‘RoboCop’ (1987) With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt

Dead or alive, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt revisit Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 sci-fi classic ‘RoboCop’—starring Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, and Kurtwood Smith. Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Ronak Nair Free eBooks library. It’s on Prime. This episode is sponsored by State Farm®️. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  The Rewatchables is brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where you can't find Kyle Brand unless he comes on The Rewatchables, and it's been a while. You pushed for this. You've been watching a bunch Robocop. Yes. There's a new guy in town, and he's next.

• 1:49Speaker 04

  He died a hero. Target. And was reborn

• 1:55Speaker 04

  as Robocop.

• 1:58Speaker 04

  A one-man police force with the strength of an army, the speed of a laser, the brain of a computer, and a body made of steel.

• 2:07Speaker 05

  Looking for me?

• 2:11Speaker 04

  Robocop, Ray and R starts Friday, July 17th at a theater near you.

• 2:17Bill Simmons?

  This episode of the rewatchables is presented by Prime. You listen to this podcast for the movie talk. So let's set the scene. Our lead, tall, dark, stranded at the airport, hours of delays. He's scrolled, strolled and loitered by every overpriced snack stand, but just when all hope seems lost. Plot twist. He remembers he has Prime and without a whole library of free books ready to read right from his device. Cue the triumph and score. Roll credits. Free ebooks library. It's on Prime.

• 3:03Bill Simmons?

  All right, Kyle Brandt, you pushed for this. Why?

• 3:07Speaker 05

  Well, we had this great conversation going into it, Bill, where I'm texting Bill and I say, "Robocop?" And Bill responds, "We have never done Robocop." And I said, "I'll buy that for a dump." We're off and fucking running. I couldn't believe it hadn't been done. It's one of these, there's still gold in these rewatchables hills. We found it. I'm thrilled to be doing it. I like Robocop, Bill, because there's cool shooting and violence and funny lines. I love Robocop because it should be a B movie and it refuses to be. It decided to be an A movie. It doesn't have to be half as interesting as it is. It could have just been, "We're Toomey Terminator. We got a robot who shoots people and it's violence

• 3:50Speaker 05

  and we'll take your five bucks." This movie decided it has something to say. It has things to educate us on and a lot of it is because of our guy, bloodstained horn dog, Dutch Paul Verhoeven, our guy, corniest man in Hollywood at this era. And he just composed a masterpiece here. I love this movie.

• 4:09Bill Simmons?

  That would have been a great list for movies that just should have been a B and wouldn't accept the grade.

• 4:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:15Bill Simmons?

  And we're like, "We're gonna be an A minus here," or we might even be an A. Cause you know, there's some other good ones from the earlier eighties that are like that, I guess. Like Escape from New York's a good example. They were really trying, but at the same time, that's a B movie and they just kind of elevate it beyond. This one. This movie's really saying something and then as the years pass, it becomes even more poignant because it's basically like corporations are going to take over everything. Detroit is going to go bankrupt, basically collapse, which it does in 2013. And then it's just really stylish and it moves. Craig, producer Craig was saying how, uh, when we sent it to him that it was like 102 minutes.

• 4:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 4:57Bill Simmons?

  Start to finish. They make this movie now. It's probably, what, 145 minutes?

• 5:03Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Well, if Marvel does it in the comic thing, it's three hours and 20 with an intermission and some bonus shit scene after the credits, all that. This doesn't have an ounce of fat on it. It's short.

• 5:13Bill Simmons?

  Well, don't you think that this would now be a Marvel movie? I mean, that's, that, that's the other thing is like, they would have, they would have seen this as some sort of franchise, which it weirdly became. But I don't think they intended it to be a franchise when they made it, right?

• 5:26Speaker 05

  No, and even more so than we think. They, Marvel made a Robocop comic book after this. When they were merchandising it and it was on lunchboxes and thermoses and cartoons and video games and it was everywhere. There actually was a comic book, even in the eighties that Marvel took over. So now it would be six different movies and it was, they would do everything with it. But the fact that Verhoeven took this thing and made it lean and mean and was like, you know, Bill, like, like there's, there's Jesus motifs here. There's thoughts about AI ahead of its time. And yet it's not all preachy because just when they get into that, they'll give you a scene where Robocop shoots somebody's dick off and you just laugh out loud. It does it all.

• 6:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, it has those news breaks too, to always lighten it up. And, you know, this is really, I don't know what you think the peak year was for villains overlapping as they're evil. But it's somewhere in the eighties, the Death Wish movies were doing it too. But these three, four people would get together downtown wherever is just in complete disarray. They have guns. They're just blowing stuff up. They're laughing their asses off like it's the funniest thing ever. I don't know when this ended and I don't know why I can't come back.

• 6:31Speaker 05

  One of the details too that's in this movie, that's in a lot of those movies you're talking about, is that they're just casually no big deal doing drugs for the whole movie. Like in this movie, they keep snorting these things and they never even address what it is or what it does. But just between dialogue, they'll just Clarence Botticelli just get a quick double nostril blast and then he's off and running. But it's not even addressed. And it's just, it's, it's so fun, man. You mentioned like the, I try to imagine, I didn't get to see this movie in the theater, thank God, because I was eight years old. But if you're, did you see it in the theater?

• 7:00Bill Simmons?

  I did.

• 7:01Speaker 05

  All right. So when you're sitting down in the theater and you're like, all right, the Robocop movie, cheesy name, let's see some guns. And the first scene out of the opening is the satirical news desk and then a fake commercial like, what the, did I walk into the wrong movie? What is this? They're playing the wrong reel. It's really cool though.

• 7:17Bill Simmons?

  It felt, it's weird. When it came out, it felt like it got lost in that whole like Stallone, Schwarzenegger vortex we're in, where all these movies are coming out left and right and Colbert and Running Man and Predator. And it's just that, it's just, it's just an onslaught, right? So this is like, all right, what's this? This feels like a movie Stallone or Schwarzenegger could have been. And then you see it and it's really stylish and well done. We didn't know a lot about Verhoeven back then. He had just like made his first American movie two years before we did Flesh and Blood. We had some pretty racy nude scenes, which were a big deal on cable in the mid eighties. But I, I can't say I had high expectations. This was a classic. You just went to the movies every weekend.

• 7:58Bill Simmons?

  Hey, people are saying Robocop's pretty good. I think the thing that shocked me was how good the reviews were in the moment. And then after the fact, like this is now considered one of the best uh, kind of science fiction futuristic action movies ever made, which I don't think anyone was thinking in 1987.

• 8:16Speaker 05

  No, small budget, unproven director, no major movie star, unproven villain, like all these technical aspects that they were going to pull off. And to your point, the fish are jumping into the boat in 1987. Like we're not, it's so much muscle, so much machine gun. I bet all the critics sat down for this, ready to hate it. Because you know, you get into it a lot and a lot of people making the movie are like, we can't call the movie Robocop. It sounds horrible. It's so cheesy and I think you sit down for Robocop and just expect schlocks shoot them up idiocy. Cause that's what was running the day.

• 8:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:49Speaker 05

  But then you're like, right out of the gates, we're satirizing cable news before cable news and politics. And it's just, the IQ is so high and yet still the firepower is just so pleasing.

• 9:01Bill Simmons?

  And it feels relatively realistic, even though it's insane as a movie. But every single thing they're doing it and I'm like, eh, maybe. Like, maybe corporations would buy out the police force as like a business move and then put in robots that would police 24/7. Like, it's not inconceivable in 1987. Could this be where we're going? I don't know.

• 9:25Speaker 05

  Well, even just as employees, do we really think Bezos is not going to have Ed 209 stocking shelves like in the next 20 minutes? Like that's, it's all sitting right there. There's that scene where, where they first take Robocop to the shooting range. And it's like, it's pulled out of 2025. They're like, it's not a cop, it's a robot. And the guy literally says, he's going to take all our jobs. And it's, it's everything we're hearing now. It's AI at the shooting range and people really afraid of it. But they made this thing in 86. It's so cool.

• 9:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, then you think Rocky IV is when, uh, when Rocky gets the robot for Polly.

• 9:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:59Bill Simmons?

  So this is peak, robots might be in our life, but we were 40 years early. But now, I don't know, they must have this in New York. They have it in LA where these little robots that deliver stuff.

• 10:10Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 10:10Bill Simmons?

  Right? They have robot Waymos, basically those robot Ubers.

• 10:16Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 10:16Bill Simmons?

  Um, so this stuff's now in our lives, but I think it took a lot longer than maybe the 1980s was anticipating.

• 10:22Speaker 05

  Well, we were expecting hoverboards, but instead when I go to Stop and Shop, there's this idiot robot in aisle six asking me if I want to scan anything. Just getting in the way of my cart. I hate it. I don't like that stuff. I don't like those self-driven cars. They freak me out. I'm not riding in it. I don't like any of that stuff.

• 10:37Bill Simmons?

  Apparently a good place to have sex.

• 10:40Speaker 05

  Is that right?

• 10:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, you lose your Waymo privileges, but for one time, it's a hell of a ride.

• 10:46Speaker 05

  It's an F Shack just said, there's no driver. Why the hell not?

• 10:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a big thing. It was a big thing for a while. Unfortunately for the people in the car having sex, they they're being videotaped the entire time. So, you know, buyer beware.

• 10:59Speaker 05

  Well, Taxi Cab confessionals previewed that, you know, that's 25 years ago as well. That's great. I gotta try that. I just asked the wife.

• 11:05Bill Simmons?

  So Newmeyer, one of the people that wrote this movie, after 2013, when Detroit went bankrupt and it was supposedly the most dangerous place in the United States, and Newmeyer said, "We're now living in the world that I was proposing in Robocop, how big corporations will take care of us and how they won't." It's a mild have a glass of settle down juice for him, but also like, eh, he should maybe take a victory lap. I don't know. Some weird shit's happened since 1987.

• 11:35Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, it's, I mean, listen, the crash was coming when they wrote this. All this labor versus management, privatization, and Dick Jones's good business is where you find it. It's all very, very current. This should be like, you know, people go back and watch Idiocracy now and they say that that's aged really well. I would say if I'm a Gen Z-er, watch Robocop. If you don't like the violence or whatever, watch it for the politics. Like, they saw this stuff coming in the 80s and they saw AI and they saw privatization and government. I mean, it's, it's right in the middle of the Reagan era. It's, it's so politically reflective that you could watch this movie 20 years from now and the special effects will look bad, but who cares? The movie works.

• 12:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and in the moment, they were talking about how it was like a repudiation of Reaganomics and trickle down, all that stuff. It was right as people were starting to turn against it and then when the crash happened. But this is a really interesting time for movies because on the one hand, you know, in 1987 was a murder's row of movies. I mean, it's one of the best rewatched movies years we've ever had, but you have Gordon Gekko on the one side, where it's like greed is good and this is like a whole motif that's all over the place in movies. Secret of my success. Like, I need to go, I need to make as much money as possible. How do I make money right away? And then on the other hand, you have movies like Robocop that are like, this is gonna go badly. Like just, just be careful what you wish for, everybody. And, uh, I don't know.

• 12:58Bill Simmons?

  I, I don't think anyone in the moment ever thought that this would be considered one of the smart movies of the eighties. But I think it is. Cause Working Girl comes out, comes out in eighty seven too. And we did that on rewatchables last month. But same kind of thing, like some of the stuff it's trying to do with females in the workplace. And it's, it's like really ahead of its time. And this one was too.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  Surprisingly, refreshingly progressive. Talking about the females in the workplace. There was, there's a note where they called all the guys who kill Murphy. They refer to them and the producers, they refer to as the gang. And the exec producer was, I want this gang to be diverse. And not, I'm not saying I don't want it to be all white guys. I don't want it to all be people of color. I don't want to make a racist movie. And this is like, this is nineteen eighty six when they're shooting this. There weren't a lot of people saying that. But you look at how that gang is casted and it looks like twenty twenty five. It's, it's, it's really interesting and I really respect what they were doing. Cause again, just make a shoot them up movie with blood and guts and a robotic cop. And we're going to give you our five bucks. They didn't have to do that shit. They could have been a B movie and they refused to be. It's awesome.

• 13:59Bill Simmons?

  Another thing with this movie, just an all time great premise.

• 14:03Bill Simmons?

  Twenty four, seven, Robo cops. Could it work? They have three directives. Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law. But directive four is classified.

• 14:15Speaker 05

  Mystery. That's right.

• 14:16Bill Simmons?

  I wonder what it is. And then we find out later.

• 14:21Bill Simmons?

  So nineteen eighty seven Detroit. Cause you feel like this is maybe a bad movie for Detroit. Or you could say, that's actually pretty good Detroit, even though they filmed this movie in Dallas. Which I found out in the research.

• 14:33Speaker 05

  Oh, well.

• 14:34Bill Simmons?

  Nineteen eighty seven Detroit has Robo cop. Beverly Hills cop two, cause it starts out there. The nineteen eighty seven Pistons take Larry Bird and the Celtics to game seven. They, it seems like they're going to win the title. First important Pistons basketball moment ever.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  They got next.

• 14:50Bill Simmons?

  The Tigers who won the title, uh, three years earlier, they won ninety eight games, almost made the world series again. Red Wings made the conference finals for the first time in six years. Anita Baker's rapture, huge.

• 15:03Bill Simmons?

  And then the Fab Five, Jalen Rose and Seaweb now playing together AAU, like the Fab Five is forming. Uh, I'll just go early, Apex Mountain for Detroit. I think this is it.

• 15:14Speaker 05

  It's tough to beat until, until the Jared Goff Lions win a Super Bowl, which I don't know if that's happening. Eighty-seven was a hell of a time and listen, the best high school football player in Detroit at that time, Jerome Bettis. That was eighty-seven. He was killing it about to go to Notre Dame, not Michigan. They lost him, but like eighty-seven Detroit was cooking like young, young.

• 15:34Bill Simmons?

  Do we have young Eminem there too?

• 15:37Speaker 05

  Well, he's definitely alive. I don't know if he's like drawing the wraps on the chalk on the sidewalk.

• 15:42Bill Simmons?

  Let's throw him in. Let's help that case.

• 15:44Speaker 05

  Come on in, buddy.

• 15:45Bill Simmons?

  Come on in Eminem.

• 15:48Bill Simmons?

  But, uh, great times all around with Sanders. He wasn't on the Lions yet though, right?

• 15:52Speaker 05

  No, Sanders was eighty-nine draft. So he was at Oklahoma State. He's coming. They got their eyes on him.

• 15:56Bill Simmons?

  The Lions are, are being bad and paving their way for Barry Sanders. Anyway, great time for Detroit and then Verhoeven. So big Dutch filmmaker in the seventies. Did multiple Rutger Hauer movies overseas?

• 16:10Speaker 05

  Dutch.

• 16:11Bill Simmons?

  Have we done a movie with Rutger Hauer yet?

• 16:13Speaker 05

  Have you done Blade Runner?

• 16:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't think we have.

• 16:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't think so either. I, I don't, I can't think of a Rutger Hauer movie.

• 16:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, the one that we would do is Nighthawks. If we wanted to go Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, Stallone trying to, uh, kind of zag, trying to zag away from Rocky. I don't know how you feel about Nighthawks.

• 16:32Speaker 05

  Uh, I'm into Nighthawks. I'm into Lady Hawk as well. I, I like all that stuff.

• 16:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So Hauer, that he was basically like Dutch Robert Redford, even though he was German, whatever. But he was in all these different movies that Verhoeven did. Um, so he bangs out Robocop, Total Recall and Basic Instinct. In a six-year run, those are three movies in a row that he made that we have now all done in the rewatchables. Little horny, uh, apparently an complete asshole on the set.

• 16:58Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 16:59Bill Simmons?

  Didn't really understand how American film sets worked and just yelled at everybody until people rebelled. And then, uh, after Basic Instinct, an all-time classic, created a historical epic based around the Crusades. That would have starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. It went into pre-production in nineteen ninety-three. And then our guys from Carolco pulled funding from the project because they're going bankrupt. We're back. Yet another podcast with Carolco.

• 17:28Speaker 05

  Their boys are back in town.

• 17:30Bill Simmons?

  We, their bankruptcy cost us an Arnold Schwarzenegger, Paul Verhoeven Crusades movie.

