Part Man, Part Machine: Are the Two Halves of RoboCop (1987) Mirrors of Each Other?

Geeks for film, narrative structure, and just RoboCop (1987) will be nuts for this breakdown of the mesmerizing chiasmus (yes, we had to look it up) in the Paul Verhoeven film, written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. Thanks to the observant Deja Reviewer, who lays it out in amazing detail:

The Old Testament is full of examples of chiasmus, which is a figure of speech used in ancient times to emphasize balance. It lists a bunch of ideas or things and then repeats each of them in reverse order. It’s often not an identical repetition. It frequently uses the opposite of what came before or something similar to it.

Two examples from the first half of the film include when the main character identifies himself as Murphy, and then the OCP junior executive Kenny is killed after holding a gun in a meeting. In the film's second half, in the reverse sequence, Jones will be killed after holding the same gun in a meeting, and then the main character (now RoboCop) will identify himself as Murphy. There are 17 mirror points, and the comments suggest even more…

Go look at the analysis—it's fantastic. It's an intentional Easter Egg bonanza, and the kind of stuff that makes fandom so damn fun.