Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law

May 20, 2012 12:01 PM

“I say God bless ‘em, man, go make another ‘RoboCop.’ … I don’t know, you can throw a lot of CGI at it and so forth. The morality that’s endemic to the movie that you just watched is hard to replicate. It makes you laugh and cry and moves you, and it’s hysterical and horrible and all those unbelievable things at once.” - Former cyborg and Italian Italian Renaissance Scholar Peter Weller talks to the Hero Complex Film Festival about the Robocop Remake and other things in the run-up to the films 25th anniversary.
posted by Artw (91 comments total)

Dear god, look at Peter Weller in those photos. We will truly never have another Buckaroo Banzai film.

(n.b. I live in a fantasy world where it's still 1984 all day, every day.)
posted by Suddenly, elf ass at 12:12 PM on May 20, 2012 [24 favorites]

Peter Weller (as Buckaroo Banzai) was the ONLY celebrity I ever wrote to requesting an autographed photo, which arrived within a week. I still have it here right above my desk. What a great guy.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 12:34 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

We will truly never have another Buckaroo Banzai film.

I'm more upset about how unlikely it looks now that we'll ever see "Naked Lunch II".
posted by Alonzo T. Calm at 12:40 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

Sadly, there isn't a single film out there that some cynical philistine of a movie executive doesn't think warrants a remake.
"The Third Man"? Yeah, I see some box office potential there if we can shoehorn in Eddie Murphy and Gerard Butler and a sub-plot involving the 2013 Ford Mustang and a minor supporting character who constantly munches Frito-Lay products and extols their salty virtues.

"Robocop" will get remade, of course, and we will all groan and bellyache about the decision to cast Ashton Kutcher in the main role and the scads of CGI throughout the film and then we'll shell out 12 bucks to see it, and our children will brutally mock us for preferring the old, stilted stop-motion Ed 209 and the old, stilted stop-motion Nancy Allen.
posted by Alonzo T. Calm at 12:57 PM on May 20, 2012 [8 favorites]

The same guy has written the screenplays to the Robocop remake, the Total Recall remake and the Spiderman reboot/remake. I assume that the pay is good.
posted by octothorpe at 12:58 PM on May 20, 2012

Damn, how Italian was that Renaissance?
posted by LogicalDash at 12:58 PM on May 20, 2012 [10 favorites]

I think that Green Acres and Let's Make A Deal are among the few successful TV shows that haven't been TheMotionPicture-ized. Let's do them first.
posted by jonmc at 1:02 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

Robocop Focus - No Babies, For a Dollar, Home, Downgrade

There's even more stuff on the same youtube channel... but, warning! my induce 'oh god, it was sooo horrible, I'd forgotten!' flashbacks with stuff from Robocop 3 and television series
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:06 PM on May 20, 2012 [5 favorites]

Dear god, look at Peter Weller in those photos. We will truly never have another Buckaroo Banzai film.

He's too busy living out the character:

[H]e also holds a master’s degree in Italian Renaissance art history, is self taught on the history of late Republican-early Empire Ancient Rome, developed and teaches a course, ‘Hollywood and the Roman Empire’ at Syracuse University, and conducts field trips for Syracuse University in Florence. Weller is currently finishing a Ph.D. at UCLA, in the history of fifteenth-century Venetian art, with a minor in Ancient Greek and Roman art. All of this while playing jazz trumpet in a bebop sextet in Los Angeles.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:07 PM on May 20, 2012 [47 favorites]

I don’t care what you do with Robocop, I barely remember it, but if anyone messes with Green Acres I will go rogue.
posted by bongo_x at 1:08 PM on May 20, 2012

I went to see Robocop on a first date with a girl when we were both 15 and we went on to have a 25-year on-off love affair of fantastic intensity.
posted by colie at 1:16 PM on May 20, 2012 [8 favorites]

RoboCop - Re-dubbed for TV

It's more than slightly depressing when even back in the 80s, which at the time were complained about for being dumbed down, one of the big sf films could be so adult - and not just swearing/blood/tits adult but plot/subtext adult. I'm The Avengers, it's a fucking kids film.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:19 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Robocop Focus - No Babies, For a Dollar, Home, Downgrade

From the sidebar to that - Lady Battle Cop
posted by Artw at 1:23 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

If these guys think that they can replace Peter Weller, they're cracking walnuts up their ass.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:44 PM on May 20, 2012

Have you seen the output of Hollywood over the last half of forever? They're so far beyond cracking those walnuts, that they're worrying the DeBeers people.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 2:01 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

Just everybody watch -- they'll remake RoboCop and put Colin Farrell in the title role...

