight minutes. And what he wants to know of course is where is Kane, where is the like, the nuke cultist? What is called his voice? It's so cool.

Apart from in one line, which we'll get to later. But so he makes the guy tell him where he gets his Newt from, which coincidentally is where Kane is. He goes to this Newt distribution warehouse. We see a little little like Robo-Cop vision where he like we see through his eyes, and it's like a crime in progress, activate arrest mode.

It's so fun. All of the best bits of this are like legacy verhurven. Like there's a bit where he's walking to the drug lab and we see his like prime directives, which uphold the law, protect the innocent, serve the public trust. Yeah. That's awesome, don't.

And like those are flashing up over his view of people who are clearly terrified of him, which I like. Yes. And also like desperately poor. Yes. He performs a warrantless entry. It's very funny to imagine RoboCop sitting in front of a judge for this by punching the door into this crime lab.

He locks a couple of guys in a freezer for later. And... He kills a lot of people. Yeah, curiously, there is Latin music playing at this point on a stereo as he looks in at this drug lab, where he detects crimes in progress. And he enters a rest mode, as you say. So, he kills many people.

Logs on. Yeah, he logs on, enters arrest mode. Damn, he just like me for real. Kills a bunch of people, less like me. Kane, by the way, sees this happening, hits the bricks, leaves out the back exit. He leaves. This becomes one of the sort of like obvious problems

with the robot cop is that there is one robot cop. All the other robot cops are on strike. So he can't move very fast either because he can only move like, could you, could you, could you, exactly. He can only mind towards you. Yeah. Yeah. He's got.

You don't have to run from robot cop. You can just walk at a moderately breast face and like, yeah. Yeah. Kane literally walks out of the back door, gets into a lim limo shoots a woman just because he's evil. Yeah, and leaves At this point Robocop encounters a child by the name of Hobb who is like this sort of like greasy preteen I would say

Threatening him with a gun because really good But because Robocop has been programmed with like sort of good cop instincts, he refuses to kill this child, which leads to... Yeah, unlike real cops, Robocop cannot kill children. Yeah, I was gonna say, we get a line that real cops have done their signal best to make untenable anymore, which is...

Yeah, shoot a kid, can you fuck her? And then the kid takes advantage of his like sort of beeping cop paralysis to shoot him in the face, which doesn't like, it gives him a weird sort of like headache because he's confused and remembers his, you know, human cop son. Yeah, yes, the part of, of, of Robocop 1 was Robert Cop, normal man. It's horrifically indented to Robocop and over the course of the film, Robocop remembers that he used to be a real guy Alex Murphy. So we're still giving a little bit of that. He resolves these two halves of his personality, except he doesn't anymore.

He's Robot and Cop. Yes. And then this, the movie really wants to drive home the message, criminals will use their children against the police, because Robocop's human partner Anne enters the scene, kills a couple of the guys he left in the freezer just because, you know, so she's about us. And then a guy exits using a baby as a human shield. No, I mean, apart from the moral dimension of this, I feel like if I was using a human shield, I would pick a bigger one. A really large baby.

From a practical standpoint, it's not a great choice. I think the vibe here is that if you try and arrest me, I will shoot this baby. And he says as much, and Rob shoot this baby. And he says as much and Robocop says, he says no, but he says it in a really funny line delivery that he has got. We just go, no, no, I just kept thinking about that for the rest of the movie. He sounds like the wheel from Wally. No, no. And so using his robot cop brain perfectly ricochets a bullet off the door of the walk and freezer and like sort of curves the bullet around the baby wanted style and shoots the guy in the head. Baby saved outstanding work. I will say, I do want to say something about his partner,

police partner, and it's kind of cool that she's a lady in an action film and she's not sort of like super duper sexualized. That's true. That's true. She's wearing like, she's wearing a normal police car, she's not like titties out, or we don't get an unnecessary like shower scene with her, it's something I titties out, like we don't get an unnecessary shower scene with her.

It's something I know. Yeah, Robocop never has to like rescue her, either. Really? Which is another thing that you do. So yeah, he is now cleaned out the drug lab, still looking for Kane. And Robocop goes off juicy, or if he can really go off juicy.

And he drives home and stalks his wife for a bit, like recreationally. I'm not sure whether this is a robot part or a cop part. And he's 40% of women who are married to robots. And he experiences like flashbacks of his life as a human cop, which strangely imply that he has a foot fetish. Like, it's weirdly based around his wife's feet. But he has, like, sort of, erotic memories of his wife and the whole time, the robot cop is just sat outside, stock still in the squad car.

Yeah, there's that massive, massive, like, hulking robot in a police car. And we learn in the later scene that, um, Mrs Murphy, Robocop's, I guess, widow, kind of, yes, OCP would say yes. Is suing OCP, um, because Robocop keeps stalking her and sitting outside her house. Um, so we get the scene where Robocop's handlers and, and a lawyer from OCP are like, look, you're just a fucking robot, you're a machine, you're not Alex Murphy, that's just a glitz,

shut the fuck up, admit it on camera that you're not, that you're just a machine and that you're not. So the way the wedge that they get in there is, do you think that you could offer her like a man's love, which is to say, we didn't build you a dick and you look scary. So you, you know, give up on your wife.

But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do.

But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do.

But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. But plenty of men don't have to do. good lines in this, one of the sort of good lines in a Frank Miller way, is they built this to honor him, which I like. He's like, no, I'm like, I'm the all robot or cop no guy. Untimed. The tagline to the second film, not as the all cop, so good. But we get the sense that this is done sort of like under emotional. Left cop, you say. and this is done sort of like under emotional. Oh, right.

Carp you say, um, but we get the sense that he's doing this kind of like under dress, right? Like under emotional dress from OCP. Um, so, and then we meet the mayor, which my notes say in brackets, racist question mark.

Yeah. Yeah. So we meet the mayor of Detroit, is black. There's a few black characters in the movie, but Detroit is like, I think even at the time of the make of this, was a majority black. And he is trying to negotiate with OCP because in one thing that was kind of pressure in both this movie and in real life, the city of Detroit is bankrupt. Right. And in both cases, it has real life, the city of Detroit is bankrupt, and in both cases it has been forced into bankruptcy to take advantage of it.

