Robocop - Criterion Collection Laserdisc Preservation by Dave Simkiss

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents

BLU-RAY EDITION 1987 103 MINUTES COLOR SURROUND 1.85:1 ASPECT RATIO

Called by Ken Russell “the greatest science-fiction film since Metropolis,” controversial director Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop is a special effects-laden cult phenomenon. The film features a resurrected and roboticized hero (Peter Weller) in a new, supercharged cyborg body, struggling to reclaim his memory and avenge his own death. Written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, this film is a grown-up superhero fantasy come to vivid, bloody life.

ROBOCOP is under exclusive license from Orion Picture Corporation TM ® © 2019 by MGM Home Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. © 2019 The Criterion Collection. All Rights Reserved. Cat. no. CC1463L. ISBN 1-5594-0749-2. Warning: unauthorized public performance, broadcasting, or copying is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in the USA. First printing 2019.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Audio: English PCM 2.0 Surround / English DTS-HD 4.0 Surround / Dolby Digital Commentary Subtitles: English / French / German / Spanish Main title: 1080p

Supplementary material: 480p DVD source

1987

The unrated director’s cut, including “excessively violent” shots cut from the theatrical release to avoid an X rating Audio commentary by director Paul Verhoeven, co-writer Edward Neumeier, executive producer Jon Davison, and RoboCop expert Paul M. Sammon Film-to-storyboard comparison Storyboards An illustrated essay on the making of RoboCop Theatrical and teaser trailers

The Criterion Collection is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions of the highest technical quality, with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film. Visit us at Criterion.com

Design and Layout - pineapples101@gmail.com

LD 311

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents

BLU-RAY EDITION 1987 103 MINUTES COLOR SURROUND 1.85:1 ASPECT RATIO

SPECIAL FEATURES

Audio: English PCM 2.0 Surround / English DTS-HD 4.0 Surround / Dolby Digital Commentary Subtitles: English / French / German / Spanish Main title: 1080p

Supplementary material: 480p DVD source

1987

Design and Layout - pineapples101@gmail.com

LD 311

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents

DVD EDITION 1987 103 MINUTES COLOR SURROUND 1.85:1 ASPECT RATIO

SPECIAL FEATURES

Audio: English PCM 2.0 Surround / English DTS-HD 4.0 Surround / Dolby Digital Commentary Subtitles: English / French / German / Spanish Main title: 1080p

Supplementary material: 480p DVD source

1987

Design and Layout - pineapples101@gmail.com

LD 311

DVD PRODUCTION CREDITS DVD PRODUCER / MENU DESIGN............................................ Sean Wright-Anderson ORIGINAL CONTENT PRODUCER............................................ Morgan Holly PROJECT ADVISOR.................................................................. Paul M. Sammon EXECUTIVE PRODUCER........................................................... Peter Becker TECHNICAL PRODUCER........................................................... Lee Kline PRODUCTION MANAGER......................................................... Catherine Gray AUDIO COORDINATOR............................................................ Michael W. Wiese COMMENTARY PRODUCER...................................................... Mark C. Brems EDITORIAL COORDINATOR..................................................... Shannon Attaway ORIGINAL PACKAGE DESIGN.................................................. Harmony Hasbrook FRONT COVER DESIGN........................................................... David Hutchins, Joseph Negro DVD MASTERING.................................................................... P.O.P. Studios, L.A.

SPECIAL THANKS Paul Verhoeven, Jon Davison, Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner, Don Shay

ABOUT THE TRANSFER Robocop is presented in its director approved aspect ratio of 1.66:1. This new digital transfer was created from the pristine35mm interpositive and the original 35mm 2-track Dolby SurroundÂ® stereo magnetic master. TECHNICAL SUPERVISOR........................................................ Maria Palazzola TELECINE COLORIST............................................................... Gregg Garwin / Modern Videofilm L.A.

ooled from spare hardware—the trunk and limbs of a forklift, the rubberized joints of a vacuum cleaner, and the brain of a police officer—Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop character is a Terminator with the conscience of a constable, a Frankenstein gone cyberpunk.