Just like Total Recall.
posted by vhsiv at 2:04 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

So they remake RoboCop. Oh dear. Do they then force us to go see it?
posted by Brocktoon at 2:05 PM on May 20, 2012 [5 favorites]

These threads really mess with my vanity searching.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:08 PM on May 20, 2012 [21 favorites]

He's also categorically stated that The Jam will never reform.
posted by panboi at 2:11 PM on May 20, 2012 [6 favorites]

vhsiv: "Just everybody watch -- they'll remake RoboCop and put Colin Farrell in the title role..."

Looks like RoboCop will be this guy.
posted by octothorpe at 2:11 PM on May 20, 2012

So they remake RoboCop. Oh dear. Do they then force us to go see it?

You just don't get it, do you?
posted by codswallop at 2:11 PM on May 20, 2012

Talking about remaking Robocop (my favorite movie of all time) gives me a big case of the hates. Are people that terrified of new ideas?
posted by Kitty Stardust at 2:15 PM on May 20, 2012

If these Verhoeven remakes take off, can a new Showgirls be far behind?

_{starring Snooki as Nomi Malone and Jedward splitting the Kyle MacLachlan role}
posted by delfin at 2:17 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

That's funny what Weller says about Italians getting so much done and talking through everything while getting so much done.

I had a mini-epiphany onto my ethnicity there, and where I've gone wrong, in that perhaps, even though I was born over there, I don't talk enough and I don't gesticulate with my hands enough having tried like crazy to fit in with this puritanical and stoic, mute American culture that does not truly know what the really fantastic making of love should actually be, or what craftsmanship is, or how to watch the light of the day evoke-ah so many sensations and-a thoughts!! Mamma mia, but it issa so difficulto to a type--a, WHILE A MAKING SO MANY HAND A MOTIONS!!

Okay?

Okay.
posted by Skygazer at 2:19 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

Well, the hand motions are for throwing fireballs and climbing vines.
posted by curious nu at 2:24 PM on May 20, 2012 [7 favorites]

(It says something about my demo that I immediately associate ridiculous Italian accents with a New York City-by-way-of-Tokyo plumber than with regular ol' stereotyping)
posted by curious nu at 2:29 PM on May 20, 2012

We will truly never have another Buckaroo Banzai film.

You know, I was thinking about this the other day, and I think there's some potential in another one (though not a remake, lord) directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Robert Downey Jr. It wouldn't be the same kind of thing as the first one, but man, nothing ever will be.
posted by adamdschneider at 2:38 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I'm just having some fun with it. Weller's conceptions of Italians are actually flattering, but I wonder what does happen if you come from such an expressive culture and you grow up in a more temperate and sedate Northern European influenced culture. For one it would have to assume that the traits of a culture weren't simply environmental, but hardwired in the mind somehow as well over centuries and millennia of cultural imprinting on the biology...it's almost as if...well, what would happen to an Italians who's mind was in a machine-like body??? It would be like....like...a...

ROBO-WOP.


Holy crap. That would make a great re-make of ROBO-COP!

I think I found my new sockpuppet handle. Ding!
posted by Skygazer at 2:41 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

ROBO-WOP.

Go ahead, creep - y'know who da fuck I am?
posted by codswallop at 2:46 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh god, I forgot that once upon an awards show, this happened.
posted by Catblack at 2:50 PM on May 20, 2012 [6 favorites]

You know it's got to happen and I hear Gandolfini is available...it could be a whole new reboot to The Sopranos.
posted by Skygazer at 2:51 PM on May 20, 2012

I would totally buy The RoboSopranos for a dollar!
posted by Catblack at 2:53 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

I was too young to get it. When, at the end of all of the repeat Saturday afternoon on FOX showings of Buckaroo Banzai (seriously, it must have been on a dozen times when I was young), I saw the promo for Buckaroo Banzai against The World Crime League, and I believed it was really going to happened. It took years for me to get the joke. The cruel joke at the expense of childlike wonder and hope. God, I love that movie, but I still remember the pain of that realization, that embarrassment at having been so naive.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:56 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Robocop is doing a Ph.D? First Shaq, now this.
posted by Beardman at 2:57 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, no one will dare to mess with Dr. Robocop, P.h.D. in Asskicking, M.S. in Nametaking.
posted by Chekhovian at 3:01 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

The same guy has written the screenplays to the Robocop remake, the Total Recall remake and the Spiderman reboot/remake.