So in the movie, Detroit is bankrupt because OCP has like, entrapped it in a contract for taking over the police and robocop and all of this, charged them huge fees that they know they won't be able to pay back. And as a result, they're going to buy out the city in order to private times it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this, this sort of dynamic, as far as I understand it, has genuinely happened in Detroit. But it's interesting that the film portrays the city and in particular, the city's employees, the police department, as innocent in this whereas in real life as I understand that the city of Detroit responded to its financial woes which were inflicted on an act by private corporations and

corruption by becoming what scholars call a predatory city and sucking the blood out of its own people really with the police's help. So in particular, a lot of poor back people in Detroit had their houses stolen from them and like sold off to private developers and like had their water privatized and shit like that. So we see like, oh, the city's just trying to do good is the corporation to a bad is like, I don't know, not sure that's the tyling. So in Detroit. In this world, like Detroit is destroyed in order to privatize it, in order to rebuild it as this corporate state, where if that's happening in real life,

they're taking their time about it. But what seems to have happened instead? Yeah, and it's noticeable that the destroying it in order to privatize it, whereas I think in real life, it's destroyed because it has been privatized. Well, yeah, that and to destroy it, just in order to have destroyed it.

And this is a thing that I, I, I problem that I have with a lot of sort of Frank Miller cynicism is that there is a cynicism beyond cynicism that he doesn't quite yet, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, that is, the destroying Detroit in order to like privatize it stuff. And it's like, yes, to to a certain extent but also to another real extent like Detroit has been and it is being destroyed so that black people won't have money in property. Yeah exactly. It's a well like Tulsa for instance back in the day. I think that essentially what it is is it reminds me a lot of a comic book series called Transmetropolistan

which friend of friend and all three hosts of the show, Mattie Lipschanski, has sort of memorably satirized as Fuck City, right? Where the vibe is sort of all-pervading cynicism on the surface, but underneath that is sort of a deep layer of naivety, right? Where it's like, well, people must be doing this because they have a plan and if they have a plan they can be sort of like intercepted in that sense and so like no sometimes it really is just spite for spite's sake and I think this movie doesn't really get that but so OCP you know sort of

how the mayor more or less to his face yeah we're gonna buy out the city. There's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, instead of leaves furious The mayor How to say this the portrayal of the mayor of Detroit It's sort of short fuse I would say it's spent a lot of the time shouting just stipulating Well, there's just there's just something about this that it's just like The contrast of this black guy being very like you know, you know Chris rock in the contrast of this black guy being very like, you know, Chris Rock in Pitherman. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. It's that very kind of like energetic, sort of like wild, sort of bugger portrayal. There was something about this portrayal that I was just like, hmm, this may have been

a little questionable, but I suppose it's not my arrow of expertise. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I don't think you're wrong about that, but it's too white people talking to each other about it. But, so we go to OCP, just sort of now in conference, where the old dude who, if he has a name, I don't remember it, but he's like the chairman of the board or whatever. No one else won. Yeah, no one else won. It's demanding, sort of some new thing to like put the wrench on Detroit even harder, to which the suggestion is, Robocop 2. Yeah, I'm not going to call it that, which is quite fun.

Well, yeah, they announced it and it reminded me very strongly of a line from three days of the condor, which I had to put in. In every way and improvement over the original, It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you, Robocop, to Jesus, you guys are kind to yourselves. Every time they talk about Robocop too, it's in those terms. But so Robocop too is Iron Man too, I think, steals this joke where they have Justin Hammer make like Iron Man, but isn't good.

Essentially the idea is they've gotten more cops into new Robocop suits, but every time it drives them insane and sort of like homicidal, suicidal, they experience a sort of like body horror from being a robot that sort of only Alex Murphy, Detroit cop and robot can bear. So we get this cool sequence of these like failed Robocop units. sort of only Alex Murphy, Detroit cop and robot can bear. So we get this cool sequence of these like failed robot cop units. And one of them is like, one of them's a big gunk droid from Star Wars where he comes out as a gunk and then he shoots a bunch of the scientists and then itself. And then the other one is looks more like a traditional robot cop,

but it pulls its own head off and is just like a screaming skull with wires and then just like blower. Like Mars attacks. Yeah. And we see this is a, this operation is under the supervision of a woman named Dr. Julia Fax, who's gonna be one of our friends. Yeah, and for the Fax machine.

Yeah, and who becomes one of our main villains for the film. And, and may I just say, Dr. Julia Fax, hello, looks like Kate Bush and a lab coat. Mm-hmm. Also, I'm, I'm told. This is my casting, I like her.

Lanky Brunner. I'm told that Fax is with two X's, which is a fantastic choice. And her vibe is sort of like, um, yeah, just make the stupidest possible scientific decisions. Yeah, let me get weirder with it. I can get so much weirder with it. She tells the CEO, like, the problem is that we're using cops. Like we had part cop, part machine, all cop left dude. We need no cop, all machine, random dude. Yeah, because the thing about cops is they're very attached

to their physicality. Okay, sure. Body's a space, yeah. Therefore, when we put them in a robot, they get cop dysphoria, which you know, been there. They get dysphoria from not being a cop anymore, and instead being a robot. And cop, cop, cop, cop.

And so instead of that, the reason why robot cop works is because he's very Irish Catholic, and he has a strong sense of that, the reason why Robocop works is because he's very Irish Catholic and he has a strong sense of duty. I think which no other cops are. And so he's able to bear the sort of the weight of this robot-ness upon himself. What she wants to do is just get random guys. Well, she says specifically the thing that we need

is a volunteer because none of these cops that they've turned into RoboCops volunteered for it. And so a lot of them hate it. So what we need is somebody who actually wants to become a RoboCop and maybe somebody who wants to live forever and is cool. And at this point, I was like, okay, I can quite clearly see where this film is going.

And it does take a long time to get there. But. Also, we can see that this kind of like get, and like this is an annoyance to the smithers to this chairman's Mr. Burns. I won't be calling the Mr. Burns and smithers from here on out. Yeah, yeah, good point. His, his, his, his toady, his licks, but all who is like following him around and like sort of mimicking his mannerisms and stuff. We leave OCP for now.

