On a list of Detroit’s biggest problems, the lack of a statue honoring RoboCop would seem to rank rather low.
For SOME people. For some.
Yet in a city where some of the most prominent buildings have sat vacant for decades and booting a scandal-plagued mayor out of office took eight months, raising $50,000 to produce and install a 7-foot-tall iron replica of the crime-fighting cyborg was accomplished in a mere six days.
More than 1,600 people agreed to chip in an average of $17 through a Web site, DetroitNeedsRoboCop.com, and half of the target amount was contributed by a San Francisco company that specializes in turning fake consumer products from movies and television shows into reality.
Hooray! The RoboCop will film one of those Super Bowl commercials with Eminem and a drunken Miguel Cabrera at the wheel of a Chrysler, and then you all will stop alternately pitying and making jokes about Detroit. You monsters. [NYT]
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Well the residents of Detroit had extra money to burn since they didn't spend it on football tickets for last season.
And they just like to burn stuff! What? I can say it, I grew up near there.
Robots Unite. Worker Solidarity and Collective Bargaining Now!
I'll buy that for a dollar! Hahaha!!
Online donation from someone called "SkyNet."
I bet the donors were all OCP employees….
Holy shit, it WAS OCP!!!
"Not coincidentally, the company, Omni Consumer Products, shares its name with the villainous conglomerate that tried to turn a dystopian Detroit into Delta City in the 1987 science-fiction film."
When art imitates life imitating art.
This is good news for ED-209!
It's amazing how obsessed Detroit is with Robocop. See here for further evidence. It's almost as though, I dunno, Robocop was LITERALLY the best thing the city had going for it.
It's like Philly and Rocky- at first it's amusing, but the more you think about the fixation and why those cities love these fictional characters from terrible movies, the sadder and sadder you become about it. At least with Robocop, it's merely because Detroit is a city completely choked by crime, rather than being an Unfortunate Implications-ful movie about white blue-collar resentment towards minorities dressed up as something something boxing movie.
Nah, it's only old Italian people in South Philly (most of whom are racist; luckily their kids aren't) who are obsessed with Rocky.
Wouldn't it be cheaper just to paint Peter Weller silver and have stand on a street corner.
Much like his alter-ego Buckaroo Banzai, Peter Weller's a real Renaissance man:
It was so weird to find; like learning that Brian May of Queen is an astrophysicist, and Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years a mathematician.
And, Brian May isn't some brainiac-come-lately. He was doing this 'thinking' thing way back when the band was pumping out hits. Great 'Fresh Air' interview with him a couple weeks back on the soon to be defunded NPR socialist broadcast system.
Not sure about him, but I think the guy from AirWolf is looking for a gig.
I like Detroit. I like RoBo Cop. I like macaroni and cheese. Can Detroit make a macaroni and cheese RoBo Cop?
Meanwhile, OCP moves into Wisconsin…
Detroit=UAW=Crinimals+Unions=RoBo Cop with a big bat with Scott Walker's name on it.
Who said I couldn't do hard math stuff?
Is Peter Weller getting a royalty fee?
… because the Eminem statue would just cuss out all the women who would pass by.
Anyone know the Blue Book on a bullet-riddled 6000 SUX?
Best factoid in all of this: RoboCop was filmed in Houston, Texas.
Perfect location for futuristic dystopia.
Dallas.
Forgive the question and the threadjack, but what is the purpose of a liveblog if you are going to disable the comments?
I have important slacking off to do at work, people!
It's only the begining Tommm
(they're heeerre)
Wow, that's the municipality version of sticking their head in the sand. They'd be less laughed at if they'd just named a city handgun–I understand they have a few of those there.
To be very clear, this is a group of private investors the that both the city council and mayor rebuffed as crazy. Detroiters would much rather not be defined by a stature for a character in a movie about a (more) dystopian Detroit.
Detroit doesn't want this statue. Period.
Jack, can we haz comments on liveblog?
In the future, even the robotic cops will be Irish.
"raising $50,000 to produce and install a 7-foot-tall iron replica of the crime-fighting cyborg was accomplished in a mere six days"
It should take some irony-loving thieves about six minutes to steal it tonight.
Why did you "Lou Jack" the liveblog, Stuef?!
Can we rename some ill-kept town San Andreas? I know of lots of adventures that could happen there.
When your a Jet you're a Jet for life, etc, whatever.
RoboCops folks already think he's big in Deetriot City.
A statue? Meh. Call me when it actually starts to fight crime or blow shit up or do something cool.
Or when somebody builds an army of Cylons.
I don't need an army. Just a couple of Sixs and Starbucks.
I'd buy that for a dollar!
The best thing is that the statute will sell crack cheap.
The irony is that this group wants to erect the statue in front of Detroit's massive, abandoned historic train station, which is basically the first big building you see when crossing over from Canada. In other words, it's the perfect welcome and representation of America to Canadians. Bienvenue, muthafuckas.
Some dude in Oakland put up half ($25,000) the donations to get this thing built. It'd be nice if he'd put this thing up in Oakland.
They should put it up in front of Lee Iacocca Elementary School.
If RoboCop was not all about how Detroit is choked with crime and if the film was not shot entirely in Dallas, this might make some sort of sense.
Also this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pOoSe2K5DU
Or this http://video.adultswim.com/family-guy/dig-em.html
Meh. We (Minneapolis) have a statue of Mary Tyler Moore downtown. Exciting No? The statue is posed as though she’s about to launch her hat into the air, as seen on TeeVee.
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