• 17:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. See, I bet the Carolco financiers, they, there was a scene in the Crusades movie where one of the women was topless and had three breasts and they couldn't afford it for the budget. So they're like, I'm sorry, Paul, you can't bring her back. She's still goaded, but we just can't afford it. That blew up the whole project.

• 17:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, he got pissed and ends up ripping off Showgirls a year later. Starship Troopers and Hollow Man. And then it kind of ends for him. But he's got like a nice 15 year run there of movies I would watch on cable. Starship Troopers, what's your relationship with that one?

• 18:07Speaker 05

  Love Starship Troopers. Love Johnny Rico. Hilarious football scene, coed shower scene, a lot to like in that. Neil Patrick Harris with a machine gun. I, Bill, when the call comes in for Starship Troopers, full, full disclosure here. When I was a freshman on the college on the football team, the seniors all nicknamed me Johnny Rico after, after Casper Vindian.

• 18:26Bill Simmons?

  Save it, save it for the Starship Troopers podcast. I mentioned 87 as one of the great rewatchables years. And we've done a few of these. The number of movie that year by, in, in year releases was Three Men and a Baby?

• 18:44Speaker 05

  Directed by Leonard Nimoy, inexplicably. Yes. Spock directed that movie.

• 18:48Bill Simmons?

  Everything about that movie is inexplicable. I don't even know what would happen if that guy, like, could that even be an Amazon scripted show now? Three Men and a Baby? Such a weird premise.

• 18:57Speaker 05

  You're talking about three, I don't know, like losers who all live together, who are 40 years old, have a baby. And inexplicably in the middle of the movie, there's a cocaine plot line that I, I'm not even sure why it's there. And then Spock directed it. There's a ghost kid in the background. There's all kinds of shit going on with that movie.

• 19:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I mean, you, you didn't hit the key premise hard enough that these three dudes who were like 38, 41 and 43 all just live together. And we're all single and, and just this baby shows up. Anyway, that was our number one movie. Fatal Attraction, Beverly Hills Cop Two, Good Morning Vietnam, Moonstruck is our top five. Untouchables, Secret of My Success, Stakeout, Lethal Weapon.

• 19:38Bill Simmons?

  Dirty Dancing, Predator.

• 19:39Speaker 05

  Bangers. Jesus.

• 19:41Bill Simmons?

  Dragnet, La Bamba, Robocop, Outrageous Fortune, Broadcast News, Living Daylights, Eddie Murphy, Raw, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Full Metal Jacket, Wall Street, Mannequin, Roxanne, Blind Date, The Running Man, Spaceballs, Summer School. You must have loved Summer School.

• 19:57Speaker 05

  Mark Harmon, Mr. Shute, hell yes.

• 19:59Bill Simmons?

  No Way Out. We've done that one. The Lost Boys, Can't Buy Me Love, Princess Bride,

• 20:06Bill Simmons?

  Baby Boom, Tin Man, Black Widow. That's just our top 50. And that's where you get into Raising Arizona and Big Easy and Angel Heart. And Over the Top came out that year. Less Than Zero, just like Someone to Watch Over Me. We've done, Jesus Christ, Kyle Brandt.

• 20:21Speaker 05

  You mentioned Over the Top as like 30th billion on that. And it's not even above the fold. More good movies in one year than we've had in the last 25 years. I love your Sean Fennessey. I'm sorry. That was an incredible list that Bill just rattled off.

• 20:33Bill Simmons?

  Rewatchable movies too, like movies that could just be on cable all the time. So kudos to 1987. Kudos to this movie with, I'm gonna call it a That Guy Tsunami.

• 20:45Speaker 05

  Let's go. Hey, let's get into it. It's so good. I got a bunch of them.

• 20:50Bill Simmons?

  There's, there's That Guys Who Stopped Being That Guys. Ronnie Cox became Ronnie Cox.

• 20:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:56Bill Simmons?

  Kurtwood Smith became Kurtwood Smith.

• 20:58Speaker 05

  Kurtwood Smith.

• 21:00Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if Miguel Ferreira became Miguel Ferreira, or he just became that guy who I knew from this movie and five other movies. It depends. I know him as Miguel Ferreira, but I don't know.

• 21:09Speaker 05

  I don't know him as Miguel Ferreira. Passed away, but I think of him, he's in some stuff. He's a great actor. He's the Robocop guy for me.

• 21:16Bill Simmons?

  So he is Bob Morton in this movie.

• 21:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:19Bill Simmons?

  Who has the cocaine threesome when he's storing cocaine off the cleavage, which was a mid 80s staple. Kurtwood Smith is in this. And then two years later, three years later, the dad in Dead Poets Society. I'm just, let's do this now. Who's the bigger villain? Cause he plays in this movie, he plays Clarence Bottaker.

• 21:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:41Bill Simmons?

  And then he plays Neil's dad in Dead Poets Society, who drives Neil to offing himself and finds his body in the office. Says, Neil, Neil.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  My boy.

• 21:52Bill Simmons?

  My boy.

• 21:53Speaker 05

  It's a terrible.

• 21:54Bill Simmons?

  Neil. I hate that guy so much. I hate that guy more than Clarence Boddaker.

• 22:00Speaker 05

  All right, this is, this is a first round knockout. Clarence Boddaker is the drug addicted psycho asshole who torture murders a cop. And Neil's dad is 50 times worse.

• 22:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 05

  Drives his kid to suicide because he doesn't want him to be in the goddamn play, even though he shows talent. And people say that, that Kurtwood Smith is like the nicest, most generous person. I never watched that 70's show. I know he's massive in that. But they're like, he could not be a nicer guy to work with. What a great actor.

• 22:25Bill Simmons?

  Drove Neil to his death.

• 22:27Speaker 05

  Terrible.

• 22:27Bill Simmons?

  And then Ronnie Cox, who is Bogomil in Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2. He's in Beverly Hills Cop 2 in 1987 as he's finally gets to play a bad guy. He plays a bad guy for Verhoeven in this and then Total Recall.

• 22:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:42Bill Simmons?

  So.

• 22:42Speaker 05

  And loves being the bad guy and is great at the bad guy.

• 22:46Bill Simmons?

  But then we have that redheaded guy from ER.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:50Bill Simmons?

  He eventually, well, he's walking with a cane in ER a million years later. You know that guy. He plays, he plays your guy Emil in this.

• 22:57Speaker 05

  Emil, yes.

• 22:59Bill Simmons?

  Who, who ends up dying in toxic, toxic waste.

• 23:02Speaker 05

  Uh, I can't wait to talk about that scene. Emil also had a one season run as, I think he was Jack Bauer's brother in 24. Like, I love that guy. I don't know his name, but he's Emil. And he's also a great actor. Well, you're a college boy.

• 23:16Bill Simmons?

  He's always up to stuff. Nancy Allen is the female cop in this. So has this, she's married to Brian De Palma. She's in Dressed to Kill. She's in Blowout. She earlier on was in Carrie, has this whole run. This is kind of where it's about to end for her.

• 23:32Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 23:33Bill Simmons?

  And Verhoeven, because he wanted this movie to be as asexual as possible.

• 23:39Bill Simmons?

  Told her to gain weight, which she did by not smoking anymore. And then just kept giving her a haircut until they gave her the one she liked. And they basically like, they cagney and laced her just, just full fledged. And there's no sexual tension at all.

• 23:54Speaker 05

  We have to stop the clock. I had it, when does, when does Louis's hair first come up in the pod? I knew this was going to be a point of conversation. It's an important conversation. If you had the under, I think you won. Kept making her cut her hair like five times to de-sexualize her. And my take on it, I think it's awesome. It's a total zag. Why have some like, I don't know, some sex pot in the female lead instead of the first who actually looks like a cop?

• 24:19Bill Simmons?

  Like a Sharon Stone, she's sitting right there.

• 24:20Speaker 05

  She was coming, they were all coming. He's horny as hell. And despite that, he's like, no, let's have the cop be a badass female cop. They weren't doing that back then. They just weren't. You choose some, some Baywatch looking girl and she goes and she's hot and they have a sexual tension, not at all. Louis is a cool character. I like her.

• 24:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, he had some vision for the future that was basically asexual. Cause that locker room scene that's near the beginning is important. The police locker room and just, we see guys asses. All of a sudden there's a naked lady, they're all together and nothing is sexual at all.

• 24:52Speaker 05

  No, and he ran that back to Starship Troopers. He likes the, um, the, the coed showers. I don't know, like sometimes I go to a restaurant now, especially in New York, more than ever, when you go back to the bathrooms, there's not men's and women's, there's just bathrooms and everybody waits. I did it last night. Verhoeven was all over that, but there's not a men's and women's room, not where I went last night. You just wait with everybody.

• 25:12Bill Simmons?

  There's one place in Boston where it's a giant bathroom. And there's just different stalls, but it's men and women, and then the common sink. And it's, you know.

• 25:21Speaker 05

  Is that Fenway Park?

• 25:21Bill Simmons?

  Come out of, no, no, it's the Quinn, this place in Boston. You come out of one and you could be like, you could have been talking to some, somebody like in the bar and she's coming out of the other stall after you're sort of blowing it up. Like that's, you know, I don't know.

• 25:36Speaker 05

  And she comes out, she's got toilet paper on her foot and she just blew up that thing. And you're like, oh no, what's that over there? You run out.

• 25:41Bill Simmons?

  Hey, I gotta run. My, uh, my dad called, he's getting surgery tomorrow.

• 25:47Bill Simmons?

  And then Peter Weller, who just kind of became Robocop. I don't even know what else you would know him from.

• 25:52Speaker 05

  I had this conversation ready. I have never seen a Peter Weller film that is not Robocop. And he's done a lot. He also was in a season of 24, but I am a one-character guy for Peter Weller. All due respect to Peter Weller, like theater actor, very conscious guy. I don't have it, Bill. I'm sorry. I don't know the other stuff.

• 26:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, there's some great stuff we have coming up for him later about some of his choices he made on the set in this movie that I can't really talk about. 13.4 million dollar budget, made 53 million, two sequels, then the remake in 2014 with Joel Kinnaman and Abby Cornish. What's your relationship with that movie?

• 26:31Speaker 05

  No relationship. My relationship is when you scan the cast, holy shit, they spent money. Michael Keaton's in that movie. Sam Jackson's in it. Gary Oldman just picking up a check as the scientist. Like, they're like, we went cheap on Robocop, so give us all the big money guys. And still, you know what they did? They rated it fucking PG-13. Get out of here with that. Get out of here. Give me an R.

• 26:54Bill Simmons?

  My shade just fell.

• 26:55Speaker 05

  I saw it. It was like God looked down on you. Look at that. That was dramatic, Bill.

• 26:59Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna fix it when we go to break. The Roger Ebert, three stars. Most thriller and special effects movies come right off the assembly line. You can call out every development in advance and usually be right. Robocop is a thriller with a difference.

• 27:15Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 27:16Bill Simmons?

  Rog, I gotta be honest. Could've gone three and a half stars there, Rog.

• 27:22Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 27:23Bill Simmons?

  Could've thrown in the half star for how ahead of the time this movie was, but whatever.

• 27:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, when we get to like What's Age the Worst, I'm looking at you, bud. I don't have a ton of What's Age the Worst. I've got a lot of what's. You're gonna carry the day on that one?

• 27:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're gonna take a break. I'm gonna fix my shade. This is my last podcast in here before the shades. We have actual shades and we'll be back in a second. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Having the right people in your corner make all the difference. Just think of all the people we cycle in and out as co-hosts here on the rewatchables. I send texts, "Hey, you like this movie?" "Hey, you like that movie?" All of a sudden, Van Lathan's like, "I love that movie." Chris Ryan's like, "I love that movie." And by the way, can we do Hunt for Red October again? Like those people, State Farm is there to help you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you. Go online at statefarm.com or use the award-winning app to get help from one of their local agents.

• 28:21Bill Simmons?

  Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, first category, most rewatchable scene. Murphy, I, listen, this probably isn't even in the running, but I love when Murphy shows up for his first day. I love the 80s police stations. We've talked about this before, they're action-packed, shit's going down, wise cracks left and right. Bad guys just wander in and get beaten up. I like anytime a cop says to another cop, "Welcome to hell." It feels like a staple. Nancy Allen gets to kick someone's ass. I don't know, I just enjoy those police station scenes.

• 28:56Speaker 05

  There's always perps being pushed through across camera. One of them always fights one of the cops. And then you have the really grumpy ranking officer who's tired of this shit. Always the same thing. And the shirt that Murphy walks in with is so 1987. I almost thought about picking it for the most 1987 thing. Silk top button patterned. That scene is really fun to watch.

• 29:17Bill Simmons?

  Um, I don't know, I don't think police stations move that way anymore. It's probably like way harder to get into. There's probably all these checks and balances and, but back then it just felt like anybody could just wander in and take a swing at a cop.

• 29:32Speaker 05

  Anytime you want. And I also don't think the cops brought the, the perps in or just like book them and throw them against the desk and then walk out. Like that, they always do that in TV shows, but I think it's probably really rigorous.

• 29:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, my favorite movie ever, 48 Hours. There's a whole, after all the cops get wasted in the hotel and Kate goes back to the station and he's just wandering around. He's barking at people. He's, he's getting yelled at by his boss and he's trying, he's looking at Henry Wong's photo and he's just, it's just moving in this way that I just don't think they do anymore.

• 30:01Speaker 05

  It's always three, it's always. Murphy, my office, now. It's just simple commands. It's, that's the whole vibe. God, I love that shit.

• 30:10Bill Simmons?

  Next scene is, are we calling it Ed 209 or ED 209?

• 30:15Speaker 05

  Ed 209, Ed 209, yeah.

• 30:16Bill Simmons?

  When do you think they moved it from ED to Ed?

• 30:20Speaker 05

  I think it was just sitting there and I think it was right. They had a lot of problems with that 209, as we know. But I think it was late in production, a lot.

• 30:28Bill Simmons?

  Old Detroit has a cancer. This demo of, of Ed 209, big loser, Mr. Kenny. Who wants, who wants to volunteer? There's 20 people at the table. Mr. Kenny's like, I'm gonna get some brownie points for this one. I'd love to volunteer.

• 30:48Bill Simmons?

  This is the, the 20 seconds when they realize it's malfunctioning.

• 31:12Bill Simmons?

  And Mr.

• 31:12Speaker 05

  You have 15 seconds and the mosh pit breaks out?

• 31:15Bill Simmons?

  And Mr. Mosh pit.

• 31:18Speaker 05

  It's chaos.

• 31:18Bill Simmons?

  I think they're throwing them back.

• 31:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 31:22Bill Simmons?

  The best part, he gets shot, I don't know, 40 times. This is where Bear Hoben's like, you're in for a ride today. And the guy's lying on the table. He's got 40 bullet holes and, and somebody goes, somebody wanna call goddamn paramedic? It's like, we're past the paramedic.

• 31:37Speaker 05

  They gotta laugh out loud in the screening when he did that. I wonder who that actor is. I mean, what a line. What a fucking line.

• 31:44Bill Simmons?

  So like, Dick, I'm very disappointed. That's what Dick's boss says. You're disappointed that Ed 209 put 40 bullets into one of your board members? That's a bummer for you?

• 31:56Speaker 05

  There's that. And then there's, there's Bob Morton in the elevator and they're like, too bad about Kenny. Hey, that's life in the big city. No, it's not.

• 32:05Speaker 05

  Life in the big cities, you can't find affordable housing. What, what you just saw was a tragedy. What are you doing?

• 32:10Bill Simmons?

  I also feel like you're not in the elevator like four minutes after that happens.

• 32:14Speaker 05

  No, no, no, no, no, no.

• 32:15Bill Simmons?

  I would say that has to be in the running for the single craziest board meeting anyone's ever had. Like, yeah, we're gonna demonstrate. Yeah, we're gonna demonstrate Ed 209 to everybody. Oh, what's, what was the guy's name? Oh, Kenny's dead. What happened to Kenny? He got shot 42 times. We had a malfunction.

• 32:35Speaker 05

  You're so right about Kenny, too. He, he volunteers as if he's like at a magic show and gets to go up and close his eyes and be hypnotized. He's so excited to be up there. Cause you know, if you're at a kid's birthday or something like, come on dad, help us out. And you'd feel like a celebrity.

