Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 279: RoboCop

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, and Henry Gilbert continue to take stock of the havoc wrought upon pop culture by Hollywood of the late ’80s with an in-depth survey of RoboCop: The movie, the games, the wholly inappropriate toys for kids! Cover illustration: Amanda Pruitt

You're listening to Retronauts, a part of the Greenlit Podcast Network, a collective of creator-owned and fully independent podcasts focused on pop culture and video gaming. To learn more and to catch up on all the other network shows, check out Greenlitpodcasts.com. This week in Retronauts, we finally answer the question, can you fly, Bobby? Hi, everyone, welcome to an episode of Retronauts. I am Jeremy Parrish, and we are not actually throwing Bob out the back of a van. It's a second story. On to Robocop's window.

That's just not what we do. That's not what we do here. But we are going to talk about Robocop, the movie, which that line comes, and also the video games based on Robocop and the influence of Robocop upon popular culture, including video games. So, yeah, this is the second entry in our violence is great episode series. The first was the Running Man and eventually will do die hard. Running Man was the lesser Robocop.

Yes. Robocop is Running Man perfected. And I think here to agree with me on that point is... Hey, it's Henry Gilbert. You give me three podcasts, I'll give you the world. And, of course. Hey, it's Bob Mackey, and without Robocopy, we wouldn't have Gizmoduck, so I'm doubly grateful. Awesome.

All right. So let's cast ourselves back to the year in 1987. We finally came out of the 70s recession, the 80s recession. Things are looking good in America. The Cold War is winding down. Mr. Gorbachev has decided to tear down that wall. Reagan is nearly out of office. everything is so looking so good, right?

America is amazing and we love it. Is this the me decade or is it the 70s? It was kind of in like a combination of both. This was definitely, I mean, yeah, this was like the give me cocaine decade. And there certainly is a lot of cocaine in this movie. But you may think America is awesome. However, director Paul Verhoeven, who is Dutch, disagrees. And that is why he created a robocop.

The first of many of the satirical indictments he created of the American Century, often in collaboration with writer Edward Newmire. And Robocop is a great science fiction action movie. It is kind of like, I don't know, it feels like such a common story, but I feel like that's because so many things have adopted it and borrowed it. It's the story of a man who is blown up and shot to death and murdered until he is extremely dead. and then turned into a cyborg who solves crimes. Actually, he just stops crimes. He shoots crimes until they stop. It's not much of an investigator, Robo.

No, he really isn't. It's like Detective Mode in Arkham Asylum. He just like scans and shoots. Well, you know, the story of it is so I was thinking about this. I've thought about Robocop a lot over the years. And I just think about how original it feels, even though like it's the concept of a lawman gunned down by a group of black hats who then comes back from the dead to avenge them, like, that's the lone ranger, that's a million cowboy movies.

It's the Revenant, the Count of Monte Cristo. Yeah, that too. It's so many stories. So it's not an original story, you know, it just finds a way to tell it in a very 1987 way. And it's something that makes me sad in today's era of remakes of just like, Robocop was a new thing. you can be inspired by Robocop, but that doesn't mean you have to remake Robocop. Especially not in a boring, bland kind of way. Well, that's the only way the machine knows how to make it.

That's true. But, no, Robocop is just, it's so creative even with such a old school idea behind. Yeah, and, you know, as I was kind of getting to, the fact that it is a science fiction sort of cop revenge story of a sorts is kind of suburb. or complimented by the fact that it's a great satire of the direction that American culture and American business were going, American politics. And as with The Running Man, you see a lot of things happening here in this story that seemed like satire in 1987 and are extremely on the nose and very like, oh, that is a thing that is real now here, 232 years later, good Lord. I mean, reality is fully left behind Robococon. Yeah, I mean, we did the Running Man episode, and there was a parody of a game show called Climbing for Dollars, which people were climbing ropes and dogs were attacking them. I think Netflix just had the game show where you electrocute people?

There was a trailer for that recently? Yeah, it's like, don't, I think. Wait, wasn't that like just the adaptation of the Japanese game show irritating stick? I mean, Japan electrocuted people first on games shows, but we're just ripping them off, as we usually do. But I'm saying satire and parody of outpaced reality is such a huge rate that it's hard to even create satire. in parody anymore. Yeah, but this movie seemed so over the top in 1987, and everything about it now is very calm. Like, it was definitely one of the movies that happened around this time that really pushed

the envelope of how violent a film could be. This movie was originally rated X by the ratings board, and Verhoeven and his editors had to keep trimming it and trimming violence. And even, you know, like cutting it to the absolute limit of what was allowable in the R rating, it's still extremely gruesome and bloody and you see just like chunks flying out of people Like one dude gets melted and run hit by a car People are extremely chunky and yeah

Just like parts of bodies fly out And you get like real viscera in this movie When an age of so much digital blood Seeing that first death on screen And just like the jibs I think you'd call them Squibs Squibs are the things that explode to create special effects.

Jibs are the giblets. Jibs are in the squibs. Squibs and jibs. That is the recipe for success. The jibs flying off of his squibs are incredible. And it, yeah, especially like, I mean, it is gratuitous how much he is shot, but that is the joke. Like, it is a gag. But also, it's meant to make you feel horrified, too.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of things happening at once. And, you know, this movie, walks a very delicate line of exploitation and actually making a point and telling a good story. And I feel like it balances those things extremely well. This is a movie that I did not get to see as a kid. I got to see Robocop cartoons and comic books and toys, all the fun things for kids based on this movie. But the movie itself was not fit for children. And you

can edit it for TV, but even then you kind of lose a lot of the impact because a big part of what drives the narrative is people dying horribly and bloodily. Yeah. Oh, I was thinking of, sorry, I was thinking of, so whenever we go leave retronauts recordings, we go sushi at the same place. And there's a literal robot cop rolling around downtown, like the ED209, like the big, like, a trash can robot. I don't know what it does.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the one over by the burger place. Like, I don't know what it does. I feel like it sprays people with things or like it. It's meant to make you feel unwelcome. It screams at homeless people, probably, I'm guessing. Probably, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, we have robot cops patrolling the streets. Stay out of trouble.

But, yeah, I got into Robocop as a child watching the Marvel Productions cartoon series of it. And what's, again, great satire of Robocop that also turned it into a commercial product is he's designed to look like an action figure, to be sold to kids in universe. But that also makes him unironically sellable to children in the real world. world as an actual action. I mean, the design of Robocop was very heavily inspired by Iron Man, a comic book character, and Rom Space Knight, a comic book character based on a toy. So, yes, naturally he is very, as they say, toyetic and lends himself to action figures. He's got cool features, like his leg pops open and an auto machine pistol pops out, and you

can take off his visor and see the battle damage underneath. And, you know, you can have like a replacement chess plate that has. battle scarring and bullet holes, he's just made to be a toy. And the Ed 209 is also made to be a toy. Like, I think you can buy multi-thousand-dollar miniatures of the Ed 209. And later you could buy the Metal Gear Rex, which was exactly the Ed 209. I do think actually my parents let me watch it as a kid because they rented it thinking because it was a cartoon show. It was for kids.

and I, it was scarring to me to watch Murphy be butchered in the movie. Yeah. I think I tried to forget it as best I could as a child or the images didn't really make sense to me. That's possible you might have seen like an expurgated version also because I think they did edit it for TV or even our video. It's a lot for a kid. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I watched the entire movie until I was an adult because I just remember like through cultural osmosis, Robocop was so popular. there were so many parodies and I probably saw the cartoon and I was just aware like the idea of Robocop or Robocop is cool.

I played the NES game and I was like, oh yeah, it's a bunch of cheesy action movies. I didn't know the first movie had such a high pedigree and was so esteemed and had such like important cultural commentary despite having the stupidest name in the history of movies. I mean, he's very much kind of in the judged red mold also with only his his mouth is exposed under his armor. But, yeah, it's a super bloody, super violent movie, and it really, like I said, push the envelope forward. And nowadays, you see much worse in movies. I mean, with this, what's human centipede have happened without Robocop? I don't know. Or saw?

Like, you know, you had this movie kind of pushing the boundaries, but making a point with it. And now you just have movies that take it for granted like, oh, we've established a new baseline for what we can get away with on screen. I mean, not to get too relevant or political. But now movies are so, the message is so daring and dangerous that our dumb, wet president can say no more and take the movie away, like the hunt or whatever. Yeah, whatever that thing was. I'm sure it wasn't even a good movie, but just the very idea of- It sounded extraordinarily dumb. Of satire.

It's just like a smarter version of The Purge or like The Purge with something else to say. Well, you know, I do think there are movies today that do keep the spirit of Robocop alive. I think a film like Get Out, for instance, it really does. Like, it takes a genre thing and it takes a very tired genre of horror but says something very important with it through horrific violence. Right. And also with, like, completely changing the context of the horror. It doesn't seem like a horror movie at first. And then I haven't seen the movie all the way through, but I've seen enough to know that, like, it just is a little unsettling and then it becomes more and more so.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No, I, yeah, there's, there are still films like that, but I think, too, like Robocop was a, very big budget film for its time and I think Verhoeven and it was only like $13 million dollars it was actually not a huge budget okay it looks bigger budget like by comparison diehard was twice the budget though even well I guess big budget for the 80s is not big budget now yeah as much as I love the stop motion in this movie it is very Ray Harryhausen I feel like a skeleton's going to climb out of that thing and dance around for me Phil Tippett did his

best I know I'm saying he needed more money but okay but I just think yeah I The big budget things now, especially science fiction like this, with this sleek shine on it, I don't think you could make it now. Like, not in this way for this type of genre anyway. Like the, I think executives would get too involved in it. Like, I mean, not that executives of the 80, film executive of the 80s were no less like greedy and corrupt as the now, I would say. But I think they were at least less savvy. So I think, you know, the director and writer really, and everybody else involved really got a lot past them in what Robocop is. Yeah. Yeah. And now the stakes are higher. There's more money involved. So there's just more corporate level control. So you're not going to see movies like this come out in a franchise, you know, like it would have to be a franchise, you know.

