Giant Freakin Robot

Over two years ago, a random Twitter user showcased his genius by calling out Detroit’s mayor, Dave Bing, to get a RoboCop statue up in their city. “Philadelphia has a statue of Rocky & Robocop would kick Rocky’s butt,” said the tweet. “He’s a GREAT ambassador for Detroit.” Bing tweeted back that Detroit had “not any plans to erect a statue to Robocop,” but thanked him for the suggestion. An Internet outcry then got this successful Kickstarter fund in place, which raised over $67,000 on a $50,000 goal. So where are they now?

Over 90 percent of the foam elements have been completed in full detail, as new photos show us. According to Imagination Station’s director of development Brandon Walley, the foam will be completed at the British Columbia company Across the Board Creations before moving over to Detroit’s Venus Bronze Works to get the bronze molding and pouring. There is no real time frame for the project’s completion, but it’s more an issue of quality rather than being delayed for any reason.

“We’re looking at it hopefully being put in place by the end of summer next year,” Walley said. “We’re not so concerned with the end time right now. It’s just making sure it’s perfect in terms of look.” Check out the pieces below.

Director Paul Verhoeven has certainly had his share of success in the science fiction genre. His sci-fi films such as RoboCop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers have made him a cult icon, and his films ushered in a new era of science fiction movies in the late 1980s. Considering how popular his SF flicks have been, they’re also ripe for the Hollywood remake machine. We’ve already seen one in the abysmal Total Recall remake from director Len Wiseman, and we’re slated to get another one next year with Jose Padilha’s remake of Verhoeven’s 1987 classic RoboCop. Needless to say, Verhoeven is not a fan of this trend.

In an interview with the Huffington Post’s Mike Ryan, the Dutch director opens up about Hollywood’s remakes of his early films. Wiseman’s Total Recall also adapted Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” but the two directors’ approaches couldn’t be more different. Verhoeven succeeded in making a sci-fi classic largely by not taking the source material too seriously. Verhoeven says:

It’s too serious. They took themselves very seriously and didn’t realize that the big story is also strange. And impossible, of course. But, I felt that it was strange. I felt the movie, in some way, should not take itself too seriously. In fact, ultimately, the casting of Arnold — he was already cast before I was there. So I had to take Arnold. I liked the script already, but Arnold was playing the main part. So, take it or leave it. I said I wanted to do it with Harrison Ford, like in Blade Runner. But I might have made a mistake because Blade Runner is also very serious.

Since we first heard Sony was going to remake the classic 1987 sci-fi/action movie RoboCop, reactions from fans have been mixed. RoboCop is a near perfect movie, so why remake it at all? As production on the film started, photo and video leaks emerged on the Internet that showcased a new version of RoboCop that many fans weren’t happy with. But could all the naysayers be wrong?

In an interview with VH1, Australian actor Abbie Cornish spoke candidly about the upcoming RoboCop remake. She called the movie “massively kick-ass” and said,

“I actually have a voicemail message from José Padilha, the director,” Cornish said. “He says in the message, ‘I don’t think we’ve got a great movie. I think we’ve got a classic.’”

A classic? The movie doesn’t come out for another year, so it’s probably a bit premature to be throwing the word “classic” around. Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original film is a classic, which is why the remake seems pointless in the first place.

The film may turn out to be better than expected considering the director involved. José Padilha is a fantastic director from Brazil with very strong movies, including Elite Squad and its sequel Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, under his belt. RoboCop is Padilha’s first English-language film, but from reports about the production being “hell” and middling reviews of early script leaks, it certainly doesn’t sound a classic in the making.

Over the past few months we’ve seen numerous leaked photos and videos of the upcoming remake of José Padilha’s RoboCop. Now an image of an Omnicorp humanoid drone model EM-208 has found its way onto the Internet. Apparently the EM-208 will be used to work with the ED-209 in the new movie. Check out the image below.