Eh? I don't even recall those terms being around back in 1987. They just set the film in Detroit and the audience knew how bad things were. The whole scene is to build empathy for Murphy (because he's just some hotshot rookie at that point) and to put him through immeasurable pain to be reborn as RoboJesus. It also sets up key players for the second half of the movie.Zaune wrote:I can't honestly say I'm going to miss that scene, actually. Its only plot purpose was to establish some random D-list gangbangers as really really evil so it was entirely fine for Robocop to off them in several unpleasant ways later on, and it always came off as a slightly desperate attempt to be more edgy and grimdark.
Though in hindsight, it's hilarious to see Red Foreman and Dr. Romano as brutal murderers.
The scene loses a lot of it's impact for the modern audience because there's just so much simulated gore out there these days. But even as violent as many 80's action movies were, I can't recall anything near that graphic except maybe Predator in short-bursts, unlike the drawn out murder of Officer Murphy.Besides, if I wanted to watch people being horribly mutilated there are several websites for that sort of thing.
It's not like they threw in Aliens impregnating pregnant women (like a room full of them in a small backwoods town, showing abilities aliens have never shown before) for shock value, the Murphy murder scene had value for the narrative.