Right. Oh, yeah. This is the beginning of the Robocop trilogy, which actually turned out to be the case, but not by design. And we can ignore the second and third movies because they're just absolutely terrible. Well, I don't know. Henry, you are a Robocop superfan. Is there anything redeeming about two and three? Three is the worst. Absolutely. I mean, it's... Well, or didn't even come back for that? It's a fun bad movie if you're watching it thinking I'm going to watch a fun bad movie, have some beer or whatever.

But that's basically it's... Yeah, but if you're watching it, like, I would like a follow-up to the extremely good satirical science fiction masterpiece Robocop. That will never happen. No, I mean, the Robocop TV series was better than the two movies. Oh, the live action one. Yeah, the live action one. Yeah. actually tried to get back to satire.

I mean, not as cruel and wonderfully biting as the first movie, but it at least had, I think, the television aspect of it, let them be a little more creative. I mean, it was about a satirical as like a sharp-edged episode of Star Trek or Babylon 5, but it wasn't a bad show. But, no, the movies, especially the third movie, is summed up to me. I got lucky enough to go to a

screening of monster squad at the Castro Cinema Theater here in San Francisco. And they had the director there who was like the co-writer of it with Shane Black. I forget his name, but he's also the director of Robocop 3.

And the person, they did a Q&A after and the host asked him about like, well, you know, we're talking about Monster Squad. You also directed other stuff. Robocop 3, and the guy like gets up out of his chair and hides behind the curtain. He's like, and then

once he's done with that joke, he says back down, he's like, look, I know, I know, but I got offered to make the movie. They had a Frank Miller script, and I'm a big comic book fan, and I thought, let's give it a shot. I know it's not good. And he also just said, like, they had a PG-13

rating that was forced on them. They had more toy designs they had to do. It just, he knew it couldn't be good, but he at least tried. He tried. I appreciate that. Well, I don't think we realized that Frank Miller was awful yet at that point. So it was understandable for him to say, well, this guy is a revolutionary. He wrote Ronan. He wrote The Dark Night Returns. He was the first weeb. Yeah. Oh, a daredevil? My God.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, at the time, he still had cachet. He wasn't like Frank Miller, 2019, where we know who he is. Well, he really looked out on us not reading Lone Wolf and Cub in America, most of us and not knowing when he was ripping off. But no, I do think his, you know, Robocop, at least one scene in it is ripped straight out of the Dark Night Returns too, like one big moment in Robocop. The first Robocop? Yeah, the first Robocop. The pulling the hands through the wall that pull out the car.

That's straight out of Dark Night Return. So I think Frank Miller wasn't a bad choice to hire for it. Because Robocop, he balls nasty. Why, when you see Dark Night Returns, like, it did have, it did have what seemed to be social commentary, which I think he just meant. And he's like, no, I want Clint Eastwood to put on a costume and murder punks. Like, I want that. This isn't a joke. All right, so we've been talking about Frank Miller and we shouldn't because he had nothing to do with Robocop.

Instead, it was a much different crew of people. And the kind of lead creative visionary here as for the movie was the director, Paul Verhoeven, who was Dutch, and was not really part of the Hollywood system at this point. He had directed some films in back in his home and had filmed, I think, directed a small American release to this point. Oh, yeah, yeah. But it was, you know, kind of like a minor film that no one really watched. And when this, when the script came across his desk, he was like, this is stupid. I have no desire to make this. And it was his wife who checked out the script and fished out of the trash, basically, and said, there's actually something here and you could do something great with this.

So we have Paul Verhoeven's wife whose name, unfortunately, I do not know, to think for the existence of Robocop because otherwise it would have just gone straight into the garbage and who knows if it would ever have been made into a film if, you know, someone else would have optioned it. By all accounts, Paul Verhoeven is a very intense man as a director, but not abusive. He's not like a Christian bail or something. He's just like, I think it's probably just a cultural difference, like European versus American, different expectations, different perspectives on thing. He's very professional and wants to get things done and is very serious about it. He refers to his cast, like when he's directing them, he refers to them by their character's names.

Yeah. As opposed, so he's like, hey, Murphy or, you know, Lewis or, you know, the two girls in the cocaine scene where Morton dies, he just called them bitches on set. But it wasn't like a derogatory thing. It was just that's what they were referred to on screen. I mean, we all know this, but he survived Nazi Germany. So I would forgive him for being a prickly pair at times. Yeah. I mean, he has made some great movies and is a fantastic satirist.

And, you know, he's, as Henry and I were talking about before this episode, he is at his best when he, collaborates with Robocop's script writer, Edward Newmire, who was an industry veteran who apparently had been in the business for like 15 years by this point, or 1015. He'd worked on the taxi TV series and had been basically working behind the scenes as a script doctor for Hollywood throughout the 80s. And this was the first script he had ever written from scratch. And, you know, this was inspired by a few things, but perhaps most of all by Blade Runner. And not the movie Blade Runner, but by like a Blade Runner poster.

which he saw, and kind of thought, well, here's a cop who is hunting down robots. But what if the robot were the cop? A robot cop, if you will. Yes, indeed. Just drop out that tea and have a robocop. Yes. You know, even without Neumeyer, like, what I like about Verhoeven, I say Vorhoeven, I don't know if that's correct. Verhoeven.

What I also really like about his work. is that he's such, he works in the high and low always at the same time, and he couples them together, like, I think on a certain base level, he does like sex and violence, so he films it so well, he's like, I want to show boobs here, I want to show a guy exploding, I want to show these things, but he finds a way to make it in service of high-minded ideas and commentaries on, you know, fascism or fame, or even showgirls. Like, that has, he films. He films the strip teases as sexily as anybody could, but he also wants to talk about how, like, empty existence can be at that level, too. Yeah, Total Recall is his next movie, and it's not as, I guess, serious as this one in terms of what it's trying to say, but it also has those themes, and it's also super violent.

His head explodes in the beginning in a dream sequence. Oh, yeah. Jesus. Yeah, you mentioned he loves violence and boobs, and there's a little bit of boobs in this movie, but very, very little, a flash early. on and it is it is not gratuitous he doesn't like you know the camera doesn't linger over the topless woman it's in the the police station in the the locker room yeah and you basically just see there are men and women together here showering getting dressed and it's not sexual they're just like you know their their colleagues weirdly enough that that tiny little

flash of breast is actually kind of saying you know there's not really a gender difference here It's just men and women, you know, equally empowered, all working together to enforce the law and also all very likely to die horribly because of the situation in which they are fighting for the law. I think gender-free bathrooms are a major theme in his work, that in Starship Troopers, which, I mean, that is our few. I mean, I was just at Pax and on one floor, it's like, oh, these are just like anyone can use these bathrooms and they're open to everybody. Now, Starship Troopers is filmed a little more sexually than that moment. But in both cases, it's supposed to be like a disarming version of the future, but also a big point he made in Starship Trooper even more so than this is that like an ability to reach equality inside a fascist war machine, is that still good? Is it like, you know, oh, everybody's equal. Men, women, all colors are working together in what?

Oh, a fascist war machine to kill bugs and take over other planets. Yeah, I mean, at no point are the, is the, you know, working. and the police presented as glorious here. Like, everyone is basically there to go through the meat grinder. And, you know, like the entire plot is precipitated by the fact that when Bob Morton gets his robocop program through, he's like, oh, yeah, we'll have a volunteer soon. Basically, we have chosen, you know, likely candidates to go out and die horribly in the line of duty. He's talking about the algorithm, which is what creates everything now. like Netflix cancel shows because of the algorithm, Twitter shows you things because of the algorithm, Amazon sells you a thing because the algorithm, and this guy's like...

OCP is Amazon. Yes, absolutely. I mean, Amazon is going to be involved in the military at some point, so... I mean, they already are in some ways. They're selling stuff. Yeah, they're part of it. Google is really on board. But, yeah, yeah.

See, it fucking sucks to live in the Robocop future. It's not as cool as that's not. Where's Delta City, damn it? Well, I guess the promises you'll someday get Delta City, but it actually will never come. Yeah, that's true. The project never actually happens, even in the sequels. Imagine an end of crime, an end of poverty. Imagine two million good jobs waiting to be filled.

Sounds like a dream, doesn't it? Well, something. dreams come true, Delta City, for our children. All right, so we've talked about the creative leads here, but also let's talk about the on-screen personalities. I've kind of identified four people as the main, you know, the lead characters here. First of all, the lead actors, actresses. You have Peter Weller, who plays Officer Alex Murphy, aka Robocop.

And Peter Weller was not an obvious leading man for a science fiction action movie. In fact, they originally wanted, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Alex Murphy. And thank God they did not get him. They ultimately chose not to have Schwarzenegger because he would have looked ridiculous in the robocop suit. It's very bulky. And they said he would have looked like the Michelin Man. It's also very lazy, like, you were a bad robot. What if you were a good robot instead?

Yeah. But, I mean, the thing is Schwarzenegger, as much as he is like a charismatic on-screen presence, he, I never feel like there's any humanity in his work. He is not good at projecting himself as a person. He is a character. And to make Robocop work, you need that element of humanity. And the choice of Peter Weller as this character, I think, was inspired because it was so kind of out of left field. He was a character actor, primarily known for his work on stage. But he Murphy and Robocop so much warmth, like, you know, when he is, in the five minutes you see him as Alex Murphy, he just seems very likable, kind of like a humble, down-to-earth, earnest cop who's, you know, basically always lived kind of a good life and a comfortable precinct and has just been reassigned here and has no idea what he's getting into, but he immediately bonds with his new partner, Lewis, and like he respects the fact that she's tough and, you know, kind of wants to call her own shots. There's like a little bit of back and forth about who gets to drive the police car.

