Robocop Universe

I have finally come to the conclusion that the only entry in the ROBOCOP franchise that is utterly worthless is the more recent Robocop Remake with Samuel L. Jackson. Sorry, I don't even care who the actor was who played Robocop and I'm not going to look it up.

For years people have absolutely hated Robocop 3, the first live-action television series, Robocop the Animated Series, Robocop: Prime Directives and Robocop Alpha Commando. And in no way do they measure up to the original film, or Robocop 2 (which many fans also hate). However... as cheap, cheesey, stupid, inane, and silly as all the rest were, all of them still contained a fraction of the essence of the original, where as the Remake had none. The Remake was a soulless enterprise of absolute stupidity and isn't even fun enough to make fun of.

As for the rest, I believe the time has come to celebrate the rest of the silly Robocop franchise, because in fact, they are far more worth watching and indulging in than so many crappy franchise continuations it's beyond comprehension. Yes, I said it. Simply for their camp value, their creativity and for the wealth of weirdness they represent. Yes, a Robocop for kids is stupid, but it's so absurd that it takes on a whole new level of crazy entertainment. The original Robocop film was in no way shape or form anything serious, and when you look at the remake, 'serious' is when it all goes wrong. The animated series as well as the television series contain many interesting absurdities that are so awesome that it's hard to believe that people could be so stuck up about them. Yes, when you were a kid they did not measure up to the original movie, but with hindsight, using the Remake as a measuring stick, my god that Remake was bad, and of course these Robocop spin-offs were not 'Robocop' they were some sort of weird mutated bastard child of Robocop. The Remake on the other hand was a dull, empty copy that thought it could be better, it thought it could 'update' and 'improve' on the original film. The television incarnations NEVER aimed to improve or update ROBOCOP. They all knew they weren't allowed to be ROBOCOP so they simply chose weird directions to take it.

They are, in essence, the Robert Cop of Robocop in animation and television presentation form. They are imitations, but they are just as mutated as Robert Cop is. The Remake? Oh, it literally believed it was an 'official' "replacement" for Robocop. How stupid is that?

From the treasure trove that is three, count em, three separate television series' and a mini-series of four movies' worth of insanity, ROBERT COP: THE MOVIE will take much of its inspiration. So many characters to mock, copy, imitate, pay homage to, and reward the audience with if they ever bothered to sit down and watch these shows.

As long as you know full well going in to them that they are not ROBOCOP, not what you love about the original, which is such a classic, it can never be matched, you can, I would argue, gain a great deal of entertainment from them. There are many so-bad-its-good moments, but it requires getting past the fact that you are NOT getting original-Robocop from them.  We know this. Robocop spinoffs are just weird mutations. Crazed incarnations of both imitation and imagination. The Robocop Remake had no imagination at all. There's nothing in you haven't seen somewhere else, it was fucking boring.

Included in these spinoffs is ROBOCOP ULTRA POLICE which as far as I know did not have any animated incarnation. Which is kind of weird because the live-action SERIES had action figures, but the ULTRA POLICE line had no cartoon to go with it. The characters they invented came from neither the original Animated Series, nor the other animated series called ROBOCOP ALPHA COMMANDO (which also had a couple action figures.) In reality, none of these are really related to eachother, but we shall take them all as the alternate ROBOCOP UNIVERSE and mill from them what we can.

To add to this, I will say that I have absolutely no faith in "ROBOCOP RETURNS" a planned film to be directed by Neill Blomkamp. In fact, I suspect they will let him make the movie as he wants, and then a news story will appear. "Neill Blomkamp Replaced By ..." (Some other director) even though 90% of the movie is filmed. This is a habit now in Hollywood, and what they're doing is getting a director to make a movie, and then ditching him and his vision, and "correcting" it the way they want it to be made. They get that director's partial vision and atmosphere, and then they go in and add and replace and 'update' it however they want. I would suggest to all ROBOCOP FANS right now, if this occurs, by my prediction, I call for a complete boycott by every living soul around the globe, because this kind of shit is happening all too often for it to be normal circumstances. They do it on purpose. They continue to do it on purpose because they're 'correcting' it, adding their own 'spin' and whatever 'propaganda' they wish to see on screen. It is a fact. This is what they're doing. If they do this, it's time to call them on what they're doing, because mark my words, they will do it to ROBOCOP. Watch.