Hey guys, I’m Mike, and Paul Verhoven is one of my favorite directors of all time. I just don't think he gets enough credit.
He’s made some of the best action movies of all time.
Like ‘Total Recall,’ ‘Starship Troopers,’ And his unquestionable masterpiece, ‘Robocop,’ which came out thirty years ago.
On the surface, you can’t really tell just how smart those movies are.
Once you look past all the shootouts, fistfights and buckets of gore, you’ll find a surprisingly deep layer of social commentary beneath the carnage.
Infantry, sir. Good for you! Mobile infantry made me the man I am today.
Verhoeven uses his future settings to drop some surprisingly accurate satire.
Here’s how ‘Robocop’ and the rest of Verhoeven’s sci-fi trilogy use satire to rise above the standard blockbuster schlock.
We’ll start with a bit of the ol’ ultraviolence.
Verhoeven’s films have a tiny reputation for their over-the-top violence.
That’s... pretty fair.
But there’s a method to the madness.
It’s not there to gross you out, it’s there to make you laugh at how excessive it is.
See you at the party, Richter!
The MPAA gave ‘Robocop’ an X rating eleven times before enough cuts were made to justify an R.
The edits toned down the brutality, but it actually made the movie more disturbing.
Like, in this scene where ED-209 blows this board member away:
But the shortened version in the theatrical release is actually kind of upsetting.
All it takes is two extra seconds in the director’s cut to turn a horrific tragedy into a bloody farce.
Somebody wanna call a goddamn paramedic?!
By cranking up the juice to ludicrous levels, Verhoeven shows us how society fetishizes violence and how we’ve become desensitized to it.
Take the escalator chase scene in ‘Total Recall.’
Arnold uses this completely innocent bystander as a meat shield for wayyy too long.
This dude gets absolutely shredded for doing nothing more than standing in front of Arnold on an escalator.
But our hero barely bats an eye as he uses this poor man's corpse to absorb bullet after bullet.
And the villains literally trample his corpse as they give chase.
It’s the same with ‘Starship Troopers.’
By the end, we’ve seen so many people ripped in half that the concept of a midsection has lost all meaning.
We’re inundated with violence from an early age.
But when you see that cartoon brutality in these realistic-ish movies, it’s so shocking and outrageous that you have no choice but to laugh.
Another area where Verhoeven’s humor shines is when he satirizes the media.
The very first shot of Robocop is an in-universe broadcast called:
“Media Break. You give us three minutes, and we’ll give you the world.”
These way-too-cheerful reporters introduce us to Robocop’s bleak future.
Civil war in Mexico, out-of-control weapon satellites, apartheid militias with neutron bombs,
And the crime wave in Old Detroit that kicks off the plot of the movie.
Today, it just seems like classic cable news fear-mongering, but in 1987 the 24 hour information onslaught was still relatively new.
Or look at ‘Total Recall,’ how the news talks up the dangerous rebel terrorists:
And more violence last night on Mars, where terrorists demanding independence once again halted the extraction of turbinium ore.
...As the footage shows government troops massacring prisoners.
It’s a brilliant narrative device.
It reminds me of how Frank Miller used TV panels to flesh out his future Gotham in ‘The Dark Knight Returns.’
I’m not sure it’s a direct reference, but Miller did write Robocop 2 and 3, so someone was a fan.
Either way, my favorite parts are the commercials.
You pick the heart! Extended warranties! Financing! Qualifies for health tax credit!
They add a ton of flavor to the world, and give Verhoeven a chance to make fun of their not-too-distant future culture.
Like how consumerism has gone completely crazy:
And Cold War fear mongering has gotten to the point where it’s used to sell board games:
NUKEM! Get them before they get you!
I'd f---ing play Nukem. I mean I basically do...
And then there’s the entertainment.
Everyone in ‘Robocop’ is obsessed with this dumb sitcom:
“I’d buy that for a dollar!”
Even for Verhoeven, it’s a little far-fetched.
I mean, a bad sitcom with a dumb catchphrase that millions of people inexplicably love?
“Bazinga!”
'The Big Bang Theory' needs to be taken down a peg. I've seen like six seasons of this show.
I f---ing hate it, but I hate-watch it.
‘Starship Troopers’ takes the media satire to the next level.
Young people from all over the globe are joining up to fight for the future!
I'm doing my part!
I'm doing my part too!
Instead of mocking the 24 hour cable news cycle, the “Federal Network” broadcasts are a throwback to the newsreels of World War II.
We never see anything from the bug's point of view in the movie.
All we get is propaganda glorifying the war effort and demonizing the enemy as mindless killing machines.
Every schoolkid knows that arachnids are dangerous.
I love what happens at the end, when they find a new species of bug that can communicate with humanity.
Instead of opening up a dialogue with the enemy or trying to find a peaceful solution, everyone just hilariously rejoices when they find out
“It’s afraid!”
Verhoeven knows that you have to sell fascism to people by wrapping it in a pretty package.
That’s why the Nazis were so obsessed with slick uniforms.
But the film wants you to look past all the bullshit the government is selling and ask yourself
“Are we the baddies?”
In hindsight, the crazy jingoism and pro-war propaganda doesn’t seem like a stretch after living through the Bush era.
I don’t think even Verhoeven could have come up with something as dumb as Freedom Fries.
You guys remember Freedom Fries? Or Freedom Toast?
On the other hand, ‘Robocop’ and ‘Recall’ are all about the military-industrial complex run amok.
In both movies, the military has become indistinguishable from the massive corporations that really run the show.
Gonna need some major firepower. You got access to military weaponry?
We practically are the military.
In ‘Robocop,’ OCP has bought out the Detroit Police Department, using
it as a testing ground for fancy new weapons to sell to the government.
They basically want to bulldoze the crime-infested slums of Old Detroit and
build a whole new city on the ashes, owned and operated entirely by OCP.
‘Total Recall’ takes this outrageous example
of unchecked greed to the next logical step.
Where the corporate dictator of the Martian colony (also
played by Ronnie Cox) literally has a monopoly on oxygen.
Cohaagen doesn’t give a f---.
Cohaagen raised the price of air. Nobody on Earth gives a damn what happens up here.
Corporations taking over public institutions seemed like a wacky sci-fi premise in 1987, but today we’ve gone even further.
You'll see that we have gambled in markets traditionally regarded as non-profit.
Hospitals... Prisons... Space exploration... I say, good business is where you find it.
Even an evil SOB like Dick Jones would drool over the dastardly shit he could get away with under Citizens United.
Verhoeven’s belief that the rich think they’re above the law is embodied in Robocop’s fourth directive.
Any attempt to arrest a senior officer of OCP results in shutdown!
You're our product! And we can't have our products turning against us, can we?
In a lot of unfortunate ways, our world has come pretty close to Paul Verhoeven’s fictional future.
But that’s what makes these movies so valuable, and why their remakes were so unnecessary.
Because these are so much more than awesome gory action movies.
Which, don't get me wrong, they definitely are.
They’re a window into the excess consumerism of the ‘80s and ‘90s.
They’re a scathing condemnation of the modern media’s effect on the public psyche.
And they’re cyberpunk visions of a dystopian future.
It’s all because Verhoeven’s razor sharp satire pushes these films to transcend