And you just, you instantly like him. And so when he is blown to pieces and dies horribly, you feel terrible. But then later when he's unmasked and, you know, he is robocop and contemplating his life, he seems genuinely mournful, like melancholy. And you really, your heart goes out to him because he's living this awful existence. So two things. so Terminator 2 Arnie does play a good robot

and in that movie the cop is the bad robots so it's a real tables of turn number two I think they got a lesser known actor for this or a higher profile actor

didn't want this because it's sort of like with the Marvel movies in that your face is hidden the entire time so you're telling me Henry I don't see these movies but there's now like

technology within this world of these movies where you can see their faces at all times or whatever every character who has a mask in the Marvel universe has a magic technology

that instantly removes a mask, so you don't even take it off. Yeah, I feel like not being able to see the character's face for a long time is why no one probably wanted this, people that are at a high level. Like, it's not like Batman where you can be Bruce Wayne for half the movie. In this movie, you see, you're mostly chin man for 80% of it or 90% of it. You don't even get to see his chin. It's just lips.

Yeah, yeah. That's why Superman should be the perfect hero for movies now, Superhero movies now because he never wears a mask. But, well, Arnold, you know, Arnold had such editorial control. even by that point with a star power that I think this film wouldn't have had the edge it would have either. If he was there, he probably would have been like, oh, don't do that. No, Robocop can't get shot up here. He's got to fight his way through.

He can't rely on Lewis to save him when he's being gunned down. He has to save himself. But I bet I could spot Peter Well's lips from across the room now. If he's in a party, like there's Robocop right there. Get him. But I mean, I do feel like his face being obscured for so much of the movie lends it much more impact when you finally do see his face because, you know, the final act, he is unmasked and is fighting through and there is this sense of vulnerability, like his face is the only part of him that's still real

and it's out there exposed. And so, you know, if he gets a shot to the face, that's pretty much it for him at this point. So it lends, you know, the appearance of his face more dramatic impact and also just makes it much more memorable. And again, like there is this very human expression about Weller. Like, he's just really able to carry himself. Well, and the sacrifice Weller has to do to be in this movie, like it's, you know, Chewbacca has to be on screen in a giant costume the whole time, but he is not your lead in the movie.

This is your lead in the film. And he has to act through all this stuff all, like sweating all of his liquid out of his body at all times. Yeah, he was losing like three pounds a day on set because they were filming in Dallas, not Detroit. And then plus two. They hired him because he is such like a gaunt scarecrow of a man, which means the prosthetics look normal enough with them on him. He's not gigantic and four foot wide shoulders or whatever.

He's still pretty gigantic. Yeah. He's very Calipagian. And another thing you don't appreciate immediately with him because you're just so into the role of Robocop. When you're first watching, especially if you're young, you're like, man, this man, look at him, move his robotic arms and, like, all the way he shifts around. The classic scene of him in the chair having the nightmare, like, that's all him. Like, that's mime. That's like acting right there in movements, but you just forget and you're just like, yes, the robot man's robot arms move that.

Yeah, I mean, he has to pantomime to be a robot man while still acting with his face or in some scenes just his lips. Like that's really tough. I mean, if you really watch the way he moves, you know, he has this extremely specific and consistent way of moving. like he steers himself with his head. He turns his head and then his body rotates to follow. And he does that through the entire damn movie as Robocop, even when he's unmask. Like, I feel like that's a very, very challenging, you know, request of an actor, an expectation. I really respect him for that.

I wonder if he figured that all on himself or if he was coach. No, he had a coach. Okay. So the guy you see down at the pier that's the living robot, you give a dollar to, he was like the Peter Wello's acting coach. He might have been, yeah. Those guys freak me out, by the way. The silver guy at the main square. Don't get close to that.

No. Yeah, he actually spent a long time working with a pantomime instructor, and then they gave him the suit, and it was much bulkier and heavier than he expected. So he had to basically relearn his pantomime overnight because the suit was so delayed in its construction that they basically gave it to him and were like, you're shooting the next day. So he was overcoming a lot here. And you wouldn't, I mean, you don't see it in the film, which also, like, that's editing to a degree too and special effects, but it's also like, you will believe he can get into a car and sit down and drive a car.

Right, yeah. That scene definitely popped out to me this time. But he's like bottomless when he's driving the car. Yeah, he's like wearing boxer shorts. Yes, yeah. So also in this movie, a major character is Robocop's partner, Nancy Allen. And she's actually one of the veterans here. She had been in major dramatic horror and science.

fiction films since the mid-70s. She was also married to Brian De Palma for several years. So she was like a Hollywood insider. She had the inside track personally and professionally. I didn't know that De Palma bit about her. That's why she's so good at

playing just this tough as nails character. Like her introduction is such a perfect introduction in the movie of just beating the shit out of some guy. Yeah. I mean, at no point in this movie is she like a damsel in distress. At no point is she crying or hysterical. She avoids, like, the writers avoid all the cliches of, you know, a woman in a situation

like this. She really, like, it could be a gender neutral role. There's nothing about this that says, look, hey, it's a woman. I mean, even when she gets shot several times by Botaker in the end and falls into like this gross, rusty water, she still manages to save Robocop's ass. And then her one response is, Murphy, I'm a mess. That's it. She's not like, you know, weeping about her, like, save me or anything like that.

I would think in any other 1987 film made in America, she would have been captured by Bautaker and he'd have been holding a gun to her head. Yep. They really, like, yeah. I mean, the writing in this really does treat the female characters with respect, aside from the bitches. She saves Robocop more than he saves her in the movie. Yeah. And, yeah, I think Anne Lewis, she's written as kind of a gender neutral character. I think they didn't even, in the script, they, I think at one point they considered it could be a man or a woman.

Like, they didn't, they didn't write it to be a woman initially. Yeah, and there's no hint of any kind of romance between them. I mean, Murphy's married. Yeah, I love that. I love that, too. They're just, their partners, they have mutual respect. They like each other. I ship them, though.

I do ship them. I feel like you don't have to. There's a bit of a spark there, no pun intended. I mean, we don't know what's, I don't want to get too deep into this, but what's happening down below with Robicop. You don't know. If they shaved off his arms and legs, I would think they ought to be neutered too. They said full prosthesis, buddy. Oh, man.

I think, yeah, there's not much other than his spine and head. Well, I mean, the movie. Like Raiden in Metal Gear. The existence of being Robocop is just pure body horror. Yeah, it really is. It's a nightmare. You don't think about when you're a kid. Like, cool robot guy.

But then we see the movie, it's like, oh, my God. It's like existential nightmare. Like, what is living? What is death? When you finally see him, like, you know, I just rewatch this last night to refresh myself. And when you finally see him without the mask, he doesn't look like a dude in a costume. He really looks like this machine with a face sort of grafted onto it. And it's just like, yeah, I would also sit there and feel sad and be like, I want to be alone for a while because holy shit, my life is garbage now.

Anyway, speaking of garbage, Ronnie Cox plays Dick Jones. No, Ronnie Cox is not garbage. He is a good actor. Dick Jones is garbage, though. And running Cox was best known for, you know, like sort of authoritative, patriarchal, warm and fuzzy roles like doctors and fathers and dramas and sitcoms. Beverly Hills Cop, he's the boss in that he's the chief, the understanding, but annoyed chief at Axel Foley. Right. And there's one of those in this movie also, but it's a different guy altogether.

But, yeah, he kind of, that's kind of the role he normally. played. So him being this sleazy executive, like conniving, murderous, conspiring with criminals, it's kind of an unusual turn for him. But because he does have that sort of patriarchal vibe about him, you can believe that people wouldn't realize that about him necessarily or wouldn't assume that, oh, wow, he's evil. Like, I think everyone in this is kind of slimy. Like anyone at OCP in their management is not great. But there's nothing about him that says, oh, yeah, he's actually way worse than everyone else. It's just like, oh, yeah, he's also a scumbag, but, you know, that's just to be expected.

If any of them had a slight amount of morality, they would not be in the executive boardroom. Like, they wouldn't be there. So, and Dick Jones is number two there, so he has to be the most powerful and the worst person. Though, an interesting thing that struck me in the rewatching it last night before this was that for all of his problems and all of his, like, immorality, Dick Jones is like he always calls out Robocop. It's like your monstrosity, this horrible thing. Like he's disgusted in a correct way that they would build a corpse, a robot around a corpse and make it walk around. That disgusts him.

And he maybe is disgusted also because it's supplanting his project. But too, like he actually, he's one of the few people at OCP is like, this is wrong. Yeah, but on the other hand. And, yeah, on the other hand, Murphy would not have been a corpse if it weren't for Dick Jones's collaboration with Clarence Boddicker, the guy who killed him. I think I realized he was in over his head, like, oh, this is gross. I didn't want this. Yeah, but yeah, Dick Jones, he's so, oh, God, he's what I think of when I think of the worst executives in the world. Like, he's such a perfect archetype of it.

One of them, he has some of my favorite lines in the whole movie's speech about, like, sometimes we even call it him. asshole. But there was always respect. Yeah, right. Exactly. Anyway, we're going to pivot to video now. Yes, exactly. I love when he's snackable robocop content. Let's go. Two minute videos. He says like replacement parts for 25 years. Who cared if it didn't work? That's so perfect. Like he's like, we have to sell this thing. We already sold it. The Ed 209 works. Like it's all about his presentation. His problem is that it doesn't work. But he's, that is no

problem for him like that. And that is, that's executives in general. I'm just like, well, the only problem is that my plan has no basis in reality. Eh, who cares? I don't exist in reality. All right. And finally, the other major actor here is Kurt Wood Smith, who plays Clarence Boddiker, the crime lord. And he's not your typical crime lord. He's not like bulking and imposing. He's like kind of a wiry guy, kind of balding. He's got a Clint Howard look to him. Yeah, I mean, he's, But he actually, you know, with the glasses, I think he was deliberately made to look like Goring, Herman Goring. Oh, I see that.

