[♪♪♪]
[RoboCop theme playing]
[♪♪♪]
[tires screeching]
[police siren]
MICHAEL: A lot of my friends were police officers.
In fact, in '77,
I went through SWAT survival with the LAPD.
I don't care. Get those men by the stairs.
Now. Hit it.
[police siren in back]
And so I wanted this role,
because all my friends would love it.
[indistinct radio chatter]
MICHAEL: There were two roles.
Ah, the SWAT Commander and SWAT Captain at the time.
I got the SWAT Captain. SWAT Captain worked three days.
The SWAT Commander had two weeks.
I called and I said, "Can I come in a day early?"
VOICE: We're not gonna pay for your hotel room
at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas, Texas.
MICHAEL: What's your rate?
VOICE: $35 a night.
I'm coming in two nights early.
I came in two nights early and Miguel Ferrer,
he was a young kid,
hanging out at Dean Martin's house,
when I did security for Dean Martin.
And I saw him.
He says, "Oh Michael,
I'm having drinks with Ed Neumeier tonight.
Why don't you come by?"
And I met them.
We had drinks together,
and Ed's looking at me, and he says,
"You know, Verhoeven loved you for both roles.
Let me talk to him."
The next day,
they paid the other actor for two or three weeks' work.
Told him to stay home,
and I got the role of Lieutenant Hedgecock,
which was a combination of the-- the two roles.
I always tell young actors, "Always go in early."
[indistinct radio chatter]
MARK: That scene was shot outside the exterior
of the old Dallas courthouse.
REPORTER 1: Former city councilman Ron Miller,
entered City Hall with a gun.
He's now on the second floor holding Mayor Gibson
and his staff hostage.
MARK: My role, back then,
was originally written as off-screen.
But then they realized that
it's gonna be too interesting not to show it, so...
We cut and did an interior shot.
So, that's where the role expanded.
REPORTER 1: Lieutenant, what's next?
We wait, Terrorism is a very tricky business.
MICHAEL: It's one of those scenes where there is a crowd scene,
and there's this, and there's that.
And Robo comes up.
He was in full regalia and it was like,
my first interaction with Peter.
To see him move like that, it was like,
I was looking at the real RoboCop.
Where the hell do you think you're going?
ROBOCOP: Keep him talking.
MICHAEL: Just the way he moved,
it was like, "Oh, look at that."
MARK: Paul is very giving with his actors.
He said to me, "Alright, these are your prisoners.
What do you want to do with them?"
I said, "I want 'em kneeling down here
with their legs crossed behind
and their hands behind their head."
He goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."
And one of 'em will be dead.
And you need to put a guy on the ground
that he's already killed.
And then he got a squirt bottle of blood.
He was painting it like Jackson Pollock.
But the guy had to lay there all day long.
[chuckles]
TERESA: As a joke, they go, "Do you wanna be an extra?"
And I said, "Sure."
And so, they put me in makeup.
And put me in wardrobe.
I didn't know what I was gonna do.
And I end up being the Mayor's assistant.
And for the nine years I worked with Paul,
he kept throwing me little bones in his movies,
which was fun.
In terms of my character,
there was no ad-libbing whatsoever.
All those lines were written.
The fact that they turned out funny,
I think it's a tribute to the writers.
The line was first, "Don't fuck with me."
MILLER: First, don't fuck with me!
I'm a desperate man.
Second, I want some fresh coffee.
And third, I want a recount.
MARK: And no matter how the vote turns out,
I want my old job back.
He's making all those demands in that office.
And I want this and I want that.
And I want whatever, you know.
How about an SUX 6000?
LT. HEDGECOCK: How about the uh, 6000 SUX?
MILLER: Yeah!
Okay, sure!
MARK: With reclining leather seats,
those get really shitty gas mileage.
MILLER: What about cruise control?
Does it come with cruise control?
As I read that, I just cracked up.
I kept saying it, "This guy is...
This guy is wigged out."
That just...
That scene just rang to me,
of the lunacy of uh, American politics.
MARK: He was characterized as being
the guy who had the mayor held hostage
and had been there for three days.
Lieutenant, don't jerk me off!
MARK: I had eaten all the candy out of all the machines
in the office, theoretically.
And had a sugar buzz going.
So, I was really hyper.
You wanna see?
PETER: At the same time that we were doing RoboCop,
I think Joel Hynek was working on Predator.
[heart beat]
PETER: Predator had actual real thermal vision in it.
And honestly,
I didn't even know that there was such a thing, you know.
If I'd known that,
they were actually doing real thermal vision,
I might have gone down that avenue.
But as it is,
I just got these leotards and spray-painted them
with spray paint to look like a thermal effect,
and then had people dress up in those,
shot them against black,
and then composited that into some overlays
of the mayor's office.
The wall and stuff like that.
Get up, Your Honor. Get up! Get up!
Your public wants to see you.
MARK: Pulling up to the window by his tie was my idea.
The Las Colinas was a studio out
between Dallas and Fort Worth,
where they shot the interiors.
MILLER: Nobody ever takes me seriously.
Well, get serious now!
And kiss the mayor's ass goodbye.
MARK: I had to go through the wall four times.
Two from the front side and two from the back side.
And I was pretty beat up at the time.
And the crew kept saying, "Don't do anymore.
Don't do anymore. They're killing ya."
[screams]
MARK: Paul had 'em score the wall, so I can get through it.
And then RoboCop punches through on both sides.
They see me go through, fire the machine gun.
It was a mini Uzi.
Holding the thing all day long, scene after scene.
Got to be a bit heavy.
Then they stood me up and punched me out the window.
[screams]
[chuckles]
MARK: There was another external shot to the building
where I was walking down the stairs with an assistant
who had a box full of the contents of my desk
since I had been voted out of office.
And they didn't use that,
because they cut to the news thing instead,
which worked better I think.
RoboCop, who is he? What is he?
Where did he come from?
He is OCP's newest soldier
in their revolutionary crime management program.
MICHAEL MINER: Mixing the politics, and action, and satire,
I think we in some ways got there first.
More fighting in the Mexican crisis today.
The guiding principles were that Detroit was sort
of a western town that needed to be cleaned up.
There was a larger world,
but the border stopped at the edge of Delta City,
and the larger world was only the media breaks.
So, we never had to deal with a larger context
than the western town.
Excuse me, Robo, any special message...
MICHAEL MINER: And the sheriff character, RoboCop,
whose task it was to clean it up.
ROBOCOP: Stay out of trouble.
LEEZA: They were the glue that got you
to the plot points so brilliantly.
You're on your own.
LEEZA: They were funny.
It's a lot of jungle.
[chuckles]
They were really well crafted kind of in your face,
progressively liberal insights into um, you know these kind of
really pretty heavy handed statements on where we were.
