#robocop2013

Joel Kinnaman re-enacting Peter Weller's death scene would have been almost comical Sofiane Merouani

He is back on the street to protect the innocent. Actually in February 2014.

Almost a year ago, when I started my blog, I wrote several posts about the upcoming RoboCop Reboot and how Abbie Cornish is a super-hot. The excitement was building up as I learnt that the movie is good on track for the August 2013 release. Despite some mild to negative reactions from the fans about the RoboSuit, I remained positive about the movie and hoped that it would be the next summer blockbuster. However, plan changed in October 2012, when MGM and Sony announced that the movie is postponed until February 2014. And guess what. I remained positive too. Because in my mind, it would give a plenty of time to the writers to review their screenplay and see what they need to change, keep and remove from the story. I have faith in people behind the scene who works hard to make RoboCop a great action picture.

And now, only five months before the release, MGM/Sony offered a taste to the eager viewers of the upcoming action picture RoboCop 2014’s trailer which went viral this week.

And guess what, I’m still positive and the excitement is hitting the apex.

The movie stars a plethora of A-list actors, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton, and Abbie Cornish. While the leading protagonist Alex Murphy is played by the up-and-coming actor Joel Kinnaman (from THE KILLING fame).

ALEX MURPHY’S DEATH: KBOOOM instead of BANG BANG BANG…

Rewind to 2009, when I heard about RoboCop Reboot entering the production, I always wondered how Murphy’s death would look like in the remake. As a result, I went to my word processing  software and started writing every imaginable scenes in which our lovely protagonist would meet his end. But because Murphy’s death in the 1987 original was so…original, graphic, unforgettable, and edged in the mind of any fan out there, including me made no expection to the rule as my imagination always veered to the root where the scenes I scribed bore resemblance to the 1987 original death scene. Seeing Joel Kinnaman re-enacting Peter Weller's death scene would have been almost comical. Hopefully, the screenwiters had another Murphy's death scene in mind. Pretty straighforward and no need to brainstorming. And the fully fledged trailer provides us with the answer. While the original Alex Murphy suffered from a much gruesome death, being blown to pieces by a score of shotgun's blasts, in the epic warehouse scene, Alex Murphy played by Kinnaman in RoboCop 2014 is almost killed in...tah dah...A CAR BLAST.

 Where in DETROIT is ANNE LEWIS ?

Whereas the 1987 original ponied up gore and violence to their extreme, the new RoboCop movie lacks of some important elements from the original. For example, The New RoboCop will no longer ride the shotgun with his partner Anne Lewis. Instead the once loved female character played by Nancy Allan is replaced by a male co-op named Jack Lewis, which, according to the trailer is killed in action too. Leaving RoboCop riding the streets on its own. I think, the idea of omitting a female partner to RoboCop is just like throwing a baby out of a bath, and won’t please the audience too.

LESS VIOLENCE. TOO MUCH ROMANCE. Its just in Harlequin books.

Several months ago, Abbie Cornish conducted an interview where she said that the upcoming remake would be epic. However, the screenwriters decided to opt out for gore and violence and leave room to romance. Instead, the upcoming movie will focus on Alex and Ellen Murphy’s relationship and how his wife will cope with her defunct husband’s new robotic  life

MICHAEL KEATON AND SAMUEL LEE JACKSON ARE SO MUCH PUSSYCATS.

Whereas in the 1987 original, Ronny Cox played the corporate supervillian. The actor played well the mean guy that you don’t need to mess around. He indeed had that aura of a the untouchable man, despite Mr. Cox is seen by many as a gentle soul, happy family father and guitar man, he really suited into that mean guy named Jones.  I don’t know which of Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson will play the villain, but honestly both are pussycat and I do hardly imagine that they could fit a role of a villain who is behind Detroit’s chaos.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Abbie Corish is super hot.

CONCLUSION: RoboCop 2014 is slated for February 7, 2014. A week before St. Valentin. So if you are looking for some serious PG-13 flick with a touch or romance. This movie is for you.

