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Description
Lets begin another series with the RoboCop films, starting off with his grisly and tragic transformation into the cyborg officer.

In a cyberpunk future, Detroit is on the verge of collapse due to financial mismanagement and a high crime rate. The city signs a deal with the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) to run Detroit's police department in exchange for letting OCP rebuild run-down sections of the city into a high-end utopia. Senior Vice President Dick Jones demonstrates a new law enforcement robot, ED-209. However, the robot malfunctions, killing an executive. Bob Morton, an ambitious executive, uses the opportunity to introduce his own experimental cyborg design, RoboCop. On patrol in the violent Metro West precinct, officers Alex Murphy and Anne Lewis pursue a notorious gang after an armed robbery. Investigating their hideout, an abandoned steel mill, Murphy is ambushed by the gang leader, Clarence Boddicker. Boddicker and his accomplices shoot Murphy repeatedly with shotguns, until Boddicker shoots him through the head. Lewis arrives too late to help. Murphy is evacuated by helicopter but dies in the trauma unit. OCP claims Murphy's body and converts it into RoboCop. The cyborg is programmed with three main directives: serve the public trust; protect the innocent; and uphold the law. RoboCop is assigned to Metro West, where he begins a very efficient campaign against crime. However, though Murphy's memory was wiped, RoboCop begins to remember scenes from Murphy's life, including his death. Lewis confirms to RoboCop that he is Murphy, to his shock. On patrol, RoboCop foils an armed robbery perpetrated by Emil Antonowsky, one of Boddiker's gang members who participated in Murphy's execution. Emil recognizes Murphy's mannerisms, furthering RoboCop's memory recall. RoboCop uses the police database to identify the gang members and locate his home, now abandoned. RoboCop locates Boddicker at a cocaine factory, where the workers open fire on him, but he overpowers them and captures Boddicker. RoboCop interrogates Boddicker, and he reveals that he is in Jones's employ. Now it's up to RoboCop to expose Jones, and bring down Boddicker's criminal empire.

Pros:
1. Alex Murphy/RoboCop is an amazing protagonist.
2. Lewis, Morton, and the Old Man are all very good side characters.
3. Jones, Boddicker, and Emil are pretty good villains.
4. The sets, costumes, and robot designs are neatly crafted.
5. The special effects are very well done. And here's the kicker: the budget for this film was lower than both Jaws 4 and Superman IV, and all three films were released only within a week.
6. The action scenes are a total blast.
7. The music by Basil Poledouris is awesome, and has a very memorable theme.
8. The cast delivers great performances.
9. A great blend of action, science fiction, dark humor, and drama.
10. The plotline is very well written and exciting.
11. There's a good amount of gore.

Cons:
1. A few effect shots just look awful.

Overall:
This is a great action-sci-fi film, and probably one of the best of not only the 1980s, but ever. Now it's time to give this film a badge of my own with my Seal of Approval.

Rating:
10/10 (Perfect)

Production Notes and Trivia:
1. RoboCop was written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. Neumeier was inspired by a poster for the 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner; he asked his friend what the film was about and his friend replied, "It's about a cop hunting robots". While the two were attempting to pitch the screenplay, they were stranded at an airplane terminal with a high-ranking film executive for several hours. Here, they were able to speak to him about the project, and thus began the series of events which eventually gave rise to RoboCop.
2. In 1981, before seeing the Blade Runner poster, Neumeier wrote the first, unrelated treatment, about a robot police officer who was not a cyborg but in the development of the story his computer mind became more similar to human. The plot takes place in a fairly distant future, the world is ruled by corporations and it was assumed that this world would be visually similar to the world shown in Blade Runner. The treatment was rejected by many studios because of the incompleteness of the storyline and settings. In 1984 Neumeier met music video director Michael Miner, who worked on a similar idea; his rough draft of the script was called SuperCop, which was about a police officer who has been seriously injured and becomes a donor for an experiment to create a cybernetic police officer. Neumeier and Miner felt that they could successfully combine their ideas. Miner also shot a music video featuring this character for the rock band Y&T.
