![]() How can any of us save a place like Detroit? In Robocop, it’s a deeply personal matter. As Verhoeven passed a Christ-like cyborg-a true melding of man and savior-through the crumbling post-apocalyptic fringes of a part of the world that once held so much prosperity and hope, he wasn’t pointing to the hellscape of future Detroit as the battlefield over which the working class will fight against the greedy 1%, but instead to the robot cop, to Murphy (Peter Weller), as the battlefield unto himself. He made Detroit’s decay tactile, visceral and immeasurably loud, limning it in ideas about the limits of human identity and the hilarity of consumer culture. By 1987, much of the city was already in complete disarray, the closing of Michigan Central Station-and the admission that Detroit was no longer a vital hub of commerce-barely a year away, but its role as poster child for the Downfall of Western Civilization had yet to gain any real traction. ![]() A practically peerless, putrid, brash concoction of social consciousness, ultra-violence and existential curiosity, Paul Verhoeven’s first Hollywood feature made its tenor clear: A new industrial revolution must take place not within the ranks of the unions or inside board rooms, but within the self. And so, though it was filmed in Pittsburgh and around Texas, Detroit is the only logical city for a Robocop to inhabit. The impact of such a massive tectonic shift in the very foundation of the auto industry pushed aftershocks felt, of course, throughout the Rust Belt and the Midwest-but for Detroit, whose essence seemed composed almost wholly of exhaust fumes, the change left the city in an ever-present state of decay. Broadly speaking, of course: Manufacturing was booming, but the homegrown “Big Three” automobile companies in Detroit-facing astronomical gas prices via the growth of OPEC, as well as increasing foreign competition and the decentralization of their labor force-resorted to drastic cost-cutting measures, investing in automation (which of course put thousands of people out of work, closing a number of plants) and moving facilities to “low-wage” countries (further decimating all hope for a secure assembly line job in the area). Throughout the late-’70s and indulgent 1980s, “industry” went pejorative and Corporate America bleached white all but the most functional of blue collars. Stars: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Miguel Ferrer, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith Here are the 15 best sci-fi movies streaming on Amazon Prime: You may also want to consult the following, sci-fi centric lists: And also, you can watch The Tomorrow War if you feel really inclined. We’ve dug through pages and pages of free sci-fi offerings for Amazon Prime members and found a handful worth your time, from hilarious satires to graphically violent satires, from iconic, controversial picks to a few from as recently as last year. The sci-fi movie selection on Amazon Prime isn’t what it used to be, but the selections it does have are all over the map-classic sci-fi from the 1970s and ’80s, recent blockbusters, indie gems-and representative of such a dearth of quality, buttressed by butt-loads of low-budget B-movies, that browsing for the good stuff is more than difficult.
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