Reporting a city wide strike by police.
This is a movie being made.
And written during Reagan.
It's Reaganomics, and it is trickled down.
And it is like you have to
take government out of it and put business in it.
I say good business is where you find it.
And you got the old man saying that.
We're taking it over.
Old Detroit has a cancer.
The cancer is crime.
We're gonna make this Detroit.
This is the new Detroit.
OLD MAN: Delta City.
PETER This is our town.
This riffraff is done. Right?
Except they're controlling the riffraff, too.
This constant battle between uh, the rulers and the 99%,
was something I think we understood,
along with the police officer's strike.
Labor versus management.
They got job security.
They're not supposed to strike.
Historians now say that the 80s in America
were a tipping point.
The economy in America was booming,
but it was booming under false pretenses.
Our productivity is up.
So, is our manufacturing product up.
PAUL M.: People were going into debt massively.
So, is the United States.
As I say, I don't think anyone should panic.
PAUL M: And it all started to go downhill after that.
And RoboCop's right in the middle of that.
MICHAEL MINER: I always characterized RoboCop
as comic relief for a cynical decade.
Because we'd had eight years of Ronald Reagan
and obviously we killed him in Santa Barbara
at his retirement home.
REPORTER 3: Two former United States Presidents
who had retired in the Santa Barbara area.
MICHAEL MINER: No one said,
"Ooh, that's too over the edge or over the top.
Or too critical of the system.
So, thank God we were at Orion.
You know, and Mike Medavoy was kind of a gun slayer.
He was a risk taker.
You can't stand the heat.
You better stay out of the kitchen.
The video world was a completely separate world.
And if you watch the commercials,
we shot with a Betacam.
PAUL: The urban politics that are in the movie
had this kind of Reaganomics, I think.
I couldn't identify with the people
very much at all.
I mean, the Americans.
You picked the heart.
PAUL: I was more amazed and-- and-- and I'd say,
the film is expressing my amazement.
I remember Verhoeven being there and--
and directing the sequences, and he didn't really care,
if he's embarrassing you in front of everybody or not.
And remember, we care.
Paul told me, he says,
"I'm not here making a science-fiction movie.
I'm making a movie about America today."
PAUL: In principle, it's a dystopia.
Yes, of course.
But in the movie, it's-- it's presented as a utopia.
He's got his finger on the pulse.
GAME NARRATOR: Red Alert!
You crossed my line of death.
[mimics explosion]
You haven't dismantled your MX stockpile.
Pakistan is threatening my border!
LEEZA: The spoofy commercials they were kind of the insight
into the thematic structure of the movie really.
That's it, buster. No more military aid.
You can see the jokes and say,
"Gosh, that kind of strikes close to home."
Nukem.
[explosion]
AD NARRATOR: Nukem.
Get them before they get you.
ROCCO: And some of the commercials and the jokes that are there
are very much a sign of the times.
Um, it's got a tremendous wit.
[boing]
STEPHEN: We got this call to do this car commercial,
and they wanted a sexy commercial.
So, we said, "Okay, we'll come up with something."
They wanted a dinosaur in it.
EDWARD: And the reference they gave us was Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.
STEPHEN: Yeah, Ray Harryhausen's '50s movie.
EDWARD: When you cut to it,
it was a monster burst into the frame.
People running and screaming.
[♪♪♪]
STEPHEN: I sculpted the dinosaur figure
and we made a cast foam rubber animation puppet,
with a ball and socket armature.
The extras running away from the dinosaur.
That's all us.
[screaming]
STEPHEN: They were gonna cut it out of the movie.
The editor did not know where to put the clip.
If I didn't think that something was gonna be,
not gonna be-- I wouldn't even cut it.
And Jon Davison said,
"Well, just cut it in anywhere. Just cut it in the movie."
He says, "Please, please cut it, Frank."
I said, "Okay, I'll cut it.
I'll put it in."
AD NARRATOR: It's back.
Big is back.
Because bigger is better.
6,000 SUX, an American tradition.
[chuckles]
And the audience absolutely loved it.
And he was-- you know, I said, "You're right, Jon.
I would have a big mistake."
[♪♪♪]
MICHAEL MINER: When you think about the structure of the first act
in which the police officer is tortured, murdered.
Rebuilt as a robotic police officer.
He solves three stupendous crimes.
[screams]
MICHAEL MINER: And when that first media break hits,
the audience is delirious.
They are absolutely out of their minds,
because you've given them the birth of a hero.
[RoboCop theme playing]
There's a new guy in town.
His name's RoboCop.
And then,
this media farce about strange advertising,
news breaks,
you kind of let the audience laugh at you.
-It's for you. -Go Robo!
So, I think there's something rhythmic
about that a lot like music.
That you let the audience...
[mimics exhaling]
Exhale into a new kind of form,
and then you start the story again.
Hey, hey, hey, Bobby Boy, Vice President.
Congratulations.
The studio was pretty freaked out
about how much the movie was costing.
And they weren't seeing-- they saw dailies.
But they weren't really seeing the movie.
Welcome to the club, Bob.
RONNY: They were contemplating pulling the plug,
and the story I heard was, they said cut together ah,
a really good scene for us to show to investors.
And they cut together the bathroom scene.
Let me in on the bottom line, pal.
I hear Jones was plenty pissed.
So, they asked me if I could get a set done for them.
Something that they could shoot in a key scene,
showing the dynamics of the characters.
Let's face it, he's lost his teeth.
The guy's a pussy.
WILLIAM: We started building this set,
which was pretty complicated, structurally interesting set.
And we built, and built, and built.
And we didn't stop for,
I think it was 36 hours, we built straight.
He's old, we're young.
And that's life.
WILLIAM: We got it done.
Paint was still drying in places.
But they walked and they had to shoot,
and they shot it.
It's in the picture.
RONNY: Miguel and I,
the first time we really met was in that bathroom scene.
JONES: You've insulted me,
and you've insulted this company
with that bastard creation of yours.
When we first got there, Miguel was adamant.
I mean adamant about me not grabbing his hair.
'Cause he thought
that was sort of invading his space as an actor.
And he didn't wanna have to deal with that.
JONES: Pretty simple math, huh pal?
And he said, "Well, I don't know what I'm gonna do."
I said, "Okay.
You react the way you react and we'll go from that.
We'll see what happens from that."
You just fucked with wrong guy.
Are you out of your fucking mind?
RONNY: See, in a way, for Dick Jones not to do that
would be anathema to who he was.
See, that's the other thing.
And I understand Miguel's point of view.
Miguel's point of view is, "I gotta protect my character."
Absolutely.
But I have to protect my character, too.
You better pray.
That that unholy monster of yours doesn't screw up.
