July 15: Why RoboCop Might Be the Best-Written Movie Ever
Plus TGIF, Transformers, Mario shampoo, obscure breakfast cereals, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
July 15th, 2022 • Issue 108
Why RoboCop Might Be the Best-Written Movie Ever
On July 17, 1987, RoboCop hit theaters.
When RoboCop came out 35 years ago this week, people liked it. Didn’t really love it, but liked it. Critics gave it positive reviews. Not spectacular reviews, but positive. It was a nice but disposible summer action blockbuster.
RoboCop, of course, was not nominated for any of the high-end Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, or Best Original Screenplay) the following year.
It was nominated for sound and editing awards, and won a Special Achievement Award for sound effects editing — so RoboCop is an Oscar-winning film.
But it never had a chance of sniffing the major categories.
It was impossible to look past Robocop’s cheesiness. Impossible to see it as anything but fluffy ‘80s mainstream sci-fi.
That assessment was locked in as the widely-accepted take on RoboCop for the next quarter-century. It was a shlocky ‘80s movie everyone had heard of, many had seen, but none compared to the genre-defining films of the era like Blade Runner and The Terminator.
At least until a film blog in 2014 called Deja Reviewer noticed something fascinating about RoboCop’s screenplay.
Though the dialogue trends corny, the characters are largely stock, and the premise is absurd, there’s something incredible about the script at its core:
It’s (almost) perfectly symmetrical.
Every beat in through the first half of the story is paid off by a parallel beat in the second half.
Not only is that a masterful achievement in writing and storytelling, it’s something so difficult no one else dares to attempt it.
Yes, movies and books will often end with a scene that’s a 180-degree reversal of the opening scene. It represents the main character’s growth and change. But creating a story where the second half is a beat-by-beat mirror image of the first half?
The set of movies doing that might be n=1, and the n is RoboCop.
Here’s an image I made to demonstrate the symmetry of the script. It goes through the film beats in snake order.
There are two moments of note in the structure. One is the scene in red above — it happens out of order for the mirror image. It is actually a few scenes later in the movie than it should be.
The other is the final scene of the movie, with the news reporters and Lewis saying the “If you can’t stand the heat” line. That scene is in the script but was cut from the final version of the film.
Those are the only hiccups in the symmetry.
So was this all on purpose? The answer is… sort of.
Michael Miner, one of the two writers, responded to Deja Reviewer’s analysis. He says he and his co-writer never discussed the idea of making a symmetrical film but: “Our attention to detail, overdrive-type plotting, and set-ups and pay-offs were very high priorities.”
So while the near-perfect symmetry was an accident, the underlying elegance of the RoboCop script was not. As much as a movie like RoboCop feels like it could’ve been a monkeys-on-typewriters screenplay, it was meticulously plotted. So meticulously, in fact, it turned out to be one of the best structured screeplays of, well, the entire history of cinema.
Which is why now, 35 years later, RoboCop’s script is held in esteem and (most likely) taught in screenwriting classes.
Even though it’s a movie about a cop who gets shot, turned into a robot, and then blows stuff up for an hour. It’s hard to imagine any more deceptive Trojan horse for aspirational screenwriting than that.
Other momentous moments from this week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
July 15th
1988 - Die Hard hit theaters.
1988 - A Fish Called Wanda hit theaters.
1991 - Right Said Fred’s single I’m Too Sexy was released.
1992 - Bill Clinton received the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
1994 - Hulk Hogan admitted to taking steroids during the WWF’s steroid trial.
1994 - True Lies and Angels in the Outfield hit theaters
1997 - Sarah McLaughlin’s album Surfacing was released.
1997 - Gianni Versace was shot.
1998 - There’s Something About Mary hit theaters.
July 16th
1986 - Dollywood opened.
1991 - Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch’s single Good Vibrations was released.
1993 - Free Willy and Hocus Pocus hit theaters.
1995 - Amazon.com launched, selling books online.
1999 - Eyes Wide Shut and the Blair Witch Project hit theaters.
1999 - John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash and/or will be appearing in Dallas any day now.
July 17th
1982 - Soft Cell’s one hit, Tainted Love, peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
1984 - The drinking age in the U.S. was changed from 18 to 21 nationwide.
1991 - Color Me Badd’s single I Adore Mi Amor (the inspiration for the “thanks for subscribing” email you get from this newsletter) was released.
1992 - Honey, I Blew Up the Kid hit theaters.
1994 - Brazil won the men’s World Cup.
1996 - Multiplicity hit theaters.
1998 - The Mask of Zorro hit theaters.
1998 - The series finale of Family Matters aired.