3. RoboCop was the first major Hollywood production for Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. Although he had been working in the Netherlands for more than a decade and directed several films to acclaim, such as Soldier of Orange in 1977, he moved to Hollywood in 1984 to seek broader opportunities. While RoboCop is often credited as his English language debut, he had in fact previously made Flesh & Blood in 1985. Verhoeven recalled that, when he first glanced through the script, he discarded it in disgust. Afterwards, his wife, after picking the script from the bin and reading it more thoroughly, convinced him that the plot had more substance than he had originally assumed. Repo Man director Alex Cox was offered the opportunity to direct before Verhoeven came aboard. Kenneth Johnson, creator of television series V, The Bionic Woman, and The Incredible Hulk, said that he was offered the chance to direct, but turned it down when he was not allowed to change aspects of the script that he considered to be "mean-spirited, ugly and ultra-violent."
4. The character of RoboCop itself was inspired by British comic book hero Judge Dredd, as well as the Japanese toku series Space Sheriff Gavan and the Marvel Comics superhero Rom. A Rom comic book appears onscreen during the film's convenience store robbery. Another Rom comic appears in a flashback depicting Murphy's son. Neumeier based the character Dick Jones was based on a landlord he had the time he was writing Robocop, who always wore grey suit and was always really drunk. His actual name was Dick Jones, which Neumeier thought sounded old fashioned and used it for the character.
5. Before Peter Weller was cast, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rutger Hauer, and Michael Ironside were favored to play RoboCop by Verhoeven and the producers, respectively. However, each man's large frame would have made it difficult for either of them to move in the cumbersome RoboCop suit, which had been modeled on hockey gear and designed to be large and bulky. Weller won the role both because Verhoeven felt that he could adequately convey pathos with his lower face, and because Weller was especially lithe and could more easily move inside the suit than a bigger actor.
6. Stephanie Zimbalist, who at the time was one of the stars of the television series Remington Steele, was originally cast as Anne Lewis. NBC had canceled Remington Steele in 1986, leaving the stars free to accept other roles, subject to options for further episodes on their contracts. However, an upsurge of interest in the show saw the network exercise the options, which meant that Zimbalist was then forced to withdraw from RoboCop, to be replaced by Nancy Allen. Similarly, this move forbade Pierce Brosnan from accepting the role of James Bond in The Living Daylights.
7. In the DVD director's commentary, Verhoeven explained that he intentionally chose to cast Kurtwood Smith and Ronny Cox against type by making them the central villains. Cox was an actor who, until then, was primarily known for "nice-guy" roles, such as fatherly figures. Similarly, Smith had been cast as more intellectual characters.[citation needed] Verhoeven chose to outfit Smith's character Clarence Boddicker in rimless glasses because of their intellectual association, creating a disparity in the character that Verhoeven found akin to the similarly bespectacled Heinrich Himmler. However, the film's producer Arne Schmidt had already worked with Smith and Miguel Ferrer, on the film Flashpoint as the First Assistant Director, Smith similarly played the villain and Ferrer's character was killed by his character. In addition, he previously worked as 1st AD with special effects supervisor Dale Martin on John Milius's Red Dawn, and has already used the latest Ford model as a near-future patrol car on the Michael Crichton's Runaway. Herewith artist Robert Webb claiming that Schmidt had a great influence on Verhoeven during production.
8. Filming began on August 6, 1986, and wrapped on November 8, 1986. The scenes depicting Murphy's death were not filmed until the following January (1987), some months after principal shooting had ceased. Although RoboCop is set in Detroit, Michigan, many of the urban settings in the film were actually filmed in Dallas, Texas. The futuristic appearances of the Dallas buildings, such as Reunion Tower, are visible in the background during the car chase. The front of Dallas City Hall was used as the exterior for the fictional OCP Headquarters, combined with extensive matte paintings to make the building appear taller than it actually is. The steel mill scenes were filmed at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel's Monessen Works, in the Pittsburgh suburb of Monessen, Pennsylvania.
