RoboCop (RoboCop) USA 1987 Director: Paul Verhoeven, writer Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, Camera: Sol Negrin, Jost Vacano, music by Basil Poledouris, Editor: Frank J. Urioste , Actor: Peter Weller (Alex Murphy / RoboCop), Nancy Allen (Anne Lewis), Dan O'Herlihy (The Old Man / The Oldman), Ronny Cox (Dick Jones), Kurtwood Smith (Clarence Boddicker), Miguel Ferrer (Bob Morton)
Synopsis: not in Detroit too-distant future: the city is sinking into chaos and crime, the police force is overwhelmed. The powerful Group OCP is the solution of the problem in the installation of a police robot, but the wicked technical shortcomings. For a hastily installed alternative project them is the death of a policeman Murphy, who was shot at its first use in the new area, just in time: his memory is erased, he gets a machine body and is as indestructible law enforcement to maintain order in the city. But then the program is the "RoboCop" disturbed by flashbacks Murphys ...
The Outsider : In all its expressiveness, his bombastic soundtrack, his religiously charged images, his naive, brutal violence, his use of music, his acting leadership and Verhoeven his own Grand Guignol staging of ROBOCOP all the ingredients of an overloaded sci-fi violence Opera . This is exactly what it should also claims to be in the movie going through your mind be so they can ultimately be very happy that the government not to one of the many other candidates - is gone, and - including Jonathan Kaplan, David Cronenberg, Alex Cox The director has fully "his" film made. Verhoeven leads us into this world so suddenly, surrendering date ads or other introductory text or Off-commentators and instead presents us with the TV this time. Television acts like a Greek chorus in ancient times and filled with its horror stories from around the world, his macabre and cynical ads and the typical positive "bouncer message" the world of film for the recipient with complexity. Verhoeven is targeted messages to certain dramatic points, usually immediately after or even within highlights and requires the recipient from that, the world put together from individual components.
radio Hundd : Verhoeven is in Indeed, very cleverly before: the scattered scraps of news he saves a long exposure, at the same time he established with them not merely Handlungsort and time, but comments like this too. If the moderators read news of horrific disasters with a smile and then a commercial break on lead is very clear how it is with this world. And on the narrative level of the actual movie ROBOCOP is thanks to these snippets of the faster to the point. On the other hand, Verhoeven's strategy is not only one of the economy, because ROBOCOP is more complex by the many different integrated observer perspectives immensely: television commenting on the events of the story, acts in turn, Murphy / RoboCop as an observer and this is superior to the audience as a kind of other observers instance. Thus, the film viewer is then also a very dynamic process where you constantly have to change planes. This ultimately leads to the fact that observation and interpretation can hardly separated: Verhoeven makes its subtext to the surface feature of his film dealt him explicitly on the content level. One might say that Verhoeven's film embodies what RoboCop must reach in the course of action at all: the unity of mechanized human body and soul. RoboCop is the ally of the audience: his perception of the film is similar to the supervisor - His field of vision is a screen - and how the flow of the film for the audience is disturbed by the insertions, its internal program operation are negatively affected by the interference of Murphy's residual awareness. But in this disorder is also the scientific knowledge base.
A: Let's start at the beginning: Many fears of our time in ROBOCOP has become present reality. The crime records the cities under control, conflict situations in hot spots can also be taken place several times with nuclear weapons, Reagan's dream of a Strategic Defense Initiative has come true and let the corporations billion privatization state institutions are progressing. Capitalist structures have become a principle of life and undermined the society has any humanity. The multi-OCP, which the police want to hear about Detroit, there now take a large construction project, the luxurious city of the future Delta City, in attack, but the criminal conditions prevent this. The police is simply not the master of the situation and so OCP developed a plan to construct a non-human law enforcement. This alone is seen as strongly held in catchment areas has the technology, in which she has absolutely nothing to look. The protection of citizens should be entrusted to a machine, the ED-209-armed combat robots, by its purely mechanical "live" inside is the perfect agents for the route of the OCP Board. A cold, steely machine without disturbing emotions, but without the intelligence and improvisational creativity. Their dysfunctionality for a complex society like ours is right at the beginning at the presentation of the new invention made clear when one of the less important members of the board is shot by her. ROBOCOP is therefore in a different direction, as THE TERMINATOR does. man and machine standing in this yet clear and takes one from the other just enough that it can be compared to destroy effective ROBOCOP sees as an aid against the shattered circumstances to the synergism. 
