RoboCop Character (In)Consistency

Paul Verhoeven: This guy is completely robotic and starts to realize that there was something else. (...) In the second act, Robo starts to remember. That was for me the emotional level and the reason I wanted to do the picture (Cinefantastique Dec. 1987)

Peter Weller: The heart of all this is a morality tale. It’s like Beauty and the Beast, or the Tin Man of The Wizard of Oz. It’s a great little jewel of a human story

What drives the movie is a person with no memory of who he was, going on a journey to discover his past and tracking down those who killed him. Robocop was not just a robot/cyborg - he had all the emotional elements of a man - he was angry, he moaned in pain, he gritted his teeth during nightmares, he screamed in agony when hurt. That's what made him different. It was Murphy, just with prosthetic armor, and no memories of his past. Not a robot. And that makes ALL the difference. This is why we can emphatise with him. We feel for him. He's basically a Frankenstein monster, not knowing who, what he is, not understanding his feelings, or what is happening to him.  There's a human being in that prosthetic body. And not only it makes him more relatable, it adds to the pathos

He was a MAN, only with significant memory loss and enclosed in a metallic body. He had Murphy's personality and acted like human being. He even sleeps like a man, with head down and his mouth open.

1. INNATE BEHAVIOR

RoboCop always had Alex Murphy's signature characteristics and personality, just didn't have his memories. Murphy's personality started to come through in a rapid pace, resurfacing as soon as on the first day of his duty. The first sign appeared even before he went on his first patrol when he was in the shooting gallery. The gun spinning trick

Very soon after, there was another one - his inability to properly enter the exit ramp from the Police parking

2. HUMOR

Robocop's way of talking is very official at first ("Thank you for your cooperation. Goodnight", "Madam, you have suffered an emotional shock. I will notify a rape crisis center") but that didn't last long. Murphy's witty personality and one liners started to re-emerge the very same night starting with "Your move creep" after shooting a guy between the legs and that night was the last time we've heard him talking in a very official manner.

After making sure that Lewis was safe at the end of the movie, he threw a joke - "They'll fix you. They fix everything". That's all Murphy, since we also get to know that outside of  his witty tough character and one liners, he was also a jokster "Why won't you drive"?

 

3. FEAR 

The turning point was his "dream", in which he got a first snippet of his memory back and when he started investigating his identity and origins. That's when Murphy's personality and signature characteristics fully emerged. He wasn't using official by-the-books speech anymore, he was using his one liners. "Dead or Alive, you're coming with me". By that point we've already seen RoboCop scared and in pain while experiencing his nightmare.

We also see his fear when he sees the Cruiser coming up on him, not knowing yet that it's Lewis, or when he's about to be wiped out by ED-209, his eye widens

When Lewis got shot in RoboCop, he shouts "Lewis!!"on the top of his lungs, with both fear for Lewis' life in his voice.

4. EMOTIONAL PAIN 

His range of emotions are even more evident when he's visiting his home, regaining small pieces of his memory. Even with the helmet on, we see plenty of emotions in him. We also see him hit emotionally when he sees his own photo with the "Deceased" written across We see him sad and in emotional pain in the following scenes.

Murphy never fully comes back. He only has flashes of his memory, but he does feel connection to his family and misses them. 

"Murphy had a wife and son what happened to them"

"I can feel them but I cant remember them"

Murphy really dies, totally flatlines. While it may be true that some of Murphy's memories and personality may resurface through the cyborg's computer programming, Robocop does not restore Murphy's life, nor does it provide him with enough of a semblence of human for him to have any hope of rejoining his wife and son - Cinefantastique ,1987

Peter Weller: Lost guy trying to find who he was. (...) I simply approached it as a man who had had amnesia (AMC Special)

Nancy Allen: [Peter Weller] brought a soul and a heartbeat to that character. You don't even see his eyes, when you're even looking at him it's just this little visor. You can feel the character through all of that. (AMC Special)

5. INTERROGATION STYLE

Soon afterwards, we see even more of his character, when he grabs a guy in a very painful way - this time, by the hair. "Let's talk"

He also doesn't take crap from anyone and throws the suspect against obstacles, leaving his face badly damaged and cut.