And it worked.
Once they saw a cut sequence, they-- they got it.
[♪♪♪]
PETER: Initially, I'm twirling a gun, and Nancy Allen
will remember me.
She says, "Murphy, is that you?"
And then something else happens with Paul McCrane,
and then...
Then I started having dreams.
Verhoeven reversed this!
Verhoeven said, "No!"
The dreams, first!
[gunshots]
PETER: Verhoeven's sitting in a suite with me saying,
"Look, you have these dreams first.
Because this is not amnesia.
This is your soul waking up.
It is the one thing,
that in the name of progress and science,
they can't take it away from you.
They've taken away your identity.
They've taken away your life, your physical life.
But they can't take away his soul."
And that wakes up on it's own.
And then it's like, "Get-- let me
the fuck out!"
Then all of a sudden, he becomes a beast.
Hey look, bucket boy's online.
And his soul trying to define itself.
[gunshot]
PETER: What in God's name would this movie have been
without Verhoeven?
I did not understand the profound depth of this.
And nobody could have this movie but Verhoeven.
Let's get this loud and clear.
If you hadn't given that to an American action director,
no matter how talented they are,
they'd never dug what Paul dug out of that thing.
PAUL: It has some other level,
telling you something about possibility of the human soul
to survive everything.
So, it's on two levels.
I think it's an action picture, and it's a--
it's a picture about human soul.
PETER: That is the crux.
And then I'm off, walking down the hall.
And that was a blast.
TYLER: What the hell is going on?
I don't know. He just left.
TYLER: Just left?
'Cause all of a sudden, the guy wants to know,
not the robot anymore, but the guy.
I haven't really had a chance to introduce myself.
I'm Anne Lewis.
Do you have a name?
People say, "Well, how did you relate to him?"
Well, what was great was that with that tiny little strip,
you could just see an eyelash move.
How can I help you, Officer Lewis?
NANCY: But it really gave me something to work with.
To constantly be looking,
trying to find his eyes for a minute.
And Peter's such a wonderful actor.
I mean, there was just--
you know sometimes I look at him.
"Is there anyone-- is there anyone there?"
So, I think because of how good he is at his job,
it made it really easy for me.
PETER: She was fun, you know.
She was just so giving to it, man.
"Murphy, it's you. Murphy, it's you."
Can't ever get over that. It's heartbreaking.
Murphy, it's you.
PETER: Ah, what a sad movie.
You know, RoboCop is essentially,
extraordinarily sad.
You really don't remember me, do you?
Excuse me?
I have to go.
PETER: "Somewhere there's a crime happening",
is a line that I think Paul wanted to cut,
or somebody wanted to cut, but I wanted to say it.
ROBOCOP: Somewhere there is a crime happening.
Which is like the existential, RoboCop man, you know.
That's my mission, man.
That's my raison d'etre,
that somewhere there is crime happening.
SAGE: It was set up from the beginning to pick him
to be the fall guy for this.
And there wasn't any sense of ever having
to put the genie back in the bottle.
What did you talk to him about?
-What did you say? -Nothing.
It was just this greedy, selfish myopic sensibility
of everybody wanting their moment.
He doesn't have a name. He's got a program.
He's product.
SAGE: It's an interesting study
in the realities of a lot of human nature.
[bike whirs]
ARNE: It was an abandoned gas station,
and when we first applied for a permit,
they said, "No, absolutely not."
Meanwhile, the mayor had said, "Come to Dallas.
You gotta come here.
It'd be great", you know, so we got on the phone.
We working it out with our people.
And talked them into letting us do it.
Give me all your money bookworm or I'll blow your brains out.
PAUL MCCRANE: It's not often that you have someone who really loves
and knows how to talk to actors and encourages performances.
And in the way that Paul did.
And he really did.
Don't do nothing stupid, man.
PAUL MCCRANE: So, my experience on that scene was that he was encouraging you
to have fun and try things, and we did.
And some of them worked and some of 'em didn't.
And he was fine with both.
Hey man, what you reading in there?
"You a college boy or something?"
You a college boy or something, huh?
PETER: Robo shows up, expressionless,
you know almost lifeless, machine-like.
Drop it.
PETER: You have to choose the places we're in.
Slowly but surely, humanity seeps out.
ROBOCOP: Dead or alive, you're coming with me.
And then it's born out in a physical reality
with Paul McCrane saying,
I know you.
And he really woke up to what the definition
of this film was as I was doing the part, man.
You're dead.
We killed you!
JOST: We killed you,
and he himself had the feeling there was something.
There is past in my life,
which I don't know exactly anymore.
But the audience get a feeling that inside of this machine,
there is still Murphy.
PAUL MCCRANE: Paul had a desire to do exaggerated explosions.
Really, really hyper-violent kind of things.
I know some of the special effects folks.
They had a little issue with Paul.
PAUL MCCRANE: My sense was that Verhoeven was frustrated
at some of the level of special effects.
JESSE D: We'd be setting up for something,
and he would say,
"You know, that's really kinda over the top."
Where he'd say, "Of course, you can't do it.
Of course, you can't. Of course, you can't.
Of course, you can't do it. Of course, we understand."
Then the crew responding with "Okay.
Sure, we'll fo-- we'll work that out."
JON: Steve Lim and Paul Verhoeven did not get along at all.
They were just at each other's throats.
In fact, Paul just stopped talking to him,
just to ignore him after a while.
He would bait the-- the US crew
and was smart enough to really know how
to get under people's skin.
RAY: Paul would always say,
"Anyway, we have fucked, I suppose."
[chuckles]
You know, he'd say that fairly often,
and you know, anything went wrong.
"We're fucked. We're fucked", you know.
"You guys are fooked.
You guys are so bad, you can't do this,
you know, and it's like, "Well, fuck you Paul.
How many special effects shows have you done?"
There were times when we got into it.
JON: See, every call sheet has a cartoon on it,
that was drawn by Steve Lim. the assistant director.
STEPHEN LIM: He was rubbing us the wrong way,
and that's part of the reason why I did the cartoons.
And it kind of got popular with the crew,
and it helped me,
and it helped us vent this sort of unusual project.
Paul pushed the envelope so much especially in terms
of effects and safety.
It was much more visceral than a lot of movies had been.
For me, it's more important to have a great image
than to be in a really safe position.
Yeah, that's-- Yeah, you know.
Paul wanted the set to be...
Boom.
Huge.
[flames conflagrating]
I didn't have a clue how big that was going to be.
PAUL: Action!
[explosion]
RUSSELL: They built the suit.
I think it's made out of some kind of non-flammable.
It wasn't the same suit as the regular one.
And it weighed about twice as much.
So, I had a internal air system designed,
so I could breathe.