He wrote Zodiac (yay!), but also wrote Darkness Falls (boo!)?
posted by Mister Moofoo at 3:03 PM on May 20, 2012

ROBO-WOP.

1: Serve the public trust
2: Protect the innocent
3: Fugetaboutit
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:15 PM on May 20, 2012 [10 favorites]

"Sting was caged by the Horsemen, but here comes RoboCop, Bob!"
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:19 PM on May 20, 2012 [5 favorites]

Remaking the movie sounds like a big mistake to me, but remaking the video game could be genius if done correctly: i.e. a la RoboQWOP.
posted by isopraxis at 3:29 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

No. Just no. You can't do this to me. The Robocop movies were filmed in front of my house. There were times I couldn't drive the last blocks to my loft because they were about to set off explosives. I was Frank Miller's computer tech, I lived right next door to him. He wrote Robocop 2 with me as the central plot device of Act I. I have a first draft of R2 and the first scene, Robocop is sent in to get me. Seriously. That film finally got made as Robocop 3. Everyone hates R3 but when you look at it as a re-enactment of WWII, it makes more sense.

No, you just can't do this. There is something perfect about the mythos that should not be messed with. I've worked in State jobs where I used Robocop's Prime Directives to interpret my oath of office.

Oh hey speaking of which, I am also a big fan of Robocop: Prime Directives, which is about as far as you can stretch this mythos without breaking it. It's Robocop vs. Black Robocop. That is the end of the Canon. Period.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:32 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

Come now, we can't talk about Italian Renaissance Scholar Peter Weller without showing some of the greatest works.
posted by Muddler at 3:35 PM on May 20, 2012

Oh.. to clarify.. I mean you can't remake Robocop. Of course you should have Weller reminiscing about his great work. I didn't know he was a professor of the Classics. It figures.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:36 PM on May 20, 2012

ROBO-WOP

Laugh while you can, monkey boy.
posted by Trurl at 3:59 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

Laugh while you can, monkey boy.


I don't think I like-a your tone...You will hand over your VIG, kiss my ring and order me a pizza in....


5....4.....3...2....
posted by Skygazer at 4:24 PM on May 20, 2012

I hear Oklahoma and My Fair Lady are ripe for remakes. Go make those.

I would buy a mash-up of Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, and Robocop for a dollar, that is for sure. Don't laugh, it could be the story of how love blossoms between the cybernetics expert and the mutilated cop as the former rebuilds the later, while also teaching him proper elocution and square dancing.

Of course, I also want to see a film of a love triangle featuring Peter Weller, Christopher Walken, and Lance Henriksen. Is that so wrong of me?
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:27 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes. It is a love square. You forgot Willem Dafoe. For shame!
posted by likeso at 4:34 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

"The Third Man"? Yeah, I see some box office potential there

Holly Martin (Denzel Washington), a second string journalist for a fading newsmagazine, reluctantly returns to his hometown of New Orleans in the months immediately after Hurricane Katrina. He finds the city divided amongst FEMA, the NOPD, the National Guard, and the legions of well-intentioned but ineffective recovery groups. Navigating the new geography of the city is tricky at best, but he soon meets Anna (Eva Mendes), the former girlfriend of his recently deceased childhood best friend Harry Lime.

However, Holly soon discovers that Harry Lime is still alive...and behind a massive scheme to sell tainted medicine to the Red Cross. Lime (Will Smith, reprising his charismatic and magnetic Six Degrees Of Separation performance) invites Holly to "take a ride with him". Told to wait in an empty lot that's only recently been cleared of debris, Holly is shocked to be picked up by Lime and his pilot in one of the helicopters his old friend uses to make his illegal shipments. 