• 32:48Bill Simmons?

  All his bosses are there. It's like, I can't wait. Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 05

  I'm gonna show off. And the next thing, they're ripping the cables out of the production board for Ed 209. It's an unbelievable scene.

• 32:59Bill Simmons?

  Listen, I, I'm just telling you right now, that's my, that's my number one. When that movie, when RoboCop's in the beginning and that's coming, it's like, oh man. I got, I gotta see what happens with Ed 209.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  That's so true.

• 33:11Bill Simmons?

  Um, this next one, I mean, this is just ripping off rewatchable scenes coming out of the gate. The car chase.

• 33:17Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 33:18Bill Simmons?

  Clarence Boddicker's lair.

• 33:20Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 33:21Bill Simmons?

  Great warehouses in the eighties and movies.

• 33:24Speaker 05

  I know.

• 33:24Bill Simmons?

  We always had, but nothing's that, there's never any workers. They're always empty, but they always have all these things and there's always cranes and things. And, and then, uh, Murphy ends up dying.

• 33:34Speaker 05

  It's always, uh, what should we do for the final act? I don't know. How about a shootout in the steel mill? Yeah, that's perfect. It's always that.

• 33:41Bill Simmons?

  Lot of places to hide. There's like elevation, you could have bad guys looking down. You could have guys getting shot, falling over the walkways.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  Lava. And as we find out, like a giant 5,000 gallon thing of toxic waste that we'll talk about.

• 33:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  The, the, uh, I saw Murphy's death, uh, I think on cable or video when I was in maybe fifth grade. Really, really upsetting to me. I watched it way too young. Um, so where do, where do you come out? Because Weller is like, is acting his ass off. Do you think it's like, is it funny to watch him because he's acting so hard? Or does it mess with you? Like when, when you watch it?

• 34:21Bill Simmons?

  You know what, well, a couple of things. They're in the van and the van chase and Clarence, Clarence throws out one of the bad guys goes, can you fly Bobby?

• 34:30Speaker 05

  Can you fly Bobby?

• 34:32Bill Simmons?

  Whips him out into the car.

• 34:34Speaker 05

  Great line.

• 34:35Bill Simmons?

  Has been repeated since in other movies like Cliffhanger did it. There's been, but I do feel like they invented the move of to show how evil the lead evil guy is. He just immediately sacrifices one of the henchmen, but then that leads to all the other people that worked for him got to be like, well, what? He, he just killed Bobby like, am I next? Like, how, would you be able to stay loyal to Clarence at that point?

• 35:00Speaker 05

  Hey, don't burn the fucking money. He was, he was so pissed, he burnt the money and I, I feel like I would be pissed too. I empathize with Clarence there like, he just pulled out the, all the fucking money is burnt, you idiot. It's like the poor man on the, on the group project who messes the whole thing up.

• 35:15Bill Simmons?

  I get it. Yeah. Well, uh, anyway, you, you asked.

• 35:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:21Bill Simmons?

  Am I scarred by that scene?

• 35:23Speaker 05

  Like, were people laughing in the theater or were they horrified? I'm wondering because it's very.

• 35:27Bill Simmons?

  The, the worst part of it, it's weird. It's not the 30 times he gets shot. The first one where he shoots his hand when he's, he's like moving the gun around like he's gonna shoot him and you're like, ah, he's just fucking with him. And then he just fucking blows off his hand and Weller's like, ah, ah.

• 35:42Speaker 05

  I know, I know.

• 35:43Bill Simmons?

  And I think that is weirdly the worst part of it. Cause then after that, you know, he's gonna die. Um, no, it's, I, I had a, I think this is the okay motherfucker award for the exact moment when this movie goes up a notch. I don't think it's ED, it's not Ed 209.

• 35:59Speaker 05

  You don't think it's Ed?

• 36:00Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I actually think it's this because Ed 209, it's still fun and comicy and you know, that's such a ridiculous scene. This is like, oh my God. They fucking just murdered the main guy.

• 36:15Speaker 05

  10 minutes in and horribly. I, I think it's so funny you mentioned the okay motherfucker because like some of the secrets of this movie is I think that the okay motherfucker moment has like a there's like four or five moments of those where you're like it's just like even in the last in the in the last 10 minutes when you get toxic waste guy and the car hits him you're like Jesus they just did it again I didn't even need that I was ready for the credits it has five of them and certainly like the execution is one I still watch it and he blows his hand off I think wellers acting is is so good and so heartbreaking like I feel terrible for him I I was disturbed as a kid I was disturbed now it's it's a it's one of the hardest scenes to watch of violence like I think in film history I think it's very difficult to watch.

• 36:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, from an okay motherfucker standpoint and this movie does have like five or six it is almost like a great professional wrestling match we were like man that that bump like a ladder match wow that bump they took that was amazing that's gotta be the peak and then finally we peak with toxic waste guy which is coming up in a little bit um RoboCop's first day

• 37:17Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:18Bill Simmons?

  We get the I'd buy that for a dollar guy. We get him wiping out the convenience store robber we get him.

• 37:24Speaker 06

  Can you can you explain the I'd buy that for a dollar guy what's going on with those TV shows?

• 37:28Speaker 07

  Well, hey, can I have you both? Sure, we've had our shot.

• 37:37Speaker 07

  I'd buy that for a dollar.

• 37:40Bill Simmons?

  It's an incredibly important question.

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  So mid 80s is right as they're trying to spruce up local ads and and cable ads and like the one in New York that was the big one was Crazy Eddie it's like Crazy Eddie and you can watch some of those on YouTube that was one of the first ones I remember but the ads were like really grab you by the throat just like nutty ads so I think they're trying to say it's only gonna get nuttier right?

• 38:07Speaker 05

  It's the wacky commercial there's some like some Benny Hill stuff going on and I think they're just looking at like television in the future is just gonna be like boobs and stupid catchphrases it's like that Ricky Gervais character you having a laugh it's it's really stupid and they think it's funny the the guy that they got to do that I'll buy that for a dollar was this like K-Rock personality who just did wacky characters. And he just, the I'll buy that for a dollar line. No one, no one who made the movie like he really knew that was gonna be a thing, but it became this recurring thing and the joke is, I guess, like, I don't really believe you. But when you talk about Robocop invariably someone says, I'll buy that for a dollar. That's usually the line they say.

• 38:45Bill Simmons?

  I think it's the most famous line from the movie.

• 38:48Speaker 05

  More than any Robocop lines, I agree with you.

• 38:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think it is. Well, the most famous shot in the movie is when he shoots the rapist in the crotch.

• 38:57Speaker 05

  No doubt.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  Your move, creep.

• 39:13Bill Simmons?

  By shooting through the woman's legs in the skirt. I gotta be honest, one of the great shooting scenes for, for our good guy hero in any movie. Like aiming it through, I don't know if it could happen with a human, it's gotta be Robocop. And then he, you know, tells her right about the crisis center right afterwards, just by the way. Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 05

  See, to me, that, that's another okay motherfucker. Like that, that you jump out of your seat when he does that. Unanswerable question, God forbid, do you think anywhere there is ever a police officer who's tried that move because they were inspired by Robocop? I fucking hope not, because like you said, he has a computer targeting system. Take it easy, guys.

• 39:52Bill Simmons?

  Please do not emulate this. We have Mayor Gibson's office.

• 39:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 39:56Bill Simmons?

  Deranged former city councilman Ron Miller is in there and Robocop just cleans him out. And then it all goes right to Lisa Gibbons. Robocop, who is he? What is he? I have some Lisa stuff going up, I can't wait to talk about Lisa.

• 40:12Speaker 05

  Was Lisa important for you?

• 40:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I can't wait to talk about it. Robocop returns to his house, I have, that's when the movie starts to have the human piece to it, right? Like after, and he's like, getting these flashbacks, you love that part.

• 40:27Speaker 05

  Do you, do, let me ask you this, if there was gonna be a pee break, this is it. Do you get pee break vibes from him going back to his house?

• 40:33Bill Simmons?

  I, right, but I think the whole part when they're kind of assembling him before he becomes Robocop is a good pee break. This is like, maybe make some popcorn right here.

• 40:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, it has, you have to have the scene, like it's the heart, it's his kids and all that. And I like the computers, like the monitors with the talking realtor in there and everything. Like, I wish they had those for real, but if you were gonna pee break, this would be it.

• 40:56Bill Simmons?

  Here's why it's important, though. You need it because it it all leads to the payoff at the end.

• 41:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:03Bill Simmons?

  Murphy. Um, I'm cashing you out, Bob, is the next one. This includes Bob, I guess, headed for a three, a cocaine fueled threesome.

• 41:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 41:15Bill Simmons?

  We get some cleavage snorting, which I think was a big eighties thing. I'm not sure. Are people still doing that? What's the clear Craig? Craig, is the cleavage snorting still in the mid 2000s?

• 41:25Speaker 06

  Well, my birthday is tomorrow, so I'll let you know what goes down in Manhattan.

• 41:29Bill Simmons?

  Happy birthday. Okay, good luck.

• 41:31Speaker 05

  No, now that they they line up some zins on the breasts and they just tuck them into their lips like that. However, you do that shit, Craig. I don't know how to do it. But I think of I think Wolf of Wall Street is is probably apex for breast cocaine cocaine line snorting.

• 41:45Bill Simmons?

  It's a great point.

• 41:46Speaker 05

  Marco Robbie.

• 41:47Bill Simmons?

  Great point. I have no notes. Robocop crashes the Clarence Cocaine Party and then the Cocaine Factory.

• 41:53Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 41:56Bill Simmons?

  I love the, oh, I forgot to mention in the in this, because we have Clarence killing Bob Miller, right? He blows him up with the grenade.

• 42:05Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 42:06Bill Simmons?

  But when he tells the girls to leave, he does the bitches leave.

• 42:09Speaker 05

  Unbelievable entrance.

• 42:10Bill Simmons?

  Puts the DVD in little. I'm not sure. Like, aren't you worried? Maybe they could recover the DVD and scrub it and we could do that in 19. I don't know if that was I would have taken the DVD out before I blew the house up.

• 42:21Speaker 05

  When when he when he takes out that DVD, it was like, holy shit, what is that thing? It was like he took out like a some sort of magical wand or something. No one could believe that a CD could play a video in 1987. It was it blew you away about the technology. And then

• 42:36Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's a really good point. We didn't have DVDs until 10 years later.

• 42:40Speaker 05

  No, it was

• 42:41Bill Simmons?

  So I guess it was a CD?

• 42:43Speaker 05

  It was a DVD.

• 42:44Bill Simmons?

  Did this movie invent DVDs?

• 42:46Speaker 05

  I think it did, dude. I think it did. I'd never seen one before that.

• 42:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because if it was a DVD, it would have taken him like three minutes to play it. He would have been like, hold on, hold on, just wait a second. Oh, I'm back in the menu.

• 42:59Speaker 05

  Dick Jones commentary of video. Yes, menu.

• 43:04Bill Simmons?

  But then we get the Cocaine Factory, Robocop killing everybody. It has one of my favorites from the eighties, and I feel like we've lost it. The bad guy who gets shot falling backwards, shooting the next bad guy.

• 43:18Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I feel like we've lost the narrative on those. Let's bring that back.

• 43:21Speaker 05

  If you were a bad guy in the eighties who was shot by a weapon, you would always shoot as you were falling down.

• 43:27Bill Simmons?

  You had to shoot up or shoot sideways. Yeah.

• 43:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, or worse, spin, spin. Cause then like the whole posse goes, um, I do, I do have to call attention to something in that scene. It's the Marion Cobretti cutting pizza with scissors award for, someone has to step in and say, this would never happen. Why is the greasy drug lord walking around the Coke house with like an estate Cabernet in his wine glass? And then why, when Clarence puts his fingers through it, does he keep drinking? That whole scene reeks of Cobra and the scissors and the pizza. It doesn't make any sense. It's ridiculous.

• 44:00Bill Simmons?

  Do we have that award or did you just?

• 44:02Speaker 05

  Just made it up. Top of my head, top of my head.

• 44:03Bill Simmons?

  Craig, write that down. That's a good award.

• 44:06Speaker 05

  There's someone.

• 44:07Bill Simmons?

  Why didn't anyone intervene on the set?

• 44:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, someone needs to step in and say, guys, this would never happen. The Cobra eating pizza with scissors award. The wine thing is, they tried to give the guy a prop to make him like a Bond villain. It doesn't work. It's a stupid sequence with the fingers. What are we doing?

• 44:22Bill Simmons?

  You're Clarence Boddicker. You're the king of, uh, I'm writing this down in the rewatchables category. I really want to add that. So you, what is it called? Do you think the?

• 44:30Speaker 05

  It's called the Marion Cobretti cutting pizza with scissors award.

• 44:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Okay. I got it.

• 44:36Speaker 05

  For something that would never happen.

• 44:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. That's a great award. Great job. Really earned your keep already. We don't, we have so much of the podcast left. It's now you're just like, we have a 38 to seven lead.

• 44:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, we haven't even gotten a hot take.

• 44:49Bill Simmons?

  Run the ball. Like we don't even need to do anything else now.

• 44:54Bill Simmons?

  All right. Uh, I have Robocop takes his helmet off that whole scene. The bad guy's blowing up stuff while Eva laughing. Uh, mentioned that earlier. I like it. Um, and then the big shootout.

• 45:09Bill Simmons?

  Let's talk about Toxic Waste of Meal.

• 45:12Speaker 05

  Awesome.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  Oh, Bill, yours is perfect.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  Bill, that's better than your Nell. That's your best impression. That aside, Long Legs.

• 45:26Bill Simmons?

  Toxic Waste of Meal, might have to add him into the Long Legs part.

• 45:29Speaker 05

  And how great is this boy when he goes, "Don't touch me, man." That's exactly what you would say. Exactly.

• 45:37Bill Simmons?

  They also, with his death scene,

• 45:41Bill Simmons?

  he hits the, the car hits him and it just immediately comes off, hits the car. It's like a watermelon. They said they filmed that and it was like an unexpected bonus when the head went forward and hit the windshield. They were hoping it would happen, but they didn't know. And then that happened. And then, uh, say our Robocop. And then I guess the end where he, uh, he kills.

• 46:01Speaker 05

  Dick Jones.

• 46:01Bill Simmons?

  Dick Jones and, uh, and the end with the Murphy. So what do you got for most rewatchable scene?

• 46:06Speaker 05

  It's definitely not the, the torture of Murphy.

• 46:11Speaker 05

  Listen, the, the Bob Morton's apartment from start to finish is a perfect scene. It's sex, drugs, rock and roll. And Verhoeven was just cooking. I love that one, but Robocop's in it. So what was your suggestion for, it was the between the leg shot, right?

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  I have, uh, Ed 209.

• 46:27Speaker 05

  Oh, Ed 209.

• 46:28Bill Simmons?

  I just think that's when the movie is really grabs you by the balls and takes, and is like, we're coming for a ride.

• 46:34Speaker 05

  So imagine that. You picked that as the most rewatchable scene and Robocop's not even in it. And I get it. Like that, that's this movie. It's awesome.

• 46:40Bill Simmons?

  Craig, what'd you have for most rewatchable scene?

• 46:44Speaker 06

  It's honestly, I love all the boardroom scenes. I love the people who work in the office, all these like loser guys. The guy saying, "That's life in the big city."

• 46:53Speaker 05

  Awesome.

• 46:53Speaker 06

  That, that, love all that.

• 46:56Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's very Succession, Waystar, Logan Marry.

• 46:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:59Bill Simmons?

  You could see Ed 209 coming in because Roman's like, "Dad, I got this new idea for crime robot, Ed 209." And then the robot shoots Carl. What's the most 1987 thing about this movie? Lot of options.

• 47:15Speaker 05

  What do you got?

• 47:16Bill Simmons?

  The stop motion robot special effects, which were very.

• 47:20Speaker 05

  Do you like them? Do you like now watching it?

• 47:22Bill Simmons?

  I thought way better than Terminator. Terminator's three years earlier. I just thought, uh, I, I don't know. It's kind of charming. It's now they would be, you know, a hundred percent better.