And so I had about five minutes of air,
and they designed a mask for me.
Every step I took, they had propane cannons.
And as the propane cannons were going off,
I just had to count my steps.
[explosion]
After the gas station explosion,
they were almost ready to shut us down.
The fire marshals, the cops, everybody.
Fire trucks came.
I mean, the city was like,
"What the fuck are you guys doing?"
"Oh, nothing.
Just shooting a film."
[explosion]
JON: I was talking to them and trying to just say,
"Wow, that was... You know, it's over.
And everything's okay, you know.
The fire's out."
Out of the corner of my eye,
I see Jost Vacano driving towards Verhoeven
and I walk over there,
and I hear Jost Vacano tell Paul Verhoeven
that the explosion wasn't big enough
to be recorded on film.
And I wanted to kill him.
[police sire in background]
Oops.
MICHAEL MINER: I had specifically tried to get a Shell gas station
blowing up,
popping off the S, so, we see flames and hell.
Jon Davison cleared the name.
They did it all.
[explosion]
MICHAEL MINER: The effects people rendered it perfectly,
and then Paul didn't put it in the film.
So, that's about the only thing I think I would have changed
if I'd been around.
I would have started yelling.
Maybe I would have been fired.
[gunshots]
MARK G: The motorcycle gag.
I shot close-ups of the thug on his motorcycle,
looking back at the fire,
which was simulated by using a fire bar.
They were shooting out flames.
[gun shots, tires screeching]
PAUL MCCRANE: When I go sort of flying off that bike,
that's a stunt guy.
I remember those stunt guys very well.
They were-- they were great.
And uh, really, really brave.
[tires screeching]
[screams, grunts]
JON: Part of it was him going up to it
and then the other part of is they headed on a track.
And they pulled it into the car.
MARK G: We had a dummy in the actual impact shot.
Because that was pretty dangerous.
One of the things that sets RoboCop apart
from a lot of pictures,
is that you have great empathy for the lead character.
Who are you?
PETER: So, Murphy is the ultimate victim.
Who are you?
[groans]
And it's not,
let's just say existentially, there's no victims.
There's only volunteers.
[groans]
PETER: He begins to have a taste of uh,
what was once his humanity and it confuses him.
And curiously enough,
he starts off on a road of not only vengeance,
but a road on rediscovering what it was to be human.
To me, I become an audience member.
I stop being a member of the crew.
I was so invigorated and exhilarated,
because the rhythms of it,
the intelligence that was in that movie
ANNE: Murphy, it's you.
PETER: In the name of getting that bad guy off the street.
We're gonna take an innocent dude
and turn him into a robot.
Yeah.
Think of that. It's like uh, frightening.
[♪♪♪]
[monitor beeping
[♪♪♪]
Somebody came up with a storyboard.
[♪♪♪]
PETER: There was a scene where RoboCop is at his own grave.
ED: It was an idea that we'd all talked about,
because it's an iconic idea.
You know, "Oh my God. A man seeing his own grave."
And the idea of a robot looking at a grave.
It's at mercy.
PETER: And perhaps, I argued to keep that scene,
and Ed did, too.
ED: And I kept trying to get it in the movie.
PETER: But I can understand why Paul wouldn't want it there.
Because Paul is the metaphysicist, you see.
And you don't want the physical evidence
of the guy that preceded RoboCop.
Right? The physical evidence is gone.
That's the whole thing.
So, I get it why Paul didn't want a grave.
ED: And it just never fell in any place.
It didn't seem to be part of RoboCop's journey.
The house ended up being what you needed
and it was complex enough.
[♪♪♪]
FRANK: I felt that the flashback scene when he goes to the house.
That was probably the most important scene
in that movie.
Because what it does is humanize this robot.
PETER: It is the movie.
It certainly is the movie, is going home.
[♪♪♪]
ANGIE: My scenes were at a home here in Dallas.
I read it
and the whole premise seemed really interesting to me.
And I thought,
"Gosh, am I the only nice person in this film?"
[chuckles]
Besides Alex Murphy.
[door opens]
MAN ON SCREEN: Welcome, shopper.
Let's take a stroll through your new home.
I felt that RoboCop should reflect some vulnerability,
so that the audience can identify with him.
Can you do that, dad?
TYREES: There was so much pathos in the character, RoboCop
and you really felt for this-- this man.
I mean, really you felt for him.
What would it be like to be trapped
in that body, that machine?
PAUL: Seeing the beautiful life that he had before
with his lovely wife, with his lovely child.
And it's all gone.
PETER: You are RoboCop going through that house,
going, "If I cannot remember the Halloween,
when he was 10, what is it really worth?"
And that's the tragedy of it.
ANGIE: I hadn't met Peter yet when I did my scene.
I met him afterwards.
I mean, for years people have said,
"Oh, you know your part made me cry.
And it really touched me."
I really have to tell you something.
I love you.
[chuckles]
Everything was to my face,
and I'm talking to the camera.
When he puts the camera on my face,
I mean the lens was on my face, before they cut.
DEL: When I first saw, it brought to my eyes,
'cause all of a sudden she fades and then they do the wide shot.
And he's blown in this deserted,
sterilized home.
MONI: The feeling process was very important
and we tried to instill it within the rhythm
of each movement.
If he was sad, it was slower and softer.
If he was angry, it would have been
a little bit faster and more powerful.
So, we tried to build the emotional content
into the rhythm of the gesture.
MAN ON SCREEN: Why not make me an offer?
I...
The TV monitor was set up
and they actually had a push ramp
with a section of Robo's hand and forearm.
They, out of camera, actually had a steel bar
and they just rammed it into the TV set.
PAUL: Go!
[explosion]
[♪♪♪]
YOLONDA: I remember the night they shot at the Starck Club.
We were encouraged to go on set and look.
'Cause I mean, you know we were starting to figure,
this was gonna be a big deal.
JOST: It was a real disco.
Even the lights were a little bit extended by us,
but it mainly, it was all of the same situation.
RAY: Um, very hot dark, steamy night club.
Before I started to do the scene,
I didn't realize there were any bare breasts in the scene.
But there were.
Which made it infinitely more interesting to me,
as I was doing it.
The playback was the same music.
[♪♪♪]
♪ Show yourself to her ♪
Peter was having trouble seeing going down the stairs,
'cause they were fairly steep.
And that visor on the helmet was like sunglass.
So, it was a real problem.
He was concerned about,
like taking a tumble down these stairs.
YOLONDA: I remember Paul being very hands on.
He put himself in the nightclub scene,
when he's like, "Aaah".
You remember that in the movie, yeah?
RAY: And then Robo coming up behind me,
and then you know, doing the crazy dance.
Where is Clarence Boddicker?
[screams]
And my little nervous giggles.