RoboCop drives back to the station, breaking a picket line and making him a scab. He is a scab. Is it based or is it like, I don't really want to call a scab cringe, but to break a police strike is that scabbing morally, I don't really want to call a scam cringe, but to break a police strike, is that scabbing morally, I mean? That's not a postcard, please.

Inside the police station, we see that some cops are still on duty. In particular, we see this guy called Duffy, who is a nuke addict. Yes. I strangely progressive for 1990s and not make the car magically immune to drugs. And so he is like secretly doing nuke on the job. So Robocop and Lewis, they get, and Lewis has partnered, get back together and they established that this child,

the one who shot RoboCop, is the one that they want to follow. And he's at an arcade, which they then go and surveil. Yeah, this is really fun. Because this kid is a crime boss, which I thought was just like a wildly unexpected turn in the film. I was really tickled by this, it the anti-bruse wheyn. It's really weird because he's doing fully crime-bosch. It is bauxing alone, basically. Yeah. But the vibe of this movie is sort of tracing it entirely seriously. You could believe that they had written this part for an adult actor and then just switched the casting at the last minute. Yeah, yeah. And this game is really good, although the actor got caught in some kind of

transporter warp field accident and was de-aged. But anyway, it's strange, though, because like, I have some thoughts about this, because the movie is really keen to make a point here. And the point is, you know, drugs, and to a lesser extent, you know, money have made this child into a crime bus. And it's like, yeah, okay, criminals, like we know criminals do use kids, like, because they're easy to control. And yes, sometimes those kids do terrible things. And sometimes they claim and maybe feel to enjoy it. Right? But that's like a complex mix of like safeguarding and ethics and like organized crime. We're barely able to talk about in real life, right?

It's a sort of a deep wade for which Robocop too does not have the shoes. Oh, we should have gone your husband on. Oh, fuck, we should have. But he works with with with our risk kids, doesn't he? Yes, yeah. But I guess the thing is he's like, there are ways you can make this work. There are ways you can make this interesting. The wire, for instance, did this in an in a way that was interesting. But I think he's like, he's too to, like, for it's a work, I think. He's a little too young. I think he needs to be like a teenager,

because that's that really amazing bit in a tight block where you find out that John Boyega's character is like 15 and it's like, whoa. Okay, this kid's too young to be doing this. Whereas this kid is like, what would you say? Like 10, 11? Yeah, something like. He's like, prepubescent and it's like, I don't believe this.

Yeah. So Duffy, the corrupt cop, goes to the arcade, which Robocop and a surveilling. And we see that he's like being used. Like, the lure of nuke is allowing this child to extract the locations of cops out of him to get killed. And this is a really funny memory where Robocop goes into the arcade and it's full of kids and he goes, isn't there's a school night and they all like pelting with popcorn?

Not in Detroit whose sees Robocop is like, look at this fucking dipshit. Yeah, I see some civic parade. Listeners listeners, you should treat robot cops in San Francisco. They treat robot cops the way that Philadelphia treated Hitchbot. There is literally a scene later where they spray paint. The way that Devon treats real robots is the shame they're not here. That's right. Devon hates the mechanized. I know.

It's, well, but so not to be like again, Robocop too is not a perfectly realistic portrayal of like organized crime activity, right? But it's sort of again curious that the cop here is like a helpless victim of his own impulses, right? Where we know in real life that cops who become corrupt or become engaged in organized crime, like that, they tend to be the more powerful ones in real life that cops who become corrupt or become engaged in organized crime. Like,

they tend to be the more powerful ones in that relationship, whether that's like cops forming gangs themselves or like generally speaking, they're more useful, happy to, it's strange. Anyway, so Robocop busts up the place. Hob simply exits again. At one point he has to get his guy to lift him over a fence that's too high, which is very funny. He also Hob pulls an automatic on Ann Lewis and then tries to grudge her and nearly succeeds. We see Robocop torches Duffy. He does. He bangs his head into an arcade machine a few times.

Once again, the same question. Where is Kane? Where am I? What am I doing here? What's my motivation? To which Duffy tells him? Duffy tells him, yeah, is that the old sludge plant, which is a fantastic combination of what? We have to decommission this sludge plant. So Robocop goes there in his like black towel police cruiser, much like an equilibrium, right? They loved painting over cars.

They're almost the like logos on cars. And the Robocop or left cop. The all car left cop car is interesting to me, right? Because it is kind of pressient, right? And that, like, yeah, cop cars did get more tactical, kind of, like the all black thing was a real thing. But it still looks like a sort of a 90s sedan. So it looks like absolute shit.

I kind of like that contrast. It's like, totally unintentional. It's like, oh, we didn't have the language to describe that yet. Something to show I'll pick up on later And when he infiltrates the old sludge plant, there's this slightly weird beat where he finds Elvis's corpse What was that about? I well, I mean

So in just in his Den, I guess pain has Elvis's corpse a bunch of Elvis' shit in a picture of Oliver North, which I guess is meant to convey, like, sort of, he is modeling himself on American heroism and American infamy, right? And these sort of, like, these personalities. But it goes completely unremarked upon, and it's just sort of this weird orphan in the script that never really goes anywhere. It's interesting. Anyway, he finds Kane and gets owned. Yeah, Robocop gets profoundly dunked on for the next sort of 10 to 15 to 30 minutes.

And this is a powerful statement of man's ability to organize against capital if man has a 30 caliber machine gun and a like for a magnet Because he goes to shoot Kane and they shoot his arm his gun arm off. They literally disarm him Hey, and then attach him to a big elect for a magnet time to a table and then take turns trying to like I Mash him a chase him dismember him. Yeah, dismember him. Hobbes there, the child. He's like sort of sadistically taking part in this torture too.

And we see that this hurts Robocop, who we had not previously seen had the ability to feel pain. But they dismember him and they dump him on the curb outside police headquarters. Mine don't notes say Jesus because this is... It's pretty fucking graphic. They have this, I guess, puppet, this animatronic, this incredible, like, bit of practical effect that's like, a limeless torso and the face of Robocop with his helmet on off CC's whole face. And I guess it is just mechanical and then they must have like, Peter Weller,

making noises out of it And his eyes are fucking rolling all over the place because he's been like his computer brain's been really damaged It's really quite like oh god like We got it. We got a fixed robot cop so so like the cops like carry him back in Meanwhile we go back to Kane who has sort of We go back to Kane, who has sort of invagled Duffy back to his sludge plant, had Hobb hit him over the back of the head with a bottle.

