1. Serve the public trust.
2. Protect the innocent.
3. Uphold the law.
4. Classified.
- OCP Crime Prevention Unit 001 Prime Directives.
I'd buy that for a dollar!
- Bixby Snyder.
A (mis) interpretation:
Name: Alexander "Alex" James Murphy.
Age: N/A.
Affiliation: Metro West Division, Detroit Metropolitan Police Department.
Rank: Officer Grade 3.
Unit type: Prototype law enforcement cyborg.
Model type: OCP Crime Prevention Unit 001.
Designation: RoboCop 1.0
Armour type: Kevlar lined titanium composite alloy.
Height: 6 feet.
Weight: N/A.
Powerplant: Rechargeable fusion battery / basic food paste for organic component sustenance.
Std. armaments: Auto 9 - OCP custom 9mm semi-automatic handgun x 1.
Abilities: Cybernetic enhanced strength and reflexes; self sufficiency continuous improvement task intelligence system; full electromagnetic spectrum sensor; fully integrated track and targeting system; Terminal Spike - data port interface device; enhanced memory capacity; threat analysis system.
1987. Detroit City, Michigan. A combination of global economic conditions and government policy reformation resulted in urban decay, high local unemployment and soar in crime activities. Privatizations, corporate takeovers and mergers result in mega-conglomerates which grown so powerful that they are literally state within a state. Detroit has become a dystopia, with one of the highest crime rate in the nation. Anarchy, chaos and lawlessness rule the city. The Detroit Metropolitan Police Department is overwhelmed. With the city suffering from near bankruptcy and its remaining inhabitants in poverty, the law enforcement department is privatised and run by one of the largest mega-conglomerates in the nation, Omni Consumer Products or OCP. In exchange for funding the DPD, the city mayor is forced to sign the contract for urban restructuring programme involving the entire city over to OCP. The mega-conglomerate intends to ultimately create Delta City, an utopian city which would be managed in its entirety by OCP as a high end, private city state. The only obstacle which holds OCP from bringing in the two million, minimum wage, immigrant construction workers to start breaking ground is the high crime rate. The privatization of DPD causes bitterness amongst the police officers and the DPD officers union threatens to go on strike. Local populace whom learnt of the urban plan also rise up against OCP and the city council as they would basically be left homeless. In anticipation of such event, OCP's Security Concepts Division begins to embark on a programme to create their own law enforcement unit. Such unit would be comprised of latest cybernetic and robotic technology, of which effectiveness and efficiency would be the primary goals.
Officer Alex Murphy has just been transferred and re-assigned from Metro South Division to Metro West which is severely undermanned with high mortality rate, to combat the ultra high crime rate within its jurisdiction. On the day of his first patrol, with his assigned partner Officer Anne Lewis, they identified and tried to capture Clarence Boddicker, a vicious crime lord and his gang. Without reinforcement coming to back them up, Murphy and Lewis are forced to bring in Boddicker and his gang within an abandoned steel mill. Boddicker is highly wanted for all forms of crimes, including the murder of at least 31 police officers. Murphy and Lewis are both outsmarted by the sociopath crime leader, resulting in Lewis being severely injured and Murphy horrifically tortured before being killed brutally. They are about to kill Lewis but prevents from doing so when the reinforcements finally arrive.
OCP Senior Vice President, Richard "Dick" Jones personally spearheaded the Security Concepts Programme. The research and development team he put together has designed a prototype urban pacification and law enforcement droid, ED-209. A high level meeting to present the result is held with the attendance of OCP Chairman, whom is referred to behind his back simply as The Old Man. Jones envisions the ED-209 series to ultimately be sold to the military once it has successfully eliminate all criminal elements in Detroit City. If successful, OCP would out-rivalled its competitors and reap in billions of profits from military contracts in decades to come. Unfortunately, ED-209 programme malfunctions and kills one of the senior executives during the presentation, an embarrassing situation which enrages The Old Man, whom is expecting a success in order to implement the Delta City urbanisation programme. Senior Executive Robert "Bob" Morton takes opportunity of the situation to approach The Old Man directly to seek request to present the Security Concepts contingency programme, involving a cyborg law enforcement unit, of which The Old Man allows, much to Jones, Morton's superior, contempt.
Murphy and Lewis are rushed to the hospital. They manage to rescue Lewis but Murphy is pronounce dead after several unsuccessful attempts to revive him. He had lost his right arm and left hand. His body is riddled with bullets. But it is the headshot that kills him.