[giggles]
Leon's not too smart up here.
You know, kicking Robo into a steel groin.
[screams]
RAY: Not too smart.
And then he grabbed me by the hair.
ROBOCOP: Let's talk.
He just barely held on to my hair.
I clamped on to his wrist and held on for dear life.
And then all he did was just pull me.
[indistinct speech]
Same as a good baseball player.
It's all in the wrist.
CREW MEMBER 1: Take.
MIGUEL: Go back that, backwards.
-DIANE: Are you okay? -CREW MEMBER 1: 257 take Six.
-MIGUEL: Unbelievable. -DIANE: One more time.
-MIGUEL: Yes. -CREW MEMBER 2: Marker.
-CHANDRA: You think? -BOB: Oh, this is good blow.
[indistinct speech]
[Tawney chuckling]
BOB: You guys are unbelievable.
Paul Verhoeven has like an energy
and a magic to him.
And you could tell this was a scene
that he really liked.
PAUL: And action!
BOB: Gonna love this. Come on. Ready?
-Here we go. -CHANDRA: Okay.
-BOB: One more time. Go. -CHANDRA: Go.
BOB: Ah.
[sniffing]
There's just something about the way it sells.
DIANE: Back then, there was place on Sunset
where they sold all leather dresses,
so the customer met me there,
and I got this green leather dress,
and I thought it was the coolest thing on earth,
until I got to Texas,
and it felt like I was in a green cow.
Don't wear leather in Dallas, Texas.
It was so hot.
It turns me on.
ADRIANNE: It was a beautiful, very modern house in Dallas.
So, they flew us there.
And so when I got there on set,
I saw these piles of powder on the coffee table in lines
and straws, and I panicked.
[chuckles]
It looked just like cocaine.
Everybody asks me, "Was it cocaine?"
It wasn't in the budget.
I mean... [chuckles]
TAWNEY: Bob, come on.
Save some for me.
And you know, in each take,
I snorted a whole line of powdered sugar.
Sometimes, I could just think of something.
And it could just get me so horny.
ADRIANNE: Miguel Ferrer,
he came up to me very seriously,
and he was a little nervous.
And he said,
"I would like to apologize in advance,
in case I get aroused.
And in case I don't."
And I thought, it was just,
"What an incredible human being."
Yeah, well uh,
a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
DIANE: You know, I still don't know
if she was a hooker or a model.
I mean, he refers to her, Bobby calls her "a model".
Eh, was she really?
[chuckles]
BOB: Yeah, I get bored so easily.
Yeah.
You need lots of stimulation, Bobby.
DIANE: I'm thinking they were more like call girls,
but I think, every guy likes to think it was a model,
but you know.
Yes, I do. [chuckles]
-Don't move. -I won't.
ADRIANNE: Peter Weller came on set and he was watching us shoot.
He took his script
and he wrote something down and he gave it
to one of the crew members and told them to give it to me.
He wrote,
"I think you're beautiful, so there!"
Exclamation point.
I thought, "How sweet".
Peter was a pussy hound.
Okay.
Chicks would come by,
he'd go banging 'em in the trailer.
It's not as easy as it looks.
The ADs, the makeup ladies, you hear the--
you hear this pump. [chuckles]
They go, "That's Peter, he's
you know, banging someone", blah, blah, blah.
Okay.
Look, a movie set is a city.
And if you're on location,
I mean forget LA, everybody goes home.
But you know, that's cool.
You know, you're a star, you get a lot of free pussy.
What the hell, you know?
And I'm a single guy and um...
you start up a thing, but it ain't your leading lady.
Four couples on this film,
ended up meeting each other and getting married.
And I happen to be one of them.
JESSE D: The camera person and his assistant,
they-- they got along well.
Let me just put it that way.
[chuckles]
Yeah, man.
Certainly some noise being made.
[chuckles]
At certain times, you know, so it's like, "Where are they?
They are okay. Alright.
Get 'em out here!"
That's right, man.
Shit happens on a movie set.
I'll buy that for a dollar. [laughs]
Paul was actually a little upset that I was dating his assistant.
And he didn't feel he could trust her because,
"Oh my God, you're with a producer.
One of the production people now.
How can I trust you?"
And he got over that. Yeah.
Best thing that ever happened to me is working that movie,
because that movie gave me my family.
Paul comes up to me.
He goes, "Diane, I want to talk to you."
I said, "What?"
He goes,
"I think it'd be good if maybe you and the other actress
start kissing."
I said, "I'm thinking no."
And he goes, "What do you mean no?"
I said, "Honey, my mom's gonna see this.
I've already had coke snorted off my boobs.
We're good." [chuckles]
CHANDRA: What do you think?
He's adorable, isn't he?
TAWNEY: He's cute. [chuckles]
KURTWOOD: One of the girl says,
"Uh, excuse me, Paul,
I have a line and should I say that here
before I go to the door.
Should I go to the door?"
And so Paul goes,
"Hmm, yeah.
Well, let me see.
Ah, Jost, the bitch,
should she say her line after she crosses to the door,
or should she say it before she crosses to the door?"
Jost says,
"Yeah, the bitch should say her line at the door.
It would be easier for us."
Yeah, okay so,
He says, "Bitches leave, then bitches,
you all go over there."
And-- and Miguel and I are like looking at each other.
Ah.
DIANE: I don't think he knew that bitches
wasn't the sweetest name in the world be calling us.
But he said it so nicely.
It didn't bother me.
And he kept going, "Bitches, come here.
Bitches, come here."
I said, "Okay honey, I'm coming."
[chuckles]
BOB: How you doing? [grunting]
Bitches, leave.
"Bitches, leave."
One of-- One of the great lines in the film.
"Bitches, leave."
And we're like, "Oh, okay."
[chuckles]
"Gee Bobby, bye.
You're gonna call me?"
I loved the fact that,
she wasn't even all that concerned
that there's a guy with a gun ready to kill her date.
It's like, "Yeah, this happens all the time."
Yeah, it was fun to watch the level of humor
laced in with a level of terror that was going on.
What the fuck are you doing?
He knew he was gonna get killed.
BOB: Do you know who I am?
If you think you're gonna get away with this, you got--
[yells]
RANDY: The leg shot was the first time on a movie
that anybody had shot point blank into anybody.
So, we made some very light blanks
and I was very thankful that Miguel trusted me enough
to-- to let us shoot him in the leg.
Goddamit!
[shouts]
Stop!
I'll give you anything you want.
Just please, please don't kill me, alright.
PETER: What's interesting about RoboCop is that
it forecasts so many things as well.
KURTWOOD: I actually used the first DVD in a movie as far as I know,
you know.
And of course, there were no DVDs in 1986.
