Anticipation for the RoboCop remake has been hit or miss since the project was announced, which made the Sony/Screen Gems panel at San Diego Comic-Con today the first big chance the filmmakers had to get everyone on their side. On hand to talk about the film were director Jose Padilha, and actors Joel Kinnaman (The Killing), Abbie Cornish (Sucker Punch), Michael Keaton, and fan favorite Samuel L. Jackson.

The panel started with a solid 5-minute clip showing Samuel L. Jackson as a TV host, sending out a broadcast showing some ED-209’s in action in the Middle East, while Michael Keaton’s character tries to convince members of the government that robots can be used as police instead of humans.

Director Jose Padilha explained that he wasn’t going to attempt to do the same movie that came out in 1987, but wanted to take elements and put them in a modern context where combat drones are a very real thing.

Joel Kinnaman explained that in this version of the story, Murphy does not die but is rescued and then turned into a cyborg. Abbie Cornish brought up that her role as Murphy’s wife plays a much bigger part in this version than the wife did in the original.

Fans were then treated to what looked to be the first official trailer. Right off the bat, you could see that this version is going in quite a different direction. The central conflict of this version looks to deal with Murphy fighting against the programming that is put into RoboCop. It also showed just how much more important Murphy’s family is in this version. It looks quite a bit different, which could be a good thing or a bad thing.

Most of the questions from the fans dealt with the differences between the versions, as well as the similarities. Keaton explained that he didn’t feel like his character was actually a “bad guy” so much as just an antagonist. He was excited to play a different kind of character in this movie.

Panel Photos

RoboCop is currently set to release in February 2014.

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