In 1990, Robocop 2, the American science fiction action film directed by Irvin Kershner and written by Frank Miller and Walon Green, starring Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O’Herlihy, Belinda Bauer, Tom Noonan, and Gabriel Damon came into being. In this film, Detroit is depicted as on the verge of bankruptcy after failing to pay off its debts to conglomerate Omni Consumer Products (OCP). OCP incites violence and street crime by terminating the privatized Detroit Police Department’s pension plans and cutting salaries, triggering a city-wide police strike. During the police strike, OCP finds it necessary to kick the production of Robocop 2 into high gear.
Struggling to construct a new viable product, OCP fumbles with the development and production of RoboCop 2. To solve the production issues, OCP appoints Psychologist Dr. Juliette Faxx to the team overseeing the development of Robocop 2’s software. In doing so, Faxx suggests using criminal minds instead of police officers as the human contribution to Robocop’s makeup. In doing so, Faxx chooses a former narcotics dealer and criminal brain to use with RoboCop 2’s hardware and mechanical body. The result is a disaster. Robocop 2 rejects his programming and attacks civilians in a conference held at OCP headquarters.
This movie continues to overlook the psychological canon of modern cinema. This move delves deeper into the psychological makeup of Robocop’s command center, his brain, and several other profound (and admittedly, less profound) areas when engineering and psychology intersect. For example: what makes a person human? In this film, Robocop’s ex-wife appears in a few scenes.
Mrs. Murphy is filing suit against OCP because she believes her dead husband, now Robocop, is following her home. Well, Robocop was indeed following his ex-wife in life. But this raises important issues. Robocop has memories (another layer discussed in detail in the film) of his human or past life. Do these memories, or having memories, make us human? In the case of this film, the answer is no. Cyborgs, e.g., Robocop, have memories, and by no stretch of the imagination would I say this part human part machine is either (human or robotic) in totality.
And yet, Robocop’s memories in this film again raise several other questions. In this film, Faxx can create her own cyborg, Robocop 2, and reprogram the original Robocop. In doing so, she tries to build on Robocop’s Prime Directives from OCP. While reprogramming Robocop, she takes in feedback from the community, utilizes the panel of people she speaks with and incorporates their input into Robocop’s directives. Instead of four concrete directives which allow Robocop to be self-directive and engage with criminals,
Robocop is inundated with nonsense and long sometimes (at odds with each other) commands in which he must operate. This suggests several negative things about psychology as a discourse and warns viewers to be careful about what he or she believes is unassailable. Time and again, in the Robocop movies, directives signal why we should ask more questions than behave as if we know all the answers. Asking why? Or taking time to investigate on our own free of coercion is highlighted in this move all too well.
Ultimately, no matter what evils this psychology exhibits in the movie, we understand the behavioral sciences more from Robocop2. As Robocop would say: “we’re only human,” and so is falling in love with this American classic, or the original movie, Robocop (1987), as a franchise powerhouse in science fiction cinema
Author Info:
Max E. Guttman
Max E. Guttman is the owner of Mindful Living LCSW, PLLC, a private mental health practice in Yonkers, New York.
