RoboCop/Headscratchers

• Every time Robocop's helmet is removed, his chin guard just seems to... disappear. At first it's on, then we cut to another angle and it's not there anymore. This happens in every incarnation of the franchise, so it must be a deliberate choice. The question is... why did they decide to shoot those scenes like that?
  • You're probably just not supposed to notice. It's the same reason why, the one and only time we see Batman remove his cowl on-screen, the black stuff around his eyes suddenly disappears. In other words, I don't know either, and it bugs me too.
  • In Prime Directives, there is one scene where Robocop removes his helment in one shot, and the chin guard remains.
  • Out of universe answer: It probably just looked weird leaving it on. In universe answer: It probably just falls off at some point between the camera cutting back and forth.
• What idiot decided to load ED-209 with live ammo for a demonstration in a crowded conference room? Even if you're not expecting anything to go wrong, you still shouldn't have that kind of thing just lying around. (Then again, what would ED have done to poor Kinney in lieu of shooting him?)
  • ...probably the same idiot who programmed it to shoot to kill?
    • Why shouldn't it shoot to kill? Being a walking gun platform, any less would be a failure of it's primary design.
      • I believe the troper prior to this one meant shoot to kill at the demonstration.
  • It just goes to show you how much they care about the lives of their fellow employees. It's not even a concern on their minds.
  • Fridge Brilliance, this was a deliberate move to make the program look bad.
    • By whom and why?
    • Maybe the guy who spearheaded the RoboCop project did it.
  • I see this question all the time. I never thought much of it because it was clear that what we see in the boardroom scene is only the beginning of a longer presentation for ED-209. I assume there would have been a part where they would all be led into a shooting gallery (or the shooting gallery would be brought into the room) to demonstrate ED-209's accuracy and prowess; for this, he would have needed live ammunition. Obviously no one expected the thing to malfunction, since it had likely been tested hundreds of times prior; the chances of a guy being murdered were likely considered less than zilch.
  • The scene was a demonstration, not a test. They were about to let ED-209 onto city streets. If they didn't trust it enough to arm it, then they wouldn't have been demonstrating it.
  • Dick was shown to have very little regard for safety and was always getting ahead. He probably ordered it be armed for the demonstation. In the scene in the executives toilet, we see all the other executives on the company flee (one while not being finished yet, leaving a large stain on his pants), so it's safe to guess nobody wanted to question his order...
  • Then they do it AGAIN with Cain...
    • Cain was probably scheduled for deployment immediately after.
    • Also, Doctor Fax seems to have a bizarre and unhealthy infatuation with Cain (or at least with Cain as Robocop 2) perhaps out of narcissism, or at the very least was fully convinced that her hold over him with promised Nuke was absolute. It's likely she simply trusted him not to abuse his guns in the presentation, and Cain could give less than two shits with the double wammy of the Old Man waving a Nuke canister within reach and Robocop walking in.
    • Plus Cain had already been deployed to deal with at least one little problem, they presumably armed him for that. The demonstration was just his official unveiling, they probably didn't bother to take the live rounds out... especially since they had him on a leash, or so they thought.

• An amusing bit of Fridge Logic (This is one of this troper's favorite movies, I saw it a year after it was released when I was a kid, but it didn't hit me till a few months ago while driving home from work): How in the hell did Clarence survive being arrested? I'm not talking about being thrown through half a dozen plateglass windows, but how do you survive being a cop killer arraigned in Detroit, in a police station that had lost several cops to him in the last several months? It practically screams You're not getting out of there. Only hiding behind Dick Jones could have saved him.
  • "Just give me my fuckin' phone call..."
  • The fact that RoboCop, the arresting officer, taped himself committing an act of blatant police brutality might have had something to do with that. Clarence may have been a cop killer, but even the most incompetent attorney in the world could have gotten him off when that came to light.
    • I wouldn't be so sure about the outcome of that case. OCP owns the police and RoboCop specifically. I wouldn't be surprised if the company had a crack team of lawyers dedicated solely to handling cases of police brutality.
      • While true, this is a moot point. Clarence was acting on the orders of an OCP employee.

