Back in 2011, the internet came together to fund the project the new decade apparently needed: a monument to militarized police power and cybernetic warfare as represented by a giant statue of RoboCop to be installed in Detroit. After triumphing over the ED-209-like stopping power of the city’s previously opposed mayor and securing a permanent patrol spot at the Michigan Science Center, we’ve had little news on when, exactly, the half-man, half-machine police officer would finally be installed.
Detroit Free Press’s Julie Hinds, thankfully, has provided an update on the project. Hinds cites Brandon Walley of the Imagination Station, the nonprofit behind the statue’s Kickstarter, as reporting that just about everything is done, except for “applying the patina and welding the large sections together.” Walley estimates its completion “by March” and installation once the ground has thawed this spring or summer. RoboCop’s tootsies, of course, must not get cold.
A New Year’s Eve Kickstarter update shows the square-jawed robo behemoth standing decapitated in the shop where he’s under construction. “With his head on, he is 11’ tall,” the update reads. “The stainless steel base he is on weighs half a ton by itself. He is big, he is clean, he is bronze, he is perfect.”
The last time we were able to say the statue was “almost done” was in 2013 so it might be worth taking this update with a grain of salt. Building a RoboCop statue isn’t as simple as taking a blown-apart man and turning him into a gleaming instrument of uncompromising justice, you know.
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