Hello, buddy boy.
Dick Jones here.
I guess you're on your knees about now.
Begging for your life.
The good guys gets three colors.
Red, white, and blue.
You know what he's gonna do.
We could have been friends.
The bad guy, he gets the whole palette.
JONES: Every game has a winner and a loser.
Way more fun.
KURTWOOD: The Bob Morton scene, where I kill Bob...
[chuckles]
After I pulled the uh,
I pulled the pin with my tongue.
ED: You know the key to the gang is really Clarence Boddicker.
And Clarence Boddicker is a-- for me, was this,
always this guy who wore glasses,
who was kind of a little hum.
He's probably on the spectrum, but he's...
He's always humming a tune and he was really ruthless.
He looks like an accountant in many ways.
I don't have time for this bullshit.
But then when you hear him speak,
it's like, "This motherfucker can be evil."
Bye-bye, baby.
ED: He was based on Carlos the Jackal,
who was then a terrorist, who would throw hand grenades
and shoot people with shotguns.
And so, I said,
"This is shotguns and hand grenades."
KURTWOOD: It was the idea of Heinrich Himmler.
I didn't know at that time that he thought I was a Nazi.
[chuckles]
KURTWOOD: No. You know, Clarence is having a great time.
I'm cashing you out, Bob.
It's so much fun playing that character,
I can't tell you.
[groans]
It's dead serious.
[explosion]
[machine whirs]
ROBERT: Paul, he said to me,
"The bad guys have this cocaine machine.
We have 'em in Holland.
I see 'em all the time", and I go,
"Uh, yeah." [chuckles]
I'm looking all over and I found this place
and it filled perfume bottles.
I showed it to Paul and Paul said,
"That's the machine, that's it."
He said, "You found it." I said, "Yeah."
CHARLES: We had to create all of the metal work,
the grid work,
the different platforms that people were shooting from.
The scene between me and Kurtwood Smith,
you know.
Um, so much of it was improvised.
Maybe I'm just not making myself clear.
LEE: One, Kurt would put his fingers in the wine
and snorted it.
My impulse was to take it and throw it at him.
But I couldn't-- wouldn't do that,
because it just would have slowed everything down.
So, Calvin came up to me and said,
"Why don't you drink it?"
It was like, "Who's the baddest?"
It was a cockfight.
It was like,
"Well, I'm gonna do this with your fucking wine.
I'm gonna taint it."
Sort of, "Fuck you, you ain't that bad.
I'm gonna drink it.
Now what?"
I got the muscle to shove enough
of this factory so far up your stupid whopped ass.
That you'll shit snow for a year.
"Frankie, blow this cocksucker's head off."
Frankie, blow this cocksucker's head off.
I pull out the gun, and he says...
Ooh, guns, guns, guns.
KURTWOOD: The guns, guns, guns line,
that was to show how cool Clarence could be,
and that he didn't care.
You can't scare Clarence.
That was where that came from.
Tigers are playing.
Tonight.
I never miss a game.
And so I go, and I cock it,
and it created a moment, and I'd loved that.
During the rehearsal,
I went, "Just kidding."
And they left that in.
[chuckles]
Just kidding.
There are lots of moments where we got
to create stuff like that all through the whole film.
[loud bang on the door]
ARNE: RoboCop is supposed to kick down the door
and so I grabbed like, all of the effects guys,
and I said,
"Bang on this door as hard as you can,
before it pops open."
And so, of course
like seven effects guys behind the door.
LEE: RoboCop breaking the door down.
"Put your guns down,
or there's going to be trouble."
ROBOCOP: Come quietly or there will be trouble.
LEE: Which I think,
was a wonderfully funny line, you know.
Because by this time, the audience has seen so much.
The idea that lower your guns
or there's going to be trouble,
I found it funny as hell.
I was the first guy to do a single-arm shotgun cock.
They went, "Okay."
So, I used to practice this on the side all the time.
Ah, fuck you.
"Fuck you."
[gunhots]
ED: To one of the,
sort of European touches to an American action movie
is when Robo pulls his gun,
he's really taking a fencing pose.
[gunshots]
ED: He's got his back arm up,
which is something that you do in fencing.
Robo is firing like that.
ED: And it's a very elegant look.
That's Paul, you know.
His earliest work was on Dutch television,
with Rutger Hauer,
doing a kind of like a knights in shining armor
and swords stuff.
So, he had that in his background.
PAUL: Action!
[gunshots]
RANDY: Part of that scene was
hiding full auto weapons all around
and then they all pull 'em out.
And start the gunfire.
Action. There'll be everybody shooting, yeah.
RANDY: And so Verhoeven says to me,
"I'm gonna push this AK down in the baking soda
that we're using as cocaine."
I said, "No, you don't need that inside the gun.
It'll mess it up.
You're not gonna do it."
And so, like a little kid,
he'd take a scoop and he'd try and cover the gun up with it.
And of course it didn't work.
And then you had to take it out,
clean it, and everything.
He'd tell me, "You're fucking me."
And I'd go, "Well,
if you'd keep the coke out of the guns,
you won't fuck yourself."
He'd-- he'd go along and he'd go,
"You know,
if you're gonna fuck me, then tell me."
And so day 2, I walked up
and put my arm on his back and I said,
"Paul, sooner or later today, I'm gonna fuck you.
I'm gonna fuck you in the middle of a take.
I'ma fuck you real hard.
Have a good day."
And I'd walk on.
And he turned to everybody and goes,
"At least when he fucks me, he tells me
he's gonna fuck me.
The rest of you just fuck me."
[chuckles]
[gunshots]
There is something about firing a 9 mm fully automatic,
if you grew up with guns,
and you understand that they kill people,
but you're living the fantasy of a film,
then you better put some macho into it.
Because it's not for the faint of heart.
[gunshots]
It is truly about vendetta.
KURTWOOD: I counted it once.
I think they're like 17 guys that get killed in that scene.
So, that was take after take and gunshot after gunshot.
You know, you...
Bam, bam, bam, wham, bam and it'd go on all over.
[gunshots]
KURTWOOD: And if you forgot to put your earplugs in,
it was just deafening.
PETER: They put the earphones on me and I'm in a helmet.
And I'd listen to walkman all the time,
and I was listening to Peter Gabriel's Red Rain,
and I got to help design all that choreography
of how I wanted to shoot.
[gunshots]
PETER: Two guys up here,
and then there's the guy up there,
and this guy behind me.
So, if I fire, boom!
Boom! Boom!
Then I got to kill this guy.
[gunshots]
Right, It's just so much fun doing it, man.
[gunshots]
RUSSELL: In the cocaine factory,
I play one of the bad guys in there.
So, if you see, I actually shoot myself.