9. Peter Weller had prepared extensively for the role using a padded costume, as development of the actual RoboCop suit was three weeks behind schedule.[citation needed] By the time shooting was under way and the costume had arrived on set, however, Weller discovered he was almost unable to move in it and needed additional training to become accustomed to it. Weller later revealed to Roger Ebert that during filming, he was losing three pounds a day due to sweat loss while wearing the RoboCop suit in 100 °F temperatures. Weller's personal assistant, Todd Trotter, was responsible for keeping the actor cool in between takes with electric fans and, when available, large ducts connected to free-standing air conditioning units. The suit later had a fan built into it.
10. Monte Hellman acted as second unit director after Verhoeven began to fall behind schedule. He directed many scenes with Robocop, and the sequence in which Murphy and Lewis chase the van that Clarence and his gang are using to escape from a robbery. Everything relating to the actual chase - including all of Weller and Allen's dialogue - up to the point where Bobby, a member of Clarence's gang, lands on the windshield of Murphy's car, is by Hellman, though he was not responsible for the dialogue inside the van. He also directed all the exteriors of Murphy's house on Primrose Lane - a single shot of Murphy's wife and son standing outside the house waving at a retreating camera (inserted into the sequence in which Murphy undergoes an operation), the whole sequence of Robocop driving down Primrose Lane, pulling up outside the house and getting out of the car, and part of the sequence inside the house - it was shot back to back with first unit, Verhoeven directed Murphy's memories, Hellman did Robocop scenes and his vision. As Hellman recalls, "I spent four weeks working as second unit director, from September 30 to October 24, 1986. Second unit was somewhat of a misnomer, since most of my scenes were with Peter Weller and sometimes Nancy Allen. The crew would fight to be assigned to my unit, since working for me was less stressful than working for Verhoeven. I worked with Robocop almost every day, I think I only worked with Nancy a couple of times. I did anything that could conceivably be second unit during the time the company was in Dallas: my second unit was the only one for the bulk of the Dallas shoot, and I was there every day from about the third week until they finished in Dallas. For budgetary reasons, and because they were no longer so behind schedule, they decided not to take me to the other location. I have a clearer picture of the scenes I did with Peter and Nancy, just because we had such a good time doing them. You can safely assume that any shot of Robocop driving was by me, except where a shot culminates in a big dialog scene after he gets out of the car. I shot tons of footage of Robo driving through the city at dusk, but only a fraction is in the movie. Like most directors, Paul hated the idea that there was a second unit at all, particularly one that was shooting with his actors and not just sunsets. They did want to credit me as second unit director, but I wasn't able to accept that credit because Verhoeven was not a member of the DGA, and the company had not signed an agreement with the DGA. I had got into trouble once before with the DGA over Cockfighter, which unbeknownst to me was non-DGA, even though I was paid DGA scale. I was put on trial and nearly suspended, so I couldn't risk another offence. I did try to keep my involvement with Robocop quiet, but it's so long ago, and the DGA is not quite as hard-ass as they once were. I didn't break all the rules: I did get DGA scale for my work, and my assistant director was DGA. They were hard times." Among many other things, Hellman directed the boardroom scene in which ED-209 kills OCP executive Kinney. After that he directed blood running through the streets of the model city, close shots of the model being shot up and the blood running through it, but none of this footage was used in the final version.
11. The 1986 Ford Taurus was used as the police cruiser in the movie, due to its then-futuristic design. As of May 2012, RoboCop's Taurus is on display at the Branson Auto Museum in Branson, Missouri.
