How The RoboCop Movies Changed

Robocop as a series consists of three films made from 1987 to 1993, and a remake from 2014. It’s tone and intended audience changed, sometimes radically, between movies and especially between the original series and the remake. Here, I’m looking at how and why.

Robocop, broadly, is about a policeman who gets gunned down by villains and rebuilt as a cyborg by an amoral corporation. OCP are, really, the driving antagonists of all four films, utilising Robocop as the PR pre-game to taking valuable defence and security contracts that will make their corporation king.

All four outings feature Alex Murphy, aka Robocop, dealing with life being not quite the man he once was, but also an incredible force of justice, and the thematic backbone of the series is the juxtaposition of man and machine together. Murphy is limited by directives and by direct control, but Robocop, you might argue, is limited by Murphy.

Films Mentioned:
Robocop (1987), Robocop 2 (1990), Robocop 3 (1993), Starship Troopers (1997), Robocop (2014).


Patreon:   / georgrockallschmidt