Guys, gather round, let me tell you something.
The ED-209 boardroom scene is to this day one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen in a movie theater. I was 13 when Robocop came out and it was only the second R rated film my parents let me see in the theater. Of course my dad had to chaperone but he picked a seat a ways off and I sat with a friend of mine on my birthday. When the ED-209 showed up and blew that guy away my friend literally VOMITED (luckily he held it in until he ran to the bathroom.) That's right, VOMITED.
The combination of the intimidation that that damn robot projected, the horror of watching a suited board member being messily disintegrated in front of his peers, followed by the flippancy of his coworkers (seriously that might have been the worst part.) The horror that unfolded in front of them, the tragedy of a guy just putting on a suit and going to work at an office and being so disgustingly obliterated, and then his peers almost crack jokes about it in the elevator afterward. That rocked me to my core.
There's just something primal about ED that I've never shaken. As an adult I'm all "Gary Busey in Predator 2" about him now. I admire the bastard, respect him for what he is. That such a character, even such a fantasy based inhuman character could ever do that to me. I might just have to own it as a memento of the visceral power of truly inspired cinema.