12. Bob Morton's home was filmed in a home near Dallas featured in the show Beyond 2000 in 1987.
13. The task of creating the RoboCop suit was given to Rob Bottin. The studio decided that Bottin would be the ideal person to create the RoboCop suit, as he had just finished doing the special effects for John Carpenter's The Thing. A budget of up to one million dollars was allotted to the completion of the suit, making it the most expensive item on the set. A total of six suits were made: three intact and three showing damage. Bottin himself had produced early design sketches for the suit's prototype that the studio accepted enthusiastically, albeit with the request of some minor adjustments. Rob, Paul Verhoeven, and Edward Neumeier came up with the concept of the suit being more of an outer shell, with very little of the actor's actual face being visible. However, the design ended up bearing a closer resemblance to Bottin's original design
14. The suit itself was attached to the actor in sections. To wear the helmet, Peter Weller wore a bald cap that allowed the helmet to be removed easily. After almost 10 months of preparation, the RoboCop suit was completed based on life casts from Peter Weller and Bottin's six-foot clay models. The suit's color was supposed to be bright blue; however, it was given a more grayish tint to make it look more metallic and produce less glare on the camera when it was being filmed.
15. Peter Weller had in the meantime hired Moni Yakim, the head of the Movement Department at Juilliard, to help create an appropriate way for him to move his body while wearing the RoboCop suit. He and Moni had envisioned RoboCop moving like a snake, dancing around its targets very elusively. The suit, however, proved to be too heavy and cumbersome. Instead, at the suggestion of Moni, it was decided that they would slow down RoboCop's movements in order to make them more appealing and plausible. Filming stopped for three days, allowing Peter and Paul Verhoeven to discuss new movements for the suit.
16. The original gun for RoboCop was a Desert Eagle, but this was deemed too small. A Beretta 93R was heavily modified by Ray Williams of Freshour Machine, Texas City, Texas, who extended the gun barrel to make it look bigger and more proportional to RoboCop's hand. The gun holster itself was a standalone piece that was not integrated into the suit. Off-screen technicians would operate the device on cue by pulling cables that would force the holster to open up and allow the gun to be placed inside.
17. The ED-209 stop motion model was designed by Craig Hayes, who also built the full size models, and animated by Phil Tippett, a veteran stop-motion animator. As one of the setpieces of the movie, the ED-209's look and animated sequences were under the close supervision of director Paul Verhoeven, who sometimes acted out the robot's movements himself. ED-209 was voiced by producer Jon Davison. Davies and Tippett would go on to collaborate on many more projects.
18. In one scene, Emil attempts to run down RoboCop, but instead accidentally drives into a vat of toxic waste, causing the flesh to melt off his face and hands. These effects were also conceived and designed by Bottin, who was inspired by Rick Baker's work on The Incredible Melting Man, and who dubbed the RoboCop effects "the Melting Man" as an homage to the production.
19. Chiodo Brothers Productions fabricated and animated the dinosaur puppet in the 6000 SUX commercial. The dinosaur itself was animated by Don Waller, who also had a cameo in the same sequence, reacting to the rampaging creature in a tight close-up.
20. The soundtrack score for the movie was composed by Basil Poledouris, who used both synthesized and orchestral music as a mirror to the man-versus-machine theme of the movie. The score alternates brass-heavy material, including the RoboCop theme and ED-209's theme, with more introverted pieces for strings, such as during RoboCop's homecoming scene.
21. On the theatrical trailer, the theme of The Terminator was used instead of the RoboCop theme.
22. The movie was originally given an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in 1987 due to its graphic violence. 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, Bobby being shot in the leg, the Boddicker gang's execution of Murphy with shotguns, and the final battle with Boddicker. Verhoeven also added humorous commercials throughout the news broadcasts to lighten the mood and distract from the violent aspects of the movie (most of the commercials satirize various aspects of the American consumer culture, such as the commercial for the 6000 SUX sedan). After 11 original X ratings, the film was eventually given an R rating.

