The folks over at io9.com recently talked to the brains behind the Detroit Needs A RoboCop Statue fundraiser which has reached its $50,000 goal. Pete Hottelet, who is the founder of Omni Consumer Products and major investor in the RoboCop statue took them through the progress in Detroit.
I'm posting the more interesting parts of the interview, you can find the full interview at io9.com.
First question on our minds, what will the statue look like???
Fred Barton Productions has generously offered access to an extremely accurate restoration of the Robocop suit from the first movie. His artist has been working on it for the last five years. That's right: five years! It even includes suit detail that was never shown on screen (like the plug and vents in the left rear of the torso). With materials like this to work with, this statue is going to be as close to a perfect depiction of RoboCop as is possible by non-augmented arthropods.
So let's get down to it, mask on or mask off???
'Mask on' is pretty much the classic look that people think of when they think of RoboCop. Sure, he appears in some scenes without the mask in the movie when it gets too damaged to function — but doing it without the mask would be like doing the statue of Superman without the cape. Sure, he takes it off occasionally when he gets in the thick things, but he always puts it back on when he's done. (The Superman statue exists, by the way — in Metropolis, Illinois, no less. In case anyone was curious.)
Arms extended or folded???
The pose will likely be a pose similar to this image:
Heroic, and poised for action in service of the public trust.
Gun or no gun???
Again, going back to the reasoning along the same lines as the Superman statue. Superman has deadly heat vision, and he uses it when necessary, but the concepts and ideals that he stands for are not irrevocably tied to the use of deadly force.
Jet pack, or no jet pack???
Jet packs are pretty awesome. The only way to pay proper service to Jet Pack RoboCop would be to make the jet pack actually functional, and, sadly, the level of funding required to make that happen is out of our grasp at the moment.
What other RoboCop metaphors, nods or "easter eggs" would you like to include on the statue???
We're still talking through these details, but a nod to RoboCop's prime directives is a popular choice. We have a few surprises that we're hoping we can pull off, it's just a matter of materials and logistics. We're going to be working through all of these decisions on the real-time build log on detroitneedsrobocop.com, so people can see additions like this unfold as they happen.
Why did you want to get behind the RoboCop statue? Why was this important to you???
It piqued an interest, because it seemed like something that should have already been done. It almost seems like an oversight that it doesn't exist already. It's the same motivation that drives people to contribute to articles on sites like Wikipedia, or projects on Sourceforge, this just happens to be a physical object in the real world. Maybe this type of public-works democratization will start happening with even larger, more ambitious ideas. Isn't living in the future awesome? As far as my reasoning goes on a personal level, challenging manufacturing projects are somewhat of an interest, you could say.
How did you reach your goal so fast???
Through the overwhelming support of the incredible people that make up the internet, whether they be in Detroit, Antarctica, or Timbuktu, and $25,000 from one particularly motivated individual. A statue of RoboCop with the support of Omni Consumer Products is completely logical, is it not?
Where could the statue be placed? Is the city of Detroit backing the RoboCop Statue???
There's a whole approval process that the city goes through when accepting any charitable donation; this isn't any different, despite the popular support. We've made the appropriate steps in getting that process moving along, but we have several potential privately-funded locations on the table as well, not the least of which is across from the Michigan Central Station at Imagination Station. So, regardless of what happens with any of this, the statue is coming, and it will have a place to stand.
In a perfect world, where would you want to place the statue???
Ideally, the location would be such that it provides the greatest possible benefit to the people of the city of Detroit. So, if interest in the piece is able to generate foot traffic for local business and drive tourism to the area, then we'd like to make sure those effects are maximized. Some of the offers that we have on the table have added benefits (like security and existing maintenance staff), so the result for Detroit will be a net positive.
Would you fund a statue of Clarence Bodiker???
As supremely excellent as his contributions to society have been in his capacity as Topher Grace's dad, I'm not fully convinced that warrants a statue.