RoboCop (character)
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- This article is about the character. For the film, see RoboCop. For the video game, see RoboCop (video game).
RoboCop is a fictional cyborg police officer from the feature film of the same name. The character begins as a human police officer Alex Murphy, who is killed in the line of duty by a vicious crime gang. Subsequently, Murphy is transformed into the cyborg entity by the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products.
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[edit] History
Police Officer Alex J. Murphy was serving with the Detroit Police Department when its funding and administration was taken over by the private corporation Omni Consumer Products. Murphy was a devout Irish Catholic and a family man, living with his wife, Ellen, and his son, Jimmy. In order to provide a good role model for his son, Murphy began practicing the gun twirl move of his son's hero, a cop named T.J. Lazer portrayed on a television show. Murphy’s psychological profile stated that he was top of his class at the police academy and possessed a fierce sense of duty. This dedication explained why Murphy didn’t exhibit the negative attitudes and statements shared by his fellow officers when he was transferred to the Metro West Precinct, the most violent area of Old Detroit. However, the police dissatisfaction is a result of OCP’s free-enterprise marketing and efficiency.
Murphy is partnered with Officer Anne Lewis, a veteran of Old Detroit. During a pursuit and subsequent raid against a crime lord named Clarence Boddicker in a steel mill, Murphy is severely wounded by gunfire by Boddicker’s gang. While surrounded by the gang and asked for his opinion of Boddicker, Murphy maintains his sense of duty and ideals of justice by stating, “Buddy, I think you’re slime.” While Lewis is incapacitated, Boddicker executes Murphy with a gunshot to the head. Murphy is transported to the hospital emergency room where he dies and his remains are used by OCP in the construction of RoboCop.
[edit] The RoboCop Program
OCP held a contract to fund and run the Detroit Police Department. Security Concepts was the division that provided oversight for the police. In order to supplement the police force that was overwhelmed with crime, Security Concepts began developing robotic law enforcement units. Executive Robert Morton developed the RoboCop program. Morton and his team restructured the police force and placed prime candidates with high aptitude and experience in law enforcement into high crime areas where death in the line of duty was highly probable. Once a death occurred, the deceased officer would be used in the construction of a cyborg law enforcement unit. This unit would be afforded the fastest reflexes made possible by modern technology, a memory assisted by an on-board computer, and programmed with a lifetime experience in on-the-street law enforcement. Murphy was used to become the prototype RoboCop and designated OCP Crime Prevention Unit 001.
[edit] Prime directives
RoboCop is programmed to follow four prime directives:
- "Serve the public trust"
- "Protect the innocent"
- "Uphold the law"
- (Classified)
The fourth directive, which he was programmed to be unaware of unless it became relevant, rendered him physically incapable of placing any senior OCP employee under arrest: "any attempt to arrest a senior OCP employee results in shutdown". Senior Vice President Richard "Dick" Jones stated that Directive 4 was his contribution to RoboCop's psychological profile. Jones informed RoboCop that he was an OCP product and not an ordinary police officer. In the first movie, it made RoboCop unable to act against corrupt Jones until the chairman of OCP shouted, "Dick, you're fired!"
In RoboCop 3, Directive Four is rewritten as "Never oppose an OCP officer". Also noteworthy is that Directive 4 has been erased twice, in each of the sequels. RoboCop 2 and Frank Miller's RoboCop sees the deletion of all of the directives.
[edit] Weapons
[edit] Auto-9
RoboCop's primary weapon; it is a (presumably) 9mm handgun with a large barrel extension that fires in three round bursts. The gun remains stored in a mechanical holster which deploys from Robocop's right leg. The prop for the weapon is a modified Beretta 93R. Some Japanese airsoft manufacturers have made BB gun replicas.
[edit] Cobra assault cannon
The cobra assault cannon used in RoboCop could fire explosive rounds equivalent to that of a missile launcher and is based on the Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle. The version used in RoboCop 2 has a smaller build and fires smaller explosive rounds. This version uses the .50 BMG Pauza P-50 rifle.
