Robocop

Robocop, by Ed Naha

July, 1987  Dell Books

I did not see Robocop in the theater when it came out, even though I was an action movie junkie and saw the majority of the big ones in the theater (despite being well under the 17 years of age required for R-rated movies). I skipped Robocop because I’d heard it was ultra-violent and I was skittish about such things, even though I eagerly read the gore-soaked pages of Phoenix Force. But reading about exploding heads is a lot different than seeing exploding heads. 

My brother, who is seven years older than me, came home on leave from the Air Force around the time Robocop was released on VHS; he rented it, and I tried watching some of it. Literally the first thing I saw was the mutated guy getting hit by the van and exploding. That was pretty much it for me. I’m not sure when I finally sat down and watched Robocop on my own, but I can say that several years ago I got the Blu Ray, which features the uncut version, and man I loved the hell out of it. It was brilliant in how it operated on two levels: as an ultra-gory action flick you could take straight and as an ultra-gory satire of an action flick. But then director Paul Verhoeven pulled the same trick a few years later in Total Recall. 

Once upon a time I knew a guy who had two minor roles in Robocop. Humorously, the film was shot in Dallas, despite being set in Detroit, and about twenty years ago I worked at a successful startup based in Carrollton, Texas (essentially a Dallas suburb), and there was a Hispanic guy in his 40s or so who worked there named Tomas who had done some extra work years before. He told me he’d been in Robocop, in two non-dialog bit parts: as a cop and as a gang member (he even re-enacted his scene for this part, to my amusement). Tomas didn’t seem like a guy who would make such stuff up…and, sure enough, when I watched my Blu Ray years ago, I spotted a younger Tomas as a cop.  I did not catch him as a gang member, though, so maybe his face is not on screen for this role or it was just a cut scene.  But I just rewatched the movie for the first time since I got the Blu Ray, and Tomas appears at the 52:46 mark, as the moustached cop who steps out of Robocop’s way in the precinct data room.  

Well anyway, so ends my personal connection with Robocop, as paltry a connection as could be. Now let’s talk about this novelization! Another one Robert Mann has kindly sent me, and once again I am very thankful for it. This is not a novelization I would’ve considered seeking out, but man I’m glad I read it, as author Ed Naha – who around this time was also writing Traveler – has done a great job of capturing the darkly comic vibe of the film. He’s also added a lot more humanity to Robocop than there is in the film. The only thing he does not convey is the gory ultra-violence of the film…but honestly an accomplishment like that would take someone like David Alexander in his Phoenix prime. 

The main thing Naha nails in this novelization is the satirical vibe of the film. I’d love to know whether this was accidental or by design. There is evidence here and there that Naha was at least familiar with who would be playing various roles: main villain Clarence Boddicker is described as having a “high forehead,” which would be an accurate description of future That ‘70s Show dad Kurtwood Smith, who played Boddicker – and I bet it would make for some serious head-fuckery to watch a couple episodes of That ‘70s Show right after Robocop. But anyway Naha really seems to understand that Robocop, at its core, is an over-the-top dark parody of action movies, and he clearly has a good time writing the book. 

First thing to note though is that Naha’s novelization is everything the Robocop rip-off series Steele should have been. It also seems evident that Cybernarc was inspired by Naha’s tie-in novel; some of the descriptions of how Robocop acts and thinks are very similar to those of Rod the robot in Cybernarc. We even get minor mentions that Robocop has a “combat mod” setting, same as Rod. So really Naha’s Robocop could be seen as an inspiration for those later series, and probably other similar ones that I haven’t yet read, like Horn. 

Another notable thing about the novelization is that it veers – if only slightly – from the finished film. The most notable difference is that Robocop, or “Robo” as Naha refers to him in the narrative, has a lot more personality in the novel, with more dialog and more emotional drive. There are also minor variances in some of the action scenes. Also the proto-meme that derived from the film, “I’d buy that for a dollar!,” is not present in this novelization. However, Naha does serve up a lot of pop culture spoofery, with a Benny Hill-esque show often mentioned, and most humorously there’s the TV show T.J. Lazer, a not-so-subtle spoof of T.J. Hooker, complete with a lead actor in “a badly-designed toupee.” Another random bit of piss-taking occurs late in the novel, when we’re informed by a TV broadcast that 97 year-old Sylvester Stallone has died, due to a failed brain transplant. We’re further informed that his last movie, Rambo 38: Old Blood, will be released posthumously. 

If we’re to take Stallone’s stated age literally, that would place Robocop around the year 2043. However the year is never outright stated in the novel. Even though the vibe is very much 1980s, what with the pop culture references and whatnot, we’re informed off-hand that there’s a moon colony and regular space flight. But otherwise this is a solely terrestial story, the entirety of it taking place in the hellish New Detroit. Otherwise this “future” is less tech-savy than our actual future, with people still watching regular televisions and of course no cell phones or internet mentioned. The cops in New Detroit do have dashboard GPS monitors on their “TurboCruisers,” which probably seemed pretty sci-fi in 1987. 

