9. Robocop Was Sanitised
The original Robocop was a cult gem precisely because it was so committed to shocking, provoking and making the audience wince; it was an action film with one foot solidly planted in exploitation films. While it was far slicker, the genetic similarities are hard to resist, and that is partly why audiences responded to it's gloriously self-conscious trashiness. But from the moment the new Robocop was announced, it was inevitable that something was going to be lost in what Robocop had always meant; traded off for some unwelcome modern slickness that would feel like putting Mad Max in a tuxedo. But quite how sanitised the film would become was an unknown quantity and it was assumed by some - the hopeless idealists - that some sense of the spirit of the original would be upheld. Instead the film ignored those careless hopes and embraced the potentially bigger financial draw of the PG-13 rating: which is pretty much like releasing Nightmare On Elm Street without Freddy Krueger. Inevitably older fans were disgusted, and the studio ended up with a big loss on their hands when the new audiences they craved reacted with apathy and ambivalence.