RoboCop/Remake

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me."
―RC-2000^[src]

The RC-2000, better known as RoboCop, was a cyborg created by OmniCorp.

History

After Alex Murphy was critically injured when Antoine Vallon exploded his car, Murphy's wife, Clara Murphy, signed consent papers to allow Murphy to be turned into RoboCop. Only small parts of Murphy were used in RoboCop, including his right hand, face, brain, heart and lungs. Once ready, RoboCop was awakened in a lab in China in front of Dr. Dennett Norton, but RoboCop panicked and grabbed Norton before attempting to escape the lab. However, after the attempts to convince him to return failed, Norton had him deactivated. RoboCop was later awakened again and shown what remained of Alex Murphy by Norton. Horrified, he demanded to die, but was convinced not to. Instead, he had the armor put back on and told Norton not to be shown to himself or his family in the state again.

Press conference

While preparing for a public press conference to unveil RoboCop, Alex was emotionally overwhelmed and had a seizure while Norton was uploading the police database information into his brain. Pressed for time, Norton altered Alex's brain chemistry, lowering his dopamine levels until he no longer displayed any emotions. Under control, Alex attended the press conference, where he ignored his waiting wife and son, and efficiently apprehended a criminal in the crowd. RoboCop was a public relations success, and drastically reduced the crime rate in Detroit.

Clara managed to confront her husband as he was leaving the station, telling him about his son David's nightmares. Alex left, but then overrided his programming and detoured from his current case to go to his house. He reviewed the CCTV footage of his accident and realized that David saw his body and was traumatized. Alex pursued Vallon for revenge. When Alex arrived at his hideout, Vallon nearly succeeded in killing him, but failed and is shot by Alex. At the station, Alex arrested one of the corrupt cops and shot the other. Alex was about to arrest the Chief of Police when Mattox shut him down by remote control, and had him taken back to OmniCorp.

Sellars, seeing Alex was no longer useful and fearing that the truth of what has been done to him would be exposed, ordered Mattox to kill him. Norton reached the lab first and revived Alex, telling him everything. Alex, feeling betrayed, went after Sellars.

Sellars had the OmniCorp building shut down and armed with drones. Alex gained entry with the help of his former partner, Jack Lewis, and other police officers. Lewis shot Mattox while Alex reached the roof, where Sellars was waiting for a helicopter and had Clara and David as hostages. Alex's programming prevented him from arresting Sellars, but he manages to overcome it and shoot Sellars, killing him.

Alex's body was later rebuilt with his 1.0 armor in Norton's laboratory, and then waited for Clara and David, who were coming to visit him.

Equipment

Weapons

"You gotta remember, it's not the weapons that count, it's who's handling them, or, in your case, what."
―Mattox

RoboCop primarily used two weapons, an NI-408 and an M2 Battle Rifle. The NI-408 was held in his right hand, while the M2 was held in his left. If RoboCop sensed he needed a weapon, or was threatened, the system would make his N1-408 and M2 available by deploying them from his leg. His NI-408 would deploy from his right leg and his M2 from the left. RoboCop also briefly used an MP7A1 instead of his M2 when fighting Antoine Vallon's men.

Armor

"Your armor. State of the art, but not invulnerable. .50 caliber or larger can penetrate or kill. Multiple hits and guess who ends up in the recycling bin. If you sense you need a weapon, or threatened, the visor goes down and the system makes the weapons available."
―Mattox, regarding the 1.0 suit

Because of Murphy's massive permanent injuries, the few functioning remains of his anatomy require an entire body of robotic prosthesis. The specially designed prosthesis not only allowed him to move again, but it is also powerful and equipped for police operation and combat. RoboCop primarily used two different suits - a silver one and a black one. On both suits, if RoboCop sensed he needed a weapon, or was threatened, his suit's visor went down and the system made his two weapons available.

1.0 suit

The silver RoboCop 1.0 suit was a silver color and was used by RoboCop when he was first activated. After

RoboCop Gray armor — RoboCop in his 1.0 suit, holding a M2 Battle Rifle.

the 3.0 was heavily damaged, RoboCop used the 1.0 with a DPD logo on the left side of his chest. The 1.0 suit was state of the art, but not invulnerable; .50 caliber or larger could penetrate or kill.

2.1 suit

The 2.1 suit was almost identical to the 3.0 suit, but instead of being black, it was covered in desert digital camouflage and featured numbers on the chest.

2.2 suit

Like the 2.1, the 2.2 suit was almost identical to the 3.0, but featured a forest digital camouflage.

2.3 suit

Unlike the other suits, the 2.3 suit is not identical to the 3.0 suit but the 1.0 suit. It has a dark green and beige camouflage.

2.4 suit

The 2.4 is also identical to the 3.0, but featured a navy blue camouflage.

3.0 suit

The black RoboCop 3.0 suit was used at the demand of Raymond Sellars. It became heavily damaged after RoboCop fought Antoine Vallon's criminals and became even more damaged after he fought OmniCorp's soldiers and ED-209s. After killing Sellars, the damage included a missing arm, a broken visor and a large hole on the right side of his chest. His 3.0 body was later replaced with the 1.0, likely due to the heavy damage. Sometime later, RoboCop was again equipped with the 3.0 suit after being repaired.

