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| “ | My friends. I've had this dream for more than a decade now. A dream which I have invited you all to share with me. In six months, we begin construction of Delta City, Where Old Detroit now stands. Old Detroit has a "Cancer". The cancer is crime. And it must be cut out before we employ the two million workers that will breathe life into this city again. Although shifts in the tax structure have created an economy ideal for corporate growth, community services, in this case law enforcement...have suffered, I think it's time we gave something back. | „ |
| ~ The Old Man to the OCP executives regarding his plans of building Delta City. |
| “ | Dick, you're fired! | „ |
| ~ The Old Man firing Dick Jones for his corrupt practices. |
| “ | Remember the Old Man, Jeff. Everyone's expendable. | „ |
| ~ Johnson warning Fleck, the only mention of the Old Man's offscreen fate. |
The "Old Man" is the main antagonist of the RoboCop franchise.
He was the chairman of Omni Consumer Products before the company was acquired by the Kanemitsu Corporation. He has dreamed of revitalizing the crime-ridden city of Detroit into a utopian metropolis called Delta City. He was responsible for firing Dick Jones for murdering Bob Morton and ordering former SWAT leader Lt. Hedgecock to destroy RoboCop.
In the films, he was portrayed by the late Dan O'Herlihy, who also played Conal Cochran in Halloween III: The Season of the Witch and Grant Walker in Batman: The Animated Series. In RoboCop: Rogue City, he was voiced by Mark Holden.
History[]
Delta City[]
The Old Man's vision of the future is Delta City: a shining, modern, corpocratic new city where the decadent Detroit currently exists. Before construction can begin, order must be established. In an attempt to do so he calls for his right-hand man, Dick Jones, to bring a new powerful tool to law enforcement: ED-209. Before its initial demonstration he discusses with Jones the reactions of the Police Unions and their complaints about OCP's takeover of Detroit's police departments.
But during the demonstration ED-209 goes berserk and ends up slaughtering a young OCP executive named Kinney. The Old Man was horrified by the malpractice of Jones' creation not because the dimwitted robot just killed one of his staff, but because ED-209's faulty programming would have to be repaired and ends up wasting considerable amount of time, causing Delta City construction to be delayed which would cause OCP to lose money. He then ordered Bob Morton to present to him with the idea for RoboCop, bypassing Jones much to the latter's fury.
Sometime later, when RoboCop arrives in the OCP boardroom to confront Dick Jones after Clarence's death, Dick attempted to take the Old Man hostage. RoboCop informs the Old Man about the limitations placed on him by Directive 4, releasing Clarence Boddicker and the orders which made Lt. Hedgecock to destroy him. The Old Man then furiously fires Dick for holding him hostage, murdering Bob, collaborating and releasing the notorious crime lord and his gang from jail and ordering the former SWAT captain and his team to destroy RoboCop (viewed by Old Man as a property of OCP), enabling RoboCop to kill him and his orders on the Detroit Police force to destroy him is put to an end.
Before RoboCop leaves the conference room, Old Man asks the cyborg his name. RoboCop replies, "Murphy". Afterwards The Old Man immediately called off the orders to destroy RoboCop and presumed sues Lt. Hedgecock and his team (except for those who did hesitate) for obeying the orders to destroy him.
In spite of him being pitiless sociopath who values his corporation's profits more than human lives, he is considered amoral but not yet considered a villain because he has not done anything noticeably evil. That changed in RoboCop 2.
Nuke plague[]
A year later he became interested in coming up a new version of RoboCop with the start of the RoboCop 2 program in his bid to produce stronger and more obedient enforcer after Murphy became increasingly more humanized and began questioning some of directives. After viewing a film of two failed prototypes, he expresses immense disappointment with project leaders Donald Johnson and Dr. Schenk, once again grieving over the lost corporate revenue over the injuries and death of OCP scientists during the experiments of prototypes gone awry. He gets into a small confrontation with Detroit Mayor Marvin Kuzak over of the police strike (having triggered by Lt. Hedgecock of obeying the orders to destroy RoboCop).
Shortly thereafter OCP psychologist Dr. Juliette Faxx presented an informal proposal to take over leadership of the RoboCop 2 program. Charmed by the directness of her offer he immediately agrees, stating "You could learn a thing or two from that girl Johnson." Dr. Faxx later initiates an intimate relationship with the company head to protect her job, as Johnson and Dr. Schenk desperately seek to get her fired because of her "screening psychotics" for the urban pacification project for Delta City and bringing illegal drugs into the lab. The Old Man overlooked these facts, claiming "we aren't trying to build a toy". When Detroit's mayor went to make a financial deal with Nuke Cult in his desperate attempt to get Detroit out of debt which it is owed to OCP, The Old Man and his staff realize that if the mayor accepts the nebulous backer's donations and pay the city debts to OCP, then OCP would face considerable problems regarding their Delta City project. When Dr. Faxx proposes that the mayor, councilmen along with their benefactors be assassinated by her successor to Robocop, a wicked cyborg made using the remains of a megalomanic Nuke addict named Cain, the Old Man gave her perverse inquiry the green light. Although RoboCop 2 succeeds in slaughtering almost everyone, it fails to kill the mayor, who escapes through the sewer.
The unscrupulous businessman was later seen at the symposium in which he makes presentation to media press about his plan of building Delta City and how he would use RoboCop 2 to enforce law and order of the new city. The Old Man makes a mistake of presenting a Nuke canister before Robocop 2 in his soliloquy of the future, something which excites the addicted cyborg. At the arrival of Murphy, RoboCop 2's aggression born from craving of the Nuke, coupled by Dr. Faxx's misjudged attempt to bring RoboCain under control, caused the mad cyborg to