• ED-209 was supposedly designed for "urban pacification". I can see it possibly being deployed in urban war zones alongside regular infantry, but as a replacement for a police force? Police officers are also supposed to arrest people and bring them in for questioning. All ED-209 could do is shoot and blow things up. It couldn't even use stairs. Plus, would anybody really want to move somewhere with killer deathbots patrolling the streets?
  • ED-209 being big, stupid, and inefficient was the whole point, as I understand it.
  • As Jones succinctly put it, "Who cares if the damn thing works". Pacifying Old Detroit was just to drum up publicity. The real money was in getting the military to buy, and they were interested.
  • ED-209 wasn't meant to clean up the streets in the traditional sense. Old Detroit had to be cleared for the construction of Delta City. The idea was to blow away a few criminals to demonstrate that OCP isn't kidding around, and everyone will be running out scared.
  • Also, while they wanted to clear out Old Detroit, the ultimate plan was to sell ED-209 to the military, thus the militaristic "urban pacification" term rather than something like "urban peacekeeping". In a military role, ED-209 would presumably be deployed into enemy urban environments where, if its target retreated into a building, ED-209 could either scan for heat signatures and just shoot through the walls or, even more thoroughly and efficiently, just missile the building and bring it down. Obviously it couldn't do that in "friendly" territory, but Dick's plan seems to have just been to use its police performance as a bit of an advertisement to the military.
• Why doesn't RoboCop show the evidence of Dick Jones's wrongdoing to the cops and have them arrest Dick?
  • He was the cops. Granted, he should have let someone know what he was doing before heading out, and left a copy of the evidence somewhere, but he did have the authority to walk into Jones' office and arrest him. Of course, how well the charges would have stuck is another question. Recording or not, all RoboCop really had for evidence was the unsubstantiated testimony of a drug dealer who had murdered a cop and was trying to keep the officer taking him down from summarily lynching him. A good attorney could convince a jury that Boddicker was making that testimony up to protect himself - especially if Boddicker suffered an accident before he could reveal any physical evidence linking him to Jones before it comes to trial (Which the local police wouldn't try to hard to prevent given that he had murdered a cop).
    • That's what I meant. However I'm pretty sure he had video of Dick Jones confessing after confronting him with his evidence.
    • Yep, the video has Dick making a direct confession. Ofcourse video can always be manipulated.

• • • • Indeed, he played that video in front of the OCP board
• Why was the gun that Jones brought in for the ED-209 demonstration still there when Robo tried to arrest Jones four months later?
  • What makes you think it was the same gun? Same model, perhaps, but it's not like they just left the gun lying on the floor. Jones just had the same model gun as his own gun.
    • The gun in the demonstration was taken from a case. The gun Jones used to hold the Old Man hostage as taken from an identical case that was lying on a side table.
    • The case doesn't look like a demonstration case. It looks like an expensive custom case for an expensive gun. This troper just assumed that it belongs to the Old Man, and he keeps it in the board room as a symbolic gesture of his power, as well as means of self-defense in the case some nutcase managed to get through his security.

• Here's one that kinda annoys me. Robocop is, by directive or nature, a cop. So why is he putting so many pullets into the center-mass of everyone he shoots at? While I don't deny cops have the right to use lethal force, Robocop has outstanding targeting abilities and would be perfectly capable of putting a round into a criminals kneecap, taking them out of the fight without a kill count.
  • You can still fire a gun with a busted kneecap. The only way to reliably, totally take someone out of a fight using a gun is to use lethal force. Fleshwounds aren't, and if the wound isn't enough to at least send them into shock, they're going to be more than capable of firing back.
  • "Shoot to maim" is only used in potentially dangerous circumstances like the person is reaching for a gun. If the situation evolves into emminent danger that means they are an immediate threat (gun in hand) and you shoot center mass.'
  • Do also keep in mind that they wanted to use RoboCop to "deal" with the criminals in Detroit... Deal here meaning getting rid of them.
  • There also really isn't anything such as "shoot to maim". If the gun comes out, it's to use lethal force. If you don't intend to use lethal force, you use a club, mace, or taser. (Or, as Robocop does, simply smack them around a bit.) Cops are trained (right or wrong) to immediately draw their gun and respond with deliberately lethal force if they feel their life or someone else's life is in immediate danger. And, pretty much every time Robocop does draw his gun and plug somebody, it's because they're threatening someone. If it's just some punk shooting at him with a gun that doesn't even scratch his armor, he grabs them and tosses them against a convenient hard surface. If it's some asshole with a gun to somebody's head, he puts bullets through them. Honestly he probably resorts to lethal force less often than a real-world police officer in his situations would do.
• Why on Earth would somone design an urban pacification military bot that is not only incapable of walking on stairs, but is actually surprised by the fact that stairs even EXIST?
  • It's not that they meant to design it that way, it's that They Just Didn't Care. Dick Jones says outright that the plan was to establish a lucrative military contract, spare parts and all. "Who cares if it worked or not?"