Robocop (2014 version remake)

Divide by Zero

The Living Force
I didn't expect Robocop to have anything interesting, but as a kid I liked the original movies and my friends and I decided to see it.

I'm not sure its really a spoiler, just small details that stood out that were pertinent to the current world situation and psychology.




spoiler alert- if you haven't seen the original movies:
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The beginning of the movie shows an eerie scene where Iran is occupied and a news crew is showing how great the drones and robots are doing in keeping piece. Wow, Iran, really?

Everyone that is part of the "good guys" is called an asset, and they wear these special bracelets that the robots pick up as an object to protect and not attack.
It ends up in a big firefight, because the "terrorists" want to show the media that it is not all peaceful. Nothing special about this narrative, just perpetuating the bull.


The original Robocop story starts with a Police officer who gets almost killed, but they save his brain to put into a robot, and he controls it. The original stories needed the brain to operate the equipment, as AI was a bit stupid (ED 209 robot drone) and nothing like a great human mind can judge properly. With programmed directives, Robocop and other robots ideally would be safe in humanity.

In this remake, they had to use a human brain in order to convince the people of the USA that drones are safe in their neighborhoods to fight against crime. It would humanize these killing machines.

After the officer Alex Murphy was almost killed, they chose to use his brain in order to modify a humanoid robot drone in order to be part of a pilot program for law enforcement which can bring in tons of money for the OCP corporation which makes these drones.
During the development, they compared robocop to a full fledged drone. The drone was much quicker at deciding what to shoot or not to shoot, and had high efficiency. Robocop had doubts and fears especially in a hostage situation, which dissapointed the scientist in charge of the program.

He chose to fix the program by doing a psychological trick. He let the AI of the robot suit do all of the deciding and shooting BUT programmed it to make Alex Murphy's brain feel like he was deciding this.

That was an interesting point, very similar to what we do to ourselves... we let our mechanical mind confirm what it decides. The subconscious calculator that can process 11 million pieces of data per second fools the conscious that can only process 40 per second (according to the book Brain Changer by David DiSalvo).

So for a while Robocop was a human who was basically riding in a machine, drugged up with his consciousness being tricked in order to think he is in control. The public loved it and it was going well- until....

Robocop, being programmed to scan all of the video cameras (tons and tons of cameras- even on private houses- another thing happening today!), sees his own "murder" and tries to solve it. But, emotions start to surface and it starts causing him to question things and push back from the pre-programming his brain was getting from the AI in his body. That big shock was the shock to make him change.

The ending is typical, just like the past robocops, dealing with him being blocked from being able to arrest those executive psychopath criminals due to technological restraints- the asset bracelet (the original used directives that would shut him down when close to being violated).

The main scientist testified against the corporation and their nefarious deeds.

Nothing in the end mentioned the big problem, that Alex Murphy really never regained full control of his "body" (the robot parts and AI programming). That was a dissapointment to me.

But with those main points that eek out some truth of our current and future situation and a bunch of nostalgia, and much less violence than the original movies, I enjoyed it.
 
I didn't like the suit, since it was all black. They didn't really stick to the original and the robots looked like unrealistic cgi, but I didn't watch the movie. Thanks for reminding me about this I actually forgot about the remake since it didn't get much attention. I'm thinking about watching it now.
 
I really hated this movie, and the scene were they remove his "suit" and show the guy what's left of his body in a mirror (basically nothing) was horrific. I regret having seen that. To each his own I guess.
 
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