Actually, we got a fun line though, which is, he offers Hobb a drink and Hobb goes, Hey, I'm a minor. Me when anyone is mad at me on the internet. And then he like drags him in because he knows the, the Duffy has like betrayed his location. He has him vivisected with a scalpel. And he makes Hobwatch, which is almost an interesting point

about how all of this like exposure to like violence because it's like it is child abuse and it's coercive and controlling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't quite go that way. Yeah. But as the beginning of an interesting point, we see that OCP won't pay to have a robot cop fixed

and the cops are all really upset because they're like, well, we like him now. I think I may have missed heard, but I think the lawyer in this scene for OCP is literally called Shister. He literally is, yes. By the blue collar cops because he is the elite is keeping their fallen brother from receiving medical care. Also, Dr. Fax has the worst idea ever. I love this scene. For a couple of reasons, first of all, as we talked about with rising sun,

the 1980s, 1990s American fear of corporate governance was totally inseparable from anti-Japanese racism. And so, Smithers goes to see Mr. Burns, who is sitting in an onsen in the middle of a zen garden, and Dr. Fax walks in wearing a kimono and little else because how else is an executive woman in the 80s supposed to get ahead, right? And so we're already like making her like successfully, I'm gonna give you some facts. We're exactly.

Yeah. And so she has this frankly fantastic idea that she's saying, well, we need a volunteer to turn into a robot cop. What if we used, I don't know, a death row inmate? They want to live, right? Turn them into a mortal machine with a gun? Great plan.

Yeah. What if that? She must be giving insane dumb to those to burns. Oh, I mean, have you seen this woman in profile? The nose, I think I have 1980s woman dysphoria as well as 1960s woman dysphoria. I might just have woman dysphoria at this point. Better than robot cop dysphoria. Wow, that too.

Yeah. So she then goes to a focus group and this scene, this seems really interesting to me in a couple of different directions. This is so weird because this whole beat about they make RoboCop gay is like, yes. Yes. The kind of cons and goes so fast. They go to this focus group and the focus group

are liberals and here's what they say. If you just talk things out with people and start firing that big gun of his, couldn't you take a little time to adjust environmental issues? And the whole time there, the OCP executive's like rolling their eyes and laughing. And she's like, how that's an excellent point. There's this. I quite enjoyed this scene because at the time I saw it, I didn't realize this plot point was just going to like come and go for no reason. I thought this was doing

what the fourth Matrix movie does, which is deconstruct the appeal of the original Robocop. And I was like, oh, this is actually quite clever. Like, these are potentially valid criticisms of Robocop and by extension of Robocop one. I didn't realize that the movie was like, like, try to make fun of these criticisms at the time. Um, no. And what it almost is, like, had it a crumb of self-awareness, is a very prescient critique of like, sort of, corporate greenwashing and pinkwashing and things of this nature because the guy says, why can't he speak out about environmental issues? The joke the movie is making there is environmental issues are stupid and this guy is stupid for wanting Robocop to speak out about environmental issues.

So Julia goes, yeah, why shouldn't it? But also like, yeah, because we opened the movie with like the Amazon is irradiated, which is like, and also like, oh, I don't know, hindsight's 2020, but a lot of movies of this era and other areas, but it's like, ah, I hope he's environmentalist and it's like, yeah, those guys were completely right.

They were like totally proven right. But so what I think it almost does is have the corporation go, yeah, you're right. He should engage with the environment and then Robocop engages with the environment while still being Robocop and still does the thing and it makes no difference. But it doesn't do that. Instead, they make Robocop woke. They make him woke a cop. Yeah, she does conversion therapy on Robocop.

She fucking hip no doms, the shit out of this dude. Genuinely, it's incredible. So she has this scene where she's reprogramming Robocop to make him soy and cucked and gay. And she's like, she's... She forefams him. Yeah, well, she's typing on the computer. She's like, I type it, you think it And she's like, she's, she's, she's, yeah, well, she's like typing on the computer. She's like, I type it, you figure it.

He's like, you type it. I figure it. And she's like, oh, this is so much better than dealing with humans who need years of therapy and then persuasion. It is the kind of like conversion therapy scene. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But then she, she reprogrammed them to make a gay and sense it back to work. I cannot stress enough how horny this is, right?

Genuinely, which is, okay, I think it's great, but I also think it's a weakness in the movie, right? Because again, you're like, oh, this one's a scientist, well, I bet she's a scientist with a pussy. But so she's kind of like sexually domineering in these scenes. She's like, hmm, don't resist a sexy voice. Good boy.

And it's like, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. This is what happens when you let women be executive, just that they like, forcibly make you gay, a thing which we would all hate being. Make you gay with their pussy. Yeah, so, so Robocop brackets gay comes back to work. And now... Sorry, that's just fucking... That fucking took me out.

Robocop brackets gay. Yeah, he's got a little progress pride flag now on his arm. Robocop, like, he... Robocop, like, he... It wouldn't have been better if they'd done what real cops do. And then, like, as you say, like, made Robocop woken gay and wouldn't have been better if they'd done what real cops do and then like, as you say, like, made Robocop woken gay and then sent it back to work and then the next scene was like him with a pride pin on like beating up a gay person. Yeah, yeah, but...

It's like, what's going on in real fucking life? But that critique hadn't been invented yet, at least not by Frank Miller of all people. Yeah. So, you know, Robocop, he goes back to work, he does, he takes the knee outside the precinct in Solazar, I think. No, it's a hard one this point, but the other day, listen, I was, for legal reasons, not at a protest against some fascists. It was like trans people versus fascists. Classic matchup.

Yeah, it was great, an old time one. And then at the end, like some people were like voice-in criticisms of the police, and one of the police officers said, oh, don't assume that I don't have family members who are part of your community. And we were like, what are they thinking you'd be in here, dude? Like, what are they thinking the fact that you're just like defending these fucking people?

