“RoboCop is mostly about the idiocy of American television. These kind of people that flip-flop between extreme sadness, and fun, and a commercial. I always thought that RoboCop was my reaction to being thrown into American society, and looking around with wide eyes, thinking ‘this is completely crazy.'”- Paul Verhoeven, from a 2002 interview with Neil Young’s Film Lounge

Today’s release of Sony’s Robocop remake seems as good a time as any to revisit Paul Verhoeven’s original violent sci-fi satire. Though set in Detroit – a city proud enough of that distinction to raise a giant RoboCop statue – the film was shot largely in Dallas on a semi-modest budget of $13 million. According to RoboCop co-writer Ed Neumeier, early permutations of the project included Michael Ironside as the titular hero and Lewis Teague as director (Teague passed to instead helm the sequel Jewel of the Nile).

Below is a gallery of production stills from RoboCop, many of which come from the RoboCop archive, a thorough resource that includes trivia, behind the scenes production tales and even a copy of the script. Other images come courtesy of Io9, Techeblog, The Brigade, Isizsmile and the Flickr stream murphy38.

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