6. SHOOTING BALLET

Another cool characteristic of Robocop are his fancy moves during the shootout which make the action that much more engaging and interesting. He does this shooting ballet, which, as explained in RoboDoc documentary, is actually a choreography based on Fencing poses. We know from the movie that Murphy got a kick of the fancy shooting moves, and he isn't shy of showing off while blasting bad guys into pieces

7. ANGER

He is also clearly mad when he responds to Jones' talk with "I will!". He's also clearly not in the mood for talk at the Police database

8. PHYSICAL PAIN

We see Robocop in pain many times, gritting his teeth and twisting when he's fighting the painful program in Jones' office,

when he's impaled by Clarence,

or when he's shot by ED 209, when he moans in pain after being shot. 

9. PHYSICAL EFFORT

We also see him visibly making a physical effort to lift heavy things, like when he's taking the debris off of himself after killing Clarence, when he fights with ED-209,

and he can even be seen making some effort while squeezing Boddicker's throat

How does that work within the universe if his body is prosthetic? I don't know, but it makes him real, it makes him relatable. You can relate to a human being encased in iron lung, but you can't with a robotic machine

We also see him visibly exhausted and hurting

Again, he's a man, just in a cyborg body. When he's pissed, he's pissed and when he's sad, he's sad. 

Nancy Allen: That character was not a cartoon, it was a real life human being and [Peter Weller] really made sure that that was not lost (AMC Special)

10. VENGEFUL 

What changed at the end of the movie is that he got small flashes of his memory back and realized what he is and who he was. There really wasn't any drastic shift in his personality, he was just grieving because of what he had found out. Once the final showdown starts, he's the tough character again with his witty personality. Even though he could just shoot them, he wanted to screw around with Clarence's gang first. First he tosses a piece of debris to startle them, then he says "Looking for me?!" and starts taking them down, starting with Joe. That's a thirst for Revenge. He could just shot them all from that ledge, but chose to kill them off one by one

He also made sure that his most wanted enemy knew that he was going to die: "I'm not arresting you anymore" he says, after which he slowly starts to aim the gun at his future kill

Peter Weller: "He's vulnerable. He’s not a superhero. Because he’s really a human being. I thought its what made him accessible" (TV Special 1990)

..........................................

Irvin Kershner: I wanted the characters to go further than they went the first time. I was working towards an emotional base that would be true to Robo one year later. His synapses are beginning to join up, memory has returned, and he has to deal with the fact that he's a man in an iron suit. He's a man in a no-exit situation (Cinefantastique, 1990)

Some people erroneously claim that RoboCop got very mechanical in the second movie which is plainly not true. At the end of the first movie he is soft spoken because his helmet is gone and because he is talking about his family. He's all back to business after that.  In the sequel, we get to see Robocop in action. He's not gonna be a soft spoken guy talking about his family right off the bat. In the sequel, he is someone who accepted his fate and carried on after a significant time has passed (the strike we see in the movie is not the continuation of the same one from the first movie. It is said that the police has returned to the picket line, and the Old Man says "about a year ago we gave this city Robocop"). We also get to see the conclusion of his internal struggle when he cuts the ties with his family for their own good, realizing that by not letting go he's only hurting them. But by all means, Robocop is every bit the same as in the first film.