[gunshots]
[screams]
ALLAN: I asked him if I could do it instead of just shooting
and hitting the ground.
Could I shoot and be shooting while I'm getting shot?
And just start reeling everybody.
And they'd loved it.
So, I did that and it turned out really cool.
[gunshots]
ALLAN: They put a vest on him, put a harness on him,
and they hooked him up.
-And they just pulled him out. -PAUL: Okay, ready?
Action!
[gunshots]
ALLAN: And it has a great effect.
[robotic music]
ED: Another great hero of post production
that must be mentioned is Frank Urioste.
Frank was this incredible editor that it was seamless.
[gunshots]
FRANK: Paul Verhoeven, he said to me,
"You know why you're so good, Frank?
Because you did so much shit."
[chuckles]
And I said,
"Well, thank you very much, Paul."
So, meaning that in,
that I did films that didn't have very good material.
Yeah, we made it work.
So, when I got good material, it just flew together.
[gunshots]
[grunts]
RON: He would cut on a Moviola
which was still old school in those days.
As most people were now cutting on a-- on a cam,
which was a flatbed.
TERESSA: We turned hotel rooms into editing suites.
We moved all the furniture out of the rooms
at the Hyatt Regency.
This was when it was filmed,
so we put the coding machine in the bathroom.
And the cam in one of the editing rooms.
And Danny and I's benches,
and all the trim bins were in the other room.
Frank, he was one of those old school editors
that would know, in his mind where to go out,
figure out where the in would be,
mark it, splice it.
We'd throw it up and watch it and there it was.
[robot whirs]
FRANK: It's knowing when to cut and not cutting,
it's just a feeling you have, something you can't teach.
I'd seen the movie 40 times with different music on it.
Mostly Jamie Horner's Aliens score.
[gunshots]
PAUL: The whole film was soundtracked by James Horner.
I had to ask James Horner for Flesh and Blood.
And I hated the movie, and he walked out, and said,
"I want nothing-- I want nothing to--
nothing to do with it."
And so, I was not so inclined to go to James Horner,
in fact at that time.
[♪♪♪]
JON: Paul worked incredibly closely with Basil Poledouris
on this score.
I came to Basil
because of uh, of Conan.
[♪♪♪]
PAUL: Basil did the music of-- of Flesh and Blood,
which is 1985.
So, it was a natural choice.
In fact, in this case to come back to Basil.
JON: You know, he'd spend the days in the cutting room,
with Frank Urioste.
And at night, he'd be a at Poledouris' house.
And they worked on this music tirelessly.
BASIL: Composers once in a while,
have the fortune to collide with a picture,
you know that somehow speaks to something
beyond their intellect.
And I mean I think as-- as a musical dramatist,
there's something that goes beyond our normal understanding
of what a film is.
PAUL: He would play piano all the time.
And we would project video
and then he would play and play, and then we would say,
"Try that. Or can you do this?
And we want to see if you use this here
or that there."
And basically it was something very loose.
And then we started writing it,
and basically we went to London and recorded it.
Depending upon the strength with the director
and the imagination of the composer
and the director together,
you could do some outrageously interesting things.
[Playing The Anvil Chorus]
[♪♪♪]
ED: The Robo theme,
which I call The Anvil Chorus, was great.
And Basil is a phenomenal talent obviously.
[♪♪♪]
BASIL: There are no expectations in science fiction.
I've always liked large orchestras and--
and choir.
MARK G: The music emphasizes the plight of RoboCop.
But there's a sadness to this.
There's a wistfulness about this.
[♪♪♪]
BASIL: Sometimes I'll spend 16-20 hours a day
to write five measures.
Because unless it feels like
it has something to do with me and the movie.
'Cause that's truly the blueprint for the way
the cue's going to go.
The dialogue, you have to play softly.
Murphy, it's you.
[♪♪♪]
Explosion.
You'd have to play loud or not at all.
[♪♪♪]
[explosion]
[♪♪♪]
The pace is dictated by the pace of the editing.
The director must play counter to that,
and the pace would need to be fast or slow.
There's just a feeling when I'm writing it,
that there's a-- there's a reality to it.
There's a truth to it.
The music of a movie has the possibility
to elevate a movie as a whole.
[♪♪♪]
Music never sounds as good as it does
on a really good movie.
You know, a really well acted, directed,
and written picture.
Music sounds great.
The whole movie is put on another level basically,
because of the music.
[chorus playing]
JESSE D: It's got that big heroic feel.
It's got that tang, tang.
That metallic sound, to me, I got the feeling of a robot.
It's got synthesized music.
It's got those strings in it.
So, it's got several different textures.
It's a really good, iconic sound.
You know it's RoboCop when you hear it.
[RoboCop theme playing]
BASIL: I tried to absorb myself totally in the picture.
And stay-- and stay in that world,
particularly, if it's a little sci-fi thing.
I don't become those characters, but I certainly think like them.
Really does create the subtext to enhance the visuals.
[♪♪♪]
PAUL: That's what the composer can do for me,
and I always feel that,
without that, the film's incomplete, yeah.
I'm a big fan of film music.
In fact though, I'm a big fan of music, you know?
[indistinct speech]
PAUL: Yeah, jump us into the same moment,
but we can intercut it, yeah.
NANCY: We were shooting in Dallas, Texas.
It was hot.
Really, really hot and humid. And it was just hideous.
PETER: It was 128 degrees inside the thing.
It was a 105 degrees outside.
And that's saying Dallas, Texas,
it was about 128 degrees inside it.
I would lose about 3 pounds of water weight a day.
He lost water weight.
He lost skin, you know.
Because he'd get these rashes underneath.
PETER: The demand that I put on myself, I was running 6 miles a day.
And training for a New York marathon.
PAUL: And action!
KURTWOOD: My stunt guy,
he had to jump onto the roof of this thing.
And then later on,
had to get thrown through these windows.
MICHAEL: That one scene
where Boddicker is thrown the glass...
ROBOCOP: You are under arrest.
When they showed it to police, the police loved it.
And it was one of the favorite scenes
of a lot of my friends.
ROBOCOP: You have the right to remain silent.
[spits]
Fuck you!
MICHAEL: Because a lot of them would have liked
to read the beginning of your rights.
And then throw you through a window.
[scream]
[chuckles]
It's an iconic moment for
I'm sure many officers around the country,
at least in the old age.
ROBOCOP: You have the right to an attorney.
What is this shit?
KURTWOOD: My stunt guy,
they would like spring him through the air.
And they would blow that safety glass.
[glass blowing]
KURTWOOD: There was one window that fortunately
they blew it too early, rather than too late.
PAUL: Thank you.
KURTWOOD'S STUNTMAN: You're welcome.
Just a little bit blood, that's natural I suppose.