So he's kind of got this Nazi vibe to him. But at the same time, he's like very self-confident and kind of charismatic, even though he's slimy. And Kurt Witt Smith himself, the actor, throws a lot of improvisation into the character. And many of the most memorable moments that the character has were just off the cuff, like him sticking that gum on the rest. receptionist placard. And, like, that wasn't in the script.

He was just like, and, you know, you can keep the gum. Yeah, I love that light. But, yeah, he just, he's a really interesting character played really well. And he gets what's coming to him. But at the same time, like, if you can like a murderous drug lord, this is the kind of murderous drug lord you want to like. You can appreciate the performance so much while not wanting to like or approve of his action.

Yeah. In The Running Man, it's a fun villain who's also despicable. but it's a charismatic villain. Yeah. And also the dad on that 70s show. Yeah. For 10 years. Yeah. Like, you know, the way he kills Bob Morton just kind of strides into his home.

He barely says anything. He puts on the, you know, shoots the guy on the leg, puts on the DVD, and then just leaves a grenade sitting on his coffee table. And that walks off. There's so much in just how he, the way he takes the pin out of the grenade with his tongue out first that then reaches for it. Like, there's so much character just in that. Like, he's, God. he's or the way he walks backwards as

he's like well I'm out of here dick and Dick's like well you know of two million men they need got to get drugs he just walks backwards to sit on the couch it's so good he's so I mean for him to be the bad guy in this

film you have to want to see him the worst things happen to him you have to truly hate him and like he he succeeds at being so detestable he's despicable though it's also funny too we talk about like diversity in this film like he has a very diverse gang he is he is not a white supremacist gang he's like he has everybody in his gang he's got an italian he's got an african-american he's got an asian american he's got an asian-american he's got a guy with an extremely bad beard like it's just all the you know all he hits all the notes yeah but yeah let's see um yeah that's pretty much for the main cast i will say that peter weller and kurtwood smith have both been in star trek a few times yeah which is awesome because

Because occasionally, you know, I love watching Star Trek, and I'm like, oh, I know that guy. I know the guy beneath the makeup there. That's awesome. Yeah, Weller was the villain and the very bad Into the Dark. Okay, but he was also the villain in the very, like the last two episodes of Enterprise, which were much better. Oh, and a special shout out, I want to say, to Lisa Gibbons, just basically playing herself, which makes her perfect for satire. I feel like she was just told, no, just do it like you're hosting entertainment tonight. just do that, Lisa.

And she's like, okay, boom, hey. Except she's doing what's supposed to be. The joke is the real news would be played like entertainment tonight. But, I mean, we are so far beyond that now. So far beyond that. So what year is Robocop supposed to be set in? I feel like it's set in the future. But sometimes people say it's set in like the 80s.

I mean, there's no... I feel like the year is 20XX, in my opinion. Yeah, there's no date put on it. But I feel like we see enough of what the world is then. then it has to be like the 87 version of like 2003 or something like that, I've had to guess. Yeah, technology is a little better than 1987, but not extremely better. No flying cars or anything. Things are kind of like now.

And they still have SD TVs, though so did Star Trek. Their future, nobody thought of HD televisions in the future then. So I don't think that's like a good time mark on it. But like the Star Wars system that's in the movie for several. great jokes. I think that gives you a timestamp where they're like, well, it's 10 years from now or 15 years from now. They finally finished. STI has finally happened. Yeah. I mean, there is a

date. I found it, but it's very arbitrary and that it is 2043. Really? That far in the future? Yeah, but again, that's 2043 to someone living in 1986. So I don't know what that means. Okay. Maybe SD TVs are finally coming back. Great news, retro gaming fans. A vinyl came back. It did. You're buying

STTVs and monitors, right? I am. But they're expensive and difficult. Maybe OCP. They had monopoly on it and suppressed HD televisions and control the market in that way. They're like the people who killed the electric car.

This is media break. You give us three minutes and we'll give you the world. Good morning. I'm Casey Wong with Jess Perkins. Top story, Pretoria. The threat of nuclear confrontation in South Africa escalated today when the ruling white military government

of that besieged city-state unveiled a French-made neutron bomb and affirmed its willingness to use the three-megaton device as the city's last line of defense. And the president's first press conference from the Star Wars orbiting peace platform got off to a shaky start when power failed, causing a brief but harmless period of weightlessness for the visiting president and his staff. We'll be back in a moment. Is it time for that big operation?

This may be the most important decision. of your life. So come down and talk to one of our qualified surgeons. Here at the Family Heart Center, we feature the complete Jarvik line. Series 7 Sports Heart by Jensen. Yamaha. You picked the heart. Extended warranties. Financing. Qualifies for health tax credit. And remember, we care. So anyway, the future that Robocop posits is grounded in the reality of 1987 and a big part of that is basically the rust belt has collapsed and is, you know, basically a miserable place to live, ridden by crime, over, you know, overwritten by crime. And a big part of the kind of background premise here is that Detroit, a city that is emblematic of America's fall in the 80s

from a powerhouse of industry to like a runner-up, a second best to Japan and foreign powers, it's going to be basically raised and rebuilt as Delta City, which is going to be a corporate-owned city that will house like 2 million people, create all kinds of jobs and industries, but pretty much be run stem to stern by Omnic Consumer Products, the Amazon.com of this fictional world. I mean, I was just in Seattle, and Seattle is not in the Rust Bill, but it is being ripped apart to build Amazon things everywhere. I mean, look at San Francisco in the way it's... Walking here today, I was like, boy, this is just Robocop. I am just walking through Detroit of Robocop. Yeah, I mean, that renews it thing that they put up, the air freshener that's like 50 stories high. It doesn't actually make the air smell better.

That is straight out of Delta City. When I can see the big billboards for like Yahoo as I walk by a camp of the unhoused. Like it's, you just see the poverty and the immense wealth all at the same time. Reality is too on the nose. It's not fun. It's such hack, crap. This is repeating a thing I'm sure we said in the Running Man one, too, but it's just like, if they said in the movie Donald Trump was president in it, you'd be like, that's ridiculous, Newmire, comment. A little too far, reel it back.

Yeah. But, well, also, OCP, like, I love its name, too. It's like cop inverted. It's so great. It's like XOF versus Fox. Wow. Are they evil? And the way that, the way they present OCPDU in the start at the presentation where Dick Jones says, like, we found places that are normally run as nonprofits and we saw an opening.

Like, that's just so. Yeah, I don't know what the history of that idea was. I'm not sure if it had happened before, but this does happen now in which failing cities hire corporate consultants to basically run the city and try to make it profitable. So I don't know if that was happening in the 80s or if it was like a fantastical satirical idea, but it is happening. You know, the idea of a corporate city dates back to, what, the 1900s or even before that? Like company towns? Yeah, company towns. Yeah.

Company towns. And this was kind of the evolution of that but in a more capitalistic, modern sort of way with super corporations. Globalism and all that. Yeah. Well, definitely in the 80s we were already thinking about the military industrial complex and I mean this was not the first movie to touch on those kind of themes either, even in a mainstream way. But definitely the message of privatization, like it was a one. Like, it was a warning, not a prediction.

Like, it was beginning to happen all this privatization. Like, it was also at the beginning of, like, the war on pretty, well, even deep into it, it had begun. The Reagan administration is entirely about a war on entitlements, as they would call it, which other people would call, like, social welfare and helping. Or, hey, I actually have given a lot of money over my lifetime to Social Security. That money belongs to me. But that's always the game of privatization. And OCP was like they're the most successful at privatization.

They monetize hospitals, prisons, the army, which is just, that is everything. Yeah, they're the American Zibatsu. Anyway, everything about OCP really resonates with today. And the idea of OCP rebuilding Detroit as Delta City, like resonates with the empty blue collar promises you see today of let's prop up failing or irrelevant industries rather than reinventing them. Let's just, you know, keep things going and keep shoveling cash. The jobs are coming back, folks.

A lot of people are saying. Just wait for Delta City. Yeah. I mean, having grown up in the Rust Belt, every four years, candidates come by and say they're coming back. We're going to bring it back, folks. Bring it back manufacturing. Still waiting for those jobs. When the old man who runs OCP, he's really interesting to me because he's a very like kind of Walt Disney figure.

Like he acts like he doesn't know. what's going on at his company. He tries to put on a lot of innocence. Even as like a corpse is being cleaned up, he's like, Dick, I'm very disappointed in you. Yeah, but he's more of an old school guy. Like the guys who are in charge of companies like Amazon or Twitter now, they're much more like Robert, the guy who, the young guy who runs the Robocop program. Like, he's just this like co-keed asshole who talks up his plans for the future. He's like, we're going to eliminate crime in 40 days. Like, how different is that from Elon Musk talking about how he's going to build a super

train that's going to go. One person at a time is going to get places fast. It's like old versus new rubber barons in which like the Carnegie's of the world feared death and hell. So they would give away tons of their money before they died. But now our modern ones believe they're immortal. Yes. So they're not doing any of that.

I'm going to myself in an AI. The old man does say he thinks Delta City is giving back, which. I think that is like his Carnegie Hall-type vision of what he wants to leave the world when he dies. But it's still seen through the eyes of like hyper-controlling ultra-capitalism. But he thinks it's like he's being good. Dick Jones doesn't even have that level of morality. No. So Dick Jones is the president of the company directly, number two, under the old man.