During the helicopter tour of the destroyed city, Lime subtly threatens Holly, then points out all the off-duty aid workers whooping and drinking on Bourbon Street. "How many would you let die, Holly, if it meant you never again had to bust your ass for days researching a story, only to have a bigger name get the byline?"

Meanwhile, Anna has been arrested on exaggerated charges by the NOPD, who--having been denied arresting Lime by his "death"--are saving face by rounding up his known associates. Worse, they discover that Anna is an undocumented resident...she'll soon be handed over to the INS and sent back to the country she left in grade school. Holly tells the police that Lime is still alive, and he'll deliver him in exchange for Anna's freedom.

The NOPD agrees, and the sting goes as planned until an injured and cornered Lime kills an NOPD officer, escaping into the abandoned Charity Hospital. Holly chases him, and eventually they end up on the roof of the hospital, with Lime chaining the door shut behind them to buy himself some time. Holly pleads with Lime to turn himself in, but his old friend just chuckles, scanning the horizon. Soon Holly sees what Lime has been looking for: his helicopter heading towards the helipad on top of the hospital.

After a moment of indecision, Holly tackles Lime and prevents him from getting to the helicopter. The pilot, seeing all the police surrounding the hospital, waits and long as he can before taking off again. Lime gets the upper hand, but the pilot, still taking off, doesn't see. Harry Lime climbs up on the side of the roof ledge to wave frantically at him...and is shot by the NOPD officers on the ground. He dies staring up into the deep blue sky of a Louisiana autumn, his hand stretched out weakly towards the disappearing helicopter.

A couple days later, Holly has been called back to the New York offices of his newsmagazine. He's being replaced on the story by a bigger name journalist. He attends the second funeral of his friend Harry Lime. After the sparsely attended service, he waits by the gate of the ancient aboveground cemetery for Anna to pass by. The NOPD has rescinded their offer after the death of their officer, but Holly wants to tell Anna that he'll help her fight her deportation. He has friends, and favors he can call in, and a small retirement fund he can use...but she walks by him without even a glance, getting into the back of a waiting INS vehicle as the movie ends.
posted by Ian A.T. at 4:39 PM on May 20, 2012 [14 favorites]

Flight of the Navigator was originally supposed to be about me! Stupid Hollywood.
posted by chronkite at 4:40 PM on May 20, 2012

I just realised 'I'll buy that for a dollar' is an eerily precognitive view of iTunes.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:42 PM on May 20, 2012 [4 favorites]

I think it would be a fantastic idea if we taped certain people's eyes open and forced them to watch the original Robocop.

I was 6 when Robocop was released. I remember my parents going to see it on opening night. I wanted to go, but they wouldn't let me. (and now I understand why) However, not long after it was released on VHS my dad rented it for me. It was freakin' awesome. Obviously I didn't really get much of the subtext until much later, but I like to think that it helped me avoid being stuck in the mold of the ultraconservative area I grew up in.

Somehow I have managed not to become an axe murderer or anything from seeing all the violence. I did, however, learn to ignore the FBI warnings at a tender age, because I liked Robocop enough to pester my dad into taking me and the VCR from home to his office, where he had another, so that I could copy it.

I doubt a remake will be as engaging and prescient as the original, but I don't think it takes anything away from it, either.
posted by wierdo at 4:44 PM on May 20, 2012

a love triangle featuring Peter Weller, Christopher Walken, and Lance Henriksen

The Yaoi discussion is back a couple threads.
posted by Chekhovian at 4:46 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

Somehow I have managed not to become an axe murderer or anything from seeing all the violence.

I never quite understood why people associated film violence like Robocop with real life violence. R2 became a lightning rod for criticism of violence in film. I remember some critic counted deaths on screen in various films and there were something like 600 in R2. But I always thought that the random slaughter of innocents in the film was part of the moral lesson. It's the impersonal corporate forces that cause the slaughter and the human element that stands against it.