Or is it just fake blood?
And one person got injured.
He got shot one back.
And he hit his wrist on the corner,
on the sharp corner of a tool box.
It's pretty severe.
KURTWOOD: They took him to the hospital
and they were fortunate that they had some microsurgeon
who happened to be there.
Otherwise, he would have lost the use of his hand.
Yeah, that scene was really, really hard to shoot.
'Cause the weather was awful, and um, it was just unpleasant.
I've got protection!
PAUL: You have the right to attorney.
KURTWOOD: It's important to me that
you only see Clarence scared with RoboCop.
You cocksucker!
I work for Dick Jones.
Dick Jones!
He's the number 2 guy in OCP.
And that strengthens the character of the hero.
OCP runs the cops!
KURTWOOD: That strengthens RoboCop as well, you know.
You're a cop.
KURTWOOD: And with that,
I thought it was a much deeper film,
and it made you think and it made you feel.
[♪♪♪]
Yes.
I am a cop.
[♪♪♪]
[door opens]
[indistinct chatter in background]
DEL: Kurtwood Smith is handcuffed, right?
When he brings him in and he throws him.
Now, when Robo throws you, you go.
Kurtwood knew that and so he throws him in.
Kurtwood throws himself so hard.
When he hit, he hit me and bounced off,
and he'd hit the desk hard.
And I realized he had hurt himself.
He cracked his ribs on the first take.
Cracked two ribs.
And we did that take about another 11 times.
I could see him hiding it like a football player
who's hiding it.
And he looked at me and he saw me see
the acknowledgment
and then he'd gave me that Boddicker look,
like, "Shut the fuck up."
Kurtwood was fantastic.
I mean, he was so vile, you just wanted just to start...
You know.
PETER: Kurtwood's as brilliant as you get.
He makes the thug the real bad guy.
The guy that knows the jungle is the real bad guy.
Not more Mr. Big.
ROBOCOP: Book him.
What's the charge?
PETER: No, it's not.
It's the guy who's working for him.
It's the gunsel.
ROBOCOP: He's a cop killer.
KURTWOOD: I'm standing there
and I'm surrounded by all these cops.
And I want to look bad, you know.
And so I asked if they could go and put some blood in my mouth.
And I asked Paul, "What if I spit on the desk?"
And Paul,
his eyes kind of lit up and he went,
"You want to spit some blood?
Yes. Mmm.
Yeah, let's try that."
[spits]
And he spit this blood on the--
And the reaction you see from us is real,
because we didn't know it was coming.
We had no idea it was coming.
KURTWOOD: The AD said, "Jon would like to see you."
So, I went to his office.
"Say, Jon, what's up?"
He said, "Well, um, Kurtwood, um...
The studio,
they're kind of concerned about your language in the movie."
[chuckles]
I was like...
I was like, "Really, uh?"
He said, "Yeah, they keep saying,
can't you cut that down?
And I told them that that you just say
what you want." [chuckles]
Fuck you!
I said the word Fuck a lot of that movie.
Listen to me, you fuck!
And a lot of it, I just threw in.
Just give me my fucking phone call.
[RoboCop theme playing]
I see the production designers' job
of kind of keeping the focus and some continuity of style.
I personally like a very bulky, uncluttered look.
I call it and it's been called "The New Brutalism",
when people in the '70s, '80s were designing
those very stark, slabby concrete buildings,
that I find interesting structurally.
It's something that Paul and I liked.
ROCCO: A matte painting is a visual effect
that is a way of altering the look of a location
or a set by the inclusion of painted artwork.
When I saw the picture,
I just couldn't believe what his work did.
You know, there's shooting this wonderful elevator
floating up through OCP.
ROCCO: The interiors of the OCP were shot at a mall
called "the Plaza" at the Americas.
-Jon Davison. -Yeah?
Knows his movies really well.
He came with Roger Corman.
For instance, the interiors
of the OCP building with the elevator shots,
he just told me right out.
He says, "Can we make these reminiscent of the down angles
in the Krell from Forbidden Plant?"
I saw these still photos of the City Hall
that they wanted to use as the base for the skyscraper,
that's the OCP headquarters.
And so I said to them,
"Let's just add enough stories and extend this thing
so it just continues up and out of the top of frames
since we don't really have the budget to do
a bunch of tilting shots or camera move shots."
It was kind of a neat idea
to have this wedge-shaped building
as the base of something that just continues straight up.
They did have me do one very distant shot
of um, Delta City, that you saw the entire height,
when the police car is driving across the bridge.
[Robotic music]
CHARLES: Ronny Cox's character,
you know his office, all that, that was on a studio set.
JON: And the fact that always embarrassed me,
the handheld prop of the tracks RoboCop.
I didn't have any money,
so I made Paul do a lock-off shot.
Because I couldn't track the optical into it.
Because tracking opticals at that point in time
was a big deal.
You know, I wish we could do that over.
Jesus, you really screwed up.
I always felt there needed to be a Kryptonite.
And so, once we had that in the room.
Ed and I started working on the idea of a program that
wouldn't allow RoboCop to attack an executive
of a company that owns him.
You are under arrest.
Oh.
On what charge?
Aiding and abetting a known felon.
MICHAEL MINER: Directive 4 was the Kryptonite.
The way you could not paint yourself into a corner
when he confronts Dick Jones.
You better take me in.
I will.
Dick Jones basically castrates him.
[groans]
PETER KURAN: The only time I actually used any video material
was with Directive 4 in Dick Jones' office.
Any attempt to arrest a senior officer of OCP
results in shutdown.
KEVIN: I remember Pete taking a camera which was probably
his Mitchell photographing monitors.
As he jiggled the cables,
just so he could get a lot of distortion and stuff.
And then composited in individual frames
on the optical printer to give that messed up
that Robovision effect.
JONES: That you're an ordinary police officer?
You're our product.
PETER: With this idea of the hierarchy that's saying,
"We're gonna tell you how to serve the public trust."
And we can't very well
have our products turning against us, can we?
PETER: And in the name of science and progression,
and freedom, and capitalism, and whatever.
Steal everything you own,
which is essentially your identity.
Which is essentially your life.
RoboCop, I think from a technology standpoint,
you know, certainly when you lift his arms,
you can see his armpits, stuff, and things like that.
All that stuff could be repaired now
and would be digitally enhanced.
As far as the core suit goes,
it's still just brilliant modern design.
RON: We don't make movies like we used to anymore.
It was made physical.
It's a physical movie.
JONES: Maybe you'd like to meet a friend of mine.
That thing comes in.
[robo machine whirs]
"I had to kill Bob Morton, because he made a mistake.
And now it's time to erase that mistake."
[growling in back]
[RoboCop main theme playing]
[♪♪♪]