Like, yeah, it would have been better to have Robocop just like one of Pride flag and bin abusive as real cops are. All right, not to cut in on an episode that I'm literally not even on, but it's even funny other than this, because right near the end, Abby asked one of these police officers, hey, how do you guys decide which direction to face when you're like standing in the middle of a protest like this? And he was like, there's not really a hard line on it. Most cops just tend to like choose which

way to face. And that was nice because that basically just revealed a hundred percent of them unanimously decided to face towards the trans people as opposed to the TERFs, which is cool. It's cool to know. Thank you. Very comforting. It's strange to say that, you know, perhaps there could be a movie about how being a cop requires some level of cognitive dissonance, perhaps through the prism of a man who is all man and all pop. Yeah, exactly. What I'm saying is reboot Robocop again and let me write it.

Yeah, let us do it. Yeah, exactly. But so he he comes back into the precinct. He's like, he's happy. He seems a bit weird. But he's like, he's woke. He's progressive now. And because this movie is obsessed with trying to make a point about criminal kids across town, we got some happy slapping which I haven't seen in age. Yeah. A bunch of like a little league team is beating the shit out of a store owner

with baseball bats, with that under the guidance of their coach. Yeah, that was the kind of reveal actually that they're all in there doing this and then outside the coach is telling them to do it. And so, work robot shows up. The coach starts shooting at them and work robot, again, totally unaffected by bullets.

Just walks through the bullets like, hey, we can talk about this. You're going to de-escalate this at all. Of course, he does not, he keeps shooting. Anne has to just fucking shoot him in the fucking head. Anne domes him off. Yeah, she domes him off, tactical style, and is then like, yeah, where were you during that? It robo-cop gathers all the kids together and gives

this kind of like, stayed Superman. In fact, I think it is a parody of Superman, like you're about like, you know, hastemakes ways don't use bad language sort of thing. And then the kids run immediately, of course, because Robocop can't run very fast. They're driving along. She's like, I feel like that was a problem before they pro-combed him to be gay. For sure, but you know, we're getting to a sort of philosophical critique of Robocop here. He's like driving along and tells him to go faster. And he's following the posted speed limit. We should try and set an example. And this, all of this together, the totality is the idea of a cop trying to set an example,

trying to engage with the community, trying to use things other than lethal force immediately is ridiculous. But it's not ridiculous in the critique that you or I might have where it's like, no, that's not what they're for. It's ridiculous in a sort of a much more right wing thing, which is if you do this, people will take advantage of you. People will spray paint you and like hit you

with a baseball bat and laugh at you and you will be completely ineffective. Because you'll be too busy, you know, shooting perfectly around a smoker, as he's just trying to smoke a cigarette, like... Yeah, what he does do, and then says, thank you for not smoking, because liberals, you know. Yeah.

So, so the cops are mad. And I thought this, I thought this was going to be like the rest of the film was like where were cop is gay now. But in, but in, no, they're like that. He's got this, they plug him in and the friendly sort of like technician who works in the precinct is like, yeah, no, he's got all this gay shit in his brain. They've given him sensitivity training and we see a bunch of his like Mons his prosa calls which are like you know have consideration for others be conscious of the environment And she goes off handedly. Yeah, you'd have to either like kill him or like

Given like a 2000 volt shock which would probably also kill him But it might get the shit out of his brain Robocop in becoming all cop at this moment decides rather than be woke for one second more, he will electrocute himself. This is like very nearly a parody of itself. Yeah, and also it just like it means that this whole Robocop gay arc just kind of like disappears. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, that could have been a good film, I see. You could sort of make this movie again, according to the same script even, and have it be a sort of a fairly trenchant critique of both capital and cops. This idea that he is more willing to potentially kill himself instantly than to have the thought

be conscious of the environment floating around in his head. Yeah, that's what... It's very funny, but he's so he grabs a couple of... He's got a fucking British columnist brain and that he would rather die than respect another person even slightly. Yes, yeah, it's like, use the pronouns? No, I will kill myself instead.

And so he grabs the live electric cable with like Frank Grimes and electrocutes himself to the point where he is not unconscious. The other cops sort of break the picket and gather around him and concern. Yeah, and then literally we see them walking over their picket signs and I'm like, Uh huh.

Uh huh. And we see that Robocop, you signs and I'm like, uh-huh. And we see that Robocop, he reboots now, he's totally free. He has no directives, only his own sense of like moral justice and juicy. So he looks around the cops and he says, Are we cops? Because you know, so take strike action as wrong, you should go be cops. We should all go together and the rest of the game. Yeah, well, I mean, what really binds cops together is a love of violence, a love of extra-judicial violence. And we get this re-informed,

according to this film. All of the cop cars sort of roll out together, which we are sort of led to believe is majestic. We see them sweep past a hot dog car and the hot dog vendor looks at all the cop cars. And I think genuinely, right, this is a point, this is a difference right between Robocop 1 and Robocop 2. Robocop 1 would also have had this line, but it is making fun of you the viewer, right? Because the sentiment is the same in both cases just with a different layer of self-awareness, which is the average American is meant to respond to the presence of cops like this. Hey, go on, kick somebody in! By relishing imagined violence against somebody else, right? And the difference between this and Robocop 2, the difference between this and Robocop 1, is that Robocop 1 sort of heavily implies that that's a bad thing.

And Robocop 2 is like, oh man, they really are going to kick somebody's ass though. Yeah, yeah, this film kind of is made by people who saw Robocop 1 and were like sick. Yes. So it is the sort of like missing the thing going over your head meme. It's the, of like missing the point, the thing going over your head meme. It's like the people who saw Starship Troopers and that like, down Johnny Rico is so cool. So the cops arrive at the old sludge plant, much like equilibrium. Sort of a painted over police cruiser and riot gear was the most militarized, most people could imagine the police.

But this film is sick. Yeah, but it seems it seems quaint now like compared to the levels of police militarization that we experience now it's sort of like it's a beautiful little time capsule where it's like holy shit these cops. They're really on to some serious shit. They're wearing helmets, wild. But so... Robocop leaves the charge because he's uncucked. He's uninstalled his cook, drive.

