The Dark, Messy Saga of Frank Miller’s RoboCop
Thirty-five years ago, the comic book trailblazer behind Sin City and The Dark Knight Returns wrote a Hollywood blockbuster. He would come to regret it.
Officer Alex James Murphy cruises through the crumbling streets of Detroit in a broken-down cop car — sirens blaring, shards of glass and metal whipping off the vehicle as it careens through oncoming traffic. Chaos and crime have overwhelmed the city due to a police strike actively encouraged by the department’s corporate owners. The only person, or more accurately, the only thing, that can save Detroit from total annihilation is Murphy, better known as RoboCop ever since scientists salvaged his brain and face from a dying corpse and grafted them onto a lethal, law-enforcing cyborg body.
This is not a scene from the original RoboCop or even from RoboCop 2, although it shares some similarities with the dystopian sci-fi sequel released on June 22, 1990. Rather, it’s a sequence pulled from the first issue of Frank Miller’s RoboCop, a comic book published over a decade later in an attempt to resurrect the legendary comic creator’s original RoboCop 2 screenplay.
Three and a half decades after RoboCop 2 crashed into theaters to a mostly cold reception, Miller’s true vision lives on. And while each version of this half-baked story is imperfect in its own way, when viewed together, they just might make for one great science fiction saga.
RoboCop was invented by Edward Neumeier, who co-wrote the script with Michael Miner before Paul Verhoeven stepped in to direct. The original was a hit, so Neumeier and Miner quickly got to work on a sequel, but when a late ‘80s writers' strike pushed them off the project, Neumeier offered the studio two suggestions for his replacement: Alan Moore (the iconoclastic comics writer behind Watchmen and V for Vendetta) and Frank Miller (the creator of ultra-stylized comic book classics like Sin City, 300, and The Dark Knight Returns). Moore passed, saying he wasn’t interested in Hollywood, but Miller accepted the offer. He’d soon come to regret it.
The only known description of Miller’s original vision for RoboCop 2 can be found in the July 1990 issue of Cinefantastique Magazine, which devoted 16 full pages to the movie. The story picks up shortly after the events of RoboCop. Murphy is reinstated to the Detroit Police Department, but the internal battle between his repressed human personality and his upgraded software begins to drive the poor cyborg insane. RoboCop winds up under the care of an evil corporate psychologist who attempts to break his spirit, while Omni Consumer Products (the company that owns the police and is actively trying to bankrupt Detroit and loot it for profit) begins to develop a new model that won’t have any pesky morals or humanity.
Miller reworked that script several times before showing it to the movie studio, but even those self-edits weren’t enough. Walon Green later joined the team for some heavy rewrites, while Miller also stuck around and continued to tinker with the plot and dialogue throughout the rushed filming process.
“Sometimes, Frank would have to alter his stuff only because he wasn’t used to writing the character,” Peter Weller, the film’s star, told Cinefantastique Magazine in 1990. “Robo wouldn’t make value judgements, and he doesn’t make assessments based upon interpretation — it’s just facts. He doesn't elicit feelings or portray feelings or request feelings. So a lot of those things, when I would read them, I'd say, ‘Frank, this is out of character.’ Instinctively, I knew what was right.”
No offense to the great Peter Weller, but if taking script notes from the star of the movie based on a gut sense of how his character should act sounds frustrating, well, just imagine how Miller felt.
What Frank Miller wanted to do to Peter Weller, probably.
The version of RoboCop 2 that audiences saw onscreen is far from perfect. The plot, which includes a police strike, a messianic crime lord, a scheme to bulldoze Detroit and replace it with luxury towers, and a murderous new RoboCop 2, is overstuffed to the point of incoherence. Meanwhile, the final act, in which the two RoboCops finally fight, looks suspiciously like the director smashing action figures together in stop-motion — picture a Robot Chicken sketch and you’re not so far off.
Frank Miller’s RoboCop, by comparison, is equally incoherent but much more focused. The plot strips out the entire crime-ring plotline and mostly focuses on RoboCop’s attempts to maintain order during a police strike that’s emboldened criminals across the city. Miller’s version also relies heavily on in-universe TV broadcasts, which feature broadcast anchors casually describing horrific events like a nuclear meltdown in the Amazon, and a commercial for a local donut shop that’s suddenly the safest place in town thanks to a growing customer base of striking police officers. (The movie also features a few satirical commercials, but they’re much less prevalent.)
Ultimately, what holds Miller’s comic back is its focus on violent and disturbing imagery over visual legibility. Each panel reveals new horrors as RoboCop blasts his way through a Detroit full of junkies and prostitutes. His protagonist also regularly breaks down and needs to be rescued and repaired, which creates a narrative cycle of murder and rehabilitation that quickly gets old.
Reading Frank Miller’s RoboCop feels like getting only half of a fascinating story — all bloodshed, very little character development — while RoboCop 2 follows a more traditional narrative arc, but fails to leave much of an impression. Combined, they add up to what you might actually consider to be a decent narrative experience.
The fights between the Robocops often feel feel like smashing two action figures together.
RoboCop 2 ends abruptly, the credits rolling moments after the enemy cyborg is defeated with just enough time for a forgettable punchline, but the comic offers a bit more closure. As his story comes to its conclusion, Miller rescues a moment from his original treatment that never made it into the movie. Having saved the day and retreated from society, RoboCop is now living in an abandoned shed on the outskirts of Detroit. But as night falls and the sounds of crime begin to ring through the air, he unplugs his charging cables and drives off into the night to protect the innocent once more.
It’s a simple coda to an overly convoluted story, but it’s also classic Frank Miller. A beautiful visual to make you pause and reflect, even for just a moment, before the inevitable return to mayhem that has always defined RoboCop.
