Who wins the epic battle between cybernetic entity and hybrid robot cop?
1980s
science fiction cyberpunk belonged to robots in the form of two mainstream
classics of the genre, James Cameron’s 1984 smash hit The Terminator and Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 darkly comic masterwork Robocop.
Though predated somewhat by the androids in Ridley Scott’s back to back
science fiction epics Alien and Blade Runner and only a few years
earlier by Star Wars, this was the
first time in decades that metallic humanoids were the central focus of the
film. Though separated by being
antagonist and protagonist, both were bleak dystopian futurist thrillers with a
keen eye for action, satire, and took place amid the decaying underbelly of
industrial factories, skyscrapers and concerned machines impervious to damage…mostly
anyway. Then in 1992, Frank Miller made
the unspoken war between these two cybernetic icons official with the release
of the graphic novel, followed by the videogame versions released in 1993,
among the bloodiest ever made for the console system at that time by the
way. Since these two have already
formally gone toe to toe, The Movie Sleuth presents its next debate on which of
these two classic films is better than the other?
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| "Worship at the temple of my enormous chest. Do it." |
The Terminator (1984)
James
Cameron has reached that often sought after status only attained by the select
few such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and most recently, Ridley Scott: the
mogul. They’re as entrenched in
filmmaking as they are producing films for other artists and have slowly
evolved from little engines that could to full blown major Hollywood players
with unchecked clout and oversight over their current output. Like all of the aforementioned elites in
Tinseltown, however, their greatest achievements in film are still their
initial breakthroughs into the mainstream and no other filmmaker is this truest
of than James Cameron and his low budget indie turned box office smash hit, The Terminator. Inarguably the pinnacle of Cameron’s career
and arguably its titular action superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator is poised at the very top
of the '80s cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction and presents a heavy contender
against more expensive dystopian futurist classics of the era. While James Cameron was already heavily
involved in the film industry including production design for Roger Corman’s Galaxy of Terror and having directed the
low budget Piranha II: The Spawning,
it was a fevered nightmare of a machine with red eyes rising up out of fire
that would change his life forever and give birth to one of cinema’s greatest
villains.
Since
The Terminator, James Cameron has
gone on to make some of the most expensive and commercially successful films of
all time, including Aliens, The Abyss, Titanic, Avatar and the
beloved multimillion dollar and pioneering sequel to the film which put Cameron
on the map, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Though the dollar bill range would be
increased dramatically with Cameron’s forthcoming efforts, his technical use of
frenetic editing, gritty handheld camerawork with desaturated blue tinting and
a penchant for sophisticated visual effects can all be traced back to The Terminator. You can also trace back many of Cameron’s
favorite themes, such as repugnant corporatism, nuclear weapons, and our
personal favorite, close ups of people wearing boots walking. When Arnold Schwarzenegger utters the now
world famous line ‘I’ll be back’, little did we know neither he nor Cameron
weren’t kidding as The Terminator would
pave the way for their ongoing respective careers as two of the most formidable
filmmaking figures in the world!
Robocop (1987)
When
Ken Russell called Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven’s first English language
film Robocop “the greatest science
fiction film since Metropolis”, he
was onto something. Personally, I’d put
it closer to Dr. Strangelove, or How I
Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb myself. Here is what should technically be a hard
boiled science fiction thriller that early on announces itself as anything
but! The tale of a murdered cop
resurrected as a cyborg who slowly regains his humanity in a quest to avenge
his own death is familiar to countless fans, but the heart of the film comes
much earlier than that. In a
spectacularly satirical, gut busting piece of black comedy, an oversized robot
called ED-209 is demonstrated before a crowd of executives intent on sending
the machine out in the world to police the crime wave sweeping Detroit. The comic absurdity of this scene is a frontal
assault on the viewer’s comfort zone and doesn’t so much take you out of the
film as it derails where you thought it was headed. Ultraviolent, goofy, absurd and cruel all at
once, it’s an ingenious sequence that will be studied for years to come!
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| "Do I scare you?" |
Not
unlike the opening titles of Dr. Strangelove
where phallic looking aircraft refueling is set to romantic music, all bets are
off. Anything can and eventually does
happen in Robocop. Equally elusive and a testament to the film’s
brilliance are the Christ allegories littered throughout the film. During a snarky newsreel of Robocop on the streets, he is approached
by a band of children reaching out to touch him, almost in a messianic
manner. Robocop’s poor protagonist is quite literally crucified at the
hands of shotgun armed criminals, is resurrected, performs miracles, and even
walks on water near the end. There’s
even a moment when police are trying to bring Robocop down with firearms and he falls to one knee with his arm
outstretched, as if he were carrying an invisible cross. While there are still some that will of
course read Robocop at face value as
an enjoyable rock-em sock-em entertainment, there’s so much subtext and
subtlety infused within the film it almost blindsides you and is easy to miss
without looking closer. Simply put, Robocop is a timeless masterpiece and
represents Paul Verhoeven at his finest hour!
The Winner
While
both are indisputable classics which managed to put both directors James
Cameron and Paul Verhoeven on the world cinema map, The Movie Sleuth has to go
with Robocop as the far better of the
two. With its witty satirical black
comedy and social commentary in addition to being a technically proficient
science fiction parable about dystopian futures where man can lose his sense of
self to mechanics, Robocop more than
outshines The Terminator by being the
smarter of the two. Both movies aim to
entertain with science fiction thrills and depict our modern world in ruin. Unlike The
Terminator, however, a relatively serious minded thriller whose humor is
purely incidental, Robocop is
perfectly happy to turn completely farcical at the drop of a hat and step on a
bloody whoopee cushion, whistling in that it’s all a smart nosed goof. The
Terminator and Robocop see
technology as cloying and smothering our humanity the more and more we grow
dependent on it, but at the end of the day, Robocop
has a far more positive outlook on that idea.
The hero of Robocop might be
completely dependent on his mechanized body but in regaining his humanity
outgrows the limitations of his nuts and bolts technology. Where technology is out to destroy us in The Terminator, Robocop is out to resurrect us.
-Andrew Kotwicki
-Blake O. Kleiner