TJ Lazer - missed opportunity

[ckent]

I don’t know if anyone has brought this up before, but in rewatching Robocop I noticed that the script missed an opportunity to add another layer to the tragedy of the Robocop character.
Robo has all these catchphrases that are wonderfully cinematic (something that Dirty Harry or John Wayne might say), but are not said by a real-life officer:
-Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.
-Your move, creep.
-Come quietly or there will be... trouble.
These were not likely to be programmed by OCP (and the first one was said by Murphy before his death). So where did it come from? I think the writers could have shown in the flashback one or more of those lines being said in the TJ Lazer show. We saw the gun spin in the commercial, but there were no spoken lines for Lazer in the film or in the script (at least in the PDF scan that I found online).
It could have implied that Robocop was using these fragmented memories of Murphy’s to put an identity together, but was so damaged by the trauma of dying and being brought to life that it didn’t quite know which memories were from Murphy’s actual life and which were from a TV show that he saw his son watching. It also could have justified Robo’s “ultraviolent” approach, which again is not what a corporate police computer would be programmed with. What the machine thinks is law enforcement is coming from a child’s TV show.

[Joined]

I don’t know if anyone has brought this up before, but in rewatching Robocop I noticed that the script missed an opportunity to add another layer to the tragedy of the Robocop character.
Robo has all these catchphrases that are wonderfully cinematic (something that Dirty Harry or John Wayne might say), but are not said by a real-life officer:
-Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.
-Your move, creep.
-Come quietly or there will be... trouble.
These were not likely to be programmed by OCP (and the first one was said by Murphy before his death). So where did it come from? I think the writers could have shown in the flashback one or more of those lines being said in the TJ Lazer show. We saw the gun spin in the commercial, but there were no spoken lines for Lazer in the film or in the script (at least in the PDF scan that I found online).
It could have implied that Robocop was using these fragmented memories of Murphy’s to put an identity together, but was so damaged by the trauma of dying and being brought to life that it didn’t quite know which memories were from Murphy’s actual life and which were from a TV show that he saw his son watching. It also could have justified Robo’s “ultraviolent” approach, which again is not what a corporate police computer would be programmed with. What the machine thinks is law enforcement is coming from a child’s TV show.

[Post Count]

I don’t know if anyone has brought this up before, but in rewatching Robocop I noticed that the script missed an opportunity to add another layer to the tragedy of the Robocop character.
Robo has all these catchphrases that are wonderfully cinematic (something that Dirty Harry or John Wayne might say), but are not said by a real-life officer:
-Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.
-Your move, creep.
-Come quietly or there will be... trouble.
These were not likely to be programmed by OCP (and the first one was said by Murphy before his death). So where did it come from? I think the writers could have shown in the flashback one or more of those lines being said in the TJ Lazer show. We saw the gun spin in the commercial, but there were no spoken lines for Lazer in the film or in the script (at least in the PDF scan that I found online).
It could have implied that Robocop was using these fragmented memories of Murphy’s to put an identity together, but was so damaged by the trauma of dying and being brought to life that it didn’t quite know which memories were from Murphy’s actual life and which were from a TV show that he saw his son watching. It also could have justified Robo’s “ultraviolent” approach, which again is not what a corporate police computer would be programmed with. What the machine thinks is law enforcement is coming from a child’s TV show.

[Sean_001]

Interesting theory.

However, wouldn't that fundamentally change the overall character of RoboCop and deprive him of the story arc of finding/regaining his humanity? For that matter, it would also gear itself towards the child friendly area that RoboCop 3 ventured into.

But as you read in the script, TJ Lazer had no lines, because the spinning gun is the focal point and also the link between Human and Machine. Some things work best when left to the viewers to decide.

Verhoeven is notorious for this kind of ending; ambiguous.
Did he truly regain his Humanity at the end?
Was it all Douglas Quaid's dream to save Mars, or was it real?
Did Elizabeth Berkley have a career after the end of Showgirls?

These things were left up to the viewer to decide. So, in that vain, sure, Murphy got his one-liners from TJ Lazer.

But I believe it was the intent of the writers (one in particular) to write this as a Post-Modern Western.

"Dead or Alive" a clear reference to old wanted posters.
"Your Move" was an obvious chess reference. A widely played game in the west.

And of course, one-liners are a sort of Heroic thing to do in the 80's.

----Sean

[Joined]

Interesting theory.

However, wouldn't that fundamentally change the overall character of RoboCop and deprive him of the story arc of finding/regaining his humanity? For that matter, it would also gear itself towards the child friendly area that RoboCop 3 ventured into.

But as you read in the script, TJ Lazer had no lines, because the spinning gun is the focal point and also the link between Human and Machine. Some things work best when left to the viewers to decide.

Verhoeven is notorious for this kind of ending; ambiguous.
Did he truly regain his Humanity at the end?
Was it all Douglas Quaid's dream to save Mars, or was it real?
Did Elizabeth Berkley have a career after the end of Showgirls?

These things were left up to the viewer to decide. So, in that vain, sure, Murphy got his one-liners from TJ Lazer.

But I believe it was the intent of the writers (one in particular) to write this as a Post-Modern Western.

"Dead or Alive" a clear reference to old wanted posters.
"Your Move" was an obvious chess reference. A widely played game in the west.

And of course, one-liners are a sort of Heroic thing to do in the 80's.

----Sean

[Post Count]

Interesting theory.

However, wouldn't that fundamentally change the overall character of RoboCop and deprive him of the story arc of finding/regaining his humanity? For that matter, it would also gear itself towards the child friendly area that RoboCop 3 ventured into.

But as you read in the script, TJ Lazer had no lines, because the spinning gun is the focal point and also the link between Human and Machine. Some things work best when left to the viewers to decide.

Verhoeven is notorious for this kind of ending; ambiguous.
Did he truly regain his Humanity at the end?
Was it all Douglas Quaid's dream to save Mars, or was it real?
Did Elizabeth Berkley have a career after the end of Showgirls?

These things were left up to the viewer to decide. So, in that vain, sure, Murphy got his one-liners from TJ Lazer.

But I believe it was the intent of the writers (one in particular) to write this as a Post-Modern Western.

"Dead or Alive" a clear reference to old wanted posters.
"Your Move" was an obvious chess reference. A widely played game in the west.

And of course, one-liners are a sort of Heroic thing to do in the 80's.

----Sean

[Mindchamber]

reminds me of the scenes in Joker when he sits down in that women's apartment, and she is visibly scared for her life as she doesn't know him personally, but the director has zero faith in the audience to get the connection so they show her absent in every scene she was supposedly in

[Joined]

reminds me of the scenes in Joker when he sits down in that women's apartment, and she is visibly scared for her life as she doesn't know him personally, but the director has zero faith in the audience to get the connection so they show her absent in every scene she was supposedly in

[Post Count]

reminds me of the scenes in Joker when he sits down in that women's apartment, and she is visibly scared for her life as she doesn't know him personally, but the director has zero faith in the audience to get the connection so they show her absent in every scene she was supposedly in