• 47:31Speaker 05

  I adore them. It's the, the guy is like the goat of stop motion. Phil Tippett's the guy who did the chess scene in Star Wars. He did the walkers and Empire. He's like the, the Michael Jordan of stop motion did dead 209. I think, I, I think charming is the word. I like it. It kind of still is cool and I like it better than all the CGI. I like it. Stands up.

• 47:48Bill Simmons?

  Me too. Over the top 80s, street thugs. That's in there. Somebody watching eight TVs through a window on the street is very 80s. Nobody, when was the last time somebody watched eight TVs in a window in a store?

• 48:01Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 48:01Bill Simmons?

  No store would put the TVs in the window because somebody would just break the window and take the TVs. Plus you have, you have the plasmas. There'd be like, no way to do it. You couldn't even sit them up. Lee Iacocca Elementary School is snuck in there.

• 48:15Speaker 05

  Great call. That's a little Easter egg. You don't catch the first time around with Robocop.

• 48:19Bill Simmons?

  Could have won. Uh, falling out of a building backwards with the, cause Die Hard has it too. I feel like that was some sort of era for that. Shot. It always looked fake, but your winner is Lisa Gibbons. She's the most 1987 thing about this movie.

• 48:33Speaker 05

  Talk about it. Let's go. I love Lisa.

• 48:35Bill Simmons?

  I mean, Lisa, so Mary Hart's in there. Mary Hart, I think has, you know, kind of, kind of killing. I forget when Mary Hart joined Entertainment Tonight, but it was before, or they were kind of on each other's corner. What year?

• 48:48Speaker 05

  80s. I would say what 88? She and John Tess used to hold it down. I remember.

• 48:53Bill Simmons?

  Mary Hart. All right. I'm looking on Wikipedia. She.

• 49:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're in the 86 range. So she was earlier than Lisa Gibbons.

• 49:05Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 49:08Bill Simmons?

  Lisa comes in, it's a little, Mary Hart's like, she's established, like she's about to be in a Seinfeld episode when Kramer hears her voice, like she's the OG. Lisa Gibbons comes in, it's a little ultimate warrior to Hulk Hogan. Like, I have, I'm gonna come in, my entrance sins are gonna be louder, I'm gonna be bringing a little more, there was a little more sex appeal with Lisa and she had a great run. And every high school kid had a crush on her in the eighties, I'll tell you that much. Including this guy, right here.

• 49:35Speaker 05

  I can tell, and it's not Lisa, it's Leesa.

• 49:38Bill Simmons?

  Leesa, yeah, there's like an automatic, just felt a little, a little pornish, little stripperish. Just the name gave her like this extra, extra sauce. Meanwhile, she's competing against Mary Hart, right?

• 49:52Speaker 05

  All-American.

• 49:54Bill Simmons?

  The least sexual name, it's like Leesa Gibbons, but I always dug her.

• 49:58Speaker 05

  There's a funny red carpet moment when James Gandolfini was still alive and he ran into Mary Hart and she's trying to interview Tony Soprano and he says to her, "You were my childhood crush." Like, he loved Mary Hart. I, personally, I was, I was a Nancy O'Dell guy, still am for life, love Nancy O'Dell on that circuit, love her, wonderful woman.

• 50:15Bill Simmons?

  What's age the best? We mentioned a future crime-ridden Detroit, we mentioned Kurt Ridsmith playing a bad guy.

• 50:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:24Bill Simmons?

  Where do you stand on Dead or Alive, You Are Coming With Me? Murphy says it, then Robo says it, I enjoy that they have the callback.

• 50:30Speaker 05

  I like the callback, I like the writing, it's, listen, this is a lot of, this is one of many times we'll talk about, this, this movie comes up against Terminator and it's kind of the version of I'll Be Back. It's, it's, it sets up deliberately to be a catchphrase, it's short, concise, it works. And when he says it the second time at the gas station and Emil recognizes it, it's a really good moment, his acting is really good in that scene.

• 50:50Bill Simmons?

  I have a bunch of other ones, do you have any What's Age the Best you're passionate about?

• 50:54Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I'm passionate about two villains in a movie is awesome, I think that works. You have Botticelli, you have Dick Jones, think about, Dark Knight has two villains, Silence of the Lambs has two villains, Return of the Jedi has two villains, and you kill one and then there's still business to take care of, I think that works a lot, and it really works here with Derek, with Dick Jones and Botticelli.

• 51:16Bill Simmons?

  So like two elite pass rushers in the NFL, but better?

• 51:20Speaker 05

  It's like the 96 Packers had Sean Jones and Reggie White and it's like, shit, we can't, we can't chip block everybody. You can't, you can't double team the Bodderker and then Dick Jones is gonna get you. Exactly like that.

• 51:30Bill Simmons?

  It's like the Steelers, if TJ Watt was still good, what they would have. Yeah, sorry Craig. I just wanted to make sure.

• 51:35Speaker 05

  TJ Watt washed, Bill? What was that?

• 51:37Bill Simmons?

  TJ Watt took the last six weeks off of the season last year. He was there in uniform only. We'll see. We'll see Craig.

• 51:47Bill Simmons?

  The, uh, here's a good one. So a meal stops to get gas for his motorcycle.

• 51:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:54Bill Simmons?

  Did you notice the price of the gas?

• 51:56Speaker 05

  I did not.

• 51:57Bill Simmons?

  Five dollars and 79 cents.

• 52:00Speaker 05

  Oh, he got it on fountain in Hollywood, huh?

• 52:02Bill Simmons?

  It's literally age of best, cause I think that's right what the price is now. Yeah.

• 52:06Speaker 05

  Is that true?

• 52:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Media Break as a futuristic news show, it feels kinda has internet bones, right?

• 52:13Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 52:14Bill Simmons?

  I could see Media Break being some weird YouTube channel that has 15 million subscribers. You don't know how many of them they bought. So yeah, they probably bought 14 and a half million of them, but still. Media Break, doing well.

• 52:24Speaker 05

  Sure. Love it.

• 52:25Bill Simmons?

  Axios is thinking of buying them.

• 52:28Speaker 05

  Bring them in, get new talent and just churn out, churn out takes all day long. Verhoeven loved the American news. He was like really amused by it, cause he's like, in Holland, like it was just one man with a graphic over his shoulder, but in the United States, it's like two people like kind of laughing all the time in between stories. He's like, I thought it was so funny. And it is funny. It's a weird thing that we did and still do.

• 52:48Bill Simmons?

  It's still really funny. He, he dialed it up at the end where they would go to break and it would just close in on their eyes and there would just be the screen of 20 eyes. Uh, I thought for what's age of best, the 6000 SUX is fucking hilarious.

• 53:03Speaker 05

  Talk about it.

• 53:04Bill Simmons?

  These new SUVs. They call it the SUX, but I just, uh, I don't know when SUVs really started, but it was right around then and they're just, Verhoeven's like, we're going after this.

• 53:16Speaker 05

  You went, it was the transition because there used to be minivans and that was all through the eighties, early nineties, mid nineties, you started seeing like your Chevy Blazer and the Jeeps became big and the X6000 SUX, this car sucks, but bigger is better. And they do the stupid dinosaur commercial. That's the stuff that makes this movie fun. I love it.

• 53:34Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't agree more. Also making the movie fun. Anytime a movie character is named Dick, which we don't really have anymore because nobody would name their kid Dick, but in the eighties and nineties, we had a lot of dicks.

• 53:49Speaker 05

  This is fantastic take. Go ahead.

• 53:51Bill Simmons?

  When somebody does the pause.

• 53:53Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 53:54Bill Simmons?

  Before they say Dick and we see this and there is like, ah, Dick.

• 54:01Bill Simmons?

  It just works every time. We need more dicks.

• 54:04Speaker 05

  I take that sound bite and loop it. I couldn't, I couldn't agree more.

• 54:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I just fucked myself for life.

• 54:10Speaker 05

  You know what's the perfect one?

• 54:11Bill Simmons?

  The internet is always nice about this stuff and they won't, they won't do, we need more dicks at all.

• 54:17Speaker 05

  Awful announcing, Bill Simmons, we need more dicks.

• 54:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Bill Simmons eviscerates dicks.

• 54:24Speaker 05

  But the guy who does it, exactly what you're saying, our guy, John Bender, when he's talking to Vernon, expect better manners from you dick. And it's just, it's, name your bad guy's dick. It always works.

• 54:35Bill Simmons?

  This was the heyday for dicks.

• 54:37Speaker 05

  Hell, yes.

• 54:40Speaker 05

  Apex mountain for dick.

• 54:42Bill Simmons?

  I love, I love tidbits like this. The Robocop suit was so hot and heavy that Peter Weller was losing three dollars, three pounds a day from water loss.

• 54:51Speaker 05

  Incredible.

• 54:51Bill Simmons?

  They had to put an air conditioner in the suit. So he didn't like basically, uh, become emaciated.

• 54:58Speaker 05

  Can we talk about Weller and the suit for a sec?

• 55:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's a lot of stuff on that.

• 55:02Speaker 05

  All right. So the suit, it was, the suit kind of strikes me as maybe as like the shark and jaws where it was really difficult to work with, very, very problematic. But Weller shows up to this thing and is like this theater trained guy, does ballet, studying mimory and shit and like, he runs method acts it. Yes, runs marathons, literally runs marathons, method acts it. And people are like, he had to be called either Robo or Murphy when he's on set. And you always think that's all bullshit and the actors deny it. Weller is like, fuck you. Yes, I method acted it. I prepared for six months. I'm in the suit at 130 degrees. I don't give a shit what you think. Call me Robo and Murphy. And I think it's cool. He owns it completely.

• 55:44Bill Simmons?

  There's so much stuff about how, uh, some of the actors thought this was the most ridiculous thing ever. They're like, you're in a fucking robot suit, dude. Settle down. You're not Sir Laurence Olivier. You're not Sir Peter Weller.

• 55:55Speaker 05

  Over there with your gun and your helmet. He's like, I'm treating this like I'm Richard the third. Get out of my face and call me Robo.

• 56:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, that, the, the other piece of it with the suit. This killed me that he did like three months of martial arts training. So when he got in the suit, he would be like, be able to, and then the suit, like you couldn't move. You couldn't do it. You basically like, and he was like, fuck, I did all this martial arts training for nothing. He was like pissed about it. He signed up for a RoboCop movie. It's a RoboCop. What'd you think? You were gonna be like Bruce Lee?

• 56:26Speaker 05

  Yes, he did.

• 56:28Bill Simmons?

  Last what's aged the best. You mailed me a picture. It's a pretty famous picture that I've seen on Twitter a few times.

• 56:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:35Bill Simmons?

  It's a Radio Shack Valley fourplex. And, uh, hold on, let me.

• 56:40Speaker 05

  It's the marquee for the movie theater of what's playing that weekend.

• 56:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, can you see it?

• 56:45Speaker 05

  It's really cool. Let me take your pic. Jesus. The internet caption on Instagram right there, the caption is, take me back.

• 56:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 05

  Lost Boys, RoboCop, Predator, Full Metal Jacket. God damn. I'd take that in two years. They had it in one weekend.

• 57:01Bill Simmons?

  We really knew what we were doing back then. The Big Kahuna Burger Award for Best Use of Food and Drink.

• 57:07Speaker 05

  What do you got?

• 57:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, the organic food paste that RoboCop eats.

• 57:11Speaker 05

  Tastes like baby food.

• 57:13Bill Simmons?

  It was made out of parsnip, tomato puree, and crushed Butterfingers bars.

• 57:18Speaker 05

  All right.

• 57:19Bill Simmons?

  Sounds delicious.

• 57:20Speaker 05

  It's like a frozen yogurt. I'm into that.

• 57:21Bill Simmons?

  I'd eat that right now. What'd you have for the Great Shock Order Award for most cinematic shot?

• 57:26Speaker 05

  I have, uh, when the two hooligans are with the woman in the alley and he shoots between the legs. When Robo gets out and the shadow is projected against the wall behind them and he looks huge and it keeps getting bigger. Really cool shot because as he walked towards them, the shadow would actually get smaller. So they had him walk backwards. So it gets bigger. Like fucking brilliant shot. Love it.

• 57:47Bill Simmons?

  Furhoven.

• 57:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, cooking.

• 57:50Bill Simmons?

  So I don't have a Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award, Best Needle Drop, but I do have a note. Unless you have a, do you have one?

• 57:57Speaker 05

  I have, uh, two giant question marks under it. Just, I don't know.

• 58:01Bill Simmons?

  So he goes to the nightclub when, uh, the, one of Bodak's henchmen's in there and he, the scene when he kicks RoboCop in the balls, which is a bad idea. The guy's a metal robot. I feel like they really missed a great song choice possibility for that scene. And this is where Verhoeven, you know, being a Dutch filmmaker, I just don't think he was on it. Cause he could have gone, you could have gone like Rockwell. I always feel like somebody's watching me. Could have gone that direction. We could have gone into the little alt, late eighties alt. Could have done like a Peter Murphy, Cut You Up. Or we could have done some, uh, you know, somewhere like a

• 58:43Speaker 05

  Such a good point though.

• 58:44Bill Simmons?

  Somewhere like in the, somewhere in that indie eighties could have done some XTC. I don't know what, I don't know what I wanted, but they didn't give it to me.

• 58:51Speaker 05

  I would jump in too with like a hair metal Def Leppard. Do you take sugar? What about you?

• 58:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they could have done Def Leppard.

• 59:01Speaker 05

  They could have done Duran Duran. They could have done, there's a lot of cool shit they could have played there. Again, they, pretty shoestring thin budget and they're trying to put it into his metal balls instead of the music. But a banger needle drop there would have really worked. Damn.

• 59:14Bill Simmons?

  Chess Rockwell, Brock Lander's work for best character name. It's obviously Dick Jones.

• 59:18Speaker 05

  Dick Jones. Name your villains Dick. Young screenwriters. It works. Just name them Richard and someone can call them Dick.

• 59:24Bill Simmons?

  We only really have football coaches left named Dick.

• 59:29Speaker 05

  And they're a dying breed as well. Dick Vermees is a Hall of Famer. Yeah. Dick LeBeau. I mean, I, I, I think, let me ask you this. Are there like, um, people alive now who are kids who will be Dick someday? Like what, let's say you're named Richard and it's a family name and you're Richie or Rick or something. Are there, are, are Dicks as a name done?

• 59:49Bill Simmons?

  I think Dicky can come back.

• 59:52Speaker 05

  Dicky Greenleaf. Yeah. Like I can, Dicky seems kinda cool.

• 59:55Bill Simmons?

  No, I think you just audible right to Richie or Rick. Craig, do you know any Dicks?

• 1:00:00Speaker 06

  No way. Dicks are dead.

• 1:00:02Speaker 05

  Forever though? Like, won't they come back like Rosemary and Dorothy, all those vintage names? Like, will you ever be at a travel baseball game and some parents yelling, come on Dick, just throw strikes right to the gloves?

• 1:00:13Speaker 06

  I think Dick is dead. I think Guy is dead. No more guys. Never understood that one.

• 1:00:18Bill Simmons?

  Names go away. I mean, we haven't seen an Adolf in about 60 years. Like sometimes, sometimes it's just like, boom, we're, we're done. We're never having another one. And I think Dicks have reached that point.

• 1:00:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, but there's still kids named Harry and Harry is like Dick's stupid brother, you know, like and I just wonder, we'll see. Dick Jones.

• 1:00:38Bill Simmons?

  You have a flex category, Kyle. What is it?

• 1:00:41Speaker 05

  Oh my God, I have so many choices. Um, I was gonna do the, uh, does this movie have a porn parody? But it obviously does, and it will take you two seconds to think of what the name is.

• 1:00:52Bill Simmons?

  What was it? RoboCop?

• 1:00:54Speaker 05

  There you go, Horlbeck. Yes.

• 1:00:57Bill Simmons?

  RoboCop?

• 1:00:58Speaker 05

  There it is.

• 1:00:59Bill Simmons?

  What else? It's gotta be.

