The actual history of the meme known as "Robert Cop" is sketchy at best. At some point some bootleg Robocop action figure was "manufactured" in either Mexico, China, Argentina or Korea and somebody found and bought one at some market somewhere...
Then, someone posted a picture of it in a forum. Which forum? We do not have that information.
Then someone named Brad McGinty decided to move the meme forward by drawing an advertisement and creating his own Robert Cop figures to send out with T-Shirts that he designed.
Did he create the connection to Johnny Five and Ray Liotta? We do not know. What matters now is that, as memes go, Johnny Five's mutant twin, "Optical Prime" and Terminator 2's Robert Patrick's mutant twin has been dubbed "Ray Liotta," and both are now accepted as part of Robert Cop canon.
American bootleggers and artists then flooded the market with even cheesier and crappier Robert Cops and more were discovered... Other Robocop copies were found: Robot Cob, RobotoCop, Sonic Man, Mobil Cop, Electric Robocop, Robopol, Machinery Cop, Mighty Cop and others. For ROBERT COP: THE MOVIE, all are to be considered part of ROBERT COP canon. They are all characters in the expanding Robert Cop Universe. How it all fits together is what this site and this project is all about. Robert Cop is an open source meme. People continue to 'manufacture' crappy Robert Cop toys, and the only reason for anyone to buy them is to own a three-dimensional version of this internet meme.
Robert Cop's true history is blurry and weird and difficult to totally track down, though none of that may matter, as our favorite character is now being expanded and more details are being discovered and filled in...
Robert Cop is a robot cop, he was torn apart by his K-9 dog, when it ate the wrong genetically modified dog food which was manufactured by Ultracorp. Robert was left bleeding to die, but Ultracorp turned him into a cyborg. He has been regretting it ever since. His partner, a Polish-Native American (Muscogee (Creek) Nation) female Detroit Police Officer, is always trying to convince him to want to live so they can continue to fight crime. Robert Cop hates being a cyborg and wants to die. Robert Cop is of course a kind of mutant, he doesn't consider himself human any more, he is always noticing how terrible it is to be a cyborg. He cannot taste his baby food sludge, he cannot smell anything anymore, and he wishes he could go swimming.
The story of Robert Cop is about robots, cyborgs, the Detroit Police Department vs. Ultracorp, and it's about copies, it's about bootlegging, it's about what is artificial, it is about what is fake, and it's about what is 'human.' Ultracorp is busy trying to replace human police, replace human food, replace animals, replace everything, including thoughts, emotions and ordinary human behavior. Ultracorp is not only a criminal corporation, it is the enemy of mankind. It is the creator of "Sonic Man" and the corporate robot army known as the "Sonic Rangers." It also created "ROBOT C.O.B." a 'political correctness bot' which goes berserk on the streets of Detroit. Ultracorp also manufactured the police robots known as Optical Prime and Cecil2000. Detroit Police Officer Ray Liotta has discovered the secret plot of Ultracorp to replace all police officers with "Sonic Rangers" and part of that plot is to send out the Ultracorp killer-robots and eliminate the Detroit Police one by one... While Ray Liotta is on the run and in hiding, his only hope is to get word to Robert Cop. But he cannot use a cellphone, he cannot use email, he cannot use any electronic means to communicate or he will be tracked...
Ultracop is no longer interested in created cyborgs after the disaster that is Robert Cop. Their new plan is to use the living police officers in a secret nefarious plan I cannot reveal here... (SPOILERS!)
Robert Cop will have to fight Robot C.O.B., Sonic Man, the Sonic Rangers, Mobil-Cop and many other robotic 'cops.' He will be nearly completely destroyed in his quest. By the end of Robert Cop 1, he will be a pile of mechanical pieces and shredded flesh... in the finale, he will form The ULTRAFORCE to fight Ultracorp... consisting of his friends... there will be much devastation and destruction, violence, gore, absurdity, and insanity.
The expansion of Robert Cop continues... his personal story, the characters and the underlying meaning, purpose and philosophy of Robert Cop. Nobody can COPY Robocop. No one. It can't be done. What we get are disasters. Bad movies. Worse movies. They need to stop trying. No one can copy the human soul. It can't be done. What we get are disasters. Monsters. Worse monsters. They need to stop trying...
What is Robert Cop? At this point it is a mockery of those who attempt to copy Robocop, to re-write Robocop, remake Robocop, re-fashion Robocop, recreate Robocop, and reboot Robocop. It has become symbolic of those failed attempts to re-create and re-fashion classics, to 'upate' them. The original ROBOCOP film as we now now was actually somehow made 'with a soul.' As yet, no one has been able to 're-capture' the magic. So... with that, it is also a mockery of not only the attempted 'remakes' of all classics, but the ultimate classic... the attempt to remake humanity, to reboot humanity, to replace humanity....
No comments:
Post a Comment