ROBOCOP TRILOGY (1987, 1990, 1993, Blu-ray released October 5, 2010 – MSRP $59.99)
Robocop can be many different things to many people – there are those, like me, who worship the original Paul Verhoeven movie as a flat-out brilliant example of filmmaking at its best, there are those who enjoy the entire series as a kitschy remnant of late 80s/early 90s action films and there are those who are just unabashed fans of the character. This new Robocop Trilogy boxed set is a mixed bag at best and clearly not aimed at my demographic. But for those fans clamoring to see their favourite tin-man-with-a-badge take down the bad guys in all three of his cinematic adventures, this set might just do the trick.
My first clue that this new 3-Disc Robocop Blu-ray disc set wasn’t aimed at me is the complete lack of special features. Though my love of Robocop extends only so far as the first film, I’m the kind of completest sucker who would have purchased a deluxe, feature packed multi-disc set of all the films. But, in truth, all I really long for is a straight-up 2-disc set complete with the best possible version of the original Robocop and all the extras that have ever been compiled, much like the previously available 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition DVD, but in 1080p. Sadly, this new Robocop Trilogy set fulfills neither of those desires.
Disc one is merely a re-packaging of the already available bare-bones Fox Blu-ray. It’s dated MPEG-2 transfer is fine, I guess, but clearly far less impressive than one would hope. The image is inconsistent at the best of times, exhibiting impressive detail one moment, while looking overly soft or noisy the next. Black crush is also a problem throughout. That said, this is the best I’ve ever seen the almost quarter-century film look on home video.
The sequels fare much better in their technical presentation. Both Robocop 2 and Robocop 3 look pretty great in their first foray into the world of high-def, considering their relative ages. In fact, the Blu-ray presentation contributed to my ability to actually sort-of enjoy the second film in the series for the very first time (I’ve seen it two or three times over the years, perpetually disappointed by the drop off in quality between it and Verhoeven’s ‘Cop). Sadly, nothing can save the abysmal Robocop 3 from it’s hackneyed script, clumsy direction (Fred Dekker of Monster Squad fame), cheap production design and bottom-of-the-barrel bad acting (it had to be hard to replace Peter Weller in the title role but damn, does Robert Burke ever make an uncomfortable mess of it!) Both films offer nice, robust high bit-rate AVC encodes and don’t exhibit any signs of unnecessary digital tampering.
The big shame of the set, aside from the lack of a new transfer on the 1987 original film, is the omission of all of the special features from the 2-disc 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition DVD, which includes the wonderful documentary “Flesh & Steel: The Making of RoboCop“. I suspect we’ll be seeing another release of the film on Blu-ray at some point in time, with all the extras carried over, much as Fox did with their second dip into the Predator pool.
But for now, I would recommend this new Robocop Trilogy Blu-ray boxed set only to those who have been desperate to get their hands on the complete collection of films in high-def. Though the original film is just a re-packaging of the old Fox disc, the sequels look and sound great in their Blu debut. If you love those films, you’ll be happy with this set of discs.
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[...] a huge, unabashed fan of Robocop – the film, not the franchise. So, this boxed set is a bit of a bittersweet release. I was [...]