back to article RoboCop statue fundraiser hits $50k

The Detroit RoboCop statue looks to be a goer after an online fundraising campaign reached the $50k target well ahead of the deadline. RoboCop Brandon Walley and chums recently enlisted the help of internetizens to back their demand for a permanent tribute to the protagonist of Paul Verhoeven's 1987 movie. Walley and …

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  1. Smallbrainfield
    Thumb Up

    STAY OUT OF TROUBLE

    should be the motto underneath.

    1. Matt Gerrish

      Or indeed...

      Bitches, Leave!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Alert

      Nah

      I think a far more suitable one, esp for the unscrupulous street ladies of Detroit-

      'Dead or alive, you're coming with me'.

      Either way, Murphy always was a bit clean lipped, esp in relation to the rest of the cast.

      Either way, I dread to think what pose he'll be in, I'm presuming it wont be dramatic gun pointed, leg holster open?

      Surely he'll be standing tall and straight, gun well and truly holstered, hands on hips like an old Superman comic front page? Most likely I feel. Its a shame, that cool Auto 9 alteration of the M9 pistol frame is a pretty cool gun!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Whatever next?

    Whos going to back the campaign to get a 7ft tall Clockwork Orange Droog on the riverbank in Thamesmead?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Mayor Bing, you are expected to comply

    Mayor Bing, you have 30 seconds to comply

  4. NightFox
    Black Helicopters

    </title>

    Hmm... Mayor Bing, whose wife just happens to be on the board of OCP...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    More Meldrewing

    Sorry but .... it almost makes me want to cry that people will give this much money for something like this, yet probably don't give anything at all to people genuinely in need. Just think what $50k could do in a place like Detroit .......

    ... and no I don't mean it could pay for a statue of Robocop

    1. juice

      Feed the soul...

      There's definitely an argument to be made for spending the money on "tangible" benefits - you could fund a soup kitchen for a few months or similar.

      But a project like this can have intangible benefits which would be longer lasting and actually more valuable - it raises the profile of Detroit in a positive way for both the inhabitants and the rest of the world. As such, it may give a boost to tourism and/or bring in more charitable ventures - and you never know, renewed interest in Robocop may even help bring about a decent movie sequel, which you'd hope would be at least partially filmed in Chicago...

      Then too, I'd hope that at least part of the $50k will be spent within the local economy - looking at the pledge site, the artist has worked in Detroit before, which implies he's based in that area. And as the pledge site itself says:

      "UPDATE: We've reached the $50,000 goal with the help of many many supporters and a very generous contribution from Pete Hottelet at www.omniconsumerproductscorporation.com, but you can still contribute, so please keep backing the project. All the reward levels still stand, and we're currently discussing how to branch this project and fundraising into bigger and bigger things with a better and better impact on Detroit. Thank you, everybody! Wow. "

      1. Jaruzel
        Terminator

        Decent Movie Sequel...

        ... One can only dream.

        Robocop 2 was bad in a second-movie kind of way, but the kiddie friendly Robocop 3 was a travesty in sequel making equal almost to Highlander 2.

        Although, the two Made-for-DVD movies weren't THAT bad.. And the Graphic Novel IS Awesome...

        -Jar

        Terminator coz theres no Robocop icon! (el reg, please add one!)

        1. Simon Neill

          DVD movies

          weren't there 4 not 2?

          1. Daniel B.
            Happy

            DVD movies?

            I think the "DVD Movies" are actually the miniseries "Robocop: Prime Directives" which consisted of 4 episodes. Yes, they were good enough for me to overlook the dating blunder in the graveyard scenes.

            1. Jaruzel
              FAIL

              DVD Movies...

              Yup - I got it wrong. It's the Prime Directives Miniseries which on DVD is 4 'Movies' - I watched them back to back - which is why I thought it was 2 not 4. My bad :)

        2. juice
          Terminator

          We can but hope...

          Yeah... the poor ol' metalhead has been on something of a downward slope since the first movie. I think the trouble is that noone's ever been sure what to do with him and most attempts have used clumsy parody (e.g. the malfunctioning 'bots in Robocop 2) instead of the biting satire in the original.

          Bizarrely, both Robocop 2 and 3 were based on scripts by Frank Miller - R3 was actually meant to be more faithful to his original script for Robocop 2 (which wasn't meant to be all that great to begin with, originally), but was hog-tied by a combination of crap rewrites, a bankrupt produciton company and severe cuts to make it a PG-13 kiddy-friendly movie.