FH: Exactly. The utopia that is the human machine in Verhoeven's film is connected, very clear in the slogan to express the OCP for its urban construction project has chosen: "The Future Has a Silver Lining" . This 'silver sheen' unquestionably corresponds with the exoskeleton of RoboCop. But up to the promised bright future, it is still a long way. The human remains at the core of the mechanical law enforcers must first fulfill its programming, claiming that it restricts massive. Whilst the RoboCop towards a significant improvement the ED-209 is, but his fitness seems to protect the right question: for arrests, he has little interest in the maintenance of law for which it stands, is no different than his failed predecessor synonymous with terror and deterrence. His victims, such as the supermarket robbers left, are injured after a hard day's work at the spot and order the arrest itself must take care of someone else. The cognitive processes that occur in the detection and assessment of potential crime situations seem to downright primitive: One wonders whether the RoboCop complex also grew at first only more problematic situations, or whether he such would not cause more damage than help. The problem is the programming and associated with their decision not to genuinely human "talents" such as empathy. So behind the RoboCop program in the course of the film more and more comes out their corrupt settings, the definition of "law" not on a system of morality, but solely based on selfish motives. The RoboCop turns out to be powerless if he wants to fix the "wrong". The directive comes into force 4, which prevents him categorically out to arrest members of the OCP Group, and introduces the idea of a machine, supposedly objective executive ad absurdum. Verhoeven criticized so of course the fateful intertwining of economic and legal system that is in the U.S. in the form of privatized prisons since the early 80's reality (and not just there: the first part Deutschalnd privatized prison was opened in 2005 in Hessen). But he does not stop there for a long time: In a further abstraction step, he is the belief in an inherently existing law in question. 
A: When asked to what extent the RoboCop is more suitable for police service than the ED-209 is basically the crux of the story. A humanus ex machina , which, in contrast to its purely mechanical "colleagues", Qualities such as creativity and spontaneity has to be reduced but by its design engineers through the programming to a minimum. This ensures that only the vestigial remnants left of the biological human being. The brain, more complex than any computer, just supplied by the nerves of the spine is taken as the starting point of a superior bio-technology that can actually understand in its entirety yet, but couples without hesitation to the latest achievements of cybernetics. Accordingly, one might then through the directives that form the legal driving the RoboCop, a separate, much simpler programming than the genetically determined plant. The individual personality is completely erased Murphy: "The rights to his body have been transferred to us. Officially, he's dead, "was the dry comment of an OCP board member, asks as the technical department, what to do with the rescued arm. You pack like the brain and spine in a tank that is similar in its clumsiness of a medieval knight armor so it is made clear already by the mere external appearance of RoboCop, how far the human or to hide in it. Yet this does not work long term. The inscrutability of the brain brings to light the memories Murphys and begins, as you know noted, looking to disrupt the programming. The assertion of the human is the message of hope, which comes in ROBOCOP more psychological than martial. Unlike in THE TERMINATOR is not about the fight on the outside, but inside. Furthermore, the simply designed first directives Serve the common good, 2 Protect the innocent third True, the law, not only simple, but of absolute inner logic. To allow good inferences on the fabric of society in which even the smallest differences can lead to standing on the side of criminals. The world ROBOCOP is divided into two basic camps: the guilty and innocent. One victim, but also a culprit can be in it are very fast, so many people trust at nightfall no longer on the road.
FH : Only so can prove to the reduction of complexity as RoboCop programmed so effective. The criminal practice is no longer in detention, but shoot wildly in the streets around - there is because of the police strike eh no one who could stop them. This over-subscription of real states are known from other films of the time, just think of those of us already discussed DEATH WISH 3 - THE AVENGER OF NEW YORK, STREET FIGHTERS and THE CITY-COBRA, but Verhoeven undermines the reactionary desires and law-and-order-fantasies of his audience consistently, by showing the larger social context. The Verbechen does not arise from nothing, is not an expression of evil reason, but is directly related to the bustle of politics and economy.
