Movies
Peter Weller Refused to Partake in This Awesome ‘RoboCop’ Documentary
This year marks the 30th anniversary of one of the greatest movies ever made, Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop.
Even to this day, we’ve yet to see anything like it, and the concept to use crude robot technology in the future gives it a wicked post-apocalyptic aesthetic. It’s a goddamn masterpiece that also possesses one of the greatest ending scenes in the history of cinema. “Dick, you’re fired.”
To celebrate the film’s big landmark, fans crowd-sourced a brand new documentary perfectly titled “RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop“. The new feature length retrospective dives into the making of RoboCop (1987), its sequels and cultural impact over the last 30 years. It’s supported with over 90 of the original cast and crew with one exception: Dr. Peter Weller.
Weller, according to the trailer’s details, declined several requests to be interviewed for this film. Thankfully, the filmmakers have acquired archive interviews (both old and new) that are to be featured in the final film.
It’s a shame because this documentary looks phenomenal. In just this short trailer they tease all sorts of interesting reveals from RoboCop such as how it forced the MPAA to make changes to how troublesome and unfun the production was. There appear to be huge segments dedicated to the astounding sound design, not to mention stop motion work and design of the RoboCop costume. This looks like it’s going to be an absolute gem. Watch for release news when it comes in.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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