The Old Man approves Morton's proposal in the meeting with a tight deadline. Under pressure, Morton is delighted when he is informed of the right candidate for the programme. A DPD officer has just been declared dead. Without time to loose, Morton immediately orders his team to claim the body. Lead by Dr. Marie Lazarus, they harvested Murphy's brain, some of his organs and put it within a full cybernetic prosthesis body. The artificial cyborg body is then fully enclosed within a powerful armour. Murphy's brain is implanted with an electronic cybernetic component, link to the neural network, which has the task intelligence system, a self sufficiency programme within operational parameters limited only to the Prime Directives. A special docking station in the form of a chair is designed for recharging the battery of the cyborg. To sustain the organic components, a special paste made from basic food ingredients is formulated. Within a week, the cyborg is fully operational and goes online. Armed with a deadly customised 9mm semi-automatic, 3 round burst handgun called Auto 9, the cyborg is designated RoboCop.
Having downloaded all the current, backlog and cold cases files, RoboCop immediately goes to do what it is created for. It is an immediate success, attracting public attention and media around the world. The Old Man is very much delighted and promoted Morton to Vice President. This incurs the wrath of Jones further. Humiliated by his former subordinate, Jones comes up with a plan for revenge. He establishes contact with Boddicker through a proxy, with an offer that once Delta City construction plan is underway, the entire underworld economy - drugs, gambling, prostitution and so forth - would be given to him. His competitors would be kept in check since OCP basically owns the DPD. In return, Boddicker and his gangs would assassinate Morton and sabotage RoboCop trail of successes as well as destroying it. Another condition is a long term plan of profit sharing as well as racketeering. Boddicker agrees and kills Morton at his penthouse using a hand grenade after torturing him.
During a resting period at the docking station, RoboCop begins to have "dreams" on its previous life as Murphy. Confuse and emotionally disturb, past memories, behaviour and former feelings which were thought would not occur within a machine begins to flood back. Dr. Lazarus is alerted and frantically tries to shut RoboCop down but to no avail. RoboCop leaves the police headquarter and begins to trace back his past. He visits his vacant old house, where his wife and only son used to live, now moving on with their lives after Murphy is declared officially dead. RoboCop then goes to his grave. Emotionally anguish, RoboCop begins to track down the very person whom destroys his past life - and killed him - Clarence Boddicker. He begins by tracking down all his gang members one by one, apprehending them in the process, and finally at a drug lab which Boddicker is negotiating a drug deal. After a full out firefight which leaves practically everyone dead except for Boddicker, RoboCop interrogates him and finds out about Jones' plan and his role in the murder of Morton.
However before RoboCop could apprehend Boddicker, several ED-209 appears and severely cripples RoboCop, rendering him inactive. OCP officially declares that Unit 001, the codename for RoboCop, is a failure and ED-209 would replace it as the primary law enforcement unit. The DPD union finally declares to go on strike. Chaos reigns as the city descends into total anarchy. Which plays out exactly what Jones had planned. Officer Lewis, recognising RoboCop as formerly Murphy, secretly helps him out, and with the assistance of Dr. Lazarus, whisks him away to the abandoned steel mill where they successfully repair and restores RoboCop back to full functionality. When RoboCop asks both of them whether he is a machine or human, Dr. Lazarus acknowledges that as a cyborg, he has the best and the worse of both world, whether as a man or a machine. It would be up to him to choose. With that RoboCop understands and determines to put the past behind him, by closing the most painful memory to him - bringing both Jones and Boddicker to the law.
Jones is infuriated that RoboCop has disappeared and orders the SWAT teams to take the rogue cyborg down. He has a tracking device design to locate RoboCop where about. RoboCop is forced to confront the SWAT, incapacitating them all without a single death. He immediately goes after Jones but is ambushed by Boddicker and his gangs, now armed with military grade weaponries provided by Jones. Outgunned, RoboCop is severely damaged but still holds when reinforcements arrive directly from officers of DPD after Lewis pleaded them to their cause. Casualties are inflicted on both sides but eventually Boddicker's men are wiped out but he escapes to nearby waste disposal plant with RoboCop chasing after him. Cunningly, Boddicker traps RoboCop in a pile of scrap irons and is about to impale the cyborg's head with a metal rod when he is shot to pieces by Lewis, using the Cobra assault rifle.
At OCP building, Jones is presenting the next phase in his plan to the senior executives and The Old Man pertaining to Delta City when RoboCop enters the room to the surprise of those present, especially Jones, whom has placed three ED-209 as security at the building's entrance. When RoboCop tries to apprehend Jones, his system begins to suffer from shutdown. The fourth classified Prime Directives reveal itself, stating that "any attempt to arrest a senior OCP employee results in shutdown". It is Jones own personal contribution to the Prime Directives. Regardless, RoboCop uses his Terminal Spike and access into the giant telescreen which broadcasts the recordings of Jones' crime, explicitly implicating him in the murder of Morton as well as his deal with Boddicker. RoboCop had previously downloaded Morton's hidden security video recordings and Jones personal message to him, as well as hacking through OCP security firewall to download the meeting between Jones and Boddicker in the office. The Old Man is furious but is taken hostage by Jones, using a live gun for demonstration earlier during ED-209 presentation. The Old Man shouts that Jones is fired from OCP, of which immediately RoboCop opens fire at him continuously that Jones smashes through the thick window and falls hundreds of floors down to his death. When The Old Man compliments RoboCop for his nice shooting skills and asks him his name, RoboCop simply replies, "Murphy".