Description
Lets begin another series with the RoboCop films, starting off with his grisly and tragic transformation into the cyborg officer.

In a cyberpunk future, Detroit is on the verge of collapse due to financial mismanagement and a high crime rate. The city signs a deal with the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) to run Detroit's police department in exchange for letting OCP rebuild run-down sections of the city into a high-end utopia. Senior Vice President Dick Jones demonstrates a new law enforcement robot, ED-209. However, the robot malfunctions, killing an executive. Bob Morton, an ambitious executive, uses the opportunity to introduce his own experimental cyborg design, RoboCop. On patrol in the violent Metro West precinct, officers Alex Murphy and Anne Lewis pursue a notorious gang after an armed robbery. Investigating their hideout, an abandoned steel mill, Murphy is ambushed by the gang leader, Clarence Boddicker. Boddicker and his accomplices shoot Murphy repeatedly with shotguns, until Boddicker shoots him through the head. Lewis arrives too late to help. Murphy is evacuated by helicopter but dies in the trauma unit. OCP claims Murphy's body and converts it into RoboCop. The cyborg is programmed with three main directives: serve the public trust; protect the innocent; and uphold the law. RoboCop is assigned to Metro West, where he begins a very efficient campaign against crime. However, though Murphy's memory was wiped, RoboCop begins to remember scenes from Murphy's life, including his death. Lewis confirms to RoboCop that he is Murphy, to his shock. On patrol, RoboCop foils an armed robbery perpetrated by Emil Antonowsky, one of Boddiker's gang members who participated in Murphy's execution. Emil recognizes Murphy's mannerisms, furthering RoboCop's memory recall. RoboCop uses the police database to identify the gang members and locate his home, now abandoned. RoboCop locates Boddicker at a cocaine factory, where the workers open fire on him, but he overpowers them and captures Boddicker. RoboCop interrogates Boddicker, and he reveals that he is in Jones's employ. Now it's up to RoboCop to expose Jones, and bring down Boddicker's criminal empire.

Pros:
1. Alex Murphy/RoboCop is an amazing protagonist.
2. Lewis, Morton, and the Old Man are all very good side characters.
3. Jones, Boddicker, and Emil are pretty good villains.
4. The sets, costumes, and robot designs are neatly crafted.
5. The special effects are very well done. And here's the kicker: the budget for this film was lower than both Jaws 4 and Superman IV, and all three films were released only within a week.
6. The action scenes are a total blast.
7. The music by Basil Poledouris is awesome, and has a very memorable theme.
8. The cast delivers great performances.
9. A great blend of action, science fiction, dark humor, and drama.
10. The plotline is very well written and exciting.
11. There's a good amount of gore.

Cons:
1. A few effect shots just look awful.

Overall:
This is a great action-sci-fi film, and probably one of the best of not only the 1980s, but ever. Now it's time to give this film a badge of my own with my Seal of Approval.

Rating:
10/10 (Perfect)

Production Notes and Trivia:
1. RoboCop was written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. Neumeier was inspired by a poster for the 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner; he asked his friend what the film was about and his friend replied, "It's about a cop hunting robots". While the two were attempting to pitch the screenplay, they were stranded at an airplane terminal with a high-ranking film executive for several hours. Here, they were able to speak to him about the project, and thus began the series of events which eventually gave rise to RoboCop.
2. In 1981, before seeing the Blade Runner poster, Neumeier wrote the first, unrelated treatment, about a robot police officer who was not a cyborg but in the development of the story his computer mind became more similar to human. The plot takes place in a fairly distant future, the world is ruled by corporations and it was assumed that this world would be visually similar to the world shown in Blade Runner. The treatment was rejected by many studios because of the incompleteness of the storyline and settings. In 1984 Neumeier met music video director Michael Miner, who worked on a similar idea; his rough draft of the script was called SuperCop, which was about a police officer who has been seriously injured and becomes a donor for an experiment to create a cybernetic police officer. Neumeier and Miner felt that they could successfully combine their ideas. Miner also shot a music video featuring this character for the rock band Y&T.