• 1:01:00Speaker 05

  It's right there. And you know what? Honestly, Bill, like, given Verhoeven's, like, horniness, like, he probably directed it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I directed RoboCop, and he says, uh, "Come quietly or there'll be trouble." But the coming is the reaching the orgasm. It's a great movie. Like, that's, that's, he would have directed the porno parody of his own fucking movie if they asked him to. Um, all right, no, my real flex category is, uh, I'm actually gonna go with the Fortune 3 Clap Award for most giftable moments. Um, when Robo's brand new and he's in that chair in the factory and he starts having those dreams, he starts going like,

• 1:01:38Speaker 05

  and if you go to Twitter right now and type in the gif search "Robocop," it is that moment of Robocop, like, with his mouth open. And it's all tweets of like, I'm not even gonna say them, like, when she stops, but you're still, and it's like, the person's draft pick is terrible, and then it's the Robocop.

• 1:01:56Bill Simmons?

  Like Red Sox trade deadline? Here's my reaction to the Red Sox trade deadline.

• 1:02:00Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:02:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Speaker 05

  Yes. And it's, it's a really funny gif to use when something terrible happens, because he definitely looks like someone is performing something on him, and it, it makes me laugh.

• 1:02:11Bill Simmons?

  That's a great one. I thought you were gonna go for flex category, the, did this movie need a sports scene? A random sports scene? Because we had Detroit, and could we have had Clarence's gang? I think it's Clarence's whole extended gang, little, little pickup, three and three hoops. I think would have been great.

• 1:02:30Speaker 05

  In the warehouse?

• 1:02:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, in the warehouse, there's a hoop, and they're just kinda...

• 1:02:33Speaker 05

  Half-court only.

• 1:02:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, half-court only, or maybe a shooting contest, something like that, I think would have worked.

• 1:02:37Speaker 05

  Well, if they remade it now, Clarence's gang would have their own pickleball court, and they would just get after it in between killing cops and stuff like that.

• 1:02:43Bill Simmons?

  I mean, that would be the reason to kill them. They're not even committing crimes. They're just playing pickleball. Robocop's like, we gotta take these guys out. I mean, Luca Doncic saying he lost weight partly by playing pickleball is, is, is one of the worst things that's happened in 2025. Hope that doesn't start a trend. Just so we need more pickleball. Uh, let's take one more break, and then, uh, we'll do Butch's girlfriend.

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• 1:03:36Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Viori. All right, let's talk about a category we appreciate. Clothes that stay in the rotation. Viori earned that spot. Their core shorts are good for workouts, travel day, weekend, whatever. And the Strato Tech T ridiculously soft. It's the kind of gear you keep reaching for because it's comfortable while still looking put together. Get 20% off your first purchase at Viori.com/rewatchables and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought to you by Truvia. Sweeteners are like movies. The best ones don't leave an aftertaste. That's why Truvia Allolos Plus Stevia Sweetener and Monk Fruit Sweetener

• 1:04:20Bill Simmons?

  is a smooth, balanced tri-blend that delivers sugar-like sweetness with zero calories per serving and no aftertaste. If you're looking for a better way to enjoy sweetness with zero calories per serving, you really need to try Truvia Allolos Plus Stevia Sweetener and Monk Fruit Sweetener. Available online and nationwide at Kroger, Target, and your favorite local grocery retailer. All right, Butch's girlfriend, weak link of the film.

• 1:04:48Bill Simmons?

  I have one. Do you have one?

• 1:04:49Speaker 05

  I do. Mine's a little asymmetrical. I do have one. You want me to do mine?

• 1:04:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Speaker 05

  This is kind of a hot take too for rewatchables. The weak link of this film is that this movie is too short. I want more. I I've never said that I'm on a movie before. I am I'm tired of this Coral Beckian philosophy that everything has to be 20 minutes long. It's too short. It's 102 minutes. I need five or 10 more minutes. Terminator 1 is 107, Predator is 107, Lethal Weapons 109. I want two more scenes, and if you look, there was supposed to be a chase scene at the end where the Terrence's guys use the Clarence's guys use the big guns. I would have liked to see a chase scene with the guns. And there was supposed to be a scene where Robocop goes to the cemetery and sees his own grave as Murphy. That sounds heavy metal as shit. I would like to see that. I've never said it before. The weak link of this movie is that it is too short. I want more.

• 1:05:39Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna let Craig respond to that. Craig, if you want to come on the Zoom, even even better.

• 1:05:44Speaker 06

  Look, you're wrong. You're wrong, and I and I won't allow it. However, you make you make a compelling case. I thought the movie is so tight, I think they literally don't even develop Murphy enough. Like, how is there not a scene of Murphy with his family in real life at the beginning of this movie? Like, he should be kissing his wife goodbye, playing with his kid. So then you have that emotional connection, and Verhoeven's like, fuck it, we don't need it. We'll do a couple flashbacks. 102 minutes.

• 1:06:09Bill Simmons?

  He's Verhoeven's like, I need that extra 40 seconds for my cocaine cleavage scene.

• 1:06:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Bill Simmons?

  Wait, Craig, stay on, because this ties into my weak link in the film. I agree that this movie is like two scenes short, even though I love how fast it moves. How is there not a scene where Murphy's wife finds out that Murphy is not Robocop, and she shows up at the police station?

• 1:06:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Speaker 06

  And then instead of- There's a lot of unexplored family stuff.

• 1:06:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, instead of that wife being played by some actress, I don't know who it is. Now it's Gina Davis. And it's like, Gina, need you for one really good scene here, where you go to the police station, and you see Murphy, and he doesn't recognize you, but he kind of, and you start crying, like, you've turned him into a monster. Why'd you do this? Like, it's the easiest layup. And now Murphy's in crisis. He's like, am I a monster? He's looking at his robot arm. It's just sitting there.

• 1:06:58Speaker 06

  And then that's the bridge to the porn parody, where he's looking at his wife, and she's like, if you're a Robocop, that means you must have a robo-

• 1:07:06Speaker 05

  Come quietly, or there will be trouble. I will respond to what you just said, Bill. I have a theory about why that happened because after he dies, Louis tells Robocop, she moved on really quickly. My take, Murphy, maybe not so great a guy at home. Maybe not so great a husband. Maybe a little verbally abusive, maybe all kinds. I think that she got out of there fast. I think she moved on fast. I think Murphy was fucking around. We don't know what that marriage is like. I think it was a disaster. Some marriages with police officers, I'm sorry to say it, are rough because of the lifestyle. I don't, for her to move on that quickly and not even come be like, where the fuck is Murphy? I heard he's this robot guy. No, she was out of there.

• 1:07:50Bill Simmons?

  I think it's a great point.

• 1:07:51Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:07:53Bill Simmons?

  Thanks, Craig. What's Age of the Worst, the sequels?

• 1:07:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:07:56Bill Simmons?

  The 2014 remake, why? Again, I've said this 50 times on Rewatchables. Don't remake movies when I can watch the original movie and it's still really good. It's unacceptable. I can still, it's on Amazon Prime right now. You can fucking watch it. I don't need to watch it. And then it gets confusing. They're both Robocop. You can accidentally click on the Joel Kinnaman one when you meant to click on the Weller one. Like, I don't need it. I don't need it in my life. Call it Robocop 2014, but don't do it anyway.

• 1:08:25Speaker 05

  Is there anything, Bill, that gets you more mad that when you're getting ready for this pod and you just Google Robocop cast and the one from the remake comes up and it's Joel Kinnaman? You're looking like, no one wants that. No one is ever looking for that cast, ever. Even that cast themselves is looking for the original cast.

• 1:08:39Bill Simmons?

  It's bullshit. What's Age of the Worst, police strikes? So I looked this up. We haven't had one in America since the 1910s.

• 1:08:46Speaker 05

  How'd that go?

• 1:08:48Bill Simmons?

  Didn't go great, actually.

• 1:08:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, I bet.

• 1:08:51Bill Simmons?

  What's Age of the Worst, Robocop joining Sting in 1990 for WCW? You might have it as a What's Age of the Best.

• 1:08:58Speaker 05

  Anybody listening has to watch this fucking clip. Sting is in a cell, and I don't mean in the ring. It's a tall, small jail cell next to the ring. Robocop comes out and it's, of course, it's not Peter Weller and it's not the real costume. And Robocop's supposed to bend the bars and the announcers are like, oh, my God, look at that strength. But when he goes to bend the bar, the whole wall comes off and he tries to put it back up. It's absolutely horrible, but if you love wrestling, Sting and Robo, like, raising their hands together is fucking great.

• 1:09:27Bill Simmons?

  This was a really weird era of the 90s for movie promo tie-ins to actual wrestling plots.

• 1:09:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:34Bill Simmons?

  Uh, we mentioned for what's age the worst RoboCop's costume. Weller was so frustrated that he fell out with Verhoeven who fired him.

• 1:09:42Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:43Bill Simmons?

  Went to try to get Lance Henriksen as a replacement. And, uh, from Alien.

• 1:09:50Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:09:51Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, it was just too hard. The costume was designed for Weller. They would had to make a new costume. So then they had to kind of make up and Weller came back to the movie. Weller sounds like he might have been a little too method of a method actor.

• 1:10:07Speaker 05

  He was really method.

• 1:10:08Bill Simmons?

  It's like, he definitely gets some settle down for me.

• 1:10:12Speaker 05

  Um, and, and yet Weller would look at you, Bill Simmons, and say, scoreboard, look up at it, creep. I crushed this role. Lance Henriksen can suck it.

• 1:10:22Speaker 06

  It's like the guy trying too hard in like PE class or something, you know? It's like, settle down, Greg. It's soccer.

• 1:10:27Bill Simmons?

  He's diving, diving for kickballs. Um, my last one, the, the lead is, it's a white guy named Clarence Bottiker. Can we talk about this? I used to have, when I had my column, I used to, I had the Reggie Cleveland Hall of Fame. Cause the Red Sox had this picture named Reggie Cleveland. And it was just this dumpy looking white guy. Clarence Bottiker? How did they come up with Clarence Bottiker? Does this guy seem like a Clarence Bottiker to you?

• 1:10:53Speaker 05

  Well, let's go directly to the Tarantino script in True Romance where Clarence Warley, in which Drexel says, reads his name and says, it doesn't sound like it fits him either. And it's also Clarence.

• 1:11:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:06Speaker 05

  So I, I just got wildly distracted though, Bill, when you were talking about your, your old column. Cause my favorite group used to be the Lindsey Hunter All-Stars, who are athletes that sound like hot girls. I used to love that shit. Lindsey Hunter sounds like a girl I dated. She was a publicist in LA.

• 1:11:23Bill Simmons?

  The best one ever was when I did the, I had the Lindsey Hunter All-Stars. Then like two years after I started it, Charlotte, the Charlotte Hornets drafted Alexis Ajinka. And it was like, this is definitely a supermodel, 1990. Like she took the, took the cover from L. McPherson.

• 1:11:40Speaker 05

  Incredible.

• 1:11:41Bill Simmons?

  Did you see Alexis Ajinka on the new SI? And it was a power forward for the Hornets. So that was one of them.

• 1:11:46Speaker 05

  Wow. Is, is he dating Alexis Ajinka? No, he's still with Stacy Augman. I'm like.

• 1:11:53Speaker 05

  I love that shit.

• 1:11:55Bill Simmons?

  Um, all right, that's it for what's age the best award stage of worst. The overacting award. Miguel Ferrer kind of dials it up a few times as Bob Morton. Did you have another candidate though?

• 1:12:07Speaker 05

  You overacts Ed 209, get the fuck out of my face falling down the stairs. He was on his back, he's crying, his legs are failing. Yeah, shut the fuck up at 209. I don't like that part of it. I think he gets it.

• 1:12:22Bill Simmons?

  Ed 209 had some flaws, shooting people in the boardroom, can't walk downstairs. Like they really rushed that one.

• 1:12:29Speaker 05

  Can I give you an Ed 209 take?

• 1:12:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:32Speaker 05

  I think Ed 209 is, is a Freudian metaphor. I think it's, it's a penis thing for Dick Jones. I completely, I think Dick Jones has nothing down there, can't work down there. Uh, and this thing is this big giant metal with balls that shoots and like, his name is Dick. E D, E D 209. I think Dick Jones was dealing with some of that. When we see Dick Jones in the bathroom, he's on the toilet, sitting. I think he's peeing and hiding. He has no wedding ring on. He doesn't like how, what's his name? Bob Morton like womanizes. I think it is a big Freudian, like, look at this giant metal unit. And it's, that's how it was in the eighties. I, I feel like it's the metaphor for that and it doesn't work.

• 1:13:13Bill Simmons?

  He's just sitting in the bathroom stall, looking at his sad pud that used to work.

• 1:13:18Speaker 05

  With no phone, by the way, just sitting there.

• 1:13:20Bill Simmons?

  Thinking about how to create Ed 219. Is he be more of a thing? I like that take. Uh, the CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How to take a word. I have one of my favorite ones I've ever had, but you go first.

• 1:13:32Speaker 05

  Hell, yes. Look, you want to go first?

• 1:13:34Bill Simmons?

  No, you go first.

• 1:13:36Speaker 05

  Uh, my hottest take is that this movie chokes. It chokes and at the one yard line at Deshaun Jackson's, meaning we have an entire long movie of state of the art craftsmanship and incredible 1980s technical special effects. And in the last 30 seconds of the movie, we get that asinine Dick Jones monster puppet fall shot out of the window and it makes fucking.

• 1:14:02Speaker 05

  It's so, so, so, so bad and it's so disappointing. It makes Mac and me look like Avatar. It's, they take the, the, the creature from the Tool Sober video and throw it out. And they didn't even need to have that in there. They've done all these brilliant special effects shots. And I feel like it broke, blows a three, one series lead right at the end. And they choke at the goal line. And you walk into the lobby, you're like, what was that last shot of that dumb puppet falling out? Terrible. I hate that they did that.

• 1:14:26Bill Simmons?

  That might've been the half star for Ebert. He might've been three and a half stars with a minute left.

• 1:14:32Speaker 05

  And you mentioned this, the tough beat, and people point this out. The year later, you have Hans Gruber in the same exact shot and it looks awesome. I just think, I think Robocop blew the 28 to three lead, did not get nominated for an Oscar for special effects. Predator and Inner Space only, no nomination, one for sound. And I think the voters were like, I can't nominate that shit with that thing falling out the window. It looks so bad. And it's, it's, it's a shame that it ends that way.

• 1:14:58Bill Simmons?

  It's a great point.

• 1:15:00Speaker 05

  What's yours? I can't, I'm curious. You said one of the best ones you've ever had. Let's go.

• 1:15:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, this is really good. It's meaningful. Um, ties into all your appearances on the pod. I think out of all the movie roles in any rewatchables we've ever done.

• 1:15:15Bill Simmons?

  I think this is the one you could have, when we say the what if Kyle Brandt's acting career.

• 1:15:19Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:15:20Bill Simmons?

  Soaps, you know, you're in real world, then you're in the soaps and it's like, someday I'm going to be an actor. Maybe I could even be an action star.

• 1:15:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:27Bill Simmons?

  I think you would have been a great Robocop. You, you got the chin. You could, you could have figured out the costume, you're athletic. I just think this could have been it. Like out of any movie we've done, you as Robocop, I, really excited me.

• 1:15:42Speaker 05

  Uh, I'm flattered. Thank you. And if it would be like this and come quietly or there will be trouble. Um, Bill knows, I, I was on Days of Our Lives for three and a half years and they offered me a contract extension. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, I'm going off to be Matt Damon and I got this thing. And then like a year later, I was broke and depressed and sleeping in my robe. The last thing I ever auditioned for, Bill, my last Hollywood acting audition was a remake of Knight Rider. Uh, they did a remake like, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago. And I got really far in the process of getting cast in the Hasselhoff role. And then didn't get it. And that was like my moment where I was like, this is it. I gotta get out of here. So I wish there would have been a Robocop, man. We, I don't know if we'd be having the same conversation.

• 1:16:23Bill Simmons?

  I think you could have done it.

• 1:16:25Speaker 05

  Thanks, buddy.

• 1:16:25Bill Simmons?

  Casting what ifs, Jonathan Kaplan was supposed to direct, but decided to do Project X instead? I don't remember that one.

• 1:16:34Speaker 05

  Project X was with Matthew Broderick and Monkeys.

• 1:16:36Bill Simmons?

  Oh, The Monkey. Yeah, okay.

• 1:16:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, odd movie.

• 1:16:39Bill Simmons?

