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Here's a good summation of ROBOCOP 2's history:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOOWqnxe4KE
I don't think the final film was really Miller or Kershner's fault, because:
A) Miller's script was heavily reworked.
B) Kershner was brought in at the last minute, and worked under difficult conditions.
Miller's original script was adapted into comic book form a few years back, and that version seems closer to the style of the first film. Bits and pieces of the script found their way into both ROBOCOP 2 and 3.
Of course, the cardinal sin of the sequel is that (not unlike EMPIRE) it hits the reset button. The first film was all about RoboCop escaping the control of his corporate masters, bringing his own killers to justice, and reclaiming his former identity.
By film's end, he's essentially reclaimed his human identity, although he's really no longer Alex Murphy or RoboCop. This unique cyborg entity must find his own destiny and identity from this point on.
There's also a subtle transition in the latter half of the film--Robo's speech mannerisms become more human, and the electronic processing of his voice gradually disappears.
The sequel turns him back into the "Thank-you-for-your-cooperation. Good-night." automation that everyone remembers so well from the first film, and half-heartedly retreads his quest to explore/regain his humanity.
The sequel is a patchy mess, although the novelization and comic help explain some of the plot holes.
I think that ROBOCOP is one of the best genre films of the 80s, and maybe even one of the best films of the 80s, period (along with other dark sci-fi films, like Cronenberg's THE FLY and THE TERMINATOR. Is anyone else heartbroken that Fox rejected Cronenberg's recently-proposed FLY sequel? I WANT TO READ THAT SCRIPT!!!!).
And it could only have been made by Paul Verhoeven, with his unique sensibilities. His outsider-looking-in perspective alowed him to make a film that brilliantly skewers the stupidity of American TV and Reaganomics.
The film works brilliantly on two levels--on the one hand, it's a perfect over-the-top satire, and on the other, it's a genuinely engaging action/sci-fi thriller with a real emotional core.
It amazes me how the film's two disparate tonalities work so well together.
For example:
Within minutes, we go from Kinney's hilariously over-the-top murder ("Does somebody want to call a G*** d*** paramedic?") to Murphy's absolutely horrifying (moreso in the unrated cut) torture and murder by Boddicker's gang.
And yet it all works perfectly.
(As an aside, that whole sequence--Murphy's mutilation and the doctors' attempts to save him--is absolutely brilliant. It's horiffic, surreal, and emotional, and it perfectly sets up RoboCop's character for the rest of the movie.)
The sequel utterly fails to recapture this balance. As a result, the humor seems too campy and forced, and the violence mean-spirited and existing for its own sake. And I tend to agree with Roger Ebert's disgust over Hob, a child who swears, uses guns, and gets killed. That feels really inappropriate for this kind of movie.
Unfortunately, ROBOCOP is one of those (many) films where anything after the first film fails miserably.
I would almost go so far as to say the same thing about STAR WARS. As much as I love EMPIRE, that's when the retcons and the gradual chipping away of the elegant simplicity of the original film began.
