RoboCop: A look at the original trilogy

Robocop is back! In fact, he's been back for some time, since Robocop 3 was actually shot in 1991, with every intention of releasing it in that year.

The unusual situation of such a major production being left lying in a film vault for more than two years after its original release date was caused by the minor inconvenience of the production company, Orion Pictures, going bankrupt. Now they're back, and Robocop 3 is back on the road. But let's go back three years, to the original Robocop, in order to find out just what makes this robot rozzer tick.

America: the near future. The city of Old Detroit is crumbling, decomposing, crime ridden. The hard up city council has contracted out its dangerously overstretched police force to a private firm, Omni Consumer Products. OCP needs to eliminate the soaring crime rate in order to carry out its plan to build a new metropolis, Delta City, on the site of Old Detroit. Security Systems head Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) unveils the ED-209, a huge fearsome Enforcement Droid which has only one disadvantage in the war against crime: it doesn't work! Rival OCP executive Morton (Miguel Ferrer, son of Jose) steps in with his alternative proposal, RoboCop. The Old Man (Dan O'Herlihy), head of OCP, gives the idea the green light. Police Officer Alex J. Murphy is horribly injured by a group of criminals led by Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith), head crime boss of Old Detroit, and left for dead. He dies on the operating table and is deemed the perfect candidate for cybernetic conversion into RoboCop. The bulletproof, heavily armed RoboCop soon terrifies the criminals of Old Detroit, but things start to go wrong for the OCP project when Murphy's "wiped" memory begins to return. On seeing one of Boddicker's gang robbing a petrol station, Murphy begins to search for his own killers.

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