  Verhoeven dismissed the script twice, didn't understand the comedy in it. And then his wife was like, no, no, this is good. You should do this movie. And then he ended up doing it. They, speaking of Kyle Brandt, they spent six to eight months searching for an actor to play Alex Murphy. You were too young.

• 1:16:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:57Bill Simmons?

  Schwarzenegger. Ironside. They, they, uh, kicked the tires on Rucker Hauer. Verhoeven's like, let's just get Rucker. They're like, no, we're not getting Rucker Hauer. Tom Berenger, Armin Asante, Keith Carried. My favorite choice, James Remar.

• 1:17:14Speaker 05

  Hell, yes. Yes.

• 1:17:16Bill Simmons?

  Gans from 48 Hours.

• 1:17:18Speaker 05

  I'm into Remar. I'm into all those guys. Um, I, so I watched, uh, there's this, there's this documentary on Amazon called RoboDoc. It's unbelievably thorough, exhaustive, detailed, really well done about the making of this. And when they're talking about the casting of RoboCop, they flash through some headshots and some of the names you mentioned. Did you come across this? Cause in the doc, there's a headshot and the headshot potentially to play Murphy is, is our guy, Steven Seagal. And I'm like, did they, is that possibly true? Is that fucking real?

• 1:17:47Bill Simmons?

  So I did not see that, but this is crazy because my recasting couch director city category was Seagal as RoboCop.

• 1:17:56Speaker 05

  Let's go.

• 1:17:57Bill Simmons?

  I just think it's just a better movie. It's just Seagal being trapped in the robo thing, but trying to add Seagal things where he's in, no, no, I don't think RoboCop should get shot. All the shots miss. He's just cleaning out. He's never in danger. Nobody ever shoots at him. I just think it's a funnier movie.

• 1:18:16Speaker 05

  I, I, let's spitball this. I think, um, it'd be cool if RoboCop had like a metal ponytail and a metal beret. And he has his badge around his chain and you know how he walks like. He was like, anybody seen Clarence Boddicker?

• 1:18:31Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:18:32Speaker 05

  Anybody know why Clarence Boddicker did Murphy? Fucking, I'm gonna take you to the bank, Dick Jones, to the blood bank.

• 1:18:41Speaker 05

  Oh, we need this.

• 1:18:42Bill Simmons?

  Also, in the beginning, in the warehouse, he could have had like karate fights with guys before they finally got him and shot. He could have done Segal shit.

• 1:18:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:50Bill Simmons?

  But he never would have taken it because the guy loses in the movie and Segal never loses.

• 1:18:54Speaker 05

  Never.

• 1:18:55Bill Simmons?

  Nobody ever landed a punch on Segal.

• 1:18:57Speaker 05

  You're right.

• 1:18:58Bill Simmons?

  The one two by four in that one movie, that Out for Justice, that was it. Somebody got him with a two by four, recovered right away. Stephanie Zimbalist was cast as Ian Lewis, but had a Remington Steel pickup.

• 1:19:13Speaker 05

  Tough.

• 1:19:13Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't do it. I was, had a huge crush on her in the eighties.

• 1:19:18Bill Simmons?

  And oh, ended up getting Nancy Allen instead. Weller was the only person out of all the actors who wanted to be in it. Veerhoven liked his chin.

• 1:19:26Speaker 05

  Good chin.

• 1:19:27Bill Simmons?

  That's really what it came down to.

• 1:19:27Speaker 05

  Great actor.

• 1:19:28Bill Simmons?

  Michael Ironside offered the role of Boddicker, did not want to be a psychopath again, turned it down. I wonder, and then Kurt Wood Smith auditioned for Dick Jones, thought he got Dick Jones, but they gave him Clarence Boddicker. I wonder how many times Kurt Wood Smith and Michael Ironside were up for the same role? As people just wondered what the fuck was going on.

• 1:19:51Speaker 05

  It's so true. I think Kurt Wood Smith probably like auditioned for Jester in Top Gun in eighty six.

• 1:19:56Bill Simmons?

  No question.

• 1:19:57Speaker 05

  And then it's weird because Ironside then shows up in Total Recall and he's the bad guy again. So he does get the role. But that's, those two guys definitely flock together.

• 1:20:05Bill Simmons?

  I think that was his settle down moment when he turned down Robocop and then two years later was like, fuck, all right. Yeah, Total Recall, do it. That's that guy word. So we already mentioned Paul McCrane, who is a toxic waste to meal.

• 1:20:20Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:20:21Bill Simmons?

  But I think the winner is Ray Wise, who is the, one of the other bad guys, the guy who kicks Robocop in the balls.

• 1:20:28Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:20:29Bill Simmons?

  I for forty years thought that this was Sosa from Scarface.

• 1:20:35Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:20:36Bill Simmons?

  I told you a long time ago not to fuck with me, Tony. I told you what would happen. Um, but it's not, it's a different actor. I learned that this week. I thought for 40 years, I thought it was Sosa and I was like, what amazing range on this guy. He played Sosa, he played, but no, it's Ray Wise, character actor.

• 1:20:58Speaker 05

  I, I just have to shout out my guy. We've done this before in this category. The most legendary background ever, our guy, Alan Graf. I have the picture of him because no one knows who Alan Graf is. This guy, this guy's in everything.

• 1:21:11Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah, that guy.

• 1:21:12Speaker 05

  He's in, we had him in Over the Top. He's the guy in the donut shop with the gun in Boogie Nights. He's in the background with, he's always the guy in the background. He's in, uh, Magnolia, he's in Jerry Maguire, Alan Graf, wherever you are, if you're still with us. That's my guy.

• 1:21:26Bill Simmons?

  Who'd you have for the Dion Waiters award?

• 1:21:30Speaker 05

  To me, and I'm just like, I gotta go back to my guy, Ed 209. I, I, three scenes, takes it away. I, I mean, it's either him or it's buy that for a dollar guy, but I think it's Ed 209.

• 1:21:41Bill Simmons?

  I had buy that for a dollar guy, but you could go either.

• 1:21:45Speaker 05

  Can I have a question about Ed 209? At the end of the movie, when Robocop blows him up, Robocop comes in, Ed, Ed 209 walks up and goes, you are parked illegally, you have 15 seconds. So does he blow people away for parking in the wrong spot? Was he about to open fire because of a parking violation? What's going on?

• 1:22:02Bill Simmons?

  I had some serious malfunction glitches.

• 1:22:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, he just shoots at anything.

• 1:22:06Bill Simmons?

  You know why I think that? Because he murdered the guy in the boardroom for no reason at all. Yeah, I don't think he was.

• 1:22:11Speaker 05

  That's life in the big city. Okay, you know what? I love that line.

• 1:22:16Bill Simmons?

  Did you have a recasting couch or no?

• 1:22:18Speaker 05

  Uh, director city. I would love to see a, a Wes Anderson version of Robocop. Where he's in like a corduroy suit and he goes into the, uh, Grand Budapest Hotel and beats people up with ironic banjos and typewriters. That would be a totally different take on it. Wes Anderson, Robocop, I'd like to see.

• 1:22:34Bill Simmons?

  Fantasy would be the only one who liked it.

• 1:22:37Speaker 05

  I listened to the big picture.

• 1:22:39Bill Simmons?

  Wes Anderson has made the movie of the year. Uh, Craig's choice for a flex category. Craig, you gotta come on the zoom for this.

• 1:22:47Speaker 06

  I'm gonna do a hottest take, but I, I, I wanna give one quick other thought first. Verhoeven wanted this to be an asexual movie. Well, he failed because I wanna shout out, I wanna use a little bit of my time to shout out Dr. Tyler, played by a woman named Sage Parker.

• 1:23:01Speaker 05

  With the glasses?

• 1:23:02Speaker 06

  Big glasses, kinda crushing it in this movie. Looked her up, didn't really have a career. Thought she looked like a, like Parker Posey's sister. Um, I was very into her. I thought there'd be more of her in the second half of the movie. Was a little disappointed that she disappeared.

• 1:23:14Speaker 05

  She kisses his visor with the lipstick smack on there.

• 1:23:17Speaker 06

  Yes, yes. I like, I was into her.

• 1:23:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:23:20Speaker 06

  Anyway, my hot take is that, is that Robocop, not that hard to thwart. Not that impressive of an invention. Like, I think Robocop's Madden score is like 82.

• 1:23:32Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:23:33Speaker 06

  People are shooting rocket launchers in this movie and he has one handgun. He's incredibly slow. He could, can he run? Did we, can he even run?

• 1:23:41Speaker 05

  We never see him run.

• 1:23:42Speaker 06

  He can barely turn around, just like hit him with your car.

• 1:23:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Speaker 06

  I just like, don't think he's that impressive.

• 1:23:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, they show him driving, but we never see how he would have actually gotten into the car to drive. Cause he seems so unflexible. I don't even know how he got in the car.

• 1:23:56Speaker 05

  I think Craig, the, the deal was that they, they couldn't get him in and out of the car cause he was too big. So there's never a shot of him getting in or out of a car. There's, you bring up a great point, like you need to get away from Robocop, just run. Like he, he can't do anything. Hit him with your car. He can't move.

• 1:24:11Speaker 06

  Climb the stairs. Turn, just turn him around a little bit.

• 1:24:13Speaker 05

  You're done. Yeah.

• 1:24:14Bill Simmons?

  It'd be like if they, if the Cowboys, like everybody's like Michael Parsons, he's unstoppable, but he ran like an 11.040. He couldn't turn. Can't block this guy. It's like, no, he actually can't. He can't move.

• 1:24:26Speaker 06

  Use one of those big SUVs to run him over. He's done.

• 1:24:29Bill Simmons?

  That's a great take, Craig. Congrats.

• 1:24:33Bill Simmons?

  So you kinda did this already, but I had a bonus category in here. The Steven Seagal shitting on himself award for most unbelievable anecdote from the actual film shoot. Just Weller, um, only responding to Verhoeven when he was addressed as Robo, when he was the Robocop. I had had to find, try to find it in multiple places, cause I did, just didn't believe it.

• 1:24:57Bill Simmons?

  He's like, hey, Peter is like.

• 1:24:58Speaker 05

  And Murphy.

• 1:25:00Bill Simmons?

  But Robo's funnier, though. Murphy, I get. Robo, I don't get.

• 1:25:04Speaker 05

  Robo. No, not even RoboCop.

• 1:25:05Bill Simmons?

  He's like, Peter, so you gotta turn around in the costume. He's like, Paul, I thought we covered this.

• 1:25:11Bill Simmons?

  Can you call me Robo?

• 1:25:12Speaker 05

  Peter, I need you on set, Peter.

• 1:25:14Bill Simmons?

  Can you call me Robo? Call me Robo when I'm on the set. Like, I'm really into this character. Half I started to research, the RoboCop suit costs somewhere between 500K and a million dollars.

• 1:25:27Bill Simmons?

  It was, the story was conceived, I mentioned Newmeyer before, he was Universal Pictures Junior Story Executive. Edward Newmeyer developed it with a guy named Michael Minor, who wrote it, and that was it.

• 1:25:44Bill Simmons?

  Verhoeven wanted to film in Dallas because it suggested the near future.

• 1:25:51Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if I agree.

• 1:25:52Speaker 05

  Talking about the architecture and the cities.

• 1:25:56Bill Simmons?

  What would be the RoboCop city now for suggesting the near future?

• 1:26:01Speaker 05

  Dubai.

• 1:26:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, we'd have to go out of America. Yeah, good point. Richard Nixon was hired to promote the home video release for 25K and donated the money.

• 1:26:13Bill Simmons?

  So you watched that RoboDoc doc?

• 1:26:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:16Bill Simmons?

  I didn't watch it.

• 1:26:17Speaker 05

  Exhaustive.

• 1:26:18Bill Simmons?

  The four parts where it was like, I'm tapping out, sorry.

• 1:26:20Speaker 05

  Incredibly well done, though.

• 1:26:22Bill Simmons?

  It's revealed in that doc that all the cops in this movie are named after notorious mass murderers.

• 1:26:27Speaker 05

  Mm hmm, mm hmm, like Ramirez.

• 1:26:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:30Speaker 05

  And serial killers, stuff like that. See, RoboCop's got so many Easter eggs, it's fun.

• 1:26:34Bill Simmons?

  Verhoeven started taking prescription meds to cope with insomnia and was just apparently a maniac on the set. But got better as the years passed with movies, although Sharon Stone might say differently. So in what, when Bodiker's gang is blowing up storefronts, one explosion was bigger than they thought, and you see the actors scattering. And somebody's coat got on fire. Ray Wise said he got some glass on his face. He was excited. They paid him extra.

• 1:27:04Speaker 05

  Awesome.

• 1:27:07Bill Simmons?

  The movie was refused an R rating 11 times, although Verhoeven said it was eight. And they just kept, like, you've got to tone down the violence. But they were like, the whole point of this is, we're making fun of this stuff, like, we need the violence. And then, um.

• 1:27:23Bill Simmons?

  The films cars, the police cars were 86 Ford Tauruses.

• 1:27:26Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:27:27Bill Simmons?

  Probably the peak for Ford Taurus. I guess we'll cover an Apex.

• 1:27:29Speaker 05

  Apex Mountain for Ford Taurus for sure.

• 1:27:31Bill Simmons?

  And then Robocop, huge VHS rental in the, uh, in 1988.

• 1:27:36Speaker 05

  Massive. That's how I saw it.

• 1:27:37Bill Simmons?

  Massive, longest waiting list for, of the year. Uh, and then a little bonus, Lisa Gibbons deep dive for you.

• 1:27:43Speaker 05

  Well, give it, give it to me.

• 1:27:45Bill Simmons?

  She has three grown children and a rescue dog named Biggie.

• 1:27:49Speaker 05

  Okay. She's into rap.

• 1:27:50Bill Simmons?

  She did Tony Robbins infomercials in the eighties, which I forgot. She hosted her own daytime show in the nineties for seven years. Forgot that.

• 1:27:59Speaker 05

  Seven years? That's a good run.

• 1:28:01Bill Simmons?

  What do you have for, uh, Lisa Gibbons? Over, under marriages? I'll give you over, under three and a half.

• 1:28:09Speaker 05

  You're telling me how many times Lisa Gibbons been married?

• 1:28:13Bill Simmons?

  Lisa Gibbons marriages, over, under three and a half.

• 1:28:16Speaker 05

  I would go under with three.

• 1:28:18Bill Simmons?

  All right. It was four. So the over hits. Yeah. She had Fanduel cover that one. Um, but she's settled down. She's living her life. Sixty eight years old.

• 1:28:27Speaker 05

  McCauley is learning about Vincent Hanna and he hears he's been divorced three times because he's out there chasing guys like you. Lisa Gibbons out there maybe chasing those celebrity news leads.

• 1:28:35Bill Simmons?

  Stories. Right.

• 1:28:36Speaker 05

  I get it.

• 1:28:37Bill Simmons?

  Apex Mountain, Lisa Gibbons, not yet.

• 1:28:40Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:28:41Bill Simmons?

  I think getting your own daytime talk show is probably Apex.

• 1:28:43Speaker 05

  For seven years?

• 1:28:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Detroit.

• 1:28:49Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty, 87, pretty good in Detroit.

• 1:28:52Speaker 05

  Early nineties, Bad Boy Pistons, Barry Sanders.

• 1:28:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, early nineties.

• 1:28:57Speaker 05

  It's gotta be.

• 1:28:58Bill Simmons?

  Good call.

• 1:29:01Bill Simmons?

  Peter Weller. I'm gonna say yes.

• 1:29:03Speaker 05

  Absolutely. I love Weller, but that, this is all I got.

• 1:29:06Bill Simmons?

  Verhoeven, no, but I think it's Basic Instinct for him. So it's five years later.

• 1:29:12Speaker 05

  Basic Instinct was bigger than Total Recall, which was big. I think it is though.

• 1:29:16Bill Simmons?

  After Basic Instinct, there's like this guy's, a guy. Uh, movie heroes dying with the Christ arms, throwing up fallback. I think it's Platoon, but we're right, we're right in the, uh, I think if you combine it, this is kind of peak of for that. And then we're right toward the peak of the puppet falling backwards as our character, but it's actually Alan Richmond that figured it out. Nancy Allen, no. Famous Bottakers. See, Mike Bottiker.