3. RoboCop was the first major Hollywood production for Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. Although he had been working in the Netherlands for more than a decade and directed several films to acclaim, such as Soldier of Orange in 1977, he moved to Hollywood in 1984 to seek broader opportunities. While RoboCop is often credited as his English language debut, he had in fact previously made Flesh & Blood in 1985. Verhoeven recalled that, when he first glanced through the script, he discarded it in disgust. Afterwards, his wife, after picking the script from the bin and reading it more thoroughly, convinced him that the plot had more substance than he had originally assumed. Repo Man director Alex Cox was offered the opportunity to direct before Verhoeven came aboard. Kenneth Johnson, creator of television series V, The Bionic Woman, and The Incredible Hulk, said that he was offered the chance to direct, but turned it down when he was not allowed to change aspects of the script that he considered to be "mean-spirited, ugly and ultra-violent."
4. The character of RoboCop itself was inspired by British comic book hero Judge Dredd, as well as the Japanese toku series Space Sheriff Gavan and the Marvel Comics superhero Rom. A Rom comic book appears onscreen during the film's convenience store robbery. Another Rom comic appears in a flashback depicting Murphy's son. Neumeier based the character Dick Jones was based on a landlord he had the time he was writing Robocop, who always wore grey suit and was always really drunk. His actual name was Dick Jones, which Neumeier thought sounded old fashioned and used it for the character.
5. Before Peter Weller was cast, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rutger Hauer, and Michael Ironside were favored to play RoboCop by Verhoeven and the producers, respectively. However, each man's large frame would have made it difficult for either of them to move in the cumbersome RoboCop suit, which had been modeled on hockey gear and designed to be large and bulky. Weller won the role both because Verhoeven felt that he could adequately convey pathos with his lower face, and because Weller was especially lithe and could more easily move inside the suit than a bigger actor.
6. Stephanie Zimbalist, who at the time was one of the stars of the television series Remington Steele, was originally cast as Anne Lewis. NBC had canceled Remington Steele in 1986, leaving the stars free to accept other roles, subject to options for further episodes on their contracts. However, an upsurge of interest in the show saw the network exercise the options, which meant that Zimbalist was then forced to withdraw from RoboCop, to be replaced by Nancy Allen. Similarly, this move forbade Pierce Brosnan from accepting the role of James Bond in The Living Daylights.
7. In the DVD director's commentary, Verhoeven explained that he intentionally chose to cast Kurtwood Smith and Ronny Cox against type by making them the central villains. Cox was an actor who, until then, was primarily known for "nice-guy" roles, such as fatherly figures. Similarly, Smith had been cast as more intellectual characters.[citation needed] Verhoeven chose to outfit Smith's character Clarence Boddicker in rimless glasses because of their intellectual association, creating a disparity in the character that Verhoeven found akin to the similarly bespectacled Heinrich Himmler. However, the film's producer Arne Schmidt had already worked with Smith and Miguel Ferrer, on the film Flashpoint as the First Assistant Director, Smith similarly played the villain and Ferrer's character was killed by his character. In addition, he previously worked as 1st AD with special effects supervisor Dale Martin on John Milius's Red Dawn, and has already used the latest Ford model as a near-future patrol car on the Michael Crichton's Runaway. Herewith artist Robert Webb claiming that Schmidt had a great influence on Verhoeven during production.
8. Filming began on August 6, 1986, and wrapped on November 8, 1986. The scenes depicting Murphy's death were not filmed until the following January (1987), some months after principal shooting had ceased. Although RoboCop is set in Detroit, Michigan, many of the urban settings in the film were actually filmed in Dallas, Texas. The futuristic appearances of the Dallas buildings, such as Reunion Tower, are visible in the background during the car chase. The front of Dallas City Hall was used as the exterior for the fictional OCP Headquarters, combined with extensive matte paintings to make the building appear taller than it actually is. The steel mill scenes were filmed at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel's Monessen Works, in the Pittsburgh suburb of Monessen, Pennsylvania.