Abilities

Cybernetically enhanced strength: RoboCop's bionic/cybernetic replacements give him a vast amount of strength, much stronger than humans.
Armored durability: RoboCop's cyborg replacments are made with an high tech armor that is resistant up to .50 caliber, but vulnerable to anything above.
Cybernetically enhanced speed: RoboCop's bionic replacements make him much faster than humans.
Cybernetically enhanced reflexes: RoboCop is faster due to the quantum processor in his brain, allowing to react faster in a given situation.
Database and surveillance connectivity: RoboCop can access police databases and Detroit's CCTV cameras, which help locate criminals and their activities easily. He also has access to archive CCTV footage from 2011 to 2028/present day.
Tracking: RoboCop can track unencrypted handphone signals.

Behind the scenes

Sony Pictures' RoboCop remake has divided fans of the original from the get-go. Particularly contentious has been the reimagining of the RoboCop suit, which turns the original into sleek, stealthy, almost ninja-like armor. But while this new suit might look like it was inspired by Christopher Nolan's Batman films, especially when compared to the hulking chrome original, it presented a singular challenge for the makers of the film. How do you stay faithful to a classic, much beloved costume design when people's ideas about what technology is capable of have completely changed?

First released in 1987, Paul Verhoeven's original RoboCop was a movie very much of its time: a hyperviolent, razor-sharp satire of '80s capitalism, media, and consumerism. Taking place in a dystopian Detroit, RoboCop was about a police officer brutally slaughtered by violent drug dealers. He was then recreated as a cyborg by Omni Consumer Products, a hostile mega-corp that acts like it sprang right out of Lee Iacocca's rampaging id. Because the film took place in a near-future contemporaneous to the era in which it was made, the design of RoboCop reflected a lot of the design trends of 1987 technology: bulky, silver and boxy, he looks like a cyborg made by engineers who listened to Walkmen, not iPods, and drove Hondas, not Teslas.

For the remake, set in our near-future, director José Padilha felt that a new design was needed. Padilha turned to Martin Whist for help. A production designer who has previously worked on J.J. Abrams's Super 8, Matt Reeves's Cloverfield and the Joss Whedon-penned Cabin in the Woods, Whist was enlisted to come up with a new suit for RoboCop: one that was loyal to the original film, but looked like it was technology from 2014's dystopian near-future, not 1987's.

"It was really important to us to get the design right because we're fans. It's this iconic suit, but many of its elements would appear dated to the eyes of a contemporary audience coming to the franchise for the first time," Whist says in an interview with Co.Design. "At a time when Apple sets the bar when it comes to design, we wanted to stress the sleekness of 21st-century design as contrasted to the boxy technology of the 1980s."

The suit's design even helped shape the film's story. The new RoboCop includes three different suits (the original film has one). The first is a prototype, and it looks much like the costume from the original film, but is upgraded over time as the technology within the film advances. Why three? Padilla wanted to stay loyal to RoboCop's beloved look, but also to include enough leeway for an updated design.

"For the Version 1 suit, we went with a design with the original color scheme and more rectilinear lines as a nod to the original suit," Whist says. "There are markings on it that are direct lifts from the original design. In the story, this is Omni Consumer Product's first stab at creating a fusion between the human, the robotic and the digital, so it starts out boxier, but throughout the film, it gets updated so that it becomes less funky and more streamlined and athletic."

The upgraded suit is black, and looks much like a stealth bomber version of RoboCop, complete with a gleaming red visor. "It's a suit that looks as efficient and tactile as possible, created by this company, which is a leader in cutting-edge military technology," Whist says. It's a sleeker, more dexterous design, which Whist says was inspired, in part, by real-world materials like graphene. "As technology advances, it becomes less physical," he explains.

Once the designs were finalized, Whist and his team meticulously modeled the two suits on computers, then "grown" on high-definition 3-D printers. "Three-dimensional design was critical," said Whist. "It allowed us to make sure that we were getting back exactly what we had envisioned." Once the elements were printed out, Whist's team handed them over to special effects company Legacy Effects to paint them and assemble into the final suit.

Although fans might balk at RoboCop's new look, the 2014 version is actually more faithful to the original vision of its original designer, special effects master Rob Bottin, than what actually ended up on screen in 1987. In an interview released in the late 1980s, Bottin explained that RoboCop was originally designed to look "very speedy and aerodynamic," until director Paul Verhoeven came onboard the project and the cyborg took on his famous tank-like bulkiness.

Portrayal

In the 2014 film RoboCop, RoboCop is portrayed by Joel Kinnaman, although sometimes, a CGI RoboCop is used.

Trivia

Due to the extensive damage done to his organic body and the reduction of the majority of said body to incorporate the bionics that make up his new body, Robocop, while still with organic systems, requires a daily intake of proteins, fats, minerals and carbs along with blood-cleansing, viral and bacterial-screening, anti-inflammatory corticoids, hormones and antibiotic protocols to maintain the organics left inside the bionics. Without such protocols, the organs and brain could become infected and cease activity within him.