OUR ROBOCOP REMAKE (2014)
While technically all of culture/arts/entertainment (and even more) has been some version of a remix that takes the old with the new to make some synthesized unique creation, the modern remix era has really been around since the ‘70s or so with active pastiches and sampling and the like. Out of that half a century of homages and interpolations and more, I genuinely believe OUR ROBOCOP REMAKE is one of the best things to come out of remix culture.
Made in 2014, ahead of the actual ROBOCOP remake, a bunch of filmmakers/comedians/actors/etc. got together and chopped up the 1987 classic, assigning particular scenes and sequences to different groups, who were then free to interpret and portray those as they deemed fit (albeit usually in a comedic manner). That led to dance numbers, stop motion animation, all the fake gore possible, and tons of bizarre tangents. All of these styles don’t necessarily work together, but they’re not really supposed to; each is basically a vignette that approaches Paul Verhoeven’s incredible original movie in a fun way that allows for audiences to differentiate between each crew.
OUR ROBOCOP REMAKE is worth it for just its incredibly NSFW take on the scene where RoboCop dispatches a criminal sexually assaulting a woman. It gets exponentially weirder and grislier in such a beautifully disturbingly absurd way that it becomes brilliant, even as it includes some gore f/x that would make Lloyd Kaufman blush. In fact, here’s the scene on its own (no, really—I cannot emphasize enough how inappropriate this is to watch in the office or around others).
And there are many other sequences that may not have that level of mutilation, but are similarly inspired. As the collective summarized the project:
OUR ROBOCOP REMAKE is a crowd-sourced film project based on the 1987 Paul Verhoeven classic. Organized through Channel 101 and a bunch of other places, we’re 50 filmmakers (amateur and professional) from Los Angeles and New York who have split the original ROBOCOP up into individual pieces and have remade the movie ourselves. Not necessarily a shot-for-shot remake, but a scene-for-scene retelling. As big fans of the original ROBOCOP, and as filmmakers and film fans admittedly rolling our eyes at the Hollywood remake machine, we’ve elected to do this remake thing our own way.
Please enjoy OUR ROBOCOP REMAKE.