We never find out his name. And he basically, we find out later in the movie is in bed with the drug czar of the city. who is manufacturing cocaine and kind of consolidating as much power as possible. And, you know, they say old Detroit has a cancer that's crime and they need to get rid of the crime to root it out before they can build Delta City. But at the same time, you have the number two of the company secretly working with the crime lords to maintain all this crime and keep cocaine flowing in the streets. So, you know, it's kind of like robbing Peter to pay Paul maybe.

I don't know. It's counterpurposes, basically. Well, the cancer is OCP controlling every aspect of the government to withhold things because it would be better for their profit margins to have fewer cops or to withhold these things like that. That's the cancer. It's not, I mean, the bigger thing is to say the cancer is capital if you want to be like super lefty about it. But the cancer is definitely OCP. They are the enemy of the city.

I was looking in, I think the first for-profit. prison was 1984 and that is a dystopian idea if there ever was one so I feel like there are these burgeoning things that are happening around the time of the writing of this movie they're thinking like if jailing people is profitable what else can we talk about

now? Right so I don't want to get too much I mean we've been talking a lot of politics of this room selling up with smoke wow I can't breathe but but all of this is basically just background to set the stage for the plot and the plot is that a cop is murdered and

is reborn as a cyborg, super sentry for justice. But it's important to understand that OCP now has begun running the police. And they basically the city of Detroit said, we give up, please, you know, make this the city safe for everyone. And that way we can turn this all into Delta City. And OCP sees this as an opportunity to do other things, such as use the algorithm to decide, hey, who would be good for the Robocop program? and send that person into an extremely dangerous area where they're definitely going to die. I think they said there's like 30 cops or something like that had died in the past few weeks. Yeah, yeah.

Like the movie, you kind of in the locker room, like the scene of kind of the context there where Murphy is first meeting Lewis. You know, that scene is interrupted by them coming to collect the belongings from the locker of a cop who has fallen in the line of duty. Yeah, yeah, well, it is about how dangerous it is to be a cop there because they're underfunded, but also Clarence Pottaker is a proud cop killer. He specifically wants to kill cops, not even do crime. He wants to kill cops, which I think is not an order from OCP. It's just him doing his job very well. He's been given immunity by Dick Jones. Though I was thinking about the politics of this movie, too, in comparison to like the more fascistic.

cop movies of the 80s, specifically Death Wish 3 because friends of me and Bob we've had them on the podcast, the Michael and Us podcast, they didn't want about Death Wish 3. That is especially a fascistic movie, but most movies about cops

from the 80s were usually about how like the liberal justice system makes it too easy for the criminals and cops have their hands tied by the rules. Yeah. Now, there is like one scene of a lawyer saying, hey, if you give me this, I'll give the bail money now and just let them out.

Like, there is a couple mentions of that, but there's not really a comment that the problem for the cops isn't they have too many rules on them and that cops need to just take care of the sickos. That's not what the film it posits. It posits that the cops are screwed because they have no money or support from the government like every other part of the society. Well, they want to strike and they're basically told, hey, you're public servants, you shouldn't strike. even reinforced with a newscast where someone is like, you know, they've got job security. What do they want to strike for? I don't have job security.

So anyway, this is the context in which Alex Murphy and Anne Lewis are sent out to hunt down Clarence Boddicker and bring him in. And this results in Lewis getting temporarily

knocked out, pushed off a ledge, and Murphy shoots a criminal and then is gunned down in cold blood by Baudeker's gang who take great delight in just mutilating him with weapons

and then surprisingly he doesn't die immediately and they just keep pumping him full of bullets and eventually Botiker just puts a bullet in his head and you get to see like a brain chunk fly out

more of the graphic violence in the unrated version it's insane how long they shoot him when I watched I was like wow how is he possibly alive even a little bit when the medics find him. Yeah, I mean, it's

a little unrealistic, but hey, whatever. So he is pressed into, much against his will. Or, you know, because he's dead, so who cares? He signed the forms. Yep, he signed the forms. They own his corpse.

He has turned into Robocop. Basically, his face and spine are attached to a cyborg suit. And this is a substitute project for the original intended automated robot cop system that Jones, Dick Jones had come up

with, the ED-209 what does he stand for or something? Anyway, the ED-209 is basically a bipedal tank. It looks like Metal Gear Rex. It's very anime-looking. It looks like it came straight out of a Japanese cartoon from the 80s.

Very cool design. It even roars like a dinosaur or screeches like an upset cat. It's a very dark idea that it's like we can't perfect the AI in this robot, So we'll just steal human brains and, like, consciousness is to power them. Enforcement droid. That's what it stands for.

So, yeah, basically an upstart executive, like junior vice president or whatever, Robert Morton, comes up with the Robocop plan and pushes it at the old man when the Ed 209 demo fails spectacularly and murder as another junior executive. I love that. I'll see the way the people react when the dead. the tech demo is going wrong, like the, I think you better put it down. He puts down the gun and says, you have nine, you have ten seconds to comply. And the way they just, they flip open the top of the controls, they start all working feverishly, like, oh, my God.

Yeah, I mean, it's real panic. As much as this movie is cynical about kind of the way the corporation behaves, like there is actual panic and dismay when this guy is gunned down in cold blood. But, you know, Morton sees it as an opportunity. and Jones takes it personally. That's why that's how he puts it. Yep. So, you know, Jones takes it personally and especially personally when he hears Morton talking trash about him in the bathroom.

But anyway, Murphy becomes Robocop and is basically a face and a spine stuck into a really cool titanium Kevlar laminated body armor powered by robotics and technology. And you kind of get to see like Murphy coming back into consciousness as Robocop from his perspective. That montage is one of the greatest in a movie. Like it covers like a year in real time just through flashes of what you see through. There's so much great first person perspective footage in general in the film. Like right before he dies, you're seeing one of the most horrifying, like, real things you can see,

which is your first person perspective of doctors operating on you or a person as they're dying. And you're, I don't know, it filled me with dread thinking like, is this what I'll, the last thing? I'll see too? Like, this is horrible. But then you come back and a pretty scientist with large glasses kisses your retina or whatever. Happy New Year to me. And also just hearing, he's like, them so heartlessly cutting off his arms.

I told you to lose everything. Who cares about his arm? And they also are like, well, he can delete his memory. He's not even to remember this. Okay, then who fucking cares? Let's just do whatever we want with this corpse. Like, that's how heartless everyone is there. Sorry, I'm being very blue in this episode.

It's such an R-rated film. Anyway. So, Robocop is also a very... manga, anime-looking. He's silver and black, very bulky, but also, like, there's a sleekness about his design at the same time. And, you know, he does have that robotic movement that I mentioned earlier where he kind of leads with his head and everything is very stiff and deliberate. And, you know, he's not defeating crime when he goes on the streets by basically outmaneuvering it. He's basically just indestructible. So people, you know, open up on him with handguns and stuff, and it doesn't affect him. And so he is able to, yeah, he basically is extreme force that, you know, responds

to kind of mundane crimes like burglaries and stuff like that, just smashing people, shooting people. There's a sexual assault that he interrupts by shooting through the legs of a hostage and blasting the criminal behind the hostage in the crotch. Robocop loves psychics, violence like. Right before that scene starts the way he enters with his shadow projected to, like, that's such an iconic shot. Like, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just disproportionate retribution all around. Like, that is the escalation that's happening here.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that ends with the criminals getting basically military-grade weapons from Dick Jones and, you know, things that can blow up an entire storefront in a single shot. It's another of my favorite lines where he's like, you got any military-grade stuff? Like, we practically are the military. Like, we make everything for them. We just are. Yeah.

And Robocop, he's good at fixing things, but he has to know about them when they happen, which so he's just a level of response. And also when I see him there, I just think about, like, how much money he is. I'm like, would he be better as a peacekeeper if his, the money spent on Robocop was like a hundred new officers? Yeah, but that's not great PR. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

He's only taken care of, like, petty crime in the beginning. Or just like a regular non-supervillain style crimes. Yeah, it's seriously like a dude holding up a convenience store, which, you know, that's bad. That guy needs to be stopped. But maybe don't send in essentially, you know, like a small tank with a person's face inside of it to stop a convenience store burglar. Now you talk about the militarization of police forces. Like, they're way beyond Robocop now. Oh, yeah.

Like Lewis's uniform and Murphy's uniforms, they're so streamlined. They don't have like tactical gear and they're not. carrying AR-15s. It's so underpowered. How can they get by? You mentioned Rom, the Space Night. That's on the comic book shelves at the convenience. As is Iron Man.

Yeah, I love that. So let's see. The important thing to know about Robocop is that he is powered by baby food and limited by a variant of Asimov's laws. He has four directives, serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law, and secret. Yeah, the secret guy that they plug that in so well, too. You just see like classified.

Like it's a stupider movie would have had somebody say like, oh, what's that for thing? No need to ask. Or like they would have said it out loud. Instead, it's just shown on screen, not commented on, and it lets you remember it and think about it later. It's a surprise and it pops up again. Yeah. And, you know, the HUD that he has is basically like a green version of the Terminator's HUD. So, you know, it's, it's kind of Robocop's equivalent of fuck your asshole.

He's, yeah, all the first person stuff there. It's a, it's an early first person shooter in those bits there. There was eventually a Robocop first person shooter and it was just a natural extension of this. But, you know, the plot kind of comes to a head as Jones has Boddicker murder Morton for dissing him and basically disgracing him. But, you know, the Robocop program still goes on. but Murphy eventually figures out that he is Murphy, thanks in part to Lewis, and also encountering one of the criminals who gunned him down, who recognizes one of his catchphrases. So then he, you know, uses his Chekhov's data spike to scan the police department computers and basically track down Baudiker's gang.

That's some beautiful puppeteering when his arm, his fake arm pops up in the... He does the Wolverine thing. Oh, yeah, I love that. Snicked. Yeah, which it's also, he's saying that to the police nerd who's like, hey, you can't be in here. You can't be flume. What do you think of that, dork? I'm going to do what I want.

