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| Paul Verhoeven |
With a new Total Recall on the horizon, the first viral video of Robocop’s remake released, and rumours of a Starship Troopers reboot in the works, Hollywood is mining the great sci-fi satires of Paul Verhoeven and repackaging them for a new generation. But what made the Dutch director's ultra-violent films so memorable and what are the new films likely to offer?
It’s hard to decide what the most violent moment in
Verhoeven’s sci-fi output is. Is it the malfunctioning ED-209 blowing away an
OMNICORP board member in Robocop? Or maybe it’s Schwarzenegger using an
innocent bystander’s corpse as a human shield in Total Recall. What about when Patrick
Muldoon gets his brain sucked out of his skull by a massive space bug in
Starship Troopers? All of these are gloriously gory moments, but the cream of
the crop is Peter Weller having his body torn apart by shotgun shells in the
first act of Robocop. If ultra-violence was poetry, this sequence would be
Paradise Lost; epic, intense and unforgettable.
"Someone lend the man a hand."
And
while all these scenes showcase one side of Verhoeven’s artistic swagger –
he willingness to tear his characters limb from limb - they also subtly
hint at his other endearing trait; his humour. As gruesome as it all may be, these
scenes are darkly humorous in their alacrity to display violence, for their
bloodletting, in their disregard the sanctity of human life. In these films,
Verhoeven mixed this bleakly comic violence with satire, deadpan wit and social
commentary that was way ahead of fellow action film makers in the 80s (you
can't imagine the likes of Richard Donner making anything as daring). Robocop
is like watching Dirty Harry meets Robocop but through the perspective of John
Stewart.
Critical Backlash
In
the early 80s Verhoeven was driven from his native Netherlands after a critical backlash
against his output, especially against his 1980 controversial coming-of-act film Spetters. He ended up in
Hollywood and between 1987 and 2000 made a total of six films. These included
Basic Instinct (1992), Hollow Man (2000) and the infamously terrible Showgirls
(1995). But it is his three sci-fi films that have best stood the test of time and
what, for many, he will be best remember for.
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However on these films' initial release many parochial minded critics
dismissed them as immature, vapid and needlessly violent. Rita Kempley said of
Total Recall (1990) that it “disappoints with this appalling
onslaught of blood and boredom.” Starship Troopers (1997) was accused of promoting military nationalism on par with the Nazi's Germany, with a number of critics not realising that the entire film was steeped in irony.
However many did get that under the action, the broken
bones, the severed limbs, the gunfire and explosions, these films had a brain and a message. Robocop jabbed at cooperate America’s takeover of public
services and its lowbrow entertainment and consumerism (highlighted by TV
personality Bixby Snyder’s so-bad-it’s-hilarious catchphrase, “I’d buy that for a dollar”). Starship Troopers criticised the mindless mechanisms of the
military that bordered on fascism, and Total Recall highlighted wealthy people's
ability to destroy the lives of the poor (and that mutant cab drivers can
never, ever be trusted!).
These films also included tits. This isn’t a particular
relevant point, but tits are always good in films, especially when you get more
than expected.
Totally Recalled
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Instead the director has said it will be closer in tone to
Spielberg’s Minority Report (which, like Total Recall, was based on a short
story by plastic-reality Science Fiction author Philip K. Dick). It also, from
the trailer, looks to have jettisons the Mars angle of the story (Sadly this
means we won’t get to hear Farrell utter the famous line; “Get your ass to
Mars!”) and looks to keep the action on Earth. It’s not the worst idea in the
world – the Mars element was never in Dick’s original short – and the trailer
looks like it could be easy watching, bang-bang sci-fi fun, which is never really a bad thing.
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| Joel Kinnaman: The new Robocop |
Robo-Reboot
The Robocop reboot has caused a much bigger storm
over the interwebs. Firstly there was the revelation by Joel Kinnaman (aka:
Alex Murphy, aka; Robocop) that his suit will have a see-through visor and you
will be able to see Robo’s eyes. This was considered sacrilege for many fans of
the original. Some people seemed to feel it was the equivilent changing Dr Who’s
TARDIS from a Police Box to a kebab van.
The blogosphere also went ape-shit when it saw the first
sneak of the movie. The viral video doesn’t seem to contain any footage from
the new film, but instead is a mock cooperate advert for the fictional
cybernetics company OMNICORP (A little like the Prometheus teaser having Guy
Pearce waxing lyrically about Alien’s Weyland corporation). One significant talking point from the 56
seconds of footage is that it reveals Robocop favourite ED-209 will be making
an appearance in the remake.
2013’s ED-209 looks similar to the 1987 version, except for
the fact it seems much larger than the original. One poster on the Guardian’s
website bemoaned; “The new ED-209 looks exactly the same as the old ED-209. So
what exactly is the point?” Then, a few posts later another complained; “The new seems ten times bigger given that it was
dwarfing a battle tank.” It appears, when you’re retooling a well-loved
franchise, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
Whatever people’s perceptions, the filmmakers need to get
Ed-209 right if they want Robocop to succeed. The original’s ruthless design –
a cross between a tank and a dinosaur with machine guns for arms – was one of
the iconic images of 80s sci-fi and it’s “You have 20 seconds to comply”
command has gone down in pop culture history. No pressure then.
Next Gen Troopers
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Finally, there is talk of remaking 1997’s Starship Troopers.
Once again, it is unlikely that it will feature to sanguine gore of the
original. Producer Toby Jaffe recently told Empire magazine the violence will
have to be toned down. “The more expensive a film is, the harder it is to be
that violent.” (Although this didn’t seem to be a problem twenty years ago when
the original Total Recall, with a budget of $50 million, became the most
expensive film it’s time). Another change that the producer hints at is that it
will be closer to the original book, which is little more than a pro-military,
flag waving, nuke the bugs (a conspicuous metaphor for Communist) fanfare that
was almost fascist in its aggression. Verhoeven was appalled by the book and
gleefully took the piss in his film. Jaffe wants to do the opposite. “Verhoeven
took it from one extreme and made it almost comical, whereas our job, as I see
it, is to be a little more faithful to the book and ground it.”
These worrying signs suggest that Starship Troopers could
suffer the worst remake treatment. But with toned down violence and a
pro-military agenda? Expect it to be a neo-cons wet dream.
However only time will how these films will turn out. In any
case, it’s a good excuse to crack open the originals and once again immerse
yourself Verhoeven’s worlds of graphic violence, exploding bodies, dark wit,
social satire and some of the most inventive death scenes ever put on film.
I’d buy that for a dollar.
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