[edit] Machine gun/launcher
This weapon made its appearance in RoboCop 3 and was never referenced by name other than being called "Weapon arm" in promotional action figures. It works by mounting on to one of RoboCop's arms. Originally designed to be a mini-gun cannon, the weapon arm has been redesigned to contain a machine gun, anti-tank launcher and flame thrower.
[edit] Mini-gun/cannon
This weapon appears in Frank Miller's RoboCop comic book and was originally meant to be RoboCop's arm cannon prior to the final product in RoboCop 3.
[edit] Perception
RoboCop has an internal zoom capability for better aim as well as tracking. RoboCop also has different vision modes but the only one that has been used in the movies was thermal vision in RoboCop and RoboCop 3. His systems use a grid which is crucial to RoboCop's targeting as well as bullet trajectory (allowing him to make ricochet shots), though apparently the targeting reticle of RoboCop is internal to him, as seen in the first movie. As seen in RoboCop 2, RoboCop's programming prevents him from targeting children, which allowed Hob to shoot RoboCop and escape the Nuke drug lab. He also has a recorder which can detect voice fluctuations and stress as well as play back audio/visual. This recording capability enables RoboCop to document any situation he encounters with perfect recall and unbiased neutrality, with his memory being deemed through legal agreement as admissible evidence in a court of law. As seen in RoboCop 2, RoboCop possesses a directional microphone with which he can track conversations from a distance. It would seem to be very sensitive, as he can hear vehicles approaching from afar despite being indoors (as he did when he was hiding out in RoboCop 3).
[edit] Body structure
RoboCop's body, while incorporating portions of Alex Murphy's living tissue, is titanium with kevlar lamination. When shot at, the kevlar coating will slowly break off. Being made of titanium, RoboCop is incredibly resilient against both bombs and bullets, as well as extreme impacts such as getting hit by cars and falling off skyscrapers. As demonstrated in RoboCop the body armor can sustain thousands of armor-piercing rounds before damage begins to appear on the armor itself. It is also highly resistant to heat, as in RoboCop he was unaffected after being caught in a gas station explosion. Besides this, his visor is made of several layers of titanium laminated with Kevlar and a black strip of bulletproof anti-fog glass which protects the cranium apparatus and eyes. The visor also has an under cloth of Kevlar which protects the neck and covers up any wires etc. It should also be noted that the visor conceals most of Alex Murphy's face inside it.
In RoboCop 2, RoboCop's right arm contained a display that alerted personnel to his health status. RoboCop's hands also contain actuators strong enough to crush every bone in a human hand (at 400 foot pounds as mentioned in RoboCop). His right hand also contains a spike-shaped data jack which is used to retrieve or display data. At the end of the first film, the jack is also used as a stabbing weapon against the antagonist Clarence Boddicker. RoboCop is extremely strong, able to lift the front of the average car over his head with one arm or resist the crushing effort of a car crusher, as seen in the TV series (episodes 5 and 21, respectively). He was designed to be able "to penetrate virtually any building," and breaks locks with ease.
In Frank Miller's RoboCop, RoboCop stores his reserve box magazines in his right wrist; this is never addressed in the movies. He is seen reloading the Auto-9 in RoboCop 2 with a magazine already in hand at the start of the scene. In the later television series, the holster area of his left thigh is used to store grenades, though on some schematic drawings the same area is used to store an emergency oxygen tank.
RoboCop implies that only Murphy's head or brain was used in the construction of RoboCop, as Morton states that "full body prosthesis" was an agreed-upon parameter. It is unclear whether or not RoboCop's human face is merely a replica of Murphy's, as it contains a scar in the location where Boddicker shot him in the head, though he himself tells Murphy's wife (in RoboCop 2) that "they made this to honor him." After touching it, she says, "it's cold." In the script of the same film, it was initially planned that Cain and crew would remove Murphy's face during their attack on him, to reveal a Terminator-esque skull underneath. However in the first movie it is mentioned that Robocop does eat, implying that some internal organs are left, possibly as a means of providing energy to the brain.
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