Meanwhile, only 10 days to go before my second order of RoboCop Movie tie-ins by Ed Naha are slated to land in my sweet little home.

Tribute to Jason Feger.

RoboCop fans will certainly remember him and they will fondly missed him. Mario Machado, the former L.A Newsman just passed away this Saturday at age of 78. According to his relatives, Mr. Machado was suffering from the Parkinson disease. 

Machado worked at LA’s CBS-TV among other local stations, starting his career in 1967 at KHJ-TV (now KCAL-TV) as an on-air news reporter, a first for a Chinese-American, according to LARadio.com. He also was a soccer commentator. His film and TV credits include Scarface and the 1971 TV movie Brian’s Song. He is best remembered playing Casey Wong opposite Jessie Perkins in RoboCop Trilogy.

Rest in Pease Mr.Machado. May your spirit be a source of joy and happiness forever. I just hope RoboCop 2014 will be dedicated to him.

With the next iteration of RoboCop being pushed for 2014 release (Remember that the original release was slated for August 2013), it will give a plenty of time for writers to re-think about the storyline and make things right where once were wrong, since the public perception about the movie, even before it hits the theater, was mostly negative, plagued with bad comments, especially regarding the design of the "Half-Human, Half-Machine, All Cop."

However, in the following review, I'm not going to spend lot of time about the design. It's not the purpose after all. In this article, I'm going to focus on the heart of RoboCop. No, I don't mean Alex Murphy, but The Police in general and how the writer can adjust and expend the storyline by focusing on the law enforcement's back-story in an original way just like Ed Neumeier (God Bless Him) did in the original entry where he envisioned that in the near future, the Police would go on strike if theirs demand are not met due to the sick tally of murdered cops. Frank Miller, who was behind the second lackluster sequel RoboCop 3 envisioned that in the near future, the entire OCP-run Detroit Police Department would be replaced by the Amazon War vets known as the Rehabs.

One trip too many to the well(*) We are all used to watch movies involving police chases where cruisers, or police patrols, or black-and white - or TurboCruiser if you like (God Bless Ed Neumeier again) -- depending on cultural differences - are in hot pursuit trying to fishtail the getaway cars (211 in progress...get that damn car...request backup..) - Anyway, the police cruisers have evolved from a compact-shabby unadorned fuel-efficient car with a single beacon topped on its roof emitting an incandescent light, into a powerful twin-turbine wig-wag-mounted four-door sedan heavily loaded with instrumentation that represents the near-future technology (Think of Carbon E7 with 14k orders already made; I invited you to read this article.). However, there is something that did not change is the word : "POLICE" and the familiar "To Serve and To Protect" wordings that emblazon the front facade of the vehicle. In this case, if I were the writer, I'd simply change the word "Police" into "Constabulary" and the famous "To Serve and To Protect" into Ed Neumeier's famous quote "To Serve Public Trust". See, how we can make story more original, instead of being too cliché. 

So, if Ed Neumeier envisioned that cops would go on strike and Frank Miller would replace cops with Urban Rehabs, so  why don't we envision that in RoboCop 2014, The Police is called Constabulary and there are a group of Paramilitary Force hired by OmniCorp to take over the Police Duties. I'm not re-enacting what Frank Miller wrote by inventing the Rehabs. No. That's not the case. What I mean that The Police in RoboCop 2014 are The Constabulary.  Alex Murphy is a Constable. That's it. Jettison the word: "cop". Don't call them "Police" anymore; 

However, there is a catch. We have to be careful when it comes to change the world Police in Constabulary. For someone, just like me, who spent four enjoyable years studying English, American and African Literature & Civilization, "Constabulary" (mentioned in Alex LaGuma's A Walk in The Night) is according to the Wikipedia entry :

"[A] civil, non-paramilitary (police) force consisting of police officers called constables. This is the usual definition in Britain, in which all county police forces once bore the title (and some still do)." However, it also means :The title of a military or paramilitary type force consisting of soldiers trained for police duties.[1] Mostly established by the United States in the several countries over which it had protective status (e.g., Philippine Constabulary, United States Constabulary in West Germany after World War II, Nicaraguan National Guard, Panama National Guard). These forces also performed military functions by maintaining "mobile forces" of organised units.  