A: Interesting you mentioned in the reference films, I find that they contain, as well as ROBOCOP, all the element of repression. The great fear of society or the people in them, is that you can no longer walk the streets without being a victim. So it is pointed out that the regulation of society participating citizens in their homes and dwellings must remain. To lock in to shut out the horrors of the outer streets. This repression is a fundamental part of us so much discussed film decade or more precisely, the fear of the possibility of being able to out do not trust in his own little enclave within an insane world gone was like, illustrated on the one hand threatening conditions to document, to incite fear in the other recipients. But as you said already, a reactionary solution in ROBOCOP rise no more, because the company is itself already seen clearly in the macabre television program in an irreversible state of brutalization. However, is in Street Fighter or DEATH WISH III - THE AVENGER OF NEW YORK also discussed it clear that a reverse or transfer are not in the proper conduct in their cosmos can. Rather, they document the extension of the combat zone. STREET FIGHTERS especially through dialogue (think of the speeches of the character Fred Williamson), or further advanced by the cataclysmic urban warfare in the middle of New York in DEATH WISH III. 
FH : This "extension of the combat zone" can be found in ROBOCOP. Note just how the private room marginalized by Verhoeven, is so crowded almost from the imagery of the film. The Detroit of the Film consists of the skyscraper-glass palaces of the economy, a cut-throat inside urban area, reminiscent of American ghettos, and an industrial wasteland on the outskirts of the city that serves as a hideout for criminals. The streets are almost extinct, appear out of place a few passers-by and business owners, like the last incorrigible who refuse to see reality in the face and flee (not unlike the residents of DEATH WISH III). Even the police headquarters tells of a time past, seems rather old-fashioned and raises the legitimate question of how the fight against crime, won with such poor facilities at all should be. Twice only presents us Verhoeven a look into the private room: In the apartment Bob Morton's security, the cold, metallic style continued the OCP headquarters, hence it offers him no protection against the attack by Boddicker, walk into the can easy to kill him . (Even on the refuge within the OCP-building - the company's toilet -. There was Morton previously no privacy, announced his imminent end to already) And as RoboCop Murphy's memories driven seeks its a transparent house, he must move to a suburban idyll that the rest of the imagery of the film has little loyalty. By linking in with the memories of the present Murphy's view Robocops the contrast between the dreamy, idealized past and the bleak present more tangible (the scene together with Murphy's execution, in my opinion the emotional climax of the movie). The former Civil refuge, like the rest of Detroit's already doomed to decay. After the death of her husband, Murphy's wife has taken apparently fled to his heels, is a new tenant or buyer, it is not, the only "residents" of the house is a virtual real estate broker who preaches from a screen already sufficiently known medicinal promise of consumerism. The death has long since taken hold. A : fact illustrates the film is very convincing as far as the whole society of capitalist and criminal structures, which in his opinion, emblems on the same coin, was penetrated. The combat zone is no longer a quarter, but extended to the entire city. The accompanying television news suggest that there are now in all major cities in the U.S. looks the part. The losers are the citizens in this fight, and showed themselves to any of the extreme sides. If, in THE TERMINATOR to overturn all order, which mankind in ROBOCOP is in a social structure, it just makes more and more and now also in its chaos to order (references to the current financial crisis and the neo-capitalism here are probably obvious). A genre development, which reached ROBOCOP in the material world outside its peak and already Murphys crisis gives an outlook on the more identity-seeking figures of science and social fiction film of the 1990s.
FH: Yes, in so far as ROBOCOP reflected a clear break from the fatalistic anti heroes, as he met us in Carpenter's Escape from New York in the shape of the world and world-weary Snake Plissken. The figure of the robot with the human soul, which is fighting against the domination of the computer has long been not only an excellent image for all the internally destroyed, almost stoned soldiers and lone wolves like Rambo or Braddock, the drilled by an inhuman system to the bare functioning, were reduced to muscles and reflexes - without taking into consideration the psychological scars that this drill would leave no doubt. Verhoeven ROBOCOP also shows the way for the individual. The sky-blue eyes seem to Murphy's always something dreamy and full of hope in a more intangible future with confidence. This aloofness from the here and now it can fail as a human police: almost naive, he runs into the death trap the villains. But his vision of a better world can not destroy the attempted extermination of his humanity: Murphy fighting against the appropriation of through the apparatus until the machine obeys the man. No wonder he's the sight that covers its hopeful, dreamy look in his RoboCop-incarnation, the final point decrease, to see through their own human eyes. This adds Verhoeven also a wonderful moment of self-knowledge, the complete process of individuation robocops: He sees himself in a mirror offered by his partner, Anne, recognizes the unity of Murphy and RoboCop. This also described to you by In-the-future-into-designing, "Somehow, to continue" ROBOCOP embodied in its whole structure: in his sudden start, the sudden end and the onset with the anthemic score by Basil Poledouris, the less concludes, but rather opens. ROBOCOP actually deserved it, to have originated at the dawn of a new millennium. 
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