Now compare that to the Robocop TV series, which used only non-lethal weapons (and not very many of those). It felt like the scenes in the movie where Robocop is reprogrammed to be nice and he becomes a corporate tool. The TV series seemed like a parody of the moral lessons of the movies.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:04 PM on May 20, 2012

Somehow I expect that the new Robocop movie will be PG-13, have no nudity and they'll tone down the violence. Chances are they'll totally neuter the social/political satire and and all of the grim humor and do it as a straight ahead action flick. Also gritty.
posted by octothorpe at 5:31 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

Wasn't Darren Aronofsky going to direct a RoboCop remake for a while? Is he still attached?
I remember reading something about his take on the premise being different, but I don't recall any specifics.
The image I have in my head of an Aronofsky RoboCop is sort of like a cross between THX-1138 and Taxi Driver, but with more robots.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 5:41 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

Oh and so obviously it would have all the violence, nudity, drugs, smoking, swearing, and all those other things that are bad for you in it, and there'd be a big fight over the content, and it'd be the biggest-selling NC-17 movie of all time.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 5:43 PM on May 20, 2012

I would buy a mash-up of Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, and Robocop for a dollar, that is for sure.

My Fair Okiecop?
posted by Kevin Street at 5:44 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

As a huge fan of the original Robocop and a resident of Dallas when it was being shot, it does have a special place in my heart, and a remake should only be done with care. With that said, José Padilha, the guy who is supposed to be directing it, is responsible for some seriously fucked up shit in his own right. That includes THE all-time #1 box office success in Brazil. This could be interesting.
posted by jake1 at 5:50 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

octothorpe, I don't recall that much nudity in the films. But the sex and violence is pretty integral to the social/political satire.

I had a friend who was about to audition for Robocop 1, that was the first I ever heard of it. She showed me the script and asked me to help her decide on her wardrobe. She couldn't decide whether to audition for the hooker role or the corporate officer role. I told her do them both at the same time, do the slutty corporate whore look, that seemed to be the whole theme of the script. That blouse you set aside is a little too see-through and has too much cleavage, but would still work under the dress jacket. And the matching skirt is a little too short, make it a little shorter. She got the role as one of the two hookers doing coke with Bob right before Clarence Boddicker kills him. It was a way better role than the faceless corporate nobodies.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:56 PM on May 20, 2012 [9 favorites]

Hello, Roby
posted by zippy at 6:07 PM on May 20, 2012

She got the role as one of the two hookers doing coke with Bob right before Clarence Boddicker kills him. It was a way better role than the faceless corporate nobodies.

Absolutely. The corporate nobodies didn't get told to leave.
posted by adamdschneider at 6:12 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

Robocop Rap
posted by saucysault at 6:25 PM on May 20, 2012

Sadly, the subtitles failed Robocop in the scene with the coke hookers. 女行け！(Literally, Woman, go!) just doesn't capture the feeling of the line.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:31 PM on May 20, 2012

"Nice shooting, son. What's your name?"
"Murphy."

Doesn't that have to be right up there with any great ending of any movie?
posted by Trochanter at 6:41 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

Robocop 2 was a travesty... except for the sequence of the Robocop prototype.
posted by infinitewindow at 6:53 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

I would buy a mash-up of Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, and Robocop for a dollar, that is for sure.

My Fair Okiecop?

I bet the lead song would be "The Furry with a Syringe on Top".
posted by jenkinsEar at 7:01 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

jake1: "With that said, José Padilha, the guy who is supposed to be directing it, is responsible for some seriously fucked up shit yt in his own right. That includes THE yt all-time #1 box office success in Brazil. This could be interesting."

"Elite Squad" was pretty horrible. I mean, it was competently made, but it's basically a piece of straight-up fascist propaganda, complete with naïve, well-meaning academics who oppose the police shock troops just gunning down the horrible criminals. I felt downright dirty after watching it. So, this guy doing RoboCop could be a very, very bad idea.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:11 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

straight-up fascist propaganda

The next Michael Bay!
posted by Artw at 7:15 PM on May 20, 2012

fearfulsymmetry: "Robocop Focus - No Babies , For a Dollar , Home , Downgrade

There's even more stuff on the same youtube channel... but, warning! my induce 'oh god, it was sooo horrible, I'd forgotten!' flashbacks with stuff from Robocop 3 and television series"

Christ. You alternate dimension travellers are pissing me off.

First one of you says there was a good Hulk movie that was NOT the one with Edward Norton. Now you are saying there was a Robocop 3.

