Badlands Story Hour Ep 143: RoboCop
Description
Chris Paul and Burning Bright revisit the 1987 cult classic RoboCop, unpacking its mix of over-the-top violence, dystopian satire, and surprising relevance to today’s world. From gratuitous Verhoeven shock moments to the film’s blunt corporate-police-state commentary, the hosts explore how RoboCop’s world of privatized law enforcement, automated justice, and malfunctioning “public trust” programming eerily echoes modern debates on AI, robotics, policing, and centralized power. Chris and BB trade childhood memories of watching the movie too young, compare its chaotic 80s sensibilities to Starship Troopers, and dig into why the film functions more as concept satire than heroic action. They examine the ED-209 debacle, secret directives, corporate militarism, the absurd news segments, and actual “Jewish space lasers” appearing in the film decades before the meme. The conversation expands into AI ethics, law enforcement incentives, collective narratives, and how Hollywood both critiques and unconsciously reinforces the systems it claims to parody. A sharp, funny, and surprisingly philosophical breakdown of a movie that lands very differently in 2025 than it did in 1987.
United States