The child hob, he shoots some cops, which, no comment? Yeah, again, compare to equilibrium, right? We do see cops get shot and wound it, painfully shot. Like, you've cops lying on the ground screaming and shit, no one else gets wounded. No one else gets wounded. Oh, all the, well, schmarge themselves. Um, whereas when Robocop or the cops like shoot one of the bad guys,

they're not in pain. They like get shot gruesomely, like there's a little like 80s squibs in this movie. Yeah, good point. Like they just fall down completely dead, whereas, you know, those cops are like writhing around and stuff. And so, you get a visual representation of violence of cops, good, violence against cops bad.

Violence of cops, clean, violence against cops, you know, messy, distressing. But so, they chase Cain, Cain escapes in a sort of a big sort of armoured truck, which Robocop commandeers a motorcycle. A year before Terminator mind you. Yeah, I noticed this, I was just like, oh, we're doing Terminator 2, but Terminator 2 did this. Yeah, exactly. Ripped it off, but I think made it better. And, uh, uh, activates a rest mode by diving through the guy's windshield

and instantly landing him in the hospital. Yeah, he plays chicken with RoboCop forgetting that RoboCop is like physically invulnerable and it just gets crushed. Yes. Um, we then, we then go to the news where we, we find out that the cops getting that robot office life physically and vulnerable. And it just gets crushed. Yes. We then go to the news where we find out that the cops have seized millions and millions enough to pay off the city's debts in drug money.

But, and this is both a juvenile joke, and I also occurred to me as anti-Semitic. State attorney's vincter is like barring them from using the money to pay off the city's debts, right? And it's it's like curiously like Obviously, it's an immature joke, but combined with the lawyer being called a shyster in a different scene. I'm like, hmm, that's Interesting. I'm not sure I I care for that at all

so interesting. I'm not sure I care for that at all. So, Dr. Fax, of course. Dr. Fax, hello. Next to keep with his possible decision is like, oh, a super criminal who's been like critically injured. Perfect. What about cop material? She's already made the best decision possible that day by putting on the blue suit that she's wearing in this scene. And so anything else she could do sort of like it seems like an irrelevant, but she goes to visit Cain in Haaswisaw and she's like, Hey, I'm going to take your brain. You're going to love it. Or some going to kill you now. And she switches off his life support

and just like watch as he dies. They exact Cain's brain and you don't see it, but there's really good sound design in this scene. They're all kind of like, like, swaying and like squishing. And the way that the surgeons are so casual in what they do, which real life surgeons are, as they perform surgery, if you ever get the chance to watch surgery

on a living human being, you'll be surprised how casual surgeons are and how much they make jokes. There's a meat mechanic, you know? Yeah, they pull out his brain and spine and eyes, which looks hilarious. Yes, again, I go to Mars attack, so this sort of like, schlock kind of thing. He ends up with like a brain and eyes in like a tube. We see that Angie and Hobb have an argument up whether or not to,

Angie was like, Kane's girl and Hobb's child. They have this argument about whether or not to Angie was like Kane's girl and Hobbs child. They have this argument about whether or not to rescue Kane and Hobbs like, nah, forget it, I got a plan. Stick with me Angie. He's full Bugsie Malone at this point. Also, he's like sort of holding her new connection over her. And then OCP are like, well, well, so unbeknownst to OCP, Angie and Hobb, use some of Cain's money and they make an offer to bail out the city. We learn that it doesn't offer.

Which is reduced to doing hella thons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And OCP is sitting around like, damn, some mystery person's gonna bail us that he had other debts. What are we gonna do? Well, we're gonna have to assassinate the mayor and Dr. Factor's like,

what if instead of using a normal gun, we use this huge, and specifically the head of OCP says we need to not be up this can't be traced back to us. Yeah. Who else is building giant robots? I've got the ultimate stealth weapon. It's a giant fucking like tank robot with the brain of a super criminal that has our

logo on it. And of course, like she's uploaded uploaded Kane into this giant robot cop buddy. Yeah, and she's like using Nuke, which he still needs to ensure his obedience. And again, a very sort of like, domly fashion. And she's like, yeah, no, just let me, let me send this guy off, so the mayor goes to, goes to meet Hobb, this mysterious benefactor, is like, so surprised to see that he's a child, but it's so desperate that he agrees to, corruption, he agrees to take the 50 million, which is again,

drug money. Curiously low amount of money, Detroit's bankruptcy in 2013 was like, tens of billions, I think. This scene is really, really interesting. First of all, incidentally, Hobb does some casual homophobia. Yeah, he goes with queer. Yeah, which... But then Hobb has this plan, he says, look, you're the mayor,

you want to tackle crime. Why do people commit crime? Because they want money to buy drugs. So if you... It's like, well, child, that's the slightly reductive view. If he's like, no, no, it's a buy drugs. So if you'd be like, well, child, that's the slightly reductive view of you. It's like no, to buy drugs. And so Hobb says, I want you to decriminalize Nuke and we will become legitimate business people. It will reduce crime. It will reduce violence. And you know, sounds great. And this proposal, which listeners has been empirically proven to be a good idea,

or not when done by Charcomboz, but in general, the decolonisation of drugs, like, probably works. This is treated by the film as absolutely fucking ridiculous, because it would deprive the noble cop of that sacred duty of being done, people, and people in Crustum. I'm getting down sick people and I'm getting crushed. I would say it's like the intent is less to be ridiculous to me and more like damn makes you think and then you don't think about it that much.

Like, make you not think. Well, exactly. Like, Hobbs sort of like selling point is hit like is, we don't advertise, we're not big corporations, we're practically a small business. And you can trust that with OCP. And you're meant to be like, oh damn, maybe he's got a point.

Anyway, next scene. And that's how the movie treats it as damn, anyway, next scene, which is Robocop 2 enters the situation. Robocop 2 is twice, three times the size of Robocop 1. Yeah, he's in 10 foot cyborg. Is he have legs or does he have little tank tracks? I've got legs. He's definitely got legs. He's got like a gattling gun. He's got arms that he can deploy and like a big big thing. He's got like a digital face, which is like hand cyberface. Graphics. The graphics on this point something. I don't want to be scared. He looks like that like Shrek meme.

