Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The line is corporate automation at its most chilling: a polite, bureaucratic countdown from a machine that cannot hear that the man has already complied. It is quoted by anyone facing a deadline or a malfunctioning system, and it set the template for the unstoppable, literal-minded killer robot that satirised faith in technology.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for RoboCopShow the scene
In RoboCop (1987), Omni Consumer Products unveils ED-209, a law-enforcement robot meant to replace the police, to its board. Senior president Dick Jones has a junior executive, Mr Kinney, volunteer to point a gun at the machine. Kinney drops the weapon, as ED-209 demands, but the robot's countdown keeps running: it announces how many seconds he has left, then cites a Penal Code violation, and then, in front of horrified executives, shoots him. The MPAA objected to the scene, one of those Paul Verhoeven trimmed to bring the film down from an X rating.
Sources (2)
- Wikipedia: RoboCopPlotReference checked
- Springfield! Springfield!: RoboCop transcripttranscriptReference checked
Context reviewed
