Looking Back: Robocop, 25 Years Later

UCLA is hosting the 25th anniversary celebration of Robocop, the sci-fi action film starring Peter Weller, on May 31, 2012 at 7:30pm. The anniversary event will include a screening of the film and a reunion of the cast and crew.
 
Directed by Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall), the 1987 cult classic was written by UCLA alumni Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner.
 
Among the cast and crew expected to attend are director Verhoeven, UCLA alumni Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, visual effects designer Phil Tippett, writers Neumeier and Miner, Miguel Ferrer, Kurtwood Smith, editor Frank J. Urioste, sound editor Steve Flick, and Angie Bolling.
 
Discussing the upcoming 25th anniversary screening, UCLA’s Melnitz Movies Director Samuel B. Prime said, “To me, Robocop is the single greatest American theatrical motion picture experience ever realized. Robocop is an important work to the UCLA community; it represents both an outstanding success of and collaboration between its alumni, from Neumeier and Miner, to Peter Weller, a current Art History PhD candidate. Numerous executives at Orion Pictures, Robocop‘s production company, also connect back to UCLA.”
 
“As with the successful DIFF anniversary screening, our aim is to bring the family together and celebrate this extraordinary film,” concluded Prime.
 
And discussing the lasting appeal and the significance of Robocop, writer Michael Miner said, “Ed (Neumeier) and I wrote Robocop as comic relief for the cynical decade of the 1980s. Ronald Reagan and his cronies had just mortgaged America’s future to the corporations. The satirical tone results in scathing black comedy and our plot centers on how a corporation tries to privatize law enforcement and ‘own’ someone’s personality. The history of America, in spite of its hypocritical ideology of freedom for all, is actually one long, uninterrupted scenario of exploitation and feudal governance. That’s why Robocop is so powerful. Its social criticism is very loud. It’s not about vacuous superheroes saving the world. Instead, it’s about an honest soul, confronting corruption. From High Noon to Taxi Driver, movie heroes have always spoken truth to power and become an inspiration for the powerless. I think that is the essence of Robocop‘s popularity.”
 
Source: UCLA