9. Peter Weller had prepared extensively for the role using a padded costume, as development of the actual RoboCop suit was three weeks behind schedule.[citation needed] By the time shooting was under way and the costume had arrived on set, however, Weller discovered he was almost unable to move in it and needed additional training to become accustomed to it. Weller later revealed to Roger Ebert that during filming, he was losing three pounds a day due to sweat loss while wearing the RoboCop suit in 100 °F temperatures. Weller's personal assistant, Todd Trotter, was responsible for keeping the actor cool in between takes with electric fans and, when available, large ducts connected to free-standing air conditioning units. The suit later had a fan built into it.
10. Monte Hellman acted as second unit director after Verhoeven began to fall behind schedule. He directed many scenes with Robocop, and the sequence in which Murphy and Lewis chase the van that Clarence and his gang are using to escape from a robbery. Everything relating to the actual chase - including all of Weller and Allen's dialogue - up to the point where Bobby, a member of Clarence's gang, lands on the windshield of Murphy's car, is by Hellman, though he was not responsible for the dialogue inside the van. He also directed all the exteriors of Murphy's house on Primrose Lane - a single shot of Murphy's wife and son standing outside the house waving at a retreating camera (inserted into the sequence in which Murphy undergoes an operation), the whole sequence of Robocop driving down Primrose Lane, pulling up outside the house and getting out of the car, and part of the sequence inside the house - it was shot back to back with first unit, Verhoeven directed Murphy's memories, Hellman did Robocop scenes and his vision. As Hellman recalls, "I spent four weeks working as second unit director, from September 30 to October 24, 1986. Second unit was somewhat of a misnomer, since most of my scenes were with Peter Weller and sometimes Nancy Allen. The crew would fight to be assigned to my unit, since working for me was less stressful than working for Verhoeven. I worked with Robocop almost every day, I think I only worked with Nancy a couple of times. I did anything that could conceivably be second unit during the time the company was in Dallas: my second unit was the only one for the bulk of the Dallas shoot, and I was there every day from about the third week until they finished in Dallas. For budgetary reasons, and because they were no longer so behind schedule, they decided not to take me to the other location. I have a clearer picture of the scenes I did with Peter and Nancy, just because we had such a good time doing them. You can safely assume that any shot of Robocop driving was by me, except where a shot culminates in a big dialog scene after he gets out of the car. I shot tons of footage of Robo driving through the city at dusk, but only a fraction is in the movie. Like most directors, Paul hated the idea that there was a second unit at all, particularly one that was shooting with his actors and not just sunsets. They did want to credit me as second unit director, but I wasn't able to accept that credit because Verhoeven was not a member of the DGA, and the company had not signed an agreement with the DGA. I had got into trouble once before with the DGA over Cockfighter, which unbeknownst to me was non-DGA, even though I was paid DGA scale. I was put on trial and nearly suspended, so I couldn't risk another offence. I did try to keep my involvement with Robocop quiet, but it's so long ago, and the DGA is not quite as hard-ass as they once were. I didn't break all the rules: I did get DGA scale for my work, and my assistant director was DGA. They were hard times." Among many other things, Hellman directed the boardroom scene in which ED-209 kills OCP executive Kinney. After that he directed blood running through the streets of the model city, close shots of the model being shot up and the blood running through it, but none of this footage was used in the final version.
11. The 1986 Ford Taurus was used as the police cruiser in the movie, due to its then-futuristic design. As of May 2012, RoboCop's Taurus is on display at the Branson Auto Museum in Branson, Missouri.
