Amazon Prime Now Streaming Rare X-Rated Cut Of RoboCop

Get the Full StoryThere are a handful of movies I consider perfect, as in they do absolutely nothing wrong. It’s a pretty short list, but Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop is on it.

While the story of a slain police officer turned into a cyborg might sound like typical B-movie trash, RoboCop manages to be a great political satire, a modern retelling of the story of Christ and an absolutely kickass action film loaded with memorable lines. But hunt down a copy and chances are you’ll get a neutered version of the pic. The original received an X-rating from the MPAA, which was considered commercial suicide, so the film was edited to tone down the gore.

Here’s the full story from Wikipedia:

To appease the requirements of the ratings board, Verhoeven reduced the blood and gore in the most violent scenes in the movie, including ED-209 s shooting of Kinney in the boardroom read about the making of this scene here , Bobby being shot in the leg, the Boddicker gang s execution of Murphy with shotguns, and the final battle with Boddicker in which RoboCop stabs him in the neck with his neural spike and Boddicker s blood spatters onto RoboCop s chest .”

The uncut version of the film did eventually see the light of day, first appearing on the Criterion Laserdisc in 1995, and then on a variety of DVDs and the 2014 Blu-ray 4K edition. Even so, the cut version has continued to be the predominantly watched one. But now, the 103-minute X-rated cut is up to stream on Amazon Prime, and if you haven’t checked it out I highly recommend it.

My favorite addition is the extended scene of Kinney being shot in the boardroom. In the theatrical cut, it’s pretty brutal, but in the X-rated cut it goes on so long it actually becomes funny, like a live-action Itchy and Scratchy cartoon check it out here, but maybe not if you’re squeamish .

Of course, there’s a small chance that Amazon might have uploaded this version of RoboCop by mistake, so give it a watch while you still can.

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