So in this case, we can safely assume that Constabulary is a paramilitary force, with heavily armed soldiers to take over police duties. 

However, there is one missing piece in our puzzle that needs to fill it to complete the picture. We need to adjust the story and make it happen in a historical context. In a previous blurb, I mentioned that the story of RoboCop 2014 would happen or happened  during a fictional conflict. In this case, I'd place bet on THE FIRST AMAZON WAR and THE SECOND AMAZON WAR that took place in the late 90s ( Homage to Frank Miller's works "Martha Washington  goes to War") where  OmniCorp dispatched their robotic drones to put the end to the belligerence and win the war. 

In a nutshell, here how the story of RoboCop 2014 would look alike (If I were the writers hired to work on it):

While the world teeters on the brink of a nuclear war, a major American city struggles with its own share of problems. Crime and Violence rage out of control. Countable are killed in the line of duty and the streets are no longer safe. In order to put an end to all of this, the behemoth corporation OmniCorp which has a proven record of winning conflicts around the globe thanks to its in-house robotic drones, has just unveiled theirs latest creation The Future of Law Enforcement: RoboCop 2014. However, there is one critical element : a volunteer. Enter Alex Murphy 

So, tell me what you think ?

fellow me @sofianemerouani

This is a continuation of my previous blurb What Must be changed in RoboCop 2014. I just forgot to add this :

9 - Re-cast Abbie Cornish as Anne Lewis. She is the perfect fit for the role.

I don't see why they focused so much on Murphy's widow in RoboCop 2013. In the original movie, the widow did not play a huge role, despite being the wife of the protagonist. However Anne Lewis did.

Abbie Cornish has a potential to play a greater role than Ellen Murphy. Writers, please, re-cast Abbie as female co-lead character opposite Joel Kinnaman. I mean cast her as Anne Lewis.

Let us hope it works out well.[...] No one needs a bad RoboCop...

Edward "Ed" Neumeier  Writer/Director. 

Now that Sony has pushed the release date of RoboCop for February 2014, it will give the writers a plenty of time to re-think about the storyline and to fix some mistakes.

Here is the list of what has to be changed or removed completely from the story :

1- Jettison the character of Jack Lewis. Bring back Ann(e) Lewis.

It irritates me when I read that Murphy has a new male partner. Writers must have been drunk or something when they penned the story. It does not make sense, they have to bring back Anne Lewis. She is the spiritual "wife" of RoboCop.  There is no RoboCop without Anne Lewis. One of the reasons why RoboCop 3 was a complete disaster was the fact that they killed the character of Lewis in the middle of the movie.

Bottom line : Bring Anne Lewis or cancel the project.

2- Review Murphy's death and makes it look gruesome.  Or more gruesome than the original (if you can).  Everybody remembers Murphy's death in the original RoboCop. It's was iconic and nicely directed. That's what make the movie so successful. Little budget but an amazing driving force behind it. During the shooting of RoboCop, Murphy's death was completely re-imagined but it seemed to me be very straightforward: Murphy and Jack are ambushed in a restaurant and a small army of goons fire at them. Murphy is likely injured and pronounced dead later. They have to review the scene and makes it look gruesome. Murphy gets blown to pieces in the backalley of the restaurant for example. Anyway, try to make it look gruesome or more gruesome than the original if you can.

3 - One iteration of RoboCop is enough. And "amputate" that hand please.

Dear writers, Sofiane speaking here. Why are you making life way complicated while you could make it easier, if not super-easy. We don't need four upgrades of RoboCop as it was originally planned. One iteration is enough. Review your design. Don't try to rip it off from another superhero. Hire Rob Bottin to help you out. And for God sake, call a hack surgeon to amputate that human hand off Murphy please. 