Like the hero (or do you call him a humandroid?) of this violently entertaining comedy, RoboCop’s script is cobbled together with spare parts from everybody’s favorite myths and action movies. But in the hands of master craftsman Paul Verhoeven, the United States’ heartiest import since the tulip, these spare parts are customized and tuned into a wholly original urban satire set in late 1990s Detroit (home of Lee Iacocca Elementary School), a hallucinatory Notown that sees the Motor City the way that Blade Runner saw L.A.: future tense. This future is a technological nightmare that all workers fear: Star Peter Weller, as the murdered officer who gets recycled into the half-man/half-machine of the film’s title, plays a supporting role to his character’s robotic armature. And the Detroit of the future, its mirrorand-steel skyscrapers reflecting crumbling, crime-ridden slums, is less metropolis than war zone. The city is in receivership. Local newsanchors chirp for ten seconds about a report on World War III while taking a full minute to pitch a game called “Nukem.” And meanwhile, the police force has been privatized by a conglomerate called OCP (OmniConsumer Products), which just might be a conflict of interest for one of its flinty execs, Jones (Ronny Cox), who happens to control the street gang that’s robbing half of the city while hooking the other half on cocaine. Made in 1987 near the end of the Reagan Age, RoboCop gleefully satirizes The Great Communicator’s pet doctrines of free enterprise and privatization. In this script by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, big business has gotten big because it makes huge profits first by creating a mess, then doubles profits by manufacturing the machine that will clean the mess up. Yet, as the breakthrough American film by the Dutch director previously known for the erotic candor of Turkish Delight (1973) and The Fourth Man (1979), Verhoeven’s RoboCop is perhaps less interested in the screenwriters’ plot devices than he is in those of the mechanical kind. Though his acclaimed bam-bam pacing here would earn the director his future assignments on Total Recall (1990) and Basic Instinct (1992), initially Verhoeven didn’t think his leisurely, European rhythms would be suited for RoboCop. In fact, he turned down the offer to direct the film until his wife, more attuned to the script’s subtext, explained to him that it was essentially a Frankenstein story—in her words—“That of the robot-man seeking his own life.” To get the pacing right on RoboCop, Verhoeven studied Rambo movies, and then added his own Euroflash camera moves (low-angle tracking shots that keep the action moving), and spectacularly breathed new life into Frankenstein’s lifeless body. When a sadistic drug lord cheerfully blasts away the pistol hand and most of the vital organs of Detroit police officer Murphy (Weller) during an attempted drug bust, Murphy’s spare parts get recycled into the first RoboCop—half man, half machine—off the OCP assembly line. In trying to save money by using the preexisting “circuitry” of the human brain, OCP doesn’t bargain for the results: a cyborg with a human memory and ethics that might subvert corporate command. At almost the exact moment that Murphy and his partner Lewis (Nancy Allen) are armpit-deep

fighting subterranean slime, high up in the OCP corporate boardroom execs are fighting each other over whether RoboCop or all-machine ED 209 (ED being short for “Enforcement Droid”) would be the better investment. Jones favors ED 209; his slightly more humanitarian corporate adversary, Morton (Miguel Ferrer) favors RoboCop. One of the film’s satirical high points is ED 209’s demo: the circuitry in this hulking Gobot hasn’t been perfected and it accidentally kills an OCP vice-president. (How many other action flicks satirize big business, civic corruption, and American industrial failure?) Thus OCP funds RoboCop. And soon RoboCop’s—or is it Murphy’s?—memory flickers into consciousness, enabling the enforcer to defy OCP and go on his own personal crusade. Like virtually every mad-scientist creation from Frankenstein to the telepod created by Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, RoboCop proves to have functions unplanned by his inventors. With his tawny, seemingly airbrushed skin and those luxurious pillow lips, it seems a waste for Peter Weller to spend most of the film encased within RoboCop’s armature. But when RoboCop walks, like a toddler Godzilla, he gives Verhoeven’s film a herky-jerky humor that serves as an antidote for the bloodbaths accompanying the film’s violent clashes. RoboCop’s climactic showdown is where high-tech meets High Noon. Can the 200-pound, half-man/half-machine RoboCop triumph over the two-ton, 100% mechanical ED 209? Naturally, a gizmo with a human heart and mind must triumph over an elephantine circuit board. This confirms our notions of human superiority—and paves the way for the inevitable sequels. Carrie Rickey

SPECIAL THANKS Paul Verhoeven, Jon Davison, Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner, Don Shay

