#alex murphy doing this not robocop and 2. the way it ends is literally on the exchange of dialogue “what’s your name son’’ “Murphy’’

[theboost]

Top three moments from robocop 2 that make me think that frank miller accidentally made robocop trans

#i had a breakdown about this on twitter when I was watching this. but man. #okay remember that essay I was writing in my head I’ll sum it up here. so robocop 1 is all about well actually it’s a critique of capitalism #and the dangers of giving cooperations to much power and modern action movies and what have you. it’s a good movie. but it’s also about #robocop reclaiming his identity which is signified by 1. the fact that he spends the finale with the mask off to show that it is in fact #alex murphy doing this not robocop and 2. the way it ends is literally on the exchange of dialogue “what’s your name son’’ “Murphy’’ #it’s literally him reclaiming his identity. so if robocop 1 is about him and his rediscovering his humanity then it tracks that robocop 2 is #about how society reacts to that. and it does kind of. there’s a lot of like moments like this where murphy asserts his identity only to be #broken down by the people with positions of power over him - he’s not alex murphy he’s not even human he doesn’t even have rights. and like #they bring up his wife and kid in the first 15 minutes and you think okay so they’ll explore how this has effected them. how do they feel #about each other? it’s stated in the first movie that he remembers her but he doesn’t really feel for her I believe- something contradicted #in this movie by the fact that he apparently constantly drives by her house. so if it’s not love driving him then what is it? is it the #desire to have what he can never really get again? a normal life with his family? well guess what! they have him say to his wife alex murphy #is dead and not even what appears to remain of him is really left and she disappears from the movie #they do explore how he’s viewed by society somewhat but it’s mainly a juxtaposition of how his friends and coworkers see him vs ocp the corp #that created him and it’s basically like his friends acknowledge his personhood but in the eyes of the law and ocp he has no rights because #he’s not a person he’s a tool! and this gets taken to the extent where he is literally reprogrammed by ocp once he gets destroyed to be a #‘better’ tool for fighting crime and you think oh okay this is where this movie is going to go it’s an exploration of Murphy’s rights and #him dealing with these forced changes is going to be a big part of the movie and then no. it lasts for like ten minutes and then abruptly #ends when murphy risks wiping out all that remains of him to be free- an interesting idea that never gets brought up again because any #real continuation of the themes of the first half of the movie kind of stop and he practically disappears for 40 minutes and I think that’s #where my problems with robocop 2 really come in because like. it’s written by frank miller and another guy with a story by frank miller. #he’s not the most subtle man in the world and he certainly lacks capability of the deft political commentary of the first movie and it just #kind of becomes a less subtle rehashing of the old one. the lack of subtlety is apparent when one of the characters literally says the theme #of the movie to a bunch of reporters ‘we can’t let cooperations have this much power or they take away our rights’ which is true but that’s #what the first movie said FRANK. you have to come up with something new FRANK #and that’s why I liked the exploration of Murphy and his rights and his feelings because the first movie was about him like. learning that #he had them and coming to terms with it but now a year or so later what’s the situation? and the situation is that it’s the same. #it even ends on the exact same note as robocop!! murphy says to his partner ‘we’re only human’ which could have been impactful if murphy #ever truly doubted his identity- sure he can be convinced to say that he’s not but everytime he’s pressed about it he repeats that he IS #Alex murphy until he is literally forced not to! like there’s a scene where he has to literally be programmed to stop saying that he is alex