ROBOCOP: PRIME DIRECTIVES

ROBOCOP: PRIME DIRECTIVES (vt. ROBOCOP 4 [2000]: USA working title). Four-part series of two-hour TV movies: Dark Justice, Meltdown, Resurrection, Crash and Burn. Julian Grant, dir., one of several producers. Canada: Robocop Productions Ltd. (prod.) by Fireworks Entertainment (dist.), Canadian debut 2000. Brad Abraham, Joseph O'Brien, script. Page Fletcher, Maurice Dean Wint, Leslie Hope, Francoise Yip, Keven Jubinville, Maria Del Mar, featured players.

Additional sequels in the RoboCop series, described by the director as "'spaghetti cyberpunk.' Imagine if you would, John Woo and Sergio Leone making a western on the backlot of The Crow" (54). Note development by the evil OCP corporation of "Robohunters, an army of programmed warriors, engage[d] in an epic confrontation which will ultimately mean control of Delta City, a 1984-like megatropolis that proudly declares itself 'the safest city on Earth'" (53). Pre-US release coverage by Paul Wardle, Cinefantastique 32.6 (Feb. 2001): 52-55, along with IMDb, our source for this citation. For the ROBOCOP series generally, note that observation by C. S. Lewis in his 1961 Preface to The Screwtape Letters that "in the Managerial Age, in a world of 'Admin.,' [t]he greatest evil is not" done in Dickensian dens of iniquity or "even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails […]." Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern." In the ROBOCOP series, there are now some token women executives, but Lewis's comment still holds for crime in the streets exceeded by crime in executive suites.