ED-209

ED-209
RoboCop character
The ED-209 in RoboCop
First Episode Appearance	RoboCop
Created by	Ed Neumeier Michael Miner
Character played by	Jon Davison
In-universe information
Manufacturer	Omni Consumer Products

The Enforcement Droid Series 209, or ED-209, is a fictional robot in the RoboCop franchise. The ED-209 serves as a heavily-armed obstacle and foil for the series' titular character, as well as a source of comic relief due to its lack of intelligence and tendency towards clumsy malfunctions.

The ED-209 was designed by Craig Davies, who also built the full size models, and animated by Phil Tippett, a veteran stop-motion animator. Davies and Tippett would go on to collaborate on many more projects. As one of the setpieces of the movie, the ED-209’s look and animated sequences were under the close supervision of director Paul Verhoeven, who sometimes acted out the robot's movements himself.

The ED-209 is featured in every RoboCop major motion picture, while it is missing from the series’ direct-to-video releases and the television series (although an ED with a different model number is present).

Design

Director Paul Verhoeven made it clear very early on that ED-209 shouldn't look “cute.” He wanted the robot to look hard and mean. For this reason, various common robot features were left out. There are no eyes on the ED-209, for instance, since Craig Davies believed they conveyed too much emotion as well as being clichéd. According to RoboCop writer Ed Neumeier, the ED-209 robot was designed to resemble a bipedal Vietnam War-era Huey helicopter. The robot's digitigrade stance makes ED-209 a so-called chicken walker.

Craig Hayes (then Davies) also incorporated his ideas about modern 1980s American design, especially car design, into the robot. He envisioned futuristic designers making the robot look good in order to make it marketable before they made it work well, “just like an American car.” The crew commentary audio track on the Criterion Collection DVD release confirms the obvious allusion to ridiculous corporate design policies, with such features as a clearly over-designed hydraulic system, over-attention paid to aesthetics and the placement of vulnerable features such as the radiator grill on the very front of the robot.

The audio for the ED-209 was created by Stephen Flick and John Pospisil of audio effects company Screaming Lizard. The hydraulic heavy machinery feel of the robot was comprised of various motor and piston noises. An intimidating growl produced by ED-209 in the first movie was created by playing a jaguar growl backwards. Its distorted human voice was recorded by the film’s executive producer Jon Davison. It was never intended to be in RoboCop’s theatrical release and was only recorded for an initial screening. However, it was kept as the voice of ED-209 all the way to the theaters.

The original full-scale 'ED' currently resides at Tippett Studios in Berkeley, California, as well as the original stop-motion puppets. The paint and armament scheme was reconfigured for RoboCop 3, and is how the full-scale ED-209 is preserved.

The ED-209’s primary weapon in all films are three 20mm cannons, two on the left arm and one on the right arm. The left arm contains two external high-capacity ammo magazines and the right arm one which snap into place when the guns are armed. The robot also uses its gun pod to point down and move upward again to uppercut its opponents as it did to RoboCop when the two fought against each other. It also featured a three-round rocket launcher on its right arm and twin launchers for mortar rounds or gas grenades behind its head. The grenade launchers are never used on film, but are shown on models and schematics of the ED-209. It is also discussed in the first film that once it has proven itself in Delta City it would be marketed to the military, explaining the extremely powerful weaponry for a police droid.

Appearances

Movie plot

ED-209 is primarily featured in the first film, where it appears three times. The 209 series is developed as one possible program to be the part of OCP's plan to create a law enforcement unit capable of pacifying Old Detroit of crime, another was the Robocop program. It is an attempt to create a series of law enforcement robots, the brain child of the movie’s main antagonist, OCP Senior President Dick Jones. Jones describes ED-209 as being capable of use for urban pacification of crime and potentially for use in the military. The ED-209 is armed with three cannons and a missile launcher on its two flexible arms, and can swing its arms to hit a nearby assailant. The ED-209 in use for law enforcement duties in the United States is programmed to understand and recite the U.S. Model Penal Code and recognize violations of it. The ED-209 utilizes a loud deep voice and growling noises to intimidate assailants. During a demonstration of the ED-209's offensive capabilities to the OCP board, it malfunctions and brutally kills an OCP executive, Kinney - even though he had complied with the robot’s orders to “surrender” and put down his gun. ED-209 is unable to recognise this fact, which Dr. MacNamara explains because the robot did not hear the weapon hit the ground, which appears to be the requisite for ED-209 to end its threat of physical force to an armed assailant. (Why this demonstration model was loaded with live ammunition is never addressed.) Because of this disastrous malfunction, the RoboCop program is given the green light.

In a confrontation between Jones and Bob Morton, Jones is enraged by Morton having outflanked him with the Robocop program, and describes that the ED-209 series had been well into development, with pending contracts with the military and for replacement parts for the 209.

The ED-209 appears again when RoboCop confronts and attempts to arrest Dick Jones. The robot seriously damages RoboCop in a brief battle. However, ED-209’s faulty nature is again highlighted when it trips and becomes disabled while attempting to traverse an ordinary flight of stairs. It also loses an arm during the battle when RoboCop forces the other arm into it while it fires.

