RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop
Written and Directed by Eastwood Allen and Christopher Griffiths
Premiering on the Icon Film Channel October 1
Blu-ray Collector's Edition December 18

by Nikk Nelson, Staff Writer and Cinematic Maniac

The older I get, the more fascinated I am with the pop culture that surrounded my childhood in the mid-80’s to late 90’s. You’d never know it, looking at the landscape of 2023, that there was a time when “kid’s” movies and “kid’s” shows weren’t an industry. Like anything else, that industry had an infancy, and it grew up right alongside me. The adolescent phase (like all adolescence, am I right?) had more than its fair share of interesting, arguably awkward, cultural touchstones. The one I find myself thinking about most often was how Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop (1987) was a kid’s movie. Let me be clear, and I probably don’t need to be, RoboCop is not a kid’s movie. But kid’s movies didn’t really exist in 1987. A kid’s movie was whatever kids responded to. And we loved RoboCop. So, there were toys, videogames, and even a cartoon. Watching RoboCop now, at 40 years old, and remembering all of this—how much I loved it as a kid, and how the world responded to that by, not only letting me, but giving me an action figure to boot is, I think, objectively, really weird. But I digress. 

A side effect of this phenomenon in the last ten to fifteen years has been a sort of golden age of retrospective cinemadocs and streaming series like Netflix’s The Movies that Made Us. Personally, gold standards include Never Sleep Again (2010), You’re So Cool, Brewster! The Story of Fright Night (2016), Wolfman’s Got Nards (2018), and In Search of Darkness (2019). I am ecstatic to add RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop (2023) to that list. In my opinion, a lot of these docs end up being glorified dvd special features. There’s little to no production. The content is mostly rehashing interviews I’ve already seen and stories I’ve already heard. Their greatest sin is I don’t learn anything new. None of this applies to RoboDoc. Clocking in at almost five hours across four episodes, it leaves no stone unturned in its discussion of this satirical masterpiece. 

Do you want to know what movies inspired RoboCop or helped get it made? You’ll find out. Do you love hearing actors talk about acting? There’s that too. Are you an effects nut who squees inside every time they hear the names Rob Bottin and Phil Tippett? Then buckle up. It has the time and space to give every aspect of the film its due. At a certain point, its depth transcends being about a film and starts being about filmmaking. This to me is the hallmark of what makes a great cinemadoc. It doesn’t just engage you to learn this much about a movie you remember, it reminds you how much you love movies—the miracle of human conflict, chaos, cooperation, and creativity that they are. 

The documentary itself is solidly composed with great music, transitions, and backdrops. The gang’s all here, from Peter Weller to Nancy Allen to Paul Verhoeven—writers, producers, editors, effects team, and even a few of the extras with cool stories to tell. Everything from its genesis to its political and philosophical commentary and its lasting impact are all discussed. If you’re a fan of the film and of film documentaries, it’s a can’t-miss. I had actually already pre-ordered the Blu-Ray before even receiving the offer to review it. I had that much trust in it, sight unseen. Plus, I believe in supporting things like this so more things like this can someday exist.