Look, if y'all are going to invade, at least get your basics right. Next thing, I know, y'all will be saying there was a sequel to Highlander.
posted by Samizdata at 7:16 PM on May 20, 2012

Peter Weller Ph.D. is great. If I was in his position, I would love to be able to be able to afford to spend my time gettiing a PhD in something I was interested in. Anyone have experience in the UCLA Italian Renaissance Art History program?
posted by porpoise at 7:18 PM on May 20, 2012

Hollywood is to film as Clear Channel is to radio.
posted by newdaddy at 7:21 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

Peter Weller does a longform interview on Kevin Pollack's Chat show. He doesn't look as bad as he did in the fpp pic. He's a smart, likeable guy, that's for sure.
posted by Trochanter at 7:25 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

talks to the Hero Complex Film Festival about the Robocop Remake

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?
posted by thewalrus at 7:25 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm still amazed when I see people complaining about Verhoeven's Starship Troopers. Yes, it's very different from the book, but that's not the point. They can't recognize satire when it's mercilessly beating them over the head? Doogie Howser in a Nazi stormtrooper uniform? What more do you need?
posted by thewalrus at 7:27 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Doogie Howser in a Nazi stormtrooper uniform? What more do you need?

They should have done what they did with the US remake of The Office, where the characters glance at the cameras every ten seconds and wink, just to make sure we get it.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:35 PM on May 20, 2012

Robocop 2 was a travesty...

You know that Frank Miller lost control of R2 and took his name off the script, right? They hired him back for R3 and he just did the original R2 story. The background for R2 was a real estate development war between Little Tokyo and the Loft District in downtown LA where Frank and I lived right next to each other. The center of the real estate development battle was my loft building. It was purchased by Japanese investors and I got into a long legal battle to stop them from evicting me. That's the theme of R2. Kanemitsu Corp. wants to take over Old Detroit, kick out the people and redevelop it as New Delta City, the residents fight back.

The original draft of R2 starts with Robocop being sent into an squat to evict the starving artists, he refuses because it doesn't serve the public trust or protect the innocent. The character that's supposed to be me gets killed at the end of Act I. He says to his wife that the Rehabs will never kick them out of their home. The camera pulls back and you see a paper labeled "Eviction" burning in an ashtray, then suddenly a wrecking ball comes smashing through the wall and kills him.

Anyway, the story line of Kanemitsu's corporate expansion is also a metaphor for Japanese aggression in WWII which becomes more obvious when you see the ending. Frank always was a conservative with a streak of racism against the Japanese and his film was a way to humiliate them by fighting WWII all over again.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:43 PM on May 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

Kevin Street: "My Fair Okiecop?"

We have those. They take the form of Murphy, but have the temperament of ED-209.
posted by wierdo at 7:45 PM on May 20, 2012

Doogie Howser in a Nazi stormtrooper uniform? What more do you need?

Ilsa, She-Wolf of the Mobile Infantry?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:05 PM on May 20, 2012

I'm pretty sure the "I'd buy that for a dollar" line is based on the "Would you buy it for a quarter?" punchline in C M Kornbluth's story The Marching Morons, but the video implies that they just did it "because".
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:24 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

All of this while playing jazz trumpet in a bebop sextet in Los Angeles.

[MUSIC STOPS ABRUPTLY]

Is someone out there crying in the darkness?
posted by uosuaq at 8:33 PM on May 20, 2012 [4 favorites]

I always figured it was a cornet, but I guess it was a "pocket trumpet".
posted by adamdschneider at 9:18 PM on May 20, 2012

I figured he was just pleased to see me.
posted by CardinalRichelieuHandPuppet at 10:07 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

OMG, STARSHIP TROOPERS IS SATIRE?!
posted by Rocket Surgeon at 11:22 PM on May 20, 2012

Frank always was a conservative with a streak of racism against the Japanese

That's interesting, given how much Miller made his bones as a cartoonist by adopting elements of manga in superhero comics (and even did covers for First Comics' reprints of Lone Wolf and Cub). Did he just draw this mental line in his mind between the cultural Japan that influenced him (and that he paid tribute to in Ronin, in which the central character literally turns Japanese) and the economic power that seemed to be taking over America in the eighties?
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:43 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is the probably the only thread I'll get a chance to talk about how the other day I walked into the office and there was a watermelon sitting on the counter with no one around, and I was sad there was no one to whom I could pose the immortal question and expect to receive the traditional response.
posted by adamdschneider at 7:37 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

"Elite Squad" was pretty horrible. I mean, it was competently made, but it's basically a piece of straight-up fascist propaganda, complete with naïve, well-meaning academics who oppose the police shock troops just gunning down the horrible criminals. I felt downright dirty after watching it. So, this guy doing RoboCop could be a very, very bad idea.

