RoboCop (character)

This article is about the character. For the film, see RoboCop. For the video game, see RoboCop (video game).

Closeup of RoboCop.

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.

History

Originally, Robocop was a dedicated Detroit police officer named Alex Murphy who was recently assigned to the West Precinct, the most violent area of Old Detroit. During a gunfight against a drug lord named Clarence Boddicker in a steel mill, Alex Murphy was shot to death by Boddicker and his gang while his partner, Anne Lewis, was incapacitated, and his body was then used in the construction of Robocop.

Prime directives

File:RoboCop - Directive 4 DRM.png

Directive 4

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. In the first movie, it made him unable to act against corrupt Vice-President Richard "Dick" Jones until Jones was fired by the chairman of OCP.

In RoboCop 3, Directive Four is labelled 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.

Weapons

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RoboCop's primary weapon; it is a 9mm handgun that fires in three round bursts. which is stored in a mechanical holster which deploys from his right leg. This weapon is essentially a modified Beretta 93R.

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 M82A1A 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.

Machine gun/launcher

This weapon made its appearance in RoboCop 3 and was never reference by name. It works by mounting on to one of RoboCop's arms. The weapon contains a machine gun, anti-tank launcher and flame thrower.

Mini-gun/cannon

This weapon appears in Frank Miller's RoboCop comic book.

Visor

RoboCop's visor contains a 4x zoom scope 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 visor also contains a grid which is crucial to RoboCop's targeting as well as bullet trajectory, though apparently the targeting reticle of RoboCop is seemingly internal to him, as seen in the first movie. The visor also has a recorder which can detect voice fluctuations as well as play back recordings at 30 frames per second. Besides this the 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.

Body structure

RoboCop's body, while built upon the corpse of Alex Murphy, is titanium with steel backing and is also kevlar laminated. When shot at, the kevlar coating will slowly break off but will provide as much protection until that certain area of body armor has been shot off. Being made of titanium, RoboCop is incredibly resilient against both bombs and bullets, as well as getting hit by cars and any other injuries. 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.

RoboCop's arms, legs and other appendages contain tubes through which the blood for RoboCop's biological organs flows. In RoboCop 2 RoboCop's right arm contained a signal that alerted personnel to his health status. RoboCop's hands also contain motors strong enough to crush every bone in a human hand (at 400 foot pounds as mentioned in RoboCop). His right hand also contains a data jack in the shape of a spike 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.