Peter Weller: It's a continuation of a dillema of a guy who's doomed to science. He's reaching out for ways to return to who he was. Except now he's reaching out - he's not just finding out, he's trying to find a way back
[I decided to do the sequel because] I just didn't feel complete about the character.I thought there was something else to say with it (Cinefantastique, 1990)

Murphy-Robocop returns, and so do his signature characteristics.  So going by all the characteristics laid by the original movie, let's see how he fares

1. INNATE BEHAVIOR

Check. The gun spinning is back. He does it twice in the movie

2. HUMOR

Check. The witty one liners return ("You are a rotten cop!", "As good as money can buy" , "Think it over creep" or "Have a seat" before smashing the guy against the arcade game) as well as clean humor "Patience Lewis, we're only human"

3-4. FEAR AND EMOTIONAL PAIN

Check. We can see his fear once the Cain gang starts to cut into him, when he realizes what's about to happen to him and that he's about to experience his second death. He screams in both agony and emotional pain

We also get to see his sadness. We see him twice on a verge of crying, with a shaky voice, when he's responding to Holzgang's mental bashing with teary eyes and when he's comforting Hob,

5. INTERROGATION STYLE

Check. Grabbing people in an unusual but painful way (this time it's by the nose)

and throwing his suspect against obstacles, leaving his face broken and bleeding after he's done with him

6. SHOOTING BALLET

Check. Fancy moves during the shootout make their return as well

7. ANGER 

Check. And we also get to see his anger ("I ..will ...kill... you!") and defiance against criminals

8 PHYSICAL PAIN

Check. He's reacting to pain like a human being (just like in the first film), gritting teeth and screaming, for example when he's tortured in the factory.

9. PHYSICAL EFFORT

Check. Just like before, he makes a visible effort to move something heavy, like when pulling RoboCain off the rooftop or detaching the clamp from his chest

10. VENGEFUL

Just as before, Murphy makes sure that his most wanted enemy knows that he's going to die: "You Want Me?- Dead or Alive. -Then one of us must die. -Dead then", after which he slowly aims at his future kill

And of course, his determination to have revenge on Cain is undeniable in this film

Peter Weller made sure that the character is consistent: There are a lot of guidelines to the character. Sometimes Frank [Miller] would have to alter his stuff because he wasn't used to writing the character.(...) So a lot of those things, when I would read them, I'd say 'Frank, this is out of the character'. Instinctively, I knew what was right (Cinefantastique, 1990)

..........................................

Fred Dekker: "I loved the first picture, and I thought this was a character who was ripe for exploration. I wanted to pay homage to Verhoeven and get back to the roots of what the character was all about, RoboCop is the ultimate example of the endless conflict of man versus machine, with the added twist that they are both in the same guy." (1993)

The above quote is extremely confusing since Dekker did the exact opposite. RoboCop 3 introduces major changes. In this movie, all humanity is taken out of the character - throughout the entire movie, there's not one trace of emotions or humanity on his part. His voice is so deep and distorted that he sounds nearly like the ED-209. He doesn't react at all when getting hurt. He feels no pain. When he gets his fingers and then armed chopped off, he just looks at it , and has the same expression on his face that doesn't change once in the entire movie - a blank expression. Let's take a look

1. INNATE BEHAVIOR

Nope. No Gun Spinning. As hard as it is to believe, there is no signature gun twirl in this RoboCop movie

2. HUMOR

No biting comeback lines from this RoboCop, replaced with lines like "Maybe you have a hearing problem". As for the clean humor, not only it's gone, but this Robocop doesn't even understand what a joke is! He actually doesn't even recognize jokes, and responds to them literally; Marie (joking): "It looks like you've become friends with a Mac Truck", Robocop: "I don't have many...friends". No witty humor or one liners

3. FEAR

None. 

4. EMOTIONAL PAIN, SHOCK AND CONCERN

None. He acts like he's constantly on Valium. Remember in the original RoboCop after he kills Clarence and screams after the hurt Lewis? "Lewis!!!" Yet in RoboCop 3 he never does anything, he just looks at her and then he still shows no emotions at all. Nothing. You would never know if anything happened of any importance just by looking at him.