It's like that. The records place is really good. And now, too, the face matching tech he's got, like, Amazon gives the military way better face matching stuff than that. Yeah, he needs to have ring built into his face. Oh, God. Anyway, yeah, basically everything comes to a head as, you know, eventually he realizes, like, hey, Boddaker did this. takes in, he like finds Bautaker and guns down all of his

co-conspirators. There's like another crime lord that he's working with and beats the crap out of him and Boddker's like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to have immunity. I'm working with Dick Jones, you idiot. Which of course, Robocop records because he's got ring built into his face. And, you know,

once he takes in Botiker, Jones realizes, wow, I've been implicated. This really sucks. So that sets into motion like the plan to get rid of Robocop and clear Jones's name. The Coke factory shootout is one of the best like action sequences ever. I love it so much. Especially now, I can just so appreciate the practical effects of just like it's explosions. Those are real guys falling down. Like things blowing up everywhere. And also knowing what's

happening at all times. Yeah. I know where this person is. I know why they're there. I know why this is going on. Yeah, it's great because I mean, you kind of see it in a sense from Robocop's point of view where he goes in, he lines up all of his shots. Like he kind of locks on basically to his targets. Yeah. And so he just starts walking through and he's just like taking out the targets that he's lined up. Yeah, always posing. Love it. He's like voguing almost, just pointing it thing. Almost. So he looks really cool while he's taking down crime. Yeah. But then he goes in to take down Dick Jones. And Joe Jones is like. Frozen through three windows in a row. It's beautiful. Yeah, he definitely takes a, takes a little revenge on Botiker. But Jones eventually lets Botiker free. And when Robocop goes into Stop Botter,

or to arrest Jones, that's when Jones reveals the fourth directive, which is you can't arrest an OCP executive. And so while Murphy Robocop is stunned locked by his fourth directive, Ed 209 storms in and tries to blow up Robocop and he escapes. I love his acting on his like, I'm being taken down, er, like great. But they didn't think to make E.D. 209 capable of going down. stairs. And so Robocop is saved by a poor

design decision, which is extremely in keeping with the whole A209 project. Like, it doesn't feel like a cop out or cheap. Like, you actually think, oh yeah, they did not see this design all the way through. So yes, of course this thing's just going to tumble down the stairs. It's like how Tesla's explode. And they

won't run over Elon Musk. You can try. They'll just stop. But the way it goes from being this fearsome monster that's chasing Robocop and smashing him all around the hallway and shooting these, like, nuke of these huge missiles at him. Then it goes from this fearsome thing to just this, like, timid thing that's, like, reaching a foot down, like, and when it falls on his back, it's just so, like, pitiful. Yeah, it's pathetic.

But at the same time, you know, it also has missiles, so you don't feel too bad for it. And the sequence, too, another of the greatest sequences in the film is when the cops confront him and they're just told, like, we. got to shoot him right now and other cops are like, no, he's a cop, we can't do it. They're like, we have orders, which who from OCP, because that's who owns they own law. They own the legal system. So

he's being shot, like his slow crawl as he's being shot, his arm, he's actually protecting the one exposed part of his face in the entire time. He knows that's his vulnerable point. But the spotlight on him as he's crawling,

like it's like the passion of robocop. It's a beautiful sequence. It's very Christ-like, you're right. Yeah. Well, he walks on water later in the movie, too. Lewis manages to get him into the back of a car somehow and they escape, although he forgot to turn off his Find My iPhone aspect. And so Jones has a tracker on him and knows exactly where he is.

So he sends Boddiker's gang to get after him. After they blow up part of a city storefront, the cops have gone on strike. So it's basically chaos in Detroit. And amidst that, Boddiker's gang gets extremely cool military-grade weapons that can just blow up a car in a single shot. It can blow up the 6,000 SUX. So they go in, they confront Robocop in a junkyard, and there's a horrible mutant creature from toxic waste. Oh, so much toxic waste. Yeah, so much.

Love it. That puts you right in the mid-80s with a toxic waste joke. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the big shootout is where he was killed like that. I mean, that's economical from a set perspective that they can film in the same place twice, but also just, you know, it's like poetry. It rhymes.

Okay, thanks, George. But it does, you know, it's where Murphy's rebirth happens where he's killed because he's rebuilt, but everybody tells him, you're a product, you're not a person, you're owned by OCP, you're not, everybody tells him that, like, we own you, you're not a human being anymore. he, by taking his helmet off, he becomes Murphy again. So it's where he becomes human once more. He also stops eating baby food there. He does his target practice.

Well, he has to relearn how to fire his weapon systems because he doesn't have the aim assistant anymore. So Lewis helps him basically reclaim his humanity that way. Anyway, so he ends up trashing the gang and they try to trash him and they almost succeed. But then he whips out the data spike. And it turns out it's also good as a weapon, not just for accessing computers. And he rips out a big old chunk of Baudeker's throat. So the confrontation with Clarence, the final one at the steel mill where he's trapped under all the stuff and Boddickers stabbing him.

I was at the in Akihabra in Japan, one of my first trips there, at the Kodabakia store, which is an amazing store. If you ever there, it's a really great, like, figure store. They have a section for American things and that included some Robocop toys. And then they had an SDTV there playing Robocop while I was there. And it was that scene. Oh, wow. And he says Sayonara Robocop. And I'm seeing this in Tokyo.

I'm like, man, this feels magical this moment here. And then just seeing the blood explode out of Clarence Boddicker's neck. Just in a store. Yes. Yeah. All right. Good times. Anyway, so the culmination of the movie, it's the last time someone yelling, you're fired, was heartwarming.

They go into confront, Robocop goes into confront Dick Jones at the OCP boardroom after blowing up the A2 and 9 with one of those cool military-grade weapons that he stole from Boddicker's gang. And, you know, he shows that Dick Jones wants to play this town like a fiddle out of hell or whatever. Well, he reveals he killed another executive, which is the ultimate crime, once he killed another executive. It's like killing five regular people. So he gets fired, and that means Robocop can shoot him, and he does. And there's a really weird special effect. Like, when he's falling, his arms are way too long. What's going on there?

I mean, it's a puppet. Yeah. That's a kind of a, I mean, the effects in this movie are fun, but that's just kind of a laugh-out moment. Yeah, I mean, they definitely learned their lesson with Die Hard and actually had, you know, Alan Rickman. Oh, man, his fall is a great one. We'll talk about that in the diehard episode. I'll compare the fall here to Jimmy Stewart falling out of the window and rear window. It's like a very bad, like, rear projection special effect.

Yep. But also, it's, this was another little detail I noticed in my most recent watch. Like, the gun that Dick Jones pulls out to threaten the old man and hold him hostage, it is the same gun from the Ed 209 tech demo at the start of the movie. It's in the little box, and it's the same, like, big, fancy, Glock or whatever it is. So it's almost like this is the executive boardroom test of Robocop just like Ed 209's was, but Robocop works and passes his test.

Right. Except he works too well. And when the old man asks his name, he doesn't say Robocop. He says Murphy. Yeah. That's the end. And then boom, Robocop name. One of the best.

It's very contradictory. Is he Murphy or is he Robocop or is he both? Well, that's what sucks about the sequels, too, is that they kind of have to... He ends the film by reclaiming his humanity, and he should never be Robocop again. But for the film series to continue, he must be Robocop. And he too, he gets Metroid, basically. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of The Matrix, how, you know, it ends with, like, a very definitive phone call from Neo. Like, I'm coming to get you, but then the movies kind of fumble that, the sequels.

It's weird that the Robocop brand, outside of this first movie, is being Robocop is cool. It is awesome to be Robocop. And shooting criminals and being ruthless to criminals is an awesome thing that Robocop does. And really, the movie is an indictment of the criminal justice system having a for-profit motive. And this entire, like, silly robot story

is just a version of a way to tell that story. And also, he is a man whose existence is now hell. Yeah, yeah. It's like, it brings up issues of like, what is the soul? Well, let's watch Robocop and figure that out. It's a state of living death. And it's also a comment on the commodification of a person to the point

that he is a product. He literally becomes a product of a corporation. And also all the comments on the media too, like, and we didn't even touch on like the fake commercials, the TV shows. I'll buy that for a dollar. The Smash TV ripped off that part from Robocop but everything else from the running man.

God, the Newcomb commercial, the Yamaha Sports Heart, like all that. The goofy claymation dinosaur it's like just thrown in the middle of the movie in such a weird dissonance there

and also another thing that struck me about how it feels like now they just tell you these things that are on the news are like well that's horrible right anyway let's move on we got out like they tell a story about how like well the Star Wars machine went bad and

killed 113 people today including two former presidents anyway more up let's watch commercial like you don't even think about it like things just happen and people say like, oh, man, looks like they put a nuke in Alcapulco now. Nuts. I was going to go on vacation there.

Oh, well. And you just kind of move on from it. You can't think about things too much or else you'd be miserable. That is 2019. Actually, that is 2017 through 2019 in a nutshell. Everything is terrible, but everything is terrible is happening so quickly that you don't

have time to process. I was going to say, so our last one of these movies podcast was The Running Man. And this conceivably could have come out within a week of Robocop if it wasn't delayed until November. It would have been interesting to have these two movies saying similar things about similar ideas happening at the exact same time in history. That's a double feature, yeah.

All right. Well, I'm sure there are quite a few listeners that we've annoyed with all this talk of politics and symbolism and so forth. But you don't get to hear a lot of that on retronauts because video games just don't very often embrace and like tackle topics this deep and with this much conviction and foresight, if they did, you'd hear a lot more of this conversation. But that's why it's fun to occasionally tackle a classic movie, because sometimes they knew a lot more than they even realized.