4- Stop calling it RC 2000 damn!

In the viral ad, OmniCorp bills its next RoboCop project as RC2000. The writers must have their memory off or been hibernated for a long while. Wake up! We're no longer in the 90s gentlemen. Rename your pet project as "The New RoboCop" or "RoboCop 2K14" or something like that.

5- Name the main villain of the story.

The only piece of information I got on the internet about the story villain is Raymond Sellar. The Corporate CEO but he is analogous to Dick Jones in the original entry. So he is a supervillain. Not a villain. We don't know what's the name of the new Clarence Boddicker. So my advise is to Name the villain at the beginning of the story.

6- Re-enact some elements from the original. BUT DO NOT COPY and PASTE

Paul Verhoven once said in an interview that it's impossible to redo another movie on RoboCop. He is right. But if you are a writer with a "can do" reputation, you can re-do the movie with your own ideas and imagination. You can also re-enact some elements from the original story. But be-careful  when I say "re-enact", it does not mean, go pick up Ed Neumeier' script and updates it with elements from 2012 world.

For example, you can re-enact Murphy's death taking place in a Bedlam Institution for Criminally Demented. Or in a restaurant, Murphy going to help the waitress who is being held hostage and it turns out that waitress is an accomplice of the goons who ransacked the restaurant.

Try to make the reboot more successful than the original. After all The Dark Knight Rises was more successful then the original Batman (1989). 

7- Add some extra to give a panache to the storyline.

Add some extra background to the story like :

RoboCop takes place during a bilateral conflict (e.g. The Second Cold War or The Amazon War).

Add more Media Break into the story.

The end of RoboCop 2014 must conclude with cliffhanger as a way to open up for the sequel. (RoboCop : Corporate Wars)

8 - RoboCop drives a Police Cruiser. Not a Motorbike.

Yesterday I saw a still from RoboCop 2013 with Joel Kinnaman as RoboCop riding a bike. It reminds me that famous TV show of the 80 with that cop riding that super fast bike. It does not make sense. Bring the TurboCruiser and makes it a the sole mean of transport for our hero.

Conclusion :

That's all what have to say. Hope the writers will concentrate on the story. I have a feeling that RoboCop 2013, huh...2014 is going to be Summer 2013 2014 blockbuster. and if I have to reprise what Ed Neumeier just quoted : "Let us hope it works out well, [...] No one needs a bad RoboCop" 

[Easter Egg] : I'd appreciate if the studio would cast Leslie Rosenthal :)

The news came in like a sledgehammer. In the midst of shooting the next iteration of the part-man, part-machine all cop, Sony  pulled #RoboCop from the 2013 Release (I hear cheers out there) and postponed it for...well 2014.

Originally slated to open on August 9 next year, the new schedule points to February 7, 2014 and the movie will  likely be entitled RoboCop 2014. If Paul Thurrott would have broken that news, he'd use his phrase "You heard it here first". 

When the shooting started back in September, there were a divulge of negative reactions regarding the new suit donned by the actor Joel Kinnaman (who is best known for playing in ABC's drama The Killing). Many fans hated the suit which was simply an Iron-Man rip-off. On my side, I praised it. It looked slimmer and less cumbersome like the original one. But I have to point out the suit did not give the look and feel of a half-human half-machine at all. Instead it was just like they throw Joel in there and hid his face with a futuristic helmet akin to my childhood program Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Did I mention the guy who created the 2013 suit is the same one who did in Power Rangers' colorful suits?

Another culprit, was that exposed human hand of the actor Joel Kinnaman during the unveiling keynote at the fictional OmniCorp HQ. Fans did not like it too. ( I heard curses too).  However, I have stressed in my last blurb that the exposed hand was only temporary since in the screenplay, RoboCop would go thru four upgrades and the cyborg would likely "lose" (read: amputated) his hand in the process as he'd turn into a humanoid-like in the last upgrade.