I think you should watch it again and give it a little more benefit of the doubt. It's about how broken and immovable the system is, much like The Wire; his first film was a documentary about how the cruelty of the Sao Paolo police led to a very tragic public fuckup. Here's an article about the Robocop remake and people misunderstanding Elite Squad.

Weller is of course correct, the depiction of morality in entertainment has changed with the times, so it's going to be a different film no matter what. But I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have directing.
posted by heatvision at 8:39 AM on May 21, 2012

I hear Oklahoma and My Fair Lady are ripe for remakes. Go make those.

I can totally see Verhoeven directing a remake of 'Carousel', which is a fairly twisted story in its own way.
posted by ovvl at 11:31 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

heatvision: "I think you should watch it again and give it a little more benefit of the doubt. It's about how broken and immovable the system is, much like The Wire; his first film was a documentary about how the cruelty of the Sao Paolo police led to a very tragic public fuckup."

I'm sorry, but the whole movie is full of voiceovers from the protagonist explaining how their training "weeds out weakness and corruption", how elite they are, how you can't argue with the scum, you just have to kill them, etc., and the big finale has a police recruit who used to be a softy liberal academic growing a pair and hunting down the drug dealer who killed his partner. When the drug dealer is laying hurt on a rooftop and pleading for his life, the newly-macho cop chooses to shoot him in the head wit a shotgun instead of arresting him.

I recognize that it's about how broken the system is, but it also very clearly advocates fascism and vigilante justice as the only functional solution.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:47 AM on May 21, 2012

I can totally see Verhoeven directing a remake of 'Carousel', which is a fairly twisted story in its own way.

You've seen Black Book? I see that as his take on The Secret Diary of Anne Frank. It has way more Nazi killing.
posted by Artw at 11:58 AM on May 21, 2012

Mister MooFoo: The image I have in my head of an Aronofsky RoboCop is sort of like a cross between THX-1138 and Taxi Driver, but with more robots.

I don't think you're too far off on that MM. I also think that if Aronofsky channeled Hubert Selby (i.e., Requiem for a Dream, Last Exit in Brooklyn) for the storyline, I would need major major amounts of self-medication, and multiple calls to a suicide hotline to get through...
posted by Skygazer at 12:08 PM on May 21, 2012

Peter Weller to voice Batman in The Dark Knight Returns
posted by Artw at 7:02 AM on May 23, 2012

That's interesting, given how much Miller made his bones as a cartoonist by adopting elements of manga in superhero comics (and even did covers for First Comics' reprints of Lone Wolf and Cub). Did he just draw this mental line in his mind between the cultural Japan that influenced him (and that he paid tribute to in Ronin, in which the central character literally turns Japanese) and the economic power that seemed to be taking over America in the eighties?

That's an interesting question, since Downtown LA was the focus of that Japanese economic power. That was "the Bubble era" since the Yen was just killing the Dollar and the Japanese were buying everything they could get their hands on. I had computer clients like Mitsubishi Bank that had a whole floor full of bankers buying 747 aircraft. I remember the Bradley administration tore down the last residential area near downtown, Bunker Hill, and redeveloped it into skyscrapers, under pressure from Japanese developers with too much money. When the bubble popped, they had to sell it all for 10 cents on the dollar (or is that 10 Sen on the Yen?).

The Bubble was the background for R3, there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment at that time. I'm not quite sure how Miller felt about it, I figure he connected a lot of the weirdness of their subcultures with the economic boom somehow. But I never thought about it too much. I'm not sure how much he really knew. I don't think he knew Japanese, so he probably got some distorted ideas from the visuals. I used to see him reading manga at Kinokuniya bookstore in Little Tokyo, when I would stop in to buy magazines (I'm not into manga). I think he just liked violent, fucked up shit and manga was an endless source of it.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:18 AM on May 23, 2012 [2 favorites]