• 1:29:45Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:29:46Bill Simmons?

  Really good 80s AO pitcher. The Red Sox trade for him in 88.

• 1:29:53Bill Simmons?

  To make a little pennant push. I'm sorry, 80, they traded for him in 80, yeah, 88.

• 1:29:59Bill Simmons?

  So the only two Bottakers I could think of.

• 1:30:01Speaker 05

  I don't, I didn't even know the pitcher. So, yeah.

• 1:30:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Ronnie Cox. I'm gonna say he's got this and Bev 2 in the same year.

• 1:30:11Speaker 05

  This is, this is, this is Ronnie Cox, Apex Mountain. Great actor too. I love that guy.

• 1:30:16Bill Simmons?

  Two years earlier, he's in Vision Quest with Linda Fiorentino staying at his house. Yeah.

• 1:30:21Speaker 05

  Mo Dean, the horniest character in history. Unbelievably horny.

• 1:30:26Bill Simmons?

  Miguel Ferrer, probably.

• 1:30:29Speaker 05

  Yep. Yeah. Bob Morton, great.

• 1:30:32Bill Simmons?

  Kurt Wood Smith.

• 1:30:35Bill Simmons?

  Probably that 70's show. That was a pretty big show for like seven years.

• 1:30:38Speaker 05

  A massive show. And then it's got Kutcher and Mila and one of its characters is in prison now. Like just all kinds of stuff to talk about with that show. And yeah, I think it's, I've never seen one episode, but apparently he's really good and he's the dad.

• 1:30:51Bill Simmons?

  Important show on the Reddit Conspiracy Board. Futuristic cop movies.

• 1:31:00Speaker 05

  No. I mean, you got Blade Runner. I mean, Blade Runner, Minority Report. Blade Runner did a lot to inspire this movie too. I think it's Blade Runner still.

• 1:31:07Bill Simmons?

  I agree. Cruiser Hanks.

• 1:31:11Speaker 05

  This is so funny. Robo Tom. Which one do you go with?

• 1:31:15Bill Simmons?

  I did Cruise. Cruise is way funnier. I think that Cruise in the first 15 minutes, Cruise getting shot, Cruise having to take his helmet off and having like the bald cruise cap on.

• 1:31:27Speaker 05

  You don't see Cruise play cops a lot. Like I feel like the only time maybe he has is Minority Report. He's never really been in like a blue uniform. Hanks did it in, in Dragnet and he did it in the one with the dog, Turner and Hooch. I think it's probably Cruise.

• 1:31:42Bill Simmons?

  The one with the dog?

• 1:31:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mix it up with K-9, which was John Belushi.

• 1:31:47Bill Simmons?

  You mix it up with K-9? What's happening?

• 1:31:49Speaker 05

  That was like the defense.

• 1:31:50Bill Simmons?

  Turner Hooch is a classic.

• 1:31:53Speaker 05

  Are you gonna do the Turner and Hooch rewatch?

• 1:31:55Bill Simmons?

  What's, listen, if there's ever a dog month, Turner and Hooch will be in dog month.

• 1:31:58Speaker 05

  Dog month. It's good.

• 1:32:01Bill Simmons?

  Dog month, high ratings. People love dogs.

• 1:32:03Speaker 05

  I would go with Cruz though. I would go with Cruz.

• 1:32:05Bill Simmons?

  Me too. Scorsese or Spielberg? Interesting. This could go either way, but this feels like very Spielberg trying to embrace his dark side, but not really getting there.

• 1:32:15Speaker 05

  The problem is the hard R, the hard R rating. Scorsese has to do it. I mean, the coke scene alone is him. Spielberg did this movie. It was called AI and Haley Zoll Osment was Robocop.

• 1:32:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're right. It's Scorsese. It's a good call.

• 1:32:27Speaker 05

  Scorsese.

• 1:32:28Bill Simmons?

  So he's like, he's like, how many, how many cocaine scenes are in there? Like, we got two. It's like, I'm in. Sign me up.

• 1:32:37Bill Simmons?

  What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman played? Clearly Bodderker.

• 1:32:42Bill Simmons?

  What would you have done? Robocop?

• 1:32:44Speaker 05

  No, I saw this as like, young, young, up and coming, like twister, boogie nights Philip Seymour Hoffman.

• 1:32:50Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Miguel Ferreira?

• 1:32:52Speaker 05

  Not even him. Like, one of the, like, people in the lab, like, who works on Robocop, and he kinda has, like, Scotty J. energy, you know? He's like a lab coat and he's walking next to Robocop. He's like, I like your suit a lot. It looks really sexy. Thank you.

• 1:33:08Speaker 05

  I really like your name. Thank you. Like, I think he's just one of these guys who steals the scene despite having, like, two lines. I love him there.

• 1:33:15Bill Simmons?

  He could have been Kenny.

• 1:33:18Speaker 05

  Oh, you love Kenny, dude. Kenny is a hilarious, hilarious, oh, sure, I'm on to your boss.

• 1:33:25Bill Simmons?

  He could have done it like with his Son of a Woman kind of Phil Hoffman.

• 1:33:28Speaker 05

  Wait, Bill, let me, let me give you, there's one Apex Mountain I think is interesting.

• 1:33:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:33Speaker 05

  Do you think, is this Apex Mountain for violent scenes that are hard to watch? I'm talking about Murphy's execution, and I have, I have a list, okay?

• 1:33:43Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I can't wait.

• 1:33:45Speaker 05

  All right. So you got, at the end of Casino, Tommy in the cornfield gets beaten up by Frank Vincent. It's tough to watch. The Private Ryan, slow motion stabbing in the end when they're in the room, and he's like, no, no, no, no, no, don't.

• 1:33:58Speaker 05

  Gandolfini in Alabama in True Romance is brutal.

• 1:34:01Bill Simmons?

  That would have been my pick.

• 1:34:02Speaker 05

  You have the hobbling in Misery where she breaks his ankles, which I actually think is kinda funny. And then there's like really horrible stuff, like the American History X curb stomp, which is terrible for a million reasons. Irreversible has an 11 minute scene that's unwatchable, but. I kind of, the true romance one, especially the director's cut is really tough. It's not a fun topic, but I thought of this because I still have trouble watching the scene. And I was like, is this the hardest scene to watch? And put it this way, when I show my little kid content now, like I don't care about profanity. And usually I don't care about violence. It's the sex I try to keep him away from. He's only 11. I would not want him to watch this movie yet. I don't want him to watch that scene of Murphy being killed. It's just too much. Like I, I saw it too young and I don't want him to. It's intense.

• 1:34:46Bill Simmons?

  I would have thrown Reservoir Dogs with the, cutting the ear off.

• 1:34:49Speaker 05

  Uh, Michael Madsen, our guy. Um, by the way, Species Pod, fantastic. Just fantastic.

• 1:34:55Bill Simmons?

  Oh, thank you. Fantastic. One of the, one of the all timers. Um, yeah, that Gandalf phoenix scene is, is, I think that's the whole point though.

• 1:35:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's some other ones. Man on Fire. When he's torturing the guy in the car, but you're kind of rooting for him to do it.

• 1:35:15Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:35:16Bill Simmons?

  Picking nits.

• 1:35:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:19Bill Simmons?

  Whose idea was it to give Ed 209, um, actual bullets for the boardroom demonstration?

• 1:35:27Speaker 05

  Maybe we just go with blanks for the demo.

• 1:35:29Bill Simmons?

  How about just blanks for the demo? Just change out the bullets. You're arming him with real bullets? What if something goes wrong?

• 1:35:37Speaker 05

  They're ripping out wires from the control board. Maybe it just not load Ed 209. Unbelievable.

• 1:35:43Bill Simmons?

  It's not like, it's not like Ed 209 went to the store and bought bullets. Like they're arming him with the bullets.

• 1:35:48Speaker 05

  With a lot of them too. Yeah.

• 1:35:50Bill Simmons?

  Uh, hot take, did Murphy deserve to die? They go into a warehouse, warehouse loaded with gunmen that they just chased. There's no backup coming for 20 minutes.

• 1:36:01Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 1:36:02Bill Simmons?

  There's no harder place to navigate than a warehouse with nooks and crannies and levels. They're like, we'll go in first. The rest of the guys will come in later. How about this? Just hang outside for 20 minutes.

• 1:36:13Speaker 05

  Let's just chill. It's, it's, it's like, it's like in the town when the guy looks up and sees all the guys with the guns. The officer just looks back down.

• 1:36:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just kind of does the look down.

• 1:36:21Speaker 05

  Not today.

• 1:36:22Bill Simmons?

  Sweet.

• 1:36:23Speaker 05

  Not today.

• 1:36:24Bill Simmons?

  Backup's not coming for 20 minutes. Cool. We'll wait for the backup.

• 1:36:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:36:28Bill Simmons?

  There's six of them and two for us.

• 1:36:32Bill Simmons?

  How do you feel about Nancy Allen's character not figuring out that RoboCop's Murphy for like 30 minutes?

• 1:36:39Speaker 05

  I feel alright. She, the second she sees the gun.

• 1:36:42Bill Simmons?

  She has a distinct jaw.

• 1:36:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. And she, she worked with him for like 20 minutes before he was murdered. So it's not like they're old friends.

• 1:36:48Bill Simmons?

  Alright. Murphy had no family or friends, other than this one wife and kid? Nobody who knew he was, nothing?

• 1:36:56Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:36:57Bill Simmons?

  Was anyone at his bachelor party?

• 1:37:01Speaker 05

  That's a good point. I mean, he probably got married.

• 1:37:03Bill Simmons?

  College roommate who checked in every once in a while?

• 1:37:06Speaker 05

  No. It's side piece, which I think he had, and that she didn't show up. I, I have a picky knit about the family. Like, that, when he goes in that flashback, that is such a bolstered demonstration of what a family is like. No family is that nice. The kid is like, "Hi dad, take a picture with me." No kid says that. He walks into the room.

• 1:37:24Bill Simmons?

  Verhoeven doesn't understand American families.

• 1:37:27Speaker 05

  At all. Because you know what American families don't do? It's the middle of the day, the wife is in a robe, it's like a Tuesday, and she's like, "I have to tell you something. I love you." What, what is that? No wife behaves that way, ever. If anything, that wife would be like really annoyed that, "Why is he doing this new job in the tough district? We need more money, we gotta get out of this house." Like, that idyllic version of a family, Verhoeven fucking missed. No family is like that.

• 1:37:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. The way she says, "I have to tell you something, I love you," you just have to assume there's a guy hiding in the closet that had just been having sex with her, and she's trying to throw him off the scent. "I love you." He's like, "Come, get, get."

• 1:38:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:38:05Bill Simmons?

  I have a problem with the RoboCop costume. So why do you have the mouth and the jaw exposed? It feels like all the shots, like you would just aim for his mouth, right? You'd try to hit it. And then when they're shooting at him, he's covering his jaw. Like, why is he covering anything? He's a fucking robot.

• 1:38:22Speaker 05

  Why wouldn't he have just a full medal over his face?

• 1:38:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, or like a little shield that comes down. Well, like if he's in battle, like pull the shield down.

• 1:38:30Speaker 05

  There was a lot of people who didn't want to play the role because they didn't want half their face covered the whole time. And so.

• 1:38:36Bill Simmons?

  That's it. But maybe, maybe it's like, it goes up and down, though. It's like a mouthpiece in boxing. Like when you know you're in battle, you pull it down.

• 1:38:43Speaker 05

  Like a welder's mask. Yeah.

• 1:38:45Bill Simmons?

  Ed 209 not being able to go downstairs. I know it's funny, but I also like, that's just insane. They didn't think of that. He's chasing criminals. There's criminals go up and downstairs. You didn't figure this out?

• 1:38:56Speaker 05

  Is Ed 209 Apex Mountain for worst new technology rollout ever? It's like him, Google Glass, Quibi, ESPN Mobile, and Ed 209. Like, what? That's the worst thing I've ever seen. Jesus.

• 1:39:13Bill Simmons?

  Here's my last one. Was Clarence Bottaker, was he a wanted criminal or not?

• 1:39:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, known mob boss.

• 1:39:19Bill Simmons?

  Wanted for 31?

• 1:39:21Speaker 05

  Cop killers.

• 1:39:22Bill Simmons?

  31 deaths on his watch. The, the mob boss of old Detroit. But then in the last half hour of this movie, he's just strolling into Dick Jones's office, going through, saying hi to people. So is he a criminal or not?

• 1:39:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, Lisa Gibbons even has him on the news as like known mob boss. Sometimes they do this in movies, like in 1989 Batman, like Carl Grissom and Jack Napier, they're just known mob bosses. They just walk around and they do stuff in public and no one arrests them or anything. So yes, it is a little odd.

• 1:39:51Bill Simmons?

  I get it. Do you have any picking nets?

• 1:39:53Speaker 05

  No, just the one about the family would never be that way. It's ridiculous.

• 1:39:56Bill Simmons?

  Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast or untouchable. A prequel with Murphy in the other part of Detroit? I, I'd probably watch five minutes. All black cast, maybe? If you're gonna, that, that would have been the 2014 answer. If you're remaking Robocop, like, let's go all black cast and just go. But they made all these sequels, so I think that's the answer.

• 1:40:18Speaker 05

  The real answer to this category is none of them. It's video game. And they made a shitload of video games and they're pretty cool. The arcade game was awesome. You could fight Ed 209. That's the answer.

• 1:40:27Bill Simmons?

  I'm embarrassed to say that, uh. I'm so old that I had the computer game in the eighties.

• 1:40:32Speaker 05

  You had a computer game?

• 1:40:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:34Speaker 05

  Like on an Apple computer or did you have a Commodore?

• 1:40:37Bill Simmons?

  Apple.

• 1:40:38Speaker 05

  Awesome.

• 1:40:38Bill Simmons?

  Eighty, nineteen eighty-eight. That's the Apple that me and Gus Ramses used to play microleague baseball on all the time, but I had a couple.

• 1:40:43Speaker 05

  Floppy disc?

• 1:40:44Bill Simmons?

  And if only a few games, but I think I had the Robocop one. I vaguely remember it. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, no, Byron Mayo, Tony Romo, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, Peter Schrager, or Wilford Brimley in The Firm?

• 1:41:01Speaker 05

  You know, I'm tempted to say Pete Schrags, but I need the scene where he shoots through the woman's legs. I would love to have my guy Gus Johnson on the call and it's just, "Robocop, young fella, couple of scumbags about to give this woman a Brazilian, goes to the thigh holster, raises his gun, and beans all over his men, you're a moon creep."

• 1:41:30Speaker 05

  There we go. Love you, Gus.

• 1:41:32Bill Simmons?

  Great job.

• 1:41:33Speaker 05

  Love you.

• 1:41:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, see, you stepped on mine now. I, first of all, I thought you were doing this for another scene, but I had Mike Breen for Ed 209, killing Kenny.

• 1:41:43Speaker 05

  Do it, do it.

• 1:41:44Bill Simmons?

  Fifteen seconds, five seconds, bang, bang, bang. He's just took forty bangs. Kenny's just taking.

• 1:41:53Speaker 05

  Unbelievable.

• 1:41:54Bill Simmons?

  All the shots, yeah.

• 1:41:55Speaker 05

  See, the Schrager take would be, he'd be like, Ed 209 is Mahomes, and him taking that loss early on is gonna put a chip on Mahomes' shoulder, and Mahomes is out for revenge this year, and I'm taking the Chiefs. That's Peter. He kills that take. That would, he would, that would, that's what he would roll with, and it'd be good.

• 1:42:09Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I thought it would have been. Guys, I talked to Dick Jones last week, and he did not like what happened with Ed 209 in the boardroom. They're fixing it. They think that robot's gonna be great, and it's gonna be ready to go for the season.

• 1:42:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, look, everybody's moving on to Bob Morton. That's, I got news for you. Dick Jones, they still believe in him. They still like him. Let's go. Love you, Peter. I love you. And he would give his amazing take, and no one would laugh or respond. It's that, I love you, Bob.

• 1:42:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just freeze faces in the split screens at ESPN for it. Just wanna ask her, who gets it? Special effects?

• 1:42:42Speaker 05

  No. Well, the sound effects actually won. Special effects not nominated.

