The X-Rated Cut of ROBOCOP is Now Streaming on Amazon
Just in case you weren’t aware, before the first RoboCop film was released, director Paul Verhoeven had to edit the film ten times before the MPAA would give it an R-rating. Every other cut he had for the film was slapped with an X-rating because of the crazy gratuitous violence.
I know a lot of film buffs who are familiar with this story and if you’ve ever been curious about what Verhoeven’s X-rated cut of RoboCop is like, you can now watch it on Amazon Prime where it is currently streaming.
It’s unclear if Amazon intended to offer the X-rated cut to its viewers because there’s no clear labeling of the film as being an "Unrated", "X-Rated”, NC-17. or "Director's cut” of the film. But, the fans certainly noticed and thanks to Movie Censorship Report you can read some of the differences between the two versions of the film. You can also click to the link to MCR to see the side-by-side image comparison:
"The MPAA especially did not approve of the gory presentation of the prototype ED-209 and Murphys execution. the bloodiest shots were cut out of the first scene and a lot of alternative footage was used in the other - only the DC shows Murphy loosing an arm in the gunfire. On top of that, alternative footage has been used for the car chase at the beginning as well as in the finale.
The censorship of the ED-209 scene torpedoes Verhoevens initial intention. The scene was deliberately planned as comically exaggerated to get some laughs out of the audience with the "Somebody want to call a paramedic?" line - the dark humor is watered down in the edited version, as Verhoeven criticizes himself in the audio commentary. During Murphys execution an interesting dolly camera pan was cut along with the gory head shot where an elaborate Peter Weller dummy designed by SFX expert Rob Bottin had been used."
I’ve personally never seen the X-Rated cut of RoboCop so I know what I’ll be doing tonight!
While we’re on the subject of RoboCop, don’t forget that District 9 director Neil Blomkamp is working on a direct sequel to the original called RoboCop Returns.