Even when she's shaking and sobbing and saying that she's scared, he still stands there expressionless like a statue

Not to mention his Robot talk - "a vehicle is approaching", "tracking", "Scanning". And he actually responds to a little 9 year old girl's question "How are you feeling" with "My efficiency rate is 93%". It seems like he is unable to have any humane conversations. He's not even looking at her and stares blankly into space like a robot

Even Niko is weirded out by his disconnected, robotic behavior. 

There's plenty more like "Good evening Sgt. Reed. Please direct me to the Rehab staging area. Thank you."

He also is unresponsive plenty of times. He doesn't respond to  Lewis and Nikko when they're talking to him. He also seems disconnected from the world sometimes. When Marie and Fleck are talking about wiping out his humanity, he just stares blankly into space and seems sleepy. 

Also his responses sound like the reprogrammed Robocop from the previous movie: "I'm fine Anne, thank you for asking"
Even without the helmet he displays no visible emotions when remembering his own death or that Nikko's parents have been killed. Remember how painful and traumatic it was for him think of that moment in the original movie? It was a nightmare that shook him violently. Look at him now (it's the same expression he has throughout the entire movie in every scene without the helmet):

5. INTERROGATION STYLE

Gone as well. He just grabs people by their shirts

6. SHOOTING BALLET

Gone. There is no fancy choreography either. When he enters the Rehab station he only...walks straight ahead and burns the walls while. He never even hurts his suspect but uses force of the explosion to put him down 

7. ANGER

That one is hard to even pinpoint because his voice is so low, echoey and processed that you can't pick up any emotion from his voice at all. So since he sounds the same throughout the entire movie, I'd say I don't sense the emotion of anger in his expressions. You certainly don't see any of it in Robert Burke's performance. And if you think he is angry in this particular scene

consider this: in the screencaps below, he is looking at the police monitor (left) and being hurt (right). So....he has the same expression throughout the movie in every situation. 

8. PHYSICAL PAIN

Nonexistent! When he gets his arm cut off, he just stares at it and even says "Detroit Police, identify yourself (...) You under arrest for destroying Police property". Robocop is back with his official robotic talk. Can you imagine him saying that to Clarence Boddicker after he drives a steel bar through him?

Same goes when he gets hit in the grenade, which seems to damage him more than anything else in any other movie before - zero emotions or expressions. Just a stoic "cover me" with no expression whatsoever other than the frozen stoic face he has throughout the movie

9. PHYSICAL EFFORT

Zero. Even when he pushes heavy things, like when folding the elevator door, he shows no physical effort and - as usual - no expression on his face

10. VENGEFUL

I suppose some can give him that, but that's still up for a debate, I disagree that he has that trait and here's why. He goes after the killer of Lewis, true, but he doesn't seem to do it out of his own vengeful character trait, out of his own rage. After all, he even forgets about it until someone mentions Lewis' name! He seems to do it only because Lewis asked him to, so he, being a polite robot, is being nice enough to listen what the nice Officer Anne (as he called her in this movie) asked him to do and do it. 

Burke does a nearly perfect job on the movement (but to be fair, Weller's movement coach was also working on RoboCop 3), but his mouth is very different than Weller's. Weller had an almost feminine, short but thick lips and an elongated face, which placed his lips higher up. Burke has wide and thin lips forming a bitter arch shape, and they were closer to the chin as oppose to Weller's which were closer to the helmet line. Interestingly enough, every actor who played the character after Weller had the same long, arching lips like Burke, so Weller's lips are instantly recognizable from others'.

Jon Davison (RoboCop & RoboCop 2 producer): I didn't want to do the picture without Weller, which was something suggested by the studio - "the hell with it, it's like the Mummy, just put anybody under the bandages.". I thought that was probably not a good idea (...) I think some of Weller's best performing is done under that rubber suit. He really has it down. (...) You can tell when Boris Karloff was playing the Mummy and when Tom Tyler was doing it. (Cinefantastique, 1990)