Like the hero (or do you call him a humandroid?) of this violently entertaining comedy, RoboCop’s script is cobbled together with spare parts from everybody’s favorite myths and action movies. But in the hands of master craftsman Paul Verhoeven, the United States’ heartiest import since the tulip, these spare parts are customized and tuned into a wholly original urban satire set in late 1990s Detroit (home of Lee Iacocca Elementary School), a hallucinatory Notown that sees the Motor City the way that Blade Runner saw L.A.: future tense. This future is a technological nightmare that all workers fear: Star Peter Weller, as the murdered officer who gets recycled into the half-man/half-machine of the film’s title, plays a supporting role to his character’s robotic armature. And the Detroit of the future, its mirror-and-steel skyscrapers reflecting crumbling, crime-ridden slums, is less metropolis than war zone. The city is in receivership. Local newsanchors chirp for ten seconds about a report on World War III while taking a full minute to pitch a game called “Nukem.” And meanwhile, the police force has been privatized by a conglomerate called OCP (OmniConsumer Products), which just might be a conflict of interest for one of its flinty execs, Jones (Ronny Cox), who happens to control the street gang that’s robbing half of the city while hooking the other half on cocaine. Made in 1987 near the end of the Reagan Age, RoboCop gleefully satirizes The Great Communicator’s pet doctrines of free enterprise and privatization. In this script by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, big business has gotten big because it makes huge profits first by creating a mess, then doubles profits by manufacturing the machine that will clean the mess up. Yet, as the breakthrough American film by the Dutch director previously known for the erotic candor of Turkish Delight (1973) and The Fourth Man (1979), Verhoeven’s RoboCop is perhaps less interested in the screenwriters’ plot devices than he is in those of the mechanical kind. Though his acclaimed bam-bam pacing here would earn the director his future assignments on Total Recall (1990) and Basic Instinct (1992), initially Verhoeven didn’t think his leisurely, European rhythms would be suited for RoboCop. In fact, he turned down the offer to direct the film until his wife, more attuned to the script’s subtext, explained to him that it was essentially a Frankenstein story—in her words—“That of the robot-man seeking his own life.” To get the pacing right on RoboCop, Verhoeven studied Rambo movies, and then added his own Euroflash camera moves (low-angle tracking shots that keep the action moving), and spectacularly breathed new life into Frankenstein’s lifeless body. When a sadistic drug lord cheerfully blasts away the pistol hand and most of the vital organs of Detroit police officer Murphy (Weller) during an attempted drug bust, Murphy’s spare parts get recycled into the first RoboCop—half man, half machine—off the OCP assembly line. In trying to save money by using the preexisting “circuitry” of the human brain, OCP doesn’t bargain for the results: a cyborg with a human memory and ethics that might subvert corporate command. At almost the exact moment that Murphy and his partner Lewis (Nancy Allen) are armpit-deep fighting

subterranean slime, high up in the OCP corporate boardroom execs are fighting each other over whether RoboCop or all-machine ED 209 (ED being short for “Enforcement Droid”) would be the better investment. Jones favors ED 209; his slightly more humanitarian corporate adversary, Morton (Miguel Ferrer) favors RoboCop. One of the film’s satirical high points is ED 209’s demo: the circuitry in this hulking Gobot hasn’t been perfected and it accidentally kills an OCP vice-president. (How many other action flicks satirize big business, civic corruption, and American industrial failure?) Thus OCP funds RoboCop. And soon RoboCop’s—or is it Murphy’s?—memory flickers into consciousness, enabling the enforcer to defy OCP and go on his own personal crusade. Like virtually every madscientist creation from Frankenstein to the telepod created by Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, RoboCop proves to have functions unplanned by his inventors. With his tawny, seemingly airbrushed skin and those luxurious pillow lips, it seems a waste for Peter Weller to spend most of the film encased within RoboCop’s armature. But when RoboCop walks, like a toddler Godzilla, he gives Verhoeven’s film a herky-jerky humor that serves as an antidote for the bloodbaths accompanying the film’s violent clashes. RoboCop’s climactic showdown is where high-tech meets High Noon. Can the 200-pound, half-man/half-machine RoboCop triumph over the two-ton, 100% mechanical ED 209? Naturally, a gizmo with a human heart and mind must triumph over an elephantine circuit board. This confirms our notions of human superiority—and paves the way for the inevitable sequels. Carrie Rickey

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Criterion Collection - Laserdisc Preservation RoboCop #311 (1987) (Uncut) [CC1463L] https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/07372/CC1463L/RoboCop Blu Ray - Region A/B/C DVD - Region All Audio: English PCM 2.0 Surround / English DTS-HD 4.0 Surround / Dolby Digital Commentary Subtitles: English / French / German / Spanish Main title: 1080p Supplementary material: 480p DVD source

Artwork Criterion Blu Ray Case - Inlay 273mm x 160mm Standard Blu Ray Case - Inlay 269mm x 148mm Standard DVD Case - Inlay 272mm x 182mm Criterion 4 Page Booklet - Exterior Fold down middle 240mm x 160mm Criterion 4 Page Booklet - Interior Fold down middle 240mm x 160mm Standard 4 Page Booklet - Exterior Fold down middle 235mm x 145mm Standard 4 Page Booklet - Interior Fold down middle 235mm x 145mm Blu Ray Disc Art 115mm x 115mm