Sunday Matinee #31 RoboCop

A scene from my one of my top childhood trauma movies.

In the middle of the summer comes another fifth Sunday and with it, the third R-Rated Movie Club giveaway of the year. If exploring movies and theology has been a good experience, please consider sharing R-Rated Movie Club or becoming a paid subscriber and get the chance to pick a movie for an upcoming Feature Presentation. All right, time for our giveaway for all subscribers…

Subscriber Giveaway: What’s the Prize Pair?

I’m grateful for all R-Rated Movie Club readers and I’m especially grateful for all of you who are subscribers. I’m encouraged by you coming along for the ride on this new creative project of mine. As a way to say “thank you” to all subscribers, we have a giveaway on fifth Sundays.

Enter to win a Prize Pair of one Bible and one movie!

About the Bible: The winner will receive a print copy of one of the three Bibles I use for preaching. The winner gets to pick which translation; I get to pick which edition.

Bible Options: New Revised Standard Version, Common English Bible, The Message

About the Movie: The winner will receive a copy of one of the movies highlighted in Quotes With Notes or the Feature Presentation between May 7, 2023 - July 30, 2023. That’s the time period since our last fifth Sunday subscriber giveaway on April 30, 2023. The winner gets to pick the movie and which format (DVD, Blu-ray, 4K, digital).

Movie Options: The Shawshank Redemption, Glory, A Simple Plan, Mother! (2018), Blazing Saddles, Life of Brian, Game Night, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Mother (1996), The Breakfast Club, Deadpool, and RoboCop (1987).

Subscriber Giveaway: Who can enter and how to enter?

All R-Rated Movie Club readers who 1. subscribe. That’s it! Everyone who is a subscriber, free or paid, by today at 11:59pm on Sunday, July 30, 2023 is automatically entered to win.

One entrant will be randomly selected. I’ll notify the winner via the email address they use to subscribe to R-Rated Movie Club. The winner has 72 hours to confirm receipt of the notification email. If they don’t respond in 72 hours, a new winner will be randomly selected and they have 72 hours to respond and so on.

Subscribers are eligible to win once per calendar year. If you win the giveaway from July 2023 you won’t be eligible again until July 2024. That way all subscribers have a chance to wine a Prize Pair every year.

Many will be automatically entered. One will win. I’ve always wanted to write that.

Quotes with Notes

Genesis 37:28
Full Text: Genesis 37:1-3, 12-28 (Revised Common Lectionary)
11th Sunday after Pentecost (August 13, 2023)
Sign up for a free course at EnterTheBible.org to learn more.
Context: After returning to his homeland with his spouse Rebekah and their children, Jacob settles down a bit. He loves his sons, but he has a favorite son: Joseph. His brothers aren’t pleased by this and one day, they beat him, throw him in a pit, then get an idea: let’s sell him into slavery!

28 When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

RoboCop | 1987 Orion Pictures | IMDB
Starring Peter Weller, Paul McCrane, Nancy Allen, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, Dan O’Herlihy, Ronny Cox
Written by Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner | Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Context: In a futuristic Detroit, police officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is seemingly killed in the line of duty. However, a paramilitary outfit saves him and outfits him with cybernetic implants, rebuilding him as RoboCop. On one of his first missions, RoboCop faces Emil (Paul McCrane) one of the terrorist criminals who murdered him. Emil cannot believe his eyes - this cop was dead!

RoboCop: Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.
Emil: I know you. You're dead. We killed you. We killed you! [fires Uzi] We killed you! [continues firing Uzi]

Commentary:

One would think Jacob would learn from his experience with his brother Esau about the risks of playing favorites with your children. After all, their mother, Rebekah, preferred him while their father, Isaac, preferred his brother, Esau. That led to deceit, theft, exile, and one of the most-complex family dynamics in the Bible.  

We can’t all be fast learners.

Jacob prefers his son, Joseph. And to show it off, he made him a robe. But not just any robe. Different translations call it by different names: beautiful, ornamented, richly-embroidered, special, fancy, of long sleeves, of many colors, of diverse colors, multicolored, varicolored (that’s a word?!). Since 1972, you may know this coat as what Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice named it: “The Technicolor Dreamcoat.” We’re a movie newsletter, so this feels like as good a place as any to drop this awesome video by Vox about Technicolor in the history of cinema:

Outward signs from their father like this boujee coat are one thing, but then Joseph rattles off his dreams to his brothers, telling them how even in his dreams 🎵 he’s the best! Around! Nothing’s gonna ever keep him down! 🎵 That’s it. They beat him up, they take his high budget threads, they throw him in a pit. Then, brilliant idea: let’s sell him into slavery! They can’t kill him; that’s a bridge too far. But getting rid of him so it’s like he will no longer exist as far as they’re concerned, that’s a bridge worth burning. And with that, Joseph is “dead” to his brothers, his loving father, and that drip coat of his. 

I don’t know about you, but any time I’ve tried to burn my bridges, it doesn’t work. People seem to come back into my life and I theirs. A nasty departure can make reunions - both the planned and unplanned - range from awkward to painful. I’m not always sure what to do with relationships that turn sour, and not every relationship can be salvaged, but as this story of Joseph and his brothers plays out, we’re going to see that leaving someone for dead may not be the best option, as Joseph will end up rising from the dead for a surprise confrontation with his brothers (sorry if that spoils a 3,000-year-old writing!). 

Likewise, Officer Murphy rises from the dead for a surprise confrontation with his murderers. This time, he faces them as RoboCop, and things don’t work out so well for these terrorists. RoboCop has been given bling bling armor and swish circuitry. There’s no reason he can’t take out your basic street tough. But when Emil recognizes him as Murphy, he tells RoboCop that we killed you. This stops the cyborg cop in his tracks. His new programming and his old memories have trouble reconciling together. He and everyone he works with - and fights against - comes to learn it’s not just the spendy coating that makes him live again. It’s his determination to be a good cop. Like Joseph is compelled to survive his being sold into Egypt, Murphy has a journey not just as “Robo” but also as “Cop.” He doesn’t do much forgiving, but he learns to accept himself.

Who has left you for dead? Who has burned their bridges with you and how did you feel? Have you treated anyone this way? What has that experience been like for you? Remembering that forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation, have you come to a place of forgiveness in your heart?

And on a personal note, yes, it’s true, I was 8 years old and saw RoboCop in the movie theater. Murphy’s death scene absolutely scarred me. I had to walk out of the theater crying over that one. Thankfully, I rallied so I wouldn’t miss the exploding toxic waste man incident. Huh. I guess you had to be there.

P.S. If anyone reading this entry in the archives a decade from now can still decipher today’s slang for “fancy,” send me a note to let me know! I had to research these terms with the cool kids!

A Word of Encouragement

That does it, Dear Reader, we’ll see you next time. May you be open to the wonder that is around you and may it inspire you to live with generosity and kindness. And to today’s preachers, may gathering for worship with your community encourage you in your own personal faith journey. God’s peace and good movies to you!

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