After Jones has Morton killed and Robocop is attacked and forced into hiding by Detroit Police outside of OCP headquarters, the ED-209 series returns to OCP plans. In Jones' final OCP meeting, he describes that numerous ED-209s are operational and ready for immediate service to take the place of the Detroit Police who went on strike.

The robot or another copy (this one appears to be undamaged from the previous battle) makes his final appearance stationed in front of OCP Plaza, protecting the building during a police strike. When it attempts to interfere with RoboCop (saying he is "illegally parked on private property"), he destroys it with a Cobra assault cannon taken from Dick Jones and Clarence Boddicker’s minions. As with previous encounters, this again highlights its inadequacies in that the 209 failed to react in a timely fashion to an obvious threat as any human would. RoboCop fires the weapon twice, the first shot incapacitating it and the second annihilating its upper half.

RoboCop 2 features only quick cameos of the robot, where it is featured as a security bot for an OCP building on a television news report. The robot promptly trips on an open manhole and flails about uselessly while trying to disperse demonstrators.

A full-scale model (or out of commission) ED-209 also appears in the background at the OCP Headquarters Office Lobby as the executives are discussing their problems with the RoboCop 2 program.

Just before the Mayor enters the OCP CEO's office, an ED-209 unit is spotted standing on the right side of the screen outside the building. This is not visible in the pan and scan home video versions.

RoboCop 3 has one scene of ED-209 once again used as a security bot for an OCP building, this time an armoury. Resistance fighters with the help of computer whiz kid Nikko Halloran are able to easily hack and take control the ED-209 via a dataport in its leg with Nikko's portable computer, ("I am now authorized to... be loyal as a puppy.") The ED-209 is promptly turned against its owners, and opens fire upon OCP security personnel, ("Eat Lead, Suckers!")

Animated series

ED-260, the upgradable version of the Enforcement Droid Series 209 has made numerous appearances in RoboCop: The Animated Series, but did not appear in RoboCop: Alpha Commando.

Video Games

The ED-209 is also used as a boss in RoboCop computer and video games, and the video game RoboCop versus The Terminator. In the 2003 RoboCop game for the Xbox, the ED-209 appeared at several points as a boss or boss-like enemy. The game also featured an upgraded design based on the 209, called the ED-1000.

Comic appearances

There were two ED-209s in the comic RoboCop versus The Terminator (though it is mentioned that there are 200 of them deployed), assisting RoboCop in shooting down Terminators bent on killing Flo. However, their limited intelligence remained a problem. In one instance, when ordered by RoboCop to “scan for cybernetic activity,” the ED-209s immediately registered RoboCop as a target and opened fire, hitting each other by accident.

In Marvel’s 1990 RoboCop comic, OCP Vice President Donald Johnson orders the creation of the ED-309.

In popular culture

• In an episode of The Simpsons (“I, D’oh-Bot”), Homer fights an ED-209 built by Professor Frink and his son in a robot-fighting television show called Robot Rumble.

• ED-209 appears in 3 episodes of South Park. He first appears in “Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery”, Kenny wears a life-sized ED-209 Halloween costume. “A Ladder to Heaven,” featured an ED-209 guarding a house. In “The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer,”

• The computer real-time strategy game StarCraft features a unit (Terran Goliath) similar to the ED-209. When clicked on repeatedly the Golliath will say "Mil Spec E.D. 209 online." Another unit (Protoss Dragoon) when clicked on repeatedly can say the ED-209's quote, "Drop your weapon. You have 15 seconds to comply. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."

• ED-209 appears in the final sequences of Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge, before the player escapes from Vohaul’s asteroid.

• A robot strongly resembling ED-209 is shown off by Genie in the film Aladdin and the King of Thieves.

• Police Drones in Transformers Animated resemble the ED-209, in which coincidentally the show's setting takes place also in a futuristic Detroit, and serve the same purpose, except this time they were in very large numbers and patrol the city, only to fall to the likes of the various characters of the show.

Toys and models

• Kenner toys in 1990 featured an ED-209 figure in their RoboCop and the Ultra Police line. It had a rotating waist and articulated legs. The figure was not to scale and did not have any automatic actions or accessories. It was renamed “ED-260” for the line. the back of the "ED-260" can be opened to add roll caps which could be triggered with a small metal lever to simulate gunfire.
• Mez-Itz RoboCop line contained an SD (Super Deformed) ED-209 figure in its RoboCop figure pack, which also contained RoboCop and Officer Anne Lewis.
• Kotobukiya toys featured a figure line in Japan based on the RoboCop movies. ED-209 came in a singular pack which had to be assembled. Also, in a two-pack, RoboCop came with the damaged legs of the ED-209 from the first RoboCop film.
• JAM Japan has produced a 2.36 inch ED-209 figure.
• Horizon Models produced a vinyl 1/9 scale ED-209 model. Upon going out of business, the molds were bought by an unknown Thai manufacturer and the models were re-released.
• The same Thai manufacturer has a 1/12 scale ED-209 model as well.
• Hot Toys produced a 1/6 scale 15" ED-209 model as part of their Movie Masterpiece series - the popularity of this model later prompted the release of a battle-damaged version. This model was distributed by Sideshow Toys in America and Europe.

External links

• ED-209 at the Internet Movie Database
• Behind the scenes look at making ED-209