I don't think we're overreaching. This is the text of Robocop. So if you have a problem with that, it's what the movie is saying. Yeah, it has a point of view. Take it up with reality, pal. I think the movie viewer should make their own decision about what they're watching. Yeah, see, that's... They're very fine opinions on both sides.

That's the problem. Like, at the very least, Kojima tries to make statements like this. I don't think he's... I don't think he's any good at it. He's definitely not as skilled as Robocop. The film isn't making these statements. Sometimes he can be good at it. Yeah, I mean, he has an anti-war message, and then you'll play a game about war.

It'll have, like, a quote on a loading stream, like, war is bad sometimes. Anyways, enjoy your war game. Dick Cheney said this about war. Like, oh, cool, thanks, call duty. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to Death Stranding's attempts, to be completely honest. We shall see. We shall see. At the very least, he got to meet famous people, and isn't that the real point of making video games?

The real Death Stranding was inside our relationships with Hollywood actors all along. Instead of snake eaters, should be called Starfucker. Metal Gear Sol 6, Starfucker. The award-winning Go-Nintendo podcast covers the latest Nintendo news while also diving into what's hot and pop culture, music trivia, hands-on impressions, and so much more. Hopefully, we can make you laugh, too. You'll find new episodes of the Go-Nintendo podcast on the Greenlit podcast network every single week.

Hey, folks, it's AwesomeCon, CEO, editor-in-chief, over there at shacknews.com. Give a listen to the Shackcast, the official. Shack News podcast of Shack News over there on the Greenlit Podcast Network. Hi, I'm Ray, and this is my friend Alex. Hi. And we do a show called No More Whoppers. Do you want pins and stickers because we don't have them? Like a broken keyboard, we're out of control.

Take it out. You got Wawa, Wawa, Poet Ho Joe. How about a No More Woh? Join us every month or so on the Greenlit Podcast Network. All right, so we are going to talk about some video games. Specifically Robocop video games. I saw this. All I saw was Ocean, and I just wanted to just turn off my computer.

Yeah. That's what Ocean games were all about. Stop playing right now. But actually, the original Robocop game was created by Data East. That's the one I did play a lot of. And that debuted in the arcades. That was a game that I played many times and never got past the first level because it's really hard and kind of awkward and not very fun. But it is cool that you are Robocop.

And at some point in the stage, you pause and your gun comes out of your leg and then you start gunning people down and then Ed 209 shows up. And there's more of the game after that, it turns out. I watched a video play through of it. But it's all pretty much just the same thing over and over. It's like walking in a straight line. there's tons of enemies showing up and attacking you. It's really meant to suck your quarters down and kill you off as quickly as possible.

One of my favorite Robocop Priests of merch I own. I only own two Robocop action figures, but my favorite is from NECA toys. It's a Robocop but colored in the NES color palette of the Data East game. Right. He's in like a fake box. His toy box looks like a effect simile. of the NES game box

as well. It's really cool. Yeah, they had that gimmick going for a little while. There was also what, like, like, Chandra guys. Yeah, like the purple, Jason was awesome. Batman, there's a purple Batman. It looks like the Konami Batman. It's really cool. Yeah, Sunsoft. Sunsoft, sorry. Well, I guess Konami did do one later.

But it is, the Purple Michael Keaton one from Sunsoft. You're right, though, yeah. Anyway, so Robocop the arcade game is kind of a brawler, kind of a shooter. It's basically like bad dudes if bad dudes were a single character who was a robot and

had a gun. But it is pretty much like you're walking in a straight line and things are coming at you from all directions and unless you have the level memorized you're going to take a lot of damage and then you get further into it and you do have a little bit of verticality where you're going up

some staircases. But really it's pretty much just like walking in a straight line. You can't jump and shoot I think. Well, Robo can't jump. You can in the arcade but not in the, right. In the NES game, you're just like, you're stuck on the ground, which really limits the gameplay. You should take no damage from regular bullets, though, in the game either, like that. Yeah, I mean, it takes an entire police SWAT team to even hurt him, and that's after he has a run-in with a walking tank with mini-guns and missiles.

So it's, you know, the Superman video game problem. How do you create a game about someone who is effectively invincible to trash mobs? Apparently, you take a lot of damage from trash mobs and put in more quarters, please. There are some fun references to the movie, like every other stage ends, and then there's a bonus level. That's a shooting gallery, and the arcade game does the cross-redical, like the green square with the cross lines over it. And if you score well enough, then you get extra lives and things like that. It turns out some of the bosses later in the game are not just Ed 209. Some of them are Boddaker's van.

There's a wrecking ball that's kind of, I guess, based on the crane and the junkyard. There's a lot of junkyard imagery. There is an actual junkyard stage that probably is like the most referential part of the game to the movie. Like you're moving along and occasionally girders will fall at you, like, you know, junk girders dropped from the crane. But it's still a very repetitive game. And it looks really cool. It was, you know, like, it was, I don't think it was a game that was really meant to be played more than a level or two. It was just meant for you to be like, oh, Robocop, I know that, I love that.

That's cool. You tell your mom to rent it. Okay, well, I'm done. Exactly. Well, I'm talking about the arcade game here. Oh, the arcade game. Just the arcade. It was like, you know, 25 cents to briefly play as Robocop and die.

And that's fun. I made it to do it. Yeah. So in that sense, I guess it was successful. The final battle does take place in the OCP boardroom, and you, pass in front of the Delta City model and then you have to punch Jones to save the old man.

Oh, come on. It's the one thing. You're supposed to shoot him. Well, maybe you are supposed to shoot him, but in the video they punched him. Boom. There is a little bit of contextual control in here. When you have your gun out, if an enemy comes up close to, you'll punch them instead of shooting them. That's fun. Yeah, it's

a little metal sluggish. He's not much known for his CQC, Robocop. No, no. Anyway, there were a few different adaptations of this game. None of them were like exactly the arcade game. They varied to some degree. There was an American

PC version developed by Quicksilver and published by Ocean, which was pretty closely based on the arcade game. There was the NES and Game Boy game. This was produced by S.A.S. Sakata under license from Ocean, under license from Data East. S.A.S. Cicada

was a company that often collaborated with Data East on things like tag team wrestling and other games, so they had a long-standing relationship with Data East. So this is pretty much a Data East game. But even though it is a Data East adaptation of the Data East arcade game, it's like the levels are pretty different. The controls are pretty much the same, but the levels are much more built around the

progression of the movie. So there's like a city hall scene, which is not in the arcade game. And you actually do have to like save the mayor or whatever from the guy at the end. And there's a part where you punch through a wall. So, you know. Okay. Boy, I do not even remember playing it, but I'm sure I told my mom to rent it for me. Yeah, I never actually played this one.

But, Bob, it sounds like you did. I had a friend with it. I don't think we've ever made a lot of progress. And I had no context for the movie Robocop. So it's all very fuzzy to me. But it just seemed like a B-List, NES action game. Nothing fantastic. But not terrible.

Yeah, I mean, this one was at least just licensed from Ocean, but developed in Japan. So I think, you know, some of the later Roeocop games were actually developed by Ocean, so they were bad. In Japan, they were fans of Robocop. He was a big hit there. Yeah, I mean, he is extremely, like I said, anime 2-209 and Robocop both are just like straight out of

80s anime. You can see Robocop in multiple Japanese commercials. What's he selling, like, fridges or... One's a fridge and one is fried chicken. I thought fried chicken was part of it. Yeah, yes. Robocop's favorite food. Does the drum come out of his leg? That I can't recall. I do recall, though, that he's

like extra chrome. Like, he's the shiniest robocop ever for the model they made. Hmm. So, you know, in addition to the American Quicksilver PC game and the NES game, there was a European PC game, which was, again, pretty much the same thing. But it had different enemies, different stages. It had different mini-game modes. Like, you sometimes had to save hostages in a first-person view mode. So it kind of took the bonus mode from the arcade, shoot the criminal stages.

But you don't shoot them in the crotch in this game, though. No, you just have to shoot them, basically. And the, like, the ZTX Spectrum game actually has multiple kinds of ammunition, like piercing ammo and explosive ammo. So there's a little bit of variety to it. I'd also say in some sense, it's a better game because it's only, like, 15 minutes long if you play it from start to finish, whereas the other games are more like half an hour. These are all extremely repetitive.

There's not much variety. It's just, like, walk, punch, shoot, keep moving, the same basic enemies. They get cheaper and harder as you go along, but it never really changes up. So having less of that, I think, is actually a good thing. 15 minutes is all you need. It really is. It really is. That was it for the original Robocop adaptations until, like, 2003,

when Titus made an Xbox game that's a first-person shooter. And I remember this coming out and it did not review well. It seems very dated for a 2003 first-person shooter. It was very strange for the Robocop license to suddenly resurface like 15 years after the movie was relevant on Xbox of all things. I really don't understand. I think it was probably just a cheap license and Titus was all about

like, you know, they also released Blues Brothers games like Blues Brothers 2000. Yeah. So this was not, I think did Titus also do Superman 64? Yeah. It's like sort of like when you see an ET game in 2004, you're like that would be like a sale. E.T. like planner or whatever.

Or like a Heathcliff game now or Garfield. The lower hanging fruit though now Garfield's a Viacom thing, so probably won't be licensed. But it's like one of those getable licenses that it gets made into a thing. Like, oh, people maybe remember this and we didn't have to pay a lot

of money for it. Robocops that much? We can do that. Yeah. I've got pocket change. Though it's just being on Xbox, my immediate assumption is that Microsoft was usually a little looser on quality of games. They'd

prove that we'd go on there as opposed to GameCube or PlayStation 2 at the time. I might have something to do with it. The only other Robocop thing I remember related to video games was after that

that I think it was 2012, 11 or 10 Xbox Avatar clothes of Robocop. Was it original Robocop or was it? Okay. Not the remake Robocop.