................................................................................................
1987's RoboCop needs no introduction. Directed by Paul Verhoeven (what happens to him?), the ultra-violent (for its time but censored during its initial released) movie about a cyborg cop played by Peter Weller (last seen in 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness and last heard as the voice of Bruce Wayne / The Batman in the animated adaptation of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns) immediately becomes a box office hit and achieved numerous acclaims for its themes ranging from consumerism, capitalism, urban decay, corporate ethics and questions on humanity without taking itself too seriously and laced with black humours throughout. A check on Wiki reveals that RoboCop started as an idea after one of the original writers came across the poster of Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner. RoboCop itself is inspired by 2000AD's Judge Dredd and Marvel Comics' Rom. Schwarzenegger and Rutger Hauer were offered the role of Alex Murphy but deemed too "big" to fit into the suit, designed by none other than Rob Bottin (1982 John Carpenter's The Thing). RoboCop success spawned two film sequels and numerous spin-offs in various media. Unfortunately, it never measures up to the original. And honestly, until the Internet age, I didn't realise Paul Verhoeven is the director of RoboCop, as well as 1990 Total Recall, whom I associated more to the notorious femme fatale, noir thriller, 1992 Basic Instinct (which literally launched Sharon Stone's career due to that single interrogation scene. I didn't watch 1995 Showgirls and lets not go into 1997 Starship Troopers). Now onto the figure. I didn't plan to get it even for nostalgic moments. Maybe it is because of the progress of time. Yes, I love Robo but with all the 21st century special effects such as the likes of Iron Man, I deemed RoboCop to be abit ancient. This is not the first Robo Hot Toys released. Centuries ago, there were a RoboCop with non-removable helmet (?) and RoboCop 3 version with that flight backpack which I saw on various forums and blogs. It was bloody expensive due to flippers on eBay. And there was a recent re-released of ED-209 but according to most leading forums feedback, still suffered from the "deterioration" on the rubberised "dome head" as the first release. So, all in all, I didn't think about it until I went to xl-shop to collect Hot Toys' Kerberos Panzer Jager and Original Effect's hentai-ish Cleopatra. At the behest of Felix, whom I personally thought of somehow "possesses" a form of foresight for nice collectibles (he previously asked me if I want the Blade 2 figure which I turned down politely, much to my regret now, ugh), I decided to gun for it after a look. Hot Toys has re-released this figure under the new "Die Cast" line. Now I am not sure which part is die cast, the figure is a beauty once I unpacked at home. The armour has that same "purplish- hue" at different angle like in the movie. And nothing breaks. It is really very well made, although be careful of its weight, as it might topple over due to the ankle joints and the pneumatic tubes behind the legs (which could be reattached back but after I broke one of the tubes on the Tumbler, I am very cautious). There're additional one chest armour and helm - battle damage ones - and up to three lower facial sculpt for us to swap around. The helm could be removed but don't expect any Peter Weller's face sculpt there coz it is only for the purpose of swapping the lower facial expression. The arms, legs and torso could be extended for posing (speaking of torso extension, brings me to the attention of ThreeA's Iron Man floppy extended torso. They could definitely learn a thing or two from Hot Toys, in terms of articulation and not a floppy mess, I mean). The inner chest is practically a speaker of which when insert with batteries (which I did not bother but was demo-ed by Ken of xl-shop), enable Robo to speaks out his iconic lines from the movie. There're a pair of hands with moveable fingers, enclosed ones, and a single with the Terminal Spike (iconic for the climatic scene against Boddicker). Two Auto 9 are available - one plastic for posing and another in die-cast for slotting into the thigh pistol holster (Hot Toys manual says that the die cast is too heavy for grip, which makes sense and they also intentionally, for lack of better word, to design the plastic one slight longer, not visible to the eyes, so that it couldn't be used for slotting). Overall, great figure. ThreeA's Juicy Miyu guest appearance courtesy of personal collection. With the announcement of Commando's John Matrix and possible Star Wars' Darth Vader (I have to pass Back To The Future due to restriction in funds but darn, that DeLorean is a dream come true), it seems figures from my favourite movies of yesteryears are almost complete. Well almost. Now, Hot Toys, please revisit Rambo and Rocky (and don't forget Blade Runner).
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