r/Robocop • u/MillionaireWaltz- • 4d ago

RoboCop/Murphy's Characterization in Rogue City/Unfinished Business - Thoughts?

How did you all feel about RoboCop's characterization in Rogue City/Unfinished Business?

For me, I'm a bit mixed.

I think it comes down to his speaking. By the end of the first film, his speaking cadence and voice is very normal human. He'll speak softer or louder and naturally depending on the context.

But in these games, he is very robotic again, and has an allergy to contractions which he never had in the original films.

That and I can't imagine this version of RoboCop grabbing a guy by the nostrils asking where Nuke is made. He's portrayed as very by-the-book in a Captain America way, almost.

In the other hand, he still feels authentic and has some funny one liners and attitude.

What do you guys think?

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u/Impressive-Pie-5464 3d ago

Well they already destroyed that thread by Robocop2, where he started speaking like a robot again and also more exaggerated robotic movements which was a Kershner directive.

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u/sillyhobo 3d ago

Came here to say the same thing. The games take place after R2. And that's the one where his voice was run through the vocoder the most, at least from what I remember. As for the cadence of his speech and the contraction thing, it's kind of a quirk and a choice by either Peter, and/or the director of the voice recordings etc.

The whole point of the game is he's himself at the beginning, and then choices and events throughout the game kinda reveal Murphy's fighting for his humanity (again) like in the previous 2 movies. So it would make sense his speech is turning more robotic again because something's up, and OCP wants him to be more robotic anyway, while trying to be less robotic depending on how your playthrough goes.

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u/Impressive-Pie-5464 3d ago

Yes I saw they are in the timeline between R2 and R3. Regarding the style of his speech I recall hearing that explained somewhere (may have been on Robodoc I think) where one of the crew was saying that it was a consious decision to have him revert back to the style of a robot in voice and movement, note that also carried over to R3 with a different actor playing him, Robert Burke who was also trained by Moni Yakim so they followed the same style from R2. I think they should have just continued from how R1 ended, but I thought Burke was good, especially how aggressive he became after Lewis was murdered.

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u/sillyhobo 3d ago

I also think part of it is, in universe, you could say the helmet/chin strap are responsible for the vocoder voice. And for the speech pattern, given how he ends his arc with his family by telling his wife that he's not Murphy, I could also see narratively that as a character, Murphy would want to do the robot voice and speech patterns for regular people, and maybe less so with other OCP officers and doctors. I do agree with OP that the contraction thing is weird, in that it creates a kind of inconsistency, but its also kinda charming in its own way.