And he comes in and he shoots everybody up. May I manage his escape? Hob hides in an armistar. There's one bit that I really want to talk about, which is that he sees Angie. And Angie recognizes him and is like, okay, I can get it together, I can still work this. And so she touches his like knife hand thing with the gun on it in a way that is sort

of like strongly suggesting that this is the robot's dick, right? And I want to just want to contrast here. That hand is the dick of the robot. Exactly. The Virgin, I don't have a dick so I can't love my wife, Robocop, versus the, I can still finger my girlfriend with robot hands, cane chad. Except this doesn't work. She has a line where she says it'll take a little bit of getting used to, but I could get into it. And I was just like, nice, good. I'm glad the people said this. She's like, inclusive, she's progressive,

she supports this transition. However, just even this reminder of it is enough to make him go insane with rage and he like snaps her neck several times. Brutally. Yeah, it's like, it's pretty fun graphic. This is a fairly sadistic movie in a lot of ways. It's like a heart-threatening.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the AC's aesthetic is a violence and fear of violent movies. And it fits right into that paradigm. He like, machine guns, gattling on the track were homiciding. The mayor escaped by like fleeing through like a sewage tunnel.

And then Robocop shows up because which is great because it's been like 40 minutes and like literally forgot what Robocop was doing last in Robocop. He was uninstalling gay.exe. That's right. And so he goes to, you know, Robocopsy is now gone. He goes to the truck, sees Hobb dying. And- I was surprised that I was like, wow, are they gonna kill this child? Yeah, they killed the child. It's like a sort of like, emosive death scene.

And he's lying on a pile of money in a suit, which is not a subtle movie. And Robocopsy, like, more or less goes drugs, killed this child. There is one of the better nihilist Frank Miller lines, which is as Hob realizes he's dying, he's like, well, you know what it feels like, to Robocop, it really sucks.

And Robocop just goes, yes, which, that's good nihilism to me. Yes. Yeah. Robocop mounting an impassioned defense of like the value of a good death. That's good nihilism to me. Yes. Yeah. Roman Compton. I'm counting an impassioned defense of like the value of a good death. No.

Yes. Hobbs asks not to be left alone. And Roman Pop holds his hand as he dies, which is quite a sweet moment. And I did feel sorry for Hob. Meanwhile, across town, OCP is having the rally to restore subtlety, which is they're unveiling their new headquarters. They're about to take over the city.

They're moving city halls to their new building. They've unveiled their flag, which, if you're not familiar, is a red flag, the white circle in the center with the OCP logo and black inside that. It's being guarded by a bunch of guys and leather trench coats with leather peaked caps. It really, it's blink and you'll miss it stuff. I see chats. Populations are fascists, but cops. This is an illusion to the third Reich of Nazi Germany. I mean, I am a little bit of

Alice analysis there. So, um, Blink, Blink, and you'll miss it. Um, that's right. But yeah, so OCP, Mr. Burns is like, yo, we've got a plan. We're going to improve the city. We're going to knock it all down and we're going to build towers. Yes. And the mayor rocks up and it's like, you know, nobody I liked it, you, this is completely undemocratic. And the head of OCP says, well, you know, it's democratic, because anyone can buy stock in OCP and own a piece of the city. And the mayor's like, and if you look at the poll, it is a sit down and shut up.

Yeah, and if you look at the polls, you see this is actually quite popular. Yeah, this is that this was quite a scary moment. And by the way, because I didn't want to do two separate press conferences, it's Robocopt too. Yeah, I'm busy. Also Robocop too. Sort of a sort of a, like a Steve Jobs thing, you know, oh, by the way, here's Robocop too. And Robocop too comes up through the floor.

And Mr. Burns says we're going to make Robocop too in Detroit, which is going to mean like jobs. And we do get this, I guess, in the wake of Donald Trump, slightly scary moment where the film is shown to be quite present. And it's shown to be popular, or at least in OCP's polls, that's popular, that the city be run like a corporation, one in which you can be fired if you are not productive, and in this case literally fired upon by Robocop too. There's an equivalent, I think, that the movie makes between OCP and Cain because way back when he was still alive in his drug lab he's like looking at new designs of

Nuke with her scientist who is a Frank Miller cameo. Hey Frank Miller looks like a dipshit. And like Cain goes, we're going to make that mean something again. It's like interesting. OK, we're really getting to see like a, you know, American anxieties of the 80s and early 90s. And again, like on the one hand, as was rising sun, on the one hand, this is an anxiety that, you know, was about the sort of like hollowing out of American post-industrial

urban centers, right? But it wasn't and like, it was also an anxiety of people who had absolutely no concerns about that. And in fact, we're participating in that, but who were worried because people were buying Japanese cars? Because anyway. So, Mr. Furns holds up a big container of milk and is like, yeah, this is milk. It's real bad.

Robocopto is making grabby hands towards it the whole time. And is that Robocopto is going to get rid of all the new kind of city? And that's why we love him. He's going to seek it out very aggressively. Yeah. He's going to destroy it all the new kind of city by consuming all of it. Do you really get enters? By the way, she's supposed to be like moving quietly, but she's wearing heels. and you can the city by consuming all of it. Julia enters. By the way, she's supposed to be like moving quietly,

but she's wearing heels, so the way in which she runs down these steps is genuinely really funny, but she looks like that one picture of John Lennon. He's been bringing her legs and becoming Robocop three. Meanwhile, Robocop one is here with a big anti-tank rifle, which rules? Yeah, we've got like a 50 caliber rifle and he's like, Kane, I know what you did. You killed a child.

Let's take it outside. So Robocop too, sees his control of his own programming by destroying a remote control. It obviously opens fire and that gives a much people. Yes. And then we get to the next and last 20 minutes of the movie, which is Monster Fight, right? Because this movie doesn't have a third act, and this is one of the like criticisms of it at the time,

even, is it doesn't have a third act. So because what they wanted to do was just rely on this monster fight being enough to tie it up. It isn't, but that's what they try and do. And so we get a sort of a long fight scene where where Robocop and Robocop to fight each other. Robocop to shoots a lot of people. We get a lot of wounded cops. We get a lot of wounded journalists and particularly women. Like we see a lot of women get shot in this movie. This is the point at which the use of squabs really sort of veers into sort of like the sadistic I would say. Because it's purely gratuitous. Yeah, I mean I think probably they're like we're going to it's the final fire we're really going to go wall out, you know, you're not seeing it.

