RoboCop | Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema
Join the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures for a film series featuring cyberpunk films like The Matrix, Ex Machina, Blade Runner and more! These films accompany the museum’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide exhibition Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema. Cyberpunk, a subgenre of science fiction, first appeared in the early 1980s and uniquely captured the anxieties of that decade. Featuring near-future scenarios set in worlds that resemble our own, cyberpunk stories juxtapose technological advances with social upheaval, ecological crisis, and urban decay.
Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi action film took the excessive, muscle-bound physique of the 1980s American action star and fused it with the burgeoning technology of the day. RoboCop depicts a future in which major corporations control the police and most aspects of daily life. While jaw-dropping practical effects and gore punctuate the action, the screenplay is full of social commentary, and the struggles of a human-robot hybrid questioning its past give the story its emotional and philosophical core. The film was nominated for Sound and Film Editing and received a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing at the Academy Awards.
