Thursday, June 18, 2009

It's too soon for a Robocop remake, but I'd watch this:

Thanks to the Youngest for 'Robot roll call!' Much as I love Robocop vs. Terminator, tell me the addition of a plucky little robot trash man wouldn't make it better. No? Well, this amused me, for some reason. The image of Wall*E crushing a T-800's metal skull in his compactor would make a great trailer, though...

I'm working on something else right now, but I need to make a note to try and find either new copies or the trade for Robocop vs. Terminator. I've mentioned it before, but still can't find it, so I'm positive I lent it out or something. Recently, there's been talk of remaking, probably rebooting, Robocop, but it feels premature. If they do go through with it, though, my gut feeling is that they absolutely can not have an American direct or write it. Seriously. Frank Miller did all right, but the satire aspect has to come from an outsider's point of view. How to put this? A foreigner can look at American commercials, then underline and exaggerate their worst aspects to mock them and the products they peddle. An American director would magnify and multiply those worst aspects, while still trying to place a product.

If there's a worse idea for a remake, it would be Blade Runner. On some news story at imdb.com somebody I'd never heard of said he wanted the Harrison Ford part. (Idiot! Rutger Hauer's character is the movie!) Bad, bad, bad idea. How could it be made better? You can't make it simpler, because that would destroy the mystique; and making it more complex would just be muddying the waters. It doesn't need more CGI or better production values: the city looks like hell and it should. What's left? More replicants? Deckard's troubled past? Explosions? Leave it be.

Shoot, wasn't I supposed to be working on something? Luckily, tomorrow's post is already done, so check back for a happenstance panel of a book you could and should run out and buy now...but don't blame me if it doesn't turn out...

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