There are also some rumors about script troubles.  For example, if you've seen the stills of the movie's shooting, the character of Ellen Murphy (portrayed by Abbie Cornish) was already aware that her lovely husband was turned into a robot as she and her son Jimmy were present during the unveiling or RoboCop and Murphy's character has his helmet removed so that everybody could see his face. In the original one, Murphy's identity was kept secret from the public relation. 

Recently, RoboCop's wheels is no longer a TurboCruiser but rather a motorbike. They should have kept a police patrol as his main mean of transport. 

Also, in the script, there was no hint about the Detroit's crimelord. We don't know who killed Murphy or whether Murphy was blown to pieces or just shot down like a bird. But giving PG-13, it most likely Murphy was just injured and his life was riding on a roll of a dice while on route on the ambulance. And the guys at OmniCorp turned  into the robot. In the uncut version of RoboCop 1987, despite being blown to pieces, and a bullet lodged into his head, Murphy's was still alive, his eyes flickering and he was breathing when doctors put a Foley in his mouth...Double Thumbs up to Ed Neumeier. 

And during the OmniCorp viral clip showcasing the products made by the conglomerate  RoboCop project was nicknamed : "RC2000". Huh! Come on guys, were are in 2012 and on the dawn of 2013. You could have called "The New RoboCop" or "RC2014" It would have sounded less idiotic. They should have fired the marketing team.

Beside that, there is a friction between the director José Padilha and the studio adds a fuel to the fire. I just hope he won't leave the project. He is so talented man. And in case it'd unfortunately happen, bring Ed Neumeier. He's the only one who can make the reboot successful. 

On the bright side, with RoboCop being pushed to 2014, it will give writers to think about the storyline and polish it. If I were the writer, I'd immediately jettison Jack Lewis, Murphy's male partner off the the story and bring back the lovely character of Ann Lewis. I'd re-cast Abbie Cornish to accomplish this task as a consequence.  The restaurant shooting is a great setting to stage Murphy's death but I'd opt for a Bedlam Institution for Criminally Demented during a heavy rainfall instead. It's darker than a brightly lit restaurant. In the recent video posted on YouTube, it looked like Murphy and his male partner were somehow ambushed by a gang of heavily armed men and likely the lead character was injured in the process. That's a great scenario, but the user who posted that video said : "sadly we had to call it a night'. It's likely he was unhappy for the restaurant shooting wrap-up.

And one last thing, I have to stress about. In the restaurant shooting, Joel Kinnaman was wearing a civilian outfit and not a police uniform like Peter Weller. This suggests he was either off-duty or he is acting as a homicide detective. Since the restaurant was surrounded with police yellow duct tape with the familiar "CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS".

Anyway, we have to wait and see how José Padilha will wrap-up his movie. Until then, stay tuned. 

Lately, there was a buzz around the upcoming RoboCop 2013 and sadly that buzz was mostly around the negative reactions around the movie. In my opinion, come on guys, the movie is not yet released and you look so pessimistic. One advice, we've to wait and see. Give the director José Padilha a chance. After all he directed the much acclaimed Elite Squad.

Anyway among the negative reactions is that annoying human hand that RoboCop (played by Joel Kinnaman)  showed during his unveiling in the OmniCorp Headquarter. Well, I have to point out that I'm also a big fan of RoboCop. I've followed the entire series as well as its related merchandises (which includes comic books and movie tie-in) and according to the original screenplay of RoboCop 2013, which fell on a hand of a journalist, the cyborg created by the brilliant Norton will go thru four iterations. The human hand we see during the unveiling is the first iteration of RoboCop (a.k.a RoboCop 1.0). As the movie goes on, the scientists will likely update the design and "lose" (read: cut off) that human hand that annoys virtually everybody around the net. By the page 57 of the script, RoboCop will sport a Transformer-like humanoid features. (a.k.a RoboCop 4.0).

It looks promising.