CraveOnline: The thing about RoboCop that’s interesting visually, in the original all he had was the chin exposed, but here you have a hand as well. Was that originally part of the idea, or did you want that as an actor to have more freedom?
Joel Kinnaman: You know, Sellars says it. I think the idea for that came both from the original, and the idea that Sellars is trying to create. They want to use Alex Murphy as a device to create leeway for them to sell their product on U.S. soil where it’s still illegal. It’s a way for them to circumvent the law, and to create this illusion that it’s a man, Sellars says that “you judge a man on his handshake. So keep his right hand.” And in the original RoboCop I think one of the scientists says, “I think we can save his left arm,” and they’re like, “Nah, cut it off.” So it’s a little bit of an homage to that, but that was the basis of that idea.
I imagine you saw RoboCop more or less when it came out, or at least a long time ago?
About 25 times.
Good. But it strikes me that RoboCop is such a strong indictment of America, and where we were in the 1980s with Reagonomics, and I wonder how it played overseas.
Well, I first saw it as a kid, you know? Way too young to see it. I just thought it was fucking cool, with the robot and the extreme violence. And then when I got older and rewatched it as a young adult, then I realized all the intelligence that was behind the film and Verhoeven’s idea of violence, which I thought was fascinating. He’d had this über-violence that went completely over the top, and then he got an X-rating, and then the MPAA would cut him down, cut out of the violence to get him an R-rating, and he says that that’s when it became really violent. He used over the top violence to make it comedic, but when you take some of it away it just becomes very violent. That’s when it sends out the wrong message. Because he was, not a pacifist, but his movies are very influenced by him growing up in the rubbles of the Second World War…
Uh, what we were talking about?
Now I’m wondering… Oh, just how it played overseas. For you.
For me it was a very obvious indictment of fascism, and it was satirical social commentary. That is the greatest homage you can pay to the original – and I’m just talking about the first film, I’m not a fan of the second or third one or the TV series… I didn’t think they had any of the depth that the original had. I think the second and third one just played at the level of “It’s a cool robot.”
I think the second one is a little underrated. They were trying to keep the satire alive…
Come onnnnn… The second one? Really? Come onnnnn…
The second one had some wit to it, that’s all I’ll say.
Okay.
But I agree, the first one is where it’s at.
And I think the greatest homage you can pay… Because that’s where they created the concept, and that’s the only homage you owe anything to, to make an intelligent film that has a strong political and social perspective, and I think that’s what we’ve done and I’m really proud of that.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