1999 - Destiny’s Child’s single Bills, Bills, Bills hit number one.
July 18th
1984 - Prince’s single Let’s Go Crazy/Erotic City was released.
1988 - The Beach Boys single Kokomo was released.
1992 - Whitney Houston married Bobby Brown.
1994 - Crayola introduced scented crayons.
1994 - Seal’s single Kiss from a Rose was released for the first time, in the U.K.
1995 - Selena’s album Dreaming of You was released posthumously.
1998 - The Seattle Mariners held a “Turn Ahead the Clock” night.
July 19th
1980 - The summer Olympics opened in Russia, with the U.S. boycotting.
1991 - Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey hit theaters.
1994 - Ceiling tiles collapsed at Seattle’s Kingdome.
1995 - Clueless hit theaters.
1995 - Road Rules premiered on MTV.
1996 - Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic flame during the opening ceremony in Atlanta.
1996 - Kazaam and Trainspotting hit theaters.
1996 - The series finale aired of Tales from the Crypt.
July 20th
1984 - Vanessa Williams was asked to resign as Miss America after nude photos were published in Penthouse.
1984 - The NeverEnding Story hit theaters.
1984 - Revenge of the Nerds hit theaters.
1991 - EMF’s single Unbelievable hit number one.
1994 - The subversive and depressing series finale of Dinosaurs aired.
1994 - OJ Simpson offered a reward for the capture of the “real killers”.
1998 - Will Smith’s single Just the Two of Us was released.
1999 - The Y2K act went into effect.
July 21st
1987 - Guns N’ Roses debut album, Appetite for Destruction, was released.
1987 - Mary Hart of Entertainment Tonight famously had her legs insured.
1989 - “Weird Al” Yankovic’s only feature film, UHF, was released.
1989 - Do the Right Thing hit theaters.
1990 - Pink Floyd performed The Wall at the former site of the Berlin Wall.
1995 - The controversial movie Kids was released.
1996 - Wayne Gretzky signed with the New York Rangers.
1999 - Apple’s iBook was released, featuring wireless networking.
5 ‘80s and ‘90s trivia facts
20% of the budget of Saving Private Ryan went to one scene.
Granted, it was the epic Omaha Beach scene at the beginning of the movie, but still. That’s a lot. $12 million of the film’s $60 million budget went toward recreating that famous battle.
Stanley Kubrick loved White Men Can’t Jump.
According to an interview with Kubrick’s daughter, one of his favorite movies was the 1992… can we say classic?
Pablo Escobar caused a hippo invasion in Colombia that’s still raging on.
In the ‘80s, Pablo Escobar smuggled four hippos into Colombia to live on his estate. As a result, wild hippos have become an invasive species in the country to this day.
Disney initially rejected the idea of creating The Little Mermaid.
It’s because Disney already had another mermaid movie in production: A sequel to Splash called Splash Too. When it fell through, they moved on the animated feature.
The Transformers cartoon in the ‘80s once featured a fake Middle Eastern country called Carbombya.
Casey Kasem was a voice actor on the show, and was so disgusted by the name of the fake city he quit.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
Scottie Pippen’s son, Scotty Pippen Jr., is now playing for the Lakers in the NBA Summer League. And he revealed we’ve all been spelling his dad’s name wrong for decades.
Dave Coulier says he and Alanis Morissette are cool now. “Years later we reconnected and she couldn’t have been sweeter.”
Metallica’s song Master of Puppets from 1986 just cracked the Billboard top 40 for the first time. The song was featured in Stranger Things, which gave it the bump. It’s Metallica’s first top 40 hit in 14 years.
The director of Gremlins believes the baby Yoda character was stolen from his Gizmo character.
The new episodes of Beavis and Butt-Head will hit Paramount+ on August 4th.
The Sega Genesis Mini 2 is coming out on October 27th. It will feature 50 games.
Mattel is releasing action figures based off the 1989 wrestling movie No Holds Barred for San Diego Comic-Con. The figured are Hulk Hogan’s Rip and Tiny Lister’s Zeus, and they come in packaging that looks like a VHS.
Here’s a look at why rock bands love adding umlauts to their names.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Here’s a YouTube video with the TGIF theme song and opening graphic from September 1990. Plus bumpers from the Perfect Strangers guys — and the opening credits/theme songs from the lineup of shows.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
Here’s a roundup of 23 discontinued breakfast cereals that deserve a comeback. Many are from the ‘80s and ‘90s and more than a few feature cereal donuts.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
There were six different Super Mario Bros. shampoos released in 1990 by Revlon. There’s even one available on eBay for $50. Or best offer.
Have a great week!
-Sam