The Carrying On of A Wayward Son

Lately, it seems, there has been a glut of superhero movies hitting the big screen.

It’s hard to swing a cat without hitting a comic book fanatic who is eagerly awaiting the big screen debut of a favorite four-color hero.

RoboCop: The iPhone of police enforcement

The ’80s, though, were a different time. In a decade known for excess, comic book fans faced a clear drought of superhero movies.

All was not bleak, though.

A select few films burned brightly in the night sky like a Batsignal, heralding the arrival of a new breed of hero.

Most of them didn’t even wear masks. Heroes like John McClane (Die Hard) or Martin Riggs (Lethal Weapon) understood what it took to fight the war on both drugs and evil Europeans alike.

One hero, though, stood out from the rest. This was a hero that knew sometimes the only way to stop a bad guy was to dip him in acid and run over him with a car.

This hero, of course, was part man, part machine and all cop.

A movie very much of its time, 1987’s “RoboCop” combined explosions and satire in the story of a Detroit cop, Murphy, who is gunned down. In a scene that seemed to go on forever, Murphy is shot several hundred times by automatic weapons and even has an arm blown off with a shotgun.

Instead of dying, though, his mangled body is repurposed as the fleshy nougat in a new crunchy cyborg shell. Murphy was sent to the streets as the iPhone of law enforcement officers.

A hit among audiences, “RoboCop” took aim at the money-hungry schemes of a Reagan-centric government. In a world of constant advertising and overblown hype, RoboCop’s biggest enemy was the society which created him. His technology was constantly being thwarted by the next big advancement in police cybernetics.

Every movie has a life lesson and “RoboCop” is no exception.

If there is one thing that audiences should take away from Murphy’s harrowing struggle to reclaim his humanity, it’s to be wary of too much technology.

Sure, having a new cell phone that can send texts, take pictures, play movies and act as a wingman when out clubbing would be a nice feather in your cap, but is it worth it in the end?

The popular Bluetooth headphone pieces are already ushering in a new wave of chatty cyborgs – all marching toward a post-apocalyptic future where robots rule the world.

With a tiny bit of tech stored in their ears, these robo-talkers are one memory implant away from helping SkyNet win their war against John Conner. Next time you decide to take an afternoon off work so you can wait in line for your new piece of iTech, remember the plight of Murphy.

Is your humanity worth whatever toys Steve Jobs throws at us?