• 1:42:47Bill Simmons?

  Oh, sound effects won, then sure. Okay.

• 1:42:49Speaker 05

  Little sober character. Yep.

• 1:42:51Bill Simmons?

  Probably an answerable question. So we have no idea what year this movie is in.

• 1:42:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:42:55Bill Simmons?

  Apparently, there was a commercial for the film's home video release that said the movie was set in 1991, but nobody's ever established that.

• 1:43:06Bill Simmons?

  What year do you think this movie was set in? If you had to pick a year, it probably has to go at least 30 years ahead?

• 1:43:15Speaker 05

  Well, it's it's tough because they have all this technology, but there's no cell phones. So nobody makes a cellphone call the whole time.

• 1:43:23Bill Simmons?

  But do they know? And I guess in 87, they probably should have known cell phones were going to be a bigger part of things.

• 1:43:28Speaker 05

  Because we had the Gordon Gekko phone already, like, they should have known, but they don't.

• 1:43:31Bill Simmons?

  They figured out DVDs, then didn't figure out cell phones?

• 1:43:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's it's it's like they made this in 86. They probably thought this was like 20, 2010, maybe 2005, 20 some years forward.

• 1:43:44Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna say like 2011 range, like 25 years later.

• 1:43:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:43:51Bill Simmons?

  I mean, this is stealth Robocop question, but do you think Bob Morton was behind transferring cops into the worst parts of Detroit that could eventually be good Robocop?

• 1:44:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:04Bill Simmons?

  Like, he's almost like scouting combine it. And it's like, there's this guy Murphy and the other, like, he's really good. It's like, transfer that guy over. We gotta get him.

• 1:44:11Speaker 05

  I think it's almost inferred in the movie that Murphy's sudden transfer to the rough thing is because Murphy fit the profile. They set him up to be killed and then they could use him because they knew he could be a Robocop.

• 1:44:21Bill Simmons?

  Was it basically they scouted him? This is our guy.

• 1:44:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:25Bill Simmons?

  Clarence Bottaker is going to lure him in. The backup's going to be 20 minutes away. Kind of weird. It's not like Detroit's Houston.

• 1:44:32Speaker 05

  I think it was completely masterminded. Yes, completely.

• 1:44:35Bill Simmons?

  All right. So maybe that's answerable. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie?

• 1:44:41Speaker 05

  Something that we have not talked about yet in this podcast. I'm gonna have some friends over, some couples. We're gonna have some wines, some IPAs, some charcuterie, and we're gonna play around in Nukem. And we're gonna get the game out and we're gonna say, Pakistan's threatening my border. I want real nukem. None of this Cars Against Humanity shit. I want nukem the home game. The best.

• 1:45:02Bill Simmons?

  We forgot to mention, that's, that's a good answer. We forgot to mention with those news breaks, when they slide in stuff like, uh, two presidents have been killed in Santa Barbara and it's clearly inferring it was Nixon Reagan. But then they have this other one. I don't know why it's so funny, but Rebels have taken over Acapulco.

• 1:45:20Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:45:21Bill Simmons?

  In the, in the mid eighties, Acapulco was like St. Bart's. That's where everybody went. And, um, and they just kind of slid that in. But now I guess that could have been for most 1987 thing about this movie.

• 1:45:32Speaker 05

  So true.

• 1:45:32Bill Simmons?

  Cause now if that happened, you'd be like, oh, I totally believe Rebels took over Acapulco. Eighty seven, it was like kind of a way to make fun of rich people. My piece of memorabilia that I'd want from the movie, I'd probably want the mask.

• 1:45:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:45:50Bill Simmons?

  Just some like, just have it behind me in the studio here. I don't know. That'd be cool. Coach Finstock wore a best life lesson. You can kill somebody, but you can't take their humanity.

• 1:46:00Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:46:01Bill Simmons?

  I don't know.

• 1:46:02Speaker 05

  They'll come back. They'll resurrect.

• 1:46:03Bill Simmons?

  Or put blanks in Ed 209 the next time.

• 1:46:08Speaker 05

  If there's any weapons companies out there developing new stuff and you're going to do a demo.

• 1:46:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:12Speaker 05

  Not really necessary.

• 1:46:13Bill Simmons?

  Twenty person boardroom demo.

• 1:46:15Speaker 05

  What was it where like Elon was debuting the Cybertruck and he's like, you can't break the window and he threw the thing against it and it broke. That went terribly, but still Ed 209 significantly worse.

• 1:46:26Bill Simmons?

  Best double feature choice. I mean, you could go Terminator and go right into Robocop right after and double robot it. You could go Verhoeven and do this with Starship Troopers or Total Recall. I don't know. What do you have?

• 1:46:41Speaker 05

  The Terminator thing is interesting.

• 1:46:44Speaker 05

  There's a couple of things I just want to say about this because when the movie came out, allegedly James Cameron was pissed and he thought that they ripped them off and they were, and if you look at the timeline, Robocop is being developed well before Terminator. But there's a really interesting thing in Terminator two where there's a couple of things in T2 Judgment Day that are like, they look like rip offs of Robocop, like verbatim.

• 1:47:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:47:04Speaker 05

  They both end in a steel mill. There's a point where the T-1000s stabs Arnold with a spike and then wrenches it back and forth, just like Bodicker does, like note for note. And then the whole backlit SWAT team where they drop the Terminator and Robocop is like note for note. It's almost like. Cameron was doing it on purpose because he thought they ripped it. It looks just like it. Like, you know how Larry does the spite store for Mocha Joe and Curb? It was like spite scenes. It's almost note for note rip offs of Robocop. It's crazy.

• 1:47:33Bill Simmons?

  And we know Cameron's a dick.

• 1:47:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think he's totally neurotic. He's like, I know you guys ripped my shit off, so I'm ripping yours. Look at those shots. It's the same sequences.

• 1:47:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's such a good, but especially the steak is like almost note for note. Really good one. Uh, who won the movie?

• 1:47:49Speaker 05

  A lot of people could have been Robocop. We need the horny, blood-soaked Dutchman, Paul Verhoeven. I think he absolutely cooked in every single sense of this. I think it's him.

• 1:47:59Bill Simmons?

  I had him as well. All right, let's see what Craig thought. Craig, had you seen Robocop?

• 1:48:03Speaker 06

  No. And I haven't seen the new one, the Joel Kinnaman one. I kind of barely knew that existed, to be honest. Um, I enjoyed this movie so much. I, the B movie that's trying to say something, Trojan horsing you into a message. This movie's interesting because I think if you're on your phone, if you're half watching the movie, it's kind of just a cheesy eighties science fiction movie with questionable CGI.

• 1:48:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:29Speaker 06

  Which is a problem now because most people turning it on, they're probably half looking at their phone. And you miss so much, but if you actually sit down, put your phone down and watch the movie, there is so much happening in the interstitials. There's so much being subliminally kind of delivered to you.

• 1:48:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43Speaker 06

  That is just so interesting. It reminded me a lot of They Live, the John Carpenter movie.

• 1:48:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:47Speaker 06

  Just about its views on like the dystopian future and all the stuff like that. Um, I also think the villains in this movie are great. I kind, to me personally, I feel like Nancy Allen and Peter Weller. I could take them or leave them. If you recasted both of them, I think I'd be fine. But I think the villains in this movie are awesome and they seem like genuinely terrible people and you really want them to die.

• 1:49:10Bill Simmons?

  You know what's interesting about that? I almost feel like he didn't want the two leads to have any sort of personality. Like he wanted the villains to have, to suck up the personality of the movie would be my guess.

• 1:49:22Speaker 05

  Well, that's kind of like, that's like the Batman formula, that the villains are so much more interesting than Batman. The scene that we didn't talk about is in the bathroom between Bob Morton and Dick Jones, where he reaches back and touches his hair and pulls it. Like, that is, that is what you call a dick swinging contest. And it's a really good scene.

• 1:49:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:41Speaker 05

  Well, I think like.

• 1:49:43Bill Simmons?

  10 years later, this is Brad Pitt as Robocop.

• 1:49:47Speaker 05

  As Robocop.

• 1:49:47Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 1:49:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:49:48Bill Simmons?

  Good chin, like he would have fit it. They probably beef it up. I don't think they have Peter Weller.

• 1:49:53Speaker 05

  It's Channing Tatum, you know, it's one of those guys.

• 1:49:56Bill Simmons?

  Would you have liked this movie more if it was Emilio Estevez as Robocop?

• 1:50:02Speaker 05

  I didn't even think about that. There's a scene where Robocop gets really high and then he screams and the glass breaks. It's fucking awesome.

• 1:50:09Bill Simmons?

  Rob Lowe, like they could have gone like that direction, right? A little more famous, but I didn't know who Peter Weller was, but I also wasn't going to the movies to see Peter Weller.

• 1:50:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, if it was Rob Lowe, when Robocop takes off, they would need hair still. Like, I didn't love the Robocop. I didn't love the Peter Weller bald cap, like Darth Vader situation going on. That was a little uncomfortable. I also don't know why he did it. I guess it's him coming to terms with his humanity. I do think technologically speaking, this movie's eyes were bigger than its stomach a little bit. Like, they really tried and maybe they were a couple of years too, too early on.

• 1:50:44Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:50:45Speaker 06

  It, it, it struggles in some ways, I think, in the, in the effects, but, you know, they're doing their best.

• 1:50:51Bill Simmons?

  Hey Craig, when we do our live fantasy football draft on August 25th?

• 1:50:55Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:50:56Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna, I'm bringing a robot in. I'm gonna demonstrate. It's a robot fantasy thing. We're gonna do a little demonstration. I want you to be the one that challenges him with a trade.

• 1:51:06Speaker 06

  Hyphens would volunteer, so I'll get him.

• 1:51:08Bill Simmons?

  Hyphens would be like, I'll do it.

• 1:51:11Speaker 06

  Ed 209 is like Anthony Richardson. They're like trying to make him work. He's firing missiles at running backs in the flat.

• 1:51:18Speaker 05

  Ed 209, I'll trade you George Kittle for DeAndre Hopkins and Isaiah Pacheco. You have 15 seconds to accept this trade.

• 1:51:28Bill Simmons?

  Anthony Richardson as Ed 209 is the fucking funniest. Everything looks good on paper until, until he's faced with any sort of anything.

• 1:51:38Speaker 06

  We're really trying to make this work, yeah.

• 1:51:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:41Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:51:41Speaker 06

  All right.

• 1:51:42Bill Simmons?

  Robocop, another winner for Craig. We took him back to 1987.

• 1:51:45Speaker 05

  Way to go, baby.

• 1:51:46Speaker 06

  These movies don't miss now, like any, any of these. I'm just in on all of these.

• 1:51:50Bill Simmons?

  We've completely corrupted him.

• 1:51:52Speaker 06

  I know. Hundred and two minutes. Come on.

• 1:51:55Bill Simmons?

  There's still some left. All right, Kyle Brandt, anything to, uh, anything to plug, push? What do you got?

• 1:52:00Speaker 05

  No, it's just usual. We're doing my, my 10th season of Good Morning Football.

• 1:52:04Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:52:05Speaker 05

  Me live from New York and I'll be getting after it as always.

• 1:52:09Bill Simmons?

  What was the stuff with you in a suit with Peyton Manning? Is that like a secret project?

• 1:52:13Speaker 05

  No, Eli Manning.

• 1:52:15Bill Simmons?

  Eli Manning? What was that?

• 1:52:16Speaker 05

  I, we, I did a project with Eli where, remember like, Bill, do you remember back in the eighties when Bob Hope would do his Christmas special and they would introduce the All-Americans?

• 1:52:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:25Speaker 05

  They would run out and they're like, I'm Steve Young, BYU quarterback.

• 1:52:28Bill Simmons?

  I love that.

• 1:52:28Speaker 05

  We like kind of redid that and modernized it. It was awesome. It's coming soon.

• 1:52:31Bill Simmons?

  Oh, great. Can't wait. All right. Thanks. And then Craig, Ringer Fantasy Football Podcast. This is when it becomes essential. We are now in August.

• 1:52:41Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 1:52:41Bill Simmons?

  This is it.

• 1:52:42Speaker 06

  Week two of training camp. There was a real football game last night. You know, lots going on. Trey Lance is back.

• 1:52:47Speaker 05

  Who's the number one overall pick?

• 1:52:49Speaker 06

  It's Jamar Chase or say one.

• 1:52:51Speaker 05

  Really? Receiver? Not, not, not Bijon? I'm hearing about him? No?

• 1:52:54Bill Simmons?

  I'm not taking a receiver with the number one pick. I'm sorry.

• 1:52:57Speaker 06

  Uh.

• 1:52:58Bill Simmons?

  Also, I'm not going to be in a draft with the number one pick because I don't still pick my nose to need it. I'm an adult with a wife and a family and a job.

• 1:53:05Speaker 06

  Well, Bill, we're doing snake for our live draft. I just want you to know that. We have to.

• 1:53:08Bill Simmons?

  All right. I'll get some boogers ready. I can pick them on the lab show. Are we really doing snake?

• 1:53:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, we have, for a live stream, the auction, I mean, that, an offline auction is

• 1:53:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:53:20Speaker 06

  Really difficult to pull off.

• 1:53:20Bill Simmons?

  I guess we gotta do it. Can we call it the, the first annual Ringer Booger Eater Fantasy Football Draft?

• 1:53:25Speaker 05

  Sounds good.

• 1:53:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, that could be the name of the league.

• 1:53:27Bill Simmons?

  All right. That sounds good. Um, who's the most polarizing fantasy football guy this year? Do we have one?

• 1:53:32Speaker 06

  I mean.

• 1:53:32Bill Simmons?

  Is it Justin Fields?

• 1:53:34Speaker 06

  Kyle Pitts and Anthony Richardson run it back.

• 1:53:36Bill Simmons?

  No, Kyle Pitts isn't polarizing anymore. There's no, everyone's giving up.

• 1:53:40Speaker 05

  He's gonna be sitting there in like the seventh round and you're like, he's got such upside. He's so fast.

• 1:53:43Bill Simmons?

  Nobody thinks that anymore.

• 1:53:44Speaker 06

  For how cheap they are, they are basically going undrafted now, which is why they're starting to get interesting. The other team is the Dolphins. It's like, is Tyree Kill over the hill? Devon Achan, when he's with Tua, he's the best fantasy running back in the league. When he's not with Tua, he's one of the worst. Dolphins are really hard to predict right now.

• 1:54:00Bill Simmons?

  So it's not Justin Fields?

• 1:54:02Speaker 06

  No, I think Fields actually is like kind of a high floor pick.

• 1:54:06Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 1:54:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:54:07Bill Simmons?

  I think people think he's gonna be like a massive quarterback this year.

• 1:54:12Speaker 06

  The most in the league.

• 1:54:13Bill Simmons?

  He might rush for like 1500 yards.

• 1:54:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, they're committing to him. There's not a real strong backup situation. Like if he plays 17 games, he's gonna be a top 10 quarterback. He just will.

• 1:54:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think to me, he's a polarizer one. J.J. McCarthy would be another one.

• 1:54:25Speaker 06

  He's a polarizer for sure.

• 1:54:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, cause it's like, could you just plug and play him with the Sam Darnold stats? It's the same offense.

• 1:54:34Speaker 06

  It's a huge risk. All the like, I mean, Justin Jefferson even, it's like, how much do you, you gonna take him second overall with J.J. McCarthy? What if he's terrible?

• 1:54:41Bill Simmons?

  Where do you have Ed 209 in the rankings right now? Is he in the top 100?

• 1:54:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. He just cracked it. He's right next to Kyle Pitts.

• 1:54:47Bill Simmons?

  I would rather take Ed 209 than Kyle Pitts and go through it again. Kyle Pitts is the Ed 209 of fantasy players. It's so true. That should be his nickname. All right. Kyle Brand, great to see you as always. We're gonna try to do one more of these in the next. You know, I feel like we haven't done a Stallone in a while. I'm just, just gonna say that. Let's put meat on that bone. Let's see what we can find. There's some Stallone meat left. Anyway, great to see you. Thanks, Craig. Always great to be here.

• 1:55:24Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys. Star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. Writer-director of The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island, Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys, Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9. Only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now.

• 1:56:10Speaker 09

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