At 187 pages of small-ish print, Naha’s Robocop does a good job of capturing the vibe of the movie and adding a bit more emotional depth. One gets a better glimpse here of the plight of Robo himself, who of course starts life as a cop named Murphy. Naha I felt did a better job than the film of capturing the horror Murphy undergoes when he is killed in action, and then brought back to life by science, his memory erased. Naha has a recurring stylistic trick of “Good. Very good.” which runs through the narrative, conveying Robo’s gradual regaining of his memory. But as mentioned the one thing Naha does not convey is the nutjob violence of the film; while the novel is certainly violent, Naha does not dwell on the gore, usually going more for the emotions of the people shooting at each other than the sprays of arterial blood. 

There is prescience both here and in the movie that New Detroit has fallen into ruin, overcome by crime, and the cops are powerless to stop it. But rather than a “Defund the Police” movement, the cops aren’t around – and eventually go on strike – because they’re just outnumbered by the violent criminals. “Super predators,” as they were referred to at the time, even by left-leaning politicians who were unafraid of being called racist. Thus corporations have stepped in to take control of some police precincts, in particular megacorp OCP, which runs the New Detroit precinct. Cops wear OCP patches on their uniforms and are treated like just another product in the corporation’s portfolio. One wonders if this will become a reality someday, but again a dfference here, same as in Colony, is that these fictional future corporations are devoted solely to profit. 

So only in the “bloodthirsty corporate executive” aspect does Robocop seem dated. Hell, even the ‘80s-esque TV shows in this mid-21st Century setting are believable, given the endless spate of remakes, reboots, and recyclings Hollywood gives us these days. I mean hell, even Robocop itself has already been remade, though I never saw it – and don’t know anyone who did. And I don’t know what the point would be, as surely the Hollywood of today couldn’t give us something as skewed as Verhoeven’s original. But as for the future setting, Naha doesn’t beat us over the head with it, and in fact doesn’t go for much set-up or world-building. It’s the future, crime is rampant, and the cops are owned by a corporation, and that’s pretty much it. 

Also, cops are still seen as the good guys in this future; there’s absolutely none of the stigma of today, and further the cops aren’t hamstrung by politicians. If anything the impression Naha gives is that it’s that the criminals are just too populous and too heavily-equipped, and the cops aren’t a match for them. He presents New Detroit as a bombed-out hellhole, one that you’d have to be insane to be a cop in. But when we meet him Officer Murphy has just been assigned to the precinct, and Naha puts more focus on Murphy’s home life than the film did. To the extent that you really feel bad for Murphy and his loss. In fact, we learn that Murphy and his wife, Jan, are fighting on his first day at work – which as we know will be his last day at work. As Murphy, at least. 

The plot of Naha’s Robocop so follows the film that I’ll save you all the misery of my usual rundown. It only diverges in the little details, and, mainly, the fact that Robo has more personality here. But the elements of the film are all here, like Murphy being partnered with a tough female cop named Anne Lewis, though it’s the ‘80s now and Naha refers to her as “Lewis” in the narrative. In other words she isn’t “Anne,” as she would’ve been if the book had been written a decade or so earlier. But all this stuff is basically the same as the film, including the brutal murder of Murphy by Boddicker’s men – brutal, but not as brutal as the film itself, particularly the uncut version. But then, Murphy does get his hand shotgunned off in the book, too. 

Some of the action scenes are different, in particular an early one in which Robo stops a convenience store robbery. Robo also has occasional one-liners, like when a perp shoots at him and Robo responds, “Now it’s my turn!” Again, he’s more of a standard tough cop action hero than the robot of the film. Other minor but notable changes: Boddicker’s awesome line “Bitches leave” is instead here, “Okay, sluts. Take a hike.” Not nearly as impactful, I’d say. Also, there’s a different ending. Whereas the movie ends with Robo proudly announcing his name is “Murphy!,” the novel continues after this scene with an epilogue in which Robo picks up a stray dog, to be his new companion, and gets back in his TurboCruiser to kick ass. 

Naha’s writing in Robocop is strong and he moves the story along with good imagery. However he is a terrible POV-hopper. We’ll be in one character’s perspective, then a paragraph later we’re in someone else’s, and then someone else’s after that, and there’s nary a line break to warn us. As ever this makes for a bumpy read. Naha wrote for Creem, I believe, and his snarky rock attitude is in effect throughout; for example, we learn some recurring cop characters in the New Detroit precinct are named “Manson” “Ramirez,” and “Starkweather,” ie the last names of some of the more infamous serial killers. Wait, I just checked Google and these characters are in the film, too, so it wasn’t Naha’s doing. But I’m sure a guy who could come up with a spoof of T.J. Hooker would’ve appreciated that. 

Overall I really enjoyed Robocop, to the extent that I intend to watch the movie again sometime. I’m also inspired to check out Naha’s novelization of Robocop 2, which Robert also sent me. I’ve seen that movie exactly once: when it came out in the theater and I was 15 years old. I can’t recall if I liked it…I remember being annoyed with the punk kid in it. But at least I saw it in the theater, even though I was still underage; I recall my dad bought tickets for me and my friend. I also saw Predator 2 with the same kid a few months later, and that one I loved; in fact I’m sure I’m one of the very few who prefers Predator 2 to the first Predator. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.