          What I'd actually love to see is a movie treatment of the Robocop vs Terminator graphic novel - though having seen what happened to Aliens vs Predator, perhaps it's best to not let Hollywood near the concept. Still, both franchises are in need of a reboot...

      2. The Indomitable Gall

        If there's a derelict city block going cheap....

        If there's a derelict city block going cheap, there's no reason Robocop couldn't live in a wooded park. Space could be left to build an ED-209 later, too.

    2. The Fuzzy Wotnot
      Happy

      I agree....

      ....however sometimes you cannot help everyone, as someone once said, "The poor will always be with us.".

      Sometimes it's far more benefit to feed the soul than feed the gut and this is the US remember, where this is quite apt in quite a few cases!

    3. Tom 13

      Reality check: Detroit is in the shape it is in,

      precisely because too many twits took that attitude when spending other people's money.

  6. Matt Gerrish
    IT Angle

    Mayor

    Bing ?

    Does he use Google?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Or

    "Thank you for your co-operation."

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fun as this is, Detroit has serious problems

    almost like a sad parody of the events in the film, Mayor Bing is currently having to close swathes of the city because Detroit can no longer afford to provide policing and municipal services. With the collapse of the motor industry upon which Michigan depends, people are out of work and living in poverty in vast numbers or fleeing the area entirely, with whole city blocks which used to be thriving communities now lying dormant, denuded of houses and returning to nature, the domain of packs of feral dogs which were themselves put out on the streets when their owners could no longer afford to feed them. Against such a backdrop, I think there are better things that could be done with that $50k right now.

    1. Jedit Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Give a man a fish...

      One night in a motel and dinner at a restaurant will come to $50 no trouble. So if just 1000 people who would otherwise not have gone to Detroit come to visit the statue and have their photo taken, Detroit will be better off than if that $50k had been spent on anything else.

      Give a man a fish, and he's fed for a day. Let him put up a seven foot statue of Robocop arresting a fish, and ... well, he's maybe not fed for life, but he'll be fed for a bit longer.

      Paris, because she's always willing to put the grip on your cods for one night.

    2. CaptainHook
      WTF?

      Detroits Problems

      Detroit is indeed in serious problems. There are even talks of bullbozing 2000 acres of the city and turning it into a farm and the city giving houses to anyone who is willing to pay the outstanding property taxes.

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8890510.stm

    3. Tom 13

      Actually, there's nothing better to be done in Detroit than

      having a bunch of individuals raise and spend money as they choose to rather than sending it off to clueless buffoons in local government. A bit more of Detroit allowing private enterprise to thrive might have avoided the whole problem.

  9. Matt Hawkins
    Grenade

    Dead or alive you are coming with me ...

    Robocop was the best thing that ever happened to Detroit.

    If they built a Robocop statue people might actually want to visit the place to see it.

    1. Havin_it
      Stop

      Best thing to happen to Detroit?

      I think Berry Gordy might disagree with you there...

      Icon: ...in the name of love

  10. Markie Dussard
    FAIL

    The fly in the ointment is ...

    ... the tiresome fact that many of the exteriors for the original movie were actually filmed in Dallas. During the car chase scenes you can often seen Reunion Tower in the background.

  11. hokum
    Thumb Up

    The best part...

    ...when the human race is extinct this statue is gonna blow some future archeologist's mind.

    1. BorkedAgain

      And on the pedestal these words appear:

      "My name is Murphy, cop of cops

      Dead or alive you're coming with me!"

      Nothing besides remains. Round the decay

      Of that iron-clad wreck, boundless and bare

      The ruins of Old Detroit stretch far away.

      (Apologies to Shelley)

      1. HFoster
        Pint

        See Icon

        Please, enjoy several beers on me!

  12. Livlondon
    Pint

    Any chance...

    of a similar statue in Camden Town of Richard E. Grant & Paul McGann?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm...

    I still say it should be an ED-209.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    Mazinger Z statue

    Ever heard of the Mazinger statue in Spain? People drive for hours to get their photo at it's feet

    http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=703075&t=k

  15. The Grump
    Coffee/keyboard

    Are you SURE you want that statue ?

    Actually, Robocop portrays current Detroit pretty much accurately, except for the hollywood tech - it's a politically corrupt human cesspool. If I were the Mayor of Detroit, I wouldn't want to attract the tourists attention to THAT movie. Doesn't exactly make me want to jump on the next plane to Detroit, you know?

    Escape, because that's what Detroit residents want to do. They have more empty houses than any other US city. Besides, it's damned cold there. Brrrrrrr...

  16. James O'Brien
    Coat

    I'd Buy That For a Dollar!!

    $$

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