I bought a full Robocop outfit for my avatar. I bought the hat. And I bought a t-shirt that says I'd buy that for a dollar, which I think did cost a dollar. It might have cost two, actually, I think. What?

And now those avatar clothes are lost, like tears in the rain. Wrong movie, but yes. But yeah, then they remade Robocop and Total Recall within like 18 months of each other. And like nobody saw them. Nobody cares. Nobody likes them. I did not see Total Recall, but I did see Robocop on cable or something. And it was completely missable.

Like it was a thing that happened and it wasn't terrible, but it also didn't really have a point. Well, you can't make that kind of Robocop movie now. And they just, it just got made because it's a known name. It's a franchise name. That's the only thing that gets made now. It was me to send a copyright or something. That too. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, MGM or Sony or somebody was like, oh, we, well, it was an Orion. Yeah, it was an Orion. Yeah, it was Orion. So who owns Orion now? Oh, boy. It's probably. The people own Orion. Yes.

The stars in the sky. I mean, my Blu-ray was put out by Fox, but I think it might have partial ownership, which I would make it a Disney thing now. But who even? I can't remember the Disney reboot. Well, it's like Terminators. When will Robocop enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Exciting. I think it's Sony.

Oh, Sony. Yeah, I don't know. And yet it showed up on Xbox, not PlayStation. Spider-Man meets Robocop. Well, so, you know, I have to say for being a monolithic corporate company, Sony doesn't do enough conversation within itself. It is not as sleek a machine as Disney is. It's more Ed 209 to Disney's Robocop.

as corporate assimilation. It does fall downstairs occasionally. I remember PlayStation 3. Robocop references in pop culture I feel like I see Robocop references all over the place but I can't actually name any. They're just out there.

Gizmoduck. It is a Robocop reference. Peeb kids loved Robocop. I believe Fenton Crackshell. He is not killed and turned into a robot. He says his code word. He turns into Gizmoduck, blathering bladderskites.

That's the funniest thing to me to think of Carl Barks seeing his original creation then get transformed into a Robocop pastiche by the creators of the 80. That's the one addition to duck tales I do like. I love Gizmo Duck.

Go to hell. Gizmo Duck is cool. Webby, no thanks. Yeah, you know, in video games, when you see like a cyborg guy who is good at shooting people, like it's definitely the seed was planted by Robocop. Like, there's a million of those. We already mentioned, like, Raiden for Metal Gear, for sure. But there's tons of them out there.

But, yeah, it's not as obvious. say a running man smashed. Or like alien references. Oh, God. All the alien stuff. Like the Giger or xenomorph. Yeah, yeah. That's one thing.

But Robocop is a little more, I don't know, like it kind of pulled together a lot of ideas that were already sort of in the zeitgeist at the time. I mean, it's heartless violent version of the future. That definitely inspired a lot of people too. But everybody just like, they picked up that, but they just left commentary and satire to the side or like that. Or also that doesn't make you as much money. I think they saw like, well, Robocop's certainly commercial as a satire, but boy, it was way more commercial if we drop that satire and just sell a toy.

I think you get more Terminator parodies because it's more immediately identifiable, especially with an accent. And it could be more fun that way. I don't know. I feel like I see more Terminator parodies than Robocop. But, though, I mean, like, the arm can't, like his gun in the way it's stored. Yeah, that auto cannon is just insane. And plus all of the, I do think as stupid as it is, his like many modifications in the Robocop sequels, like his glider jetpack thing. Like, yeah, I think that had some inspiration in or inspired some video games too.

But, yeah, I think it's more of just a flavor. And a permission it gave to other creators. Yeah, like DeoSX, I never asked for this. Gizmoduck came the closest. And actually, I just found out his first name was RoboDuck, which is why he has an R on his body. Oh, wow. So he was going to be Robo Duck. Boy, they said, oh, we're playing a little too close to this time of that one.

All right. Too spicy for Disney to reference that movie. I love in the movie that everybody, like, all these people keep saying like, hey, Robo, go Robo. Like, of all the things that carried over from the film into reality, no one. calls Robocop Robo. We all just call him Robocop. Like that didn't become a nickname like Spidey. I mean, Robo is the robot

from Chrono Trigger, so like that's his name. That is who that is. I do think, yeah, I do think though DeiSex's vision of the future is definitely a Robocop style vision of it. It even takes place in Detroit, doesn't it? Parts. Human Revolution does, right? Part of it does. Then you go to Hong Kong.

And you know, this is kind of an irrelevant way to wrap up a podcast, but the whole vision of industrial Michigan City, automotive, former powerhouse being renovated, rebuilt. That was a real thing that was happening around this time. I remember, you know, I was born in Flint, Michigan and went back there to visit family every couple of summers when I was a kid. And I remember in 1984, I want to say 84 or 86 was the year that they launched Six Flags Auto World,

which was an amusement park. that was actually more of like a museum based around Flint's history of the auto. It was a weird choice, a weird idea, but the idea was that it was supposed to be like, you know, drawing tourists into Flint and revitalizing the city, creating new jobs, and it was a huge flop within a year. Yeah. And around the same time, they were renovating like the riverfront and, you know, trying to build up the city and make it like a tourist destination again. And I remember, you know, going to this nicely manicured, you know, recently rebuilt, reconstructed riverfront and, like, waterway. And it was really nice.

But, you know, now when you think Flint and River, you think of something completely different. Oh, yeah. And, you know, just like the Delta City Project never actually took off in the Robocop series. Yeah. It's just, you know, it didn't work out. No, I know about that stuff. I didn't grow up there, but the Michael Moorefilm, Roger and me details it perfectly. Like one of the most eerie and horrifying parts of that movie is when he goes to that Six Flags Auto World.

And he's seeing like a robot man singing a song with the robot that replaced him at his job. And they're like, oh, I love making auto parts. Like it's so, that is dystopian right there. As dystopian is anything in Robocop. You can't replace podcasters, though. Nope. At least the algorithm can't do podcasts. Within my lifetime, you can.

I'm counting on that. They're trying. The Dick Joneses of the world. trying, Bob. They're working hard on that. Yeah, I definitely think the movie has an influence on games, but not as, not as obvious as it is in other things,

for sure. But, yeah, the, man, I think the violence too of it, like, I think it did give permission for things to be more fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Afterwards, too. The personality of Robocop as this just ruthless law enforcement officer that follows orders only exists within the context of

one movie. Like, he has to overcome come that. That's his arc. So it's weird that that is the reference point everything makes when he can only really, it's like there's one story to tell in that world and they've told it, period. And that's it, basically. But then there was a franchise. Yeah. There was money to be made.

Yep. Anyway, so this was a sort of video game related episode of Retronauts, but, you know, still a kind of foundational moment of 80s pop culture, one that's widely referenced and hugely influential, even though we didn't come up with a lot of

video game references, just like the ideas put in here, the aesthetics, very, very pervasive throughout pop culture. And it's definitely a movie whose influence was kind of outsized compared to its initial theatrical run. Like, it was a success, but not a huge, just blockbuster smash. But the ideas that it presented, the aesthetics that presented were very compelling and interesting. And even if people didn't necessarily grok the social commentary, the political commentary,

they still were like, Robocop is cool. So that's what we have. I mean, that's... And there were some video games. And that's, you know, a similar curse struck the other, the spiritual sequel to this movie, Starship Troopers. Like, it influenced a whole lot of space marine video games, but with not as much of the commentary... Not really questioning what was happening. Yeah, yeah.

They're bugs. You kill them. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, anyway, satire is dead and Robocop helped kill it. So that's it for this episode. Thanks everyone for listening. This has been Retronauts.

We'll be back in a week with an episode that is more directly about video games, but we'll occasionally do more of these episodes that are tangentially related to video games. I mean, this is all part of the pop culture stew in which we came of age and are therefore very relevant to our interests and your interests as a person listening to a podcast about our interests. Yes. Anyway, Retronauts is a podcast. It can be found at Retronauts.com on iTunes and other podcast services and can be supported for $3 a month or more on Patreon.com slash Retronauts, which gives you early access to each episode at a higher bit rate with no advertisements. And, you know, we are basically entirely supported pretty much by listeners and patrons.

So if you want to keep the show going and keep us able to eat and drink and have a place to live, that would be great. But, you know, we'll be back in a week with another show no matter what, because that is what we do. As for myself, you can find me on Twitter as GameSpite and on YouTube as Jeremy Parrish. You can watch videos about video games much more so than this episode of the podcast. Anyway, Henry, where can we find you on the internet? Hey, thanks for having me on. I love talking about Robocop, and I love talking about pop culture things in general on podcasts, which you can hear me do. And politics.

Oh, gosh, yes. On the Talking Simpsons Network of podcasts alongside my co-host Bob Mackie, we talk, hey, we have two weekly podcasts, Talking Simpsons, where we go through every episode of The Simpsons from the beginning. We're deep into season 10 now. And the other weekly podcast is What a Cartoon, where me and Bob talk about a different animated series once a week. giving its history and a ton of fun context to it too. A recent one that's similar to in subject matter to this, we did bubblegum crisis with Jeremy as to guess. And we

talked a bit about Robocop in that too because I think that influenced that episode. So you can find Talking Simpsons and what a cartoon and all your podcast listening devices. We are supported on Patreon as well at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons where you get so many exclusives that it would take me way too long to list them. But believe me,

you get your money's worth there. You would buy that for $5. It's inflation. It's true. That we five bucks today is $187. And I'm Bob Mackey. Henry, nicely did all of our plugs. But yes, please check those things out.

Also, I'm on Twitter as Bob Serbo. And I want to push over that ED209 that's roaming downtown San Francisco. So help pay my bail when this goes out. All right. Thanks everyone for listening. And remember, stay out of trouble. I don't know. I'm sorry.

I'm not. I'm not. I don't know. I don't know.