Chuck Does RoboCop

[amigocabal]

http://sfdebris.com/videos/films/robocop.php

I definitely liked it, especially as he explains the themes of the movie. Chuck also explains the difficulties in filming the movie. (No wonder they had to film in Dallas. There was no way they could have afforded filming in southern California.)

Chuck also points out that Bob Morton was not a good guy. Morton, after all, restructured the police department to place prime candidates according to risk factor. (Does this mean he was the boss of the Detroit police chief? Morton would not have been able to restructure the police department without being the boss of the police chief.)

There is one plot hole that I noticed.
Spoiler

Bank robbery is a federal crime, as is killing people during a bank robbery, or during flight from the scene of a bank roberry. This mean that Clarence Boddicker's robbery, as well as killing Alex Murphy, were federal crimes, the latter which would be a capital offense. He would certainly be among the FBI's Most Wanted.

Which begs this question. When the Detroit police were given the order to release Boddicker, why did they not release him to the FBI? Letting the feds take care of this would mean that he would face the death penalty for killing one of their own (a penalty not available under Michigan state law). Plus, they would have followed the order to the letter. (It is not as if Dick Jones could order them to shield Boddicker from the FBI without begging some uncomfortable questions.)

[Purple]

My guess would be that by the time police forces start getting privatized your country has already gone far enough down the road of privatization that the FBI is either too weak or worse privatized it self to try and intervene in anything deemed to be of corporate interest.

[Gandalf]

I just assumed that OCP bought the jurisdiction of the area from the FBI as well as buying the local cops.

[amigocabal]

My guess would be that by the time police forces start getting privatized your country has already gone far enough down the road of privatization that the FBI is either too weak or worse privatized it self to try and intervene in anything deemed to be of corporate interest.

It did appear to me that Detroit was a special case though, as it was basically bankrupt.

I just assumed that OCP bought the jurisdiction of the area from the FBI as well as buying the local cops.

Well...
Spoiler

I guess it is plausible for Dick Jones to have friends in federal law enforcement, especiallty tyhe kind of friends that come with a fee.

I do understand why, in the sequel, Cain was able to avoid the FBI and DEA, even though he was suspected in killing the U.S. surgeon general. Even setting aside the almost-certainty that Cain was paying off some corrupt members of the FBI and DEA, few people had any idea of where to find him, or even what he looked like. It took someone local to find enough leads to confront him.

On another note, here is the fourth draft of the script.

http://robocoparchive.com/info/robocop1-script.pdf

Note that the 34th draft places the movie in 2043, instead of the early 1990's in the finished film.

[Solauren]

Given that the Police were on the verge of going on strike, it's possible, as part of some 'escalating job action' or some other stupidity, they simply didn't call the FBI to say they had him.

OR

it's possible the FBI were handed him, and released him after Dick Jones paid one hell of a bail.

OR

With Robocop ordered destroyed, Clarence's arrest was invalidated/illegal, and the FBI HAD to let him go so he didn't get off on a technicality.

[Sea Skimmer]

Okay, yeah and if the police went on strike, why wouldn't the national guard called out to replace them? That entire idea shouldn't matter the way its made out, or the way it works out in the next movie (Robocop 3 being too bad to even be talked about) Meanwhile how can you BUY a city when a city charter is an independent legal document separate from property ownership? Allodial land does not exist in the US. That's by far the biggest plot hole in the movie, but an equally irrelevant one as this, because this was a movie clearly set in an unrealistic satire universe in the first place.

Plus no Feds/FBI/Military or in the case of the A-Team, no Feds or FBI but a military which randomly has gained police powers within CONUS yet is totally inept at using them, were all standard tropes anyway. Frankly the crime rate spike in the 1980s was so crazy, peaking probably because of leaded gasoline poisoning, that some of this sounded a lot more reasonable at the time. Federal police agencies fielded manpower have never really been all that great.

Also if the feds gave a damn about anything it wouldn't be the damn bank robbery Boddicker pulled. It'd be about the huge number of illegal machine guns being used, and the giant piles of drugs! But none of that would matter if Omni Corp had simply bribed the right people, or already replaced them with its own stooges and just told them to release him on bond.

[NeoGoomba]

The firearms being illegal bit may not even be that much of an issue. There might not have been a ban on automatic weapons in the USA of Old Detroit. If OCP and its peers are the ones manufacturing most of these weapons in the first place, they may have simply paid for the political muscle to remove firearm restrictions.

I don't recall seeing any "use of illegal firearms" charges listed against Boedeker when Robocop was going through his priors.

[amigocabal]

Okay, yeah and if the police went on strike, why wouldn't the national guard called out to replace them? That entire idea shouldn't matter the way its made out, or the way it works out in the next movie (Robocop 3 being too bad to even be talked about) Meanwhile how can you BUY a city when a city charter is an independent legal document separate from property ownership? Allodial land does not exist in the US. That's by far the biggest plot hole in the movie, but an equally irrelevant one as this, because this was a movie clearly set in an unrealistic satire universe in the first place.

OCP would own all city property, including the roads. Thus, they could practically run the city (like how Disney practically runs the Disneyland resort).

Plus no Feds/FBI/Military or in the case of the A-Team, no Feds or FBI but a military which randomly has gained police powers within CONUS yet is totally inept at using them, were all standard tropes anyway.

to be fair, the A-Team was a low priority for Army CID (the part of the Army which would be responsible for apprehending military fugitives) , as they were only accused of robbing a bank in enemy territory during time of war.

[Adam Reynolds]

As far as numbers are concerned, there are only slight more FBI agents in the entire nation(13000) as there are officers in the LAPD(10000). The rest of federal law enforcement brings up the total to 105,000. Total state and local law enforcement comes out to around 765,000.

As for the National Guard, in California, they outnumber the LAPD 2-1(22000). The total national guard for the entire nation is slightly under 470,000.