ED-209
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The ED-209 (Enforcement Droid Series 209) is a fictional crime-fighting robot featured as one of the design and special effect highlights of the movie RoboCop, and its two sequels. ED-209 serves as a heavily-armed obstacle and foil to RoboCop's title character and others throughout the series, as well as a source of comic relief due to its tendency to malfunction. Its unique design, intimidating look and numerous faults make it one of the defining and most remembered fictional robots of the 1980s.
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. As one of the set pieces of the movie, the ED-209's look and animated sequences were under the close supervision of director Paul Verhoeven. ED-209 is notable in movie history as marking the beginning of a long history of cooperation between Davies and Tippett on many projects.
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[edit] Design
Director Paul Verhoeven made it clear very early on that ED-209 should not 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 cliché.
Craig 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". There is also commentary on ridiculous corporate design policies, with such features as an obviously over-designed hydraulic system, over-attention paid to cosmetics and the placement of obviously vulnerable features such as the radiator grill on the very front of the robot.
The audio for the ED-209 was composed by Stephen Flick and John Pospisil of audio effects company Screaming Lizard. The hydraulic heavy machinery feel of the robot was composed 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.
The most memorable noise of the ED-209 was its stilted distorted human voice, 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.
[edit] Appearances
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.
[edit] RoboCop
ED-209 is primarily featured in the first film, where it appears three times. The 209 series was an attempt to create a series of law enforcement robots, the brain child of the movie's main villain, OCP Senior President Dick Jones. The ED-209 is unveiled to the OCP board only to kill a board member during a demonstration, setting the tone of ED-209 as a deadly but ill-designed device. After this disastrous malfunction, the RoboCop program is given the green light.
The ED-209 appears again when RoboCop confronts and attempts to arrest Dick Jones for murder. The robot manages to seriously damage RoboCop. ED-209's faulty nature is again highlighted as it easily tripped and disabled while attempting to traverse a flight of stairs, and is made to blow its own arm off.
The robot makes one final appearance in OCP Plaza when it is assigned to protect the building during a police strike. When it attempts to interfere with RoboCop, the main character destroys the robot with a large rifle taken from Dick Jones and Clarence Boddicker's minions, firing an explosive round. This is the shortest scene featuring ED-209 in the film, substantially shorter than the previous two encounters.
It is unclear whether there is more than one operational ED-209 throughout the film. Either the film features two or three different ED-209s, or there is only one prototype which is repaired between appearances.
[edit] RoboCop 2
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 as the executives are discussing their problems with the Robocop 2 program.
In the widescreen version of the film, just before the Mayor enters the Old Mans office, an ED-209 unit is spotted standing on the right side of the screen outside the building.
[edit] RoboCop 3
RoboCop 3 has one scene of ED-209 once again used as a security bot for an OCP building, this time an armory. Resistance fighters are able to easily hack the ED-209 via a dataport in its leg with a portable computer. The ED-209 is promptly turned against its owners, and opens fire upon OCP security personnel.
[edit] Other appearances
The ED-209 is also used as a boss in the RoboCop video game, and the video game RoboCop vs. the Terminator. There were two ED-209s in the comic book version of RoboCop vs. The Terminator (though it is mentioned that there are 200 of them deployed), assisting RoboCop in shooting down Terminators bent on killing Flo. In the same comics, ED-209s are known to be programmed to obey RoboCop's commands. However, their limited intelligence remained a problem. In one instance, when ordered by RoboCop to scan for cybernetic activity, the ED-209s registered each other as a target and open fire.
[edit] Armaments
The ED-209's primary weapon in all films are three 20mm machine guns, two on the left arm and one on the right arm. 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.
The ED-209 is also shown knocking its foes down with its arms.
[edit] Cameos, copies and parodies
- In an episode of The Simpsons ("I, D'oh-Bot"), Homer fights an ED-209 look-a-like in a robot-fighting television show called Robot Rumble.
- In an episode of South Park ("Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery"), Kenny wears a ED-209 Halloween costume. Ironically, in the Robocop film, the ED-209 malfuctions and kills a man named "Kenny".
- In Aladdin and the King of Thieves, the Genie turns into a parody version of ED-209 armed with laser beams to secure the "Aladdin and Jasmin wedding perimeter".
- Also in South Park's The New Terrance and Phillip Movie Trailer, Chef's TV turns into a walking killing machine that resembles ED-209.
- The ED-209 also makes a cameo appearance in the show Family Guy ("Running Mates") as the "XL-K" hall pass enforcement robot. The scene in which an OCP executive is killed after complying with orders is also parodied as Mr. Fargas (Peter Griffin's recently reinstated old teacher) being gunned down after successfully presenting a hall pass.
- The 1997 computer game G-nome features a very similar looking vehicle dubbed the Union Tactical Defense HAWC.
- The Delta-2 Peacebringer (Military Bot) in the computer game Deus Ex bears some resemblance to and functions much like the ED-209, although it has more of a slab-sided hull.
- The Crusader computer games also have a number of robots with similar form and function, particularly the APP-4400 Vetron seen in the opening FMV of No Regret.
- The Goliath unit in StarCraft, if clicked on multiple times, mentions "MilSpec ED-209".
- In an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Joel (Hodgeson) and the Bots, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo, during an opening sequence are reciting nighttime prayers "...godbless C-3PO, and godbless ED-209, although I don't know why anyone would make a robot that couldn't walk down stairs..."
- In Age of Empires, a cheat can be used to summon a "Zug 209", which is similar in appearance to the ED-209.
- In the game BOTS, the virus-boss on the level Upper Hakken is named Ed-701 and is similar in appearance to a giant version of Ed-209
[edit] Trivia
- According to RoboCop writer Ed Neumeier, the ED-209 droid was designed to resemble a bipedal Vietnam War-era Huey helicopter.
- The ED-209 "chicken leg" walking style resembles the AT-ST from Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, which animator Phil Tippett also worked on.
[edit] Reviews
ED-209 was listed as #5 in Wizard Magazine’s "10 Villains We'd Like to Forget." The text reads: "Cool looking? Sure. Functional? Hell no. Forget about the fact it killed an innocent man and blew off its own arm, the dumb thing couldn't even master stairs."
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
| RoboCop |
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TV: RoboCop: The Series | RoboCop: The Animated Series | RoboCop: Alpha Commando | |
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Video Games: RoboCop | RoboCop 2 | RoboCop 3 | Robocop versus The Terminator |
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Comics: RoboCop versus The Terminator | Frank Miller's RoboCop |
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Organizations: Omni Consumer Products |