12. Bob Morton's home was filmed in a home near Dallas featured in the show Beyond 2000 in 1987.
13. The task of creating the RoboCop suit was given to Rob Bottin. The studio decided that Bottin would be the ideal person to create the RoboCop suit, as he had just finished doing the special effects for John Carpenter's The Thing. A budget of up to one million dollars was allotted to the completion of the suit, making it the most expensive item on the set. A total of six suits were made: three intact and three showing damage. Bottin himself had produced early design sketches for the suit's prototype that the studio accepted enthusiastically, albeit with the request of some minor adjustments. Rob, Paul Verhoeven, and Edward Neumeier came up with the concept of the suit being more of an outer shell, with very little of the actor's actual face being visible. However, the design ended up bearing a closer resemblance to Bottin's original design
14. The suit itself was attached to the actor in sections. To wear the helmet, Peter Weller wore a bald cap that allowed the helmet to be removed easily. After almost 10 months of preparation, the RoboCop suit was completed based on life casts from Peter Weller and Bottin's six-foot clay models. The suit's color was supposed to be bright blue; however, it was given a more grayish tint to make it look more metallic and produce less glare on the camera when it was being filmed.
15. Peter Weller had in the meantime hired Moni Yakim, the head of the Movement Department at Juilliard, to help create an appropriate way for him to move his body while wearing the RoboCop suit. He and Moni had envisioned RoboCop moving like a snake, dancing around its targets very elusively. The suit, however, proved to be too heavy and cumbersome. Instead, at the suggestion of Moni, it was decided that they would slow down RoboCop's movements in order to make them more appealing and plausible. Filming stopped for three days, allowing Peter and Paul Verhoeven to discuss new movements for the suit.
16. The original gun for RoboCop was a Desert Eagle, but this was deemed too small. A Beretta 93R was heavily modified by Ray Williams of Freshour Machine, Texas City, Texas, who extended the gun barrel to make it look bigger and more proportional to RoboCop's hand. The gun holster itself was a standalone piece that was not integrated into the suit. Off-screen technicians would operate the device on cue by pulling cables that would force the holster to open up and allow the gun to be placed inside.
17. The ED-209 stop motion model was designed by Craig Hayes, who also built the full size models, and animated by Phil Tippett, a veteran stop-motion animator. As one of the setpieces of the movie, the ED-209's look and animated sequences were under the close supervision of director Paul Verhoeven, who sometimes acted out the robot's movements himself. ED-209 was voiced by producer Jon Davison. Davies and Tippett would go on to collaborate on many more projects.
18. In one scene, Emil attempts to run down RoboCop, but instead accidentally drives into a vat of toxic waste, causing the flesh to melt off his face and hands. These effects were also conceived and designed by Bottin, who was inspired by Rick Baker's work on The Incredible Melting Man, and who dubbed the RoboCop effects "the Melting Man" as an homage to the production.
19. Chiodo Brothers Productions fabricated and animated the dinosaur puppet in the 6000 SUX commercial. The dinosaur itself was animated by Don Waller, who also had a cameo in the same sequence, reacting to the rampaging creature in a tight close-up.
20. The soundtrack score for the movie was composed by Basil Poledouris, who used both synthesized and orchestral music as a mirror to the man-versus-machine theme of the movie. The score alternates brass-heavy material, including the RoboCop theme and ED-209's theme, with more introverted pieces for strings, such as during RoboCop's homecoming scene.
21. On the theatrical trailer, the theme of The Terminator was used instead of the RoboCop theme.
22. The movie was originally given an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in 1987 due to its graphic violence. 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, Bobby being shot in the leg, the Boddicker gang's execution of Murphy with shotguns, and the final battle with Boddicker. Verhoeven also added humorous commercials throughout the news broadcasts to lighten the mood and distract from the violent aspects of the movie (most of the commercials satirize various aspects of the American consumer culture, such as the commercial for the 6000 SUX sedan). After 11 original X ratings, the film was eventually given an R rating.