And yeah, and it's just like, wow, you know, it's interesting who your choice of target is. Yes. But you have this right, it is, the special effects are still pretty good. I think, I think Robocop too is animated in like, stop motion, which still looks like pretty cool. It still looks sort of Harryhausen-esque. I mean, honestly, I was pretty bored by this point,

but they have the fight. Robocop too has like three false deaths, you know, the bit where he like, you know, blows up and then you see him like come through the smoke or whatever. And ultimately, Anne has the idea, because many cops are, you know, selflessly, heroically choosing at Robocop 2, that this does nothing um, and It's sort of laying down their lives in the process and Anne has the idea to like first of all to ram him with a tank Which sort of works and second of all to distract him with the big canister of nuke Which allows Robocop one to get on his back and like shoot through him

In order to remove Kane's brain and squish it with his like mechanized robot fist. I guess I caught up. Punching a human brain is the visual that sums up this whole film? Not a subtle movie. And then we get like, we've got to tie all this shit together in the last minute, right? So smithers and Mr. Burns colludes to pin everything on on Dr. Fax on Juliet. They try and make it her fault, but unbeknownst to her and because they're still fucking Mr. Burns and Juliet walk out together He literally steps over a body on the way because this is a subtle movie and then

He gets away with it. He drives off. Yeah, and turns to RoboCoff and she's like, oh, you think she'd do something about that guy. And he hits her with the line. Well, what of just patients? Cause we're only human. And that's the fucking movie. We go straight to credits. Yeah, it just doesn't. I was like, Oh, it doesn't, it really doesn't have a third act. It doesn't try and even make a point about like, oh damn, he really is getting away with it and how do you want to feel about that? Instead it's just like, well, go see Robocop 3. And interestingly, Robocop 3,

they overcorrect in the other direction. Robocop 3 is like PG almost. Really? Yes, genuinely. It's like turning the big violent style back and forth and looking at the audience for approval is what the Robocop series is How many with it Jesus Christ. I think they made like five

All told and then they rebooted again with Insanely Harry Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson in it It's yeah, it's sort of a cautionary tale about sequels. And ultimately that is James Bond's fault. But what does Robocop do? I mean, at least Robocop and to an extent, Robocop too. Like it's nice to see a film that is trying to be about something. I mean, we compared it to Iron Man early on

and certainly the final fight is very Iron Man one and you've got Little Robot Dude, versus Big Robot Dude. But like, this film has like themes. I don't think they're particularly good. Like it has politics and an ideology. I don't think they're particularly good, but at least like,

provokes questions and invites the viewer to think about things or be in an racist way. No one could ever say that Frank Miller didn't have an ideology, you know? Mm-hmm. What does this movie say about masculinity? Not using violence as like soy, and karts, and gay. To be violent. And something that is literally programmed into you by women.

Dominiering women, mind you. Yeah, yeah, women are bad and we'll use the pussies against you unless they're cops as well. Are there any other women in the film? There's, I mean, there's Anne. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Who's like, looks like it.

Looks like it, yeah. Violence. Conqueror, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, masculinity is inherently tied with like cop-ness, I guess. Again, we see this theme emerging, and it's also like caught up by a hate in masculinity. We see this film emerging, this theme emerging is so much masculine film, which is that masculinity, that men are the ones who kill, men are the weapon, men are the ones who do

the kind of violence. And it's like, I don't know, I think that sort of does a disservice to men, really? Yeah, absolutely. Should have might even do a disservice to cops at this point. Like, not the unessessorily care, but it does rank a bit to be like, oh, well, okay, clearly the move is kill early often all the time.

Yeah, yeah, to be fair, I mean, I know some cops don't think of their, I mean, just most cops probably don't think of their job as being bad. Like, I've met cops who want to help people and who don't like violence and stuff and it's like, well, yeah. And you've decided to record a podcast with me. I think it's genuinely, I think sort of the way I feel about cop films in general is that you have to treat them to an extent separately from the way that the police function and more about sort of like the like as

a mythologizing function of the police right and the myths that we tell about the police and the way that the police tell about themselves are important in that way because like I don't know, those ideals matter. And if the ideal is the guy who becomes woe, can soy, and gets sort of the worst thing of all, you can be able to just humiliate it, like being spray painted by children is sort of like more ridiculous than being hacked apart with chainsoars to robocop. That's a sort of a grim path, I would suggest.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's certainly, if I were a cop, I would be a little bit uncomfortable about this being the ideal of copness. Also, file this alongside the Dark Knight Rises for one of those curious portrayals of like proletarian cops, where the cops are like the little guy that like, you know, just, you know, blue collar

slubs organizing against, you know, the powerful. Yeah, looking in the cop factory. Exactly. It'll be crime with hammers. Yeah, it's, it's, I don't know it's a product of 1990 as much as anything else uh which is so as I said at the start like the the film stands seems to be that corporations are bad but the people whose job it is to protect corporate interests with violence are good and it's like it's got a weird weird ideology. Yeah we have to invent a separate kind of cop that's wearing like a leather coat that does the same thing. But they're the bad cops. Yeah, so, I mean, if that's your stance,

then ultimately, I think it's like, I think, really, do you just enjoy violence, don't you? Well, I mean, this is a movie, this is a great movie if you enjoy violence. Got a lot of violence in it, and it does enjoy it. Violence is shown to be like a purifying force as well, except what it does the child Mm-hmm. Yeah

And that's rubber cop too. We're not it's a bonus We're not doing a scum system. We've got the next mainline man from uncle episode which I Don't even know what that's called one spy always too many against Never again. One of our spies again. One of our spies is missing. One of our spies is missing, maybe. Just like on the podcast, you know? That's right. Fingers crossed, all three of us will be back for that one.

But if not, that would be very on brand too. Yeah, true, I am gonna go away on dumb leave in a few days, so. Yeah, we'll see. But thank you for subscribing to So yeah, we'll see. But thank you for subscribing to the Patreon, if you do, you don't have to to get this because of the winter of content.

But you're quite welcome too, if you would like to. And thank you for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye. Thank you for listening to yet another episode of Kill James Bond. I don't know which one though, because we are banking these episodes as we're going way on holiday, variously through us throughout the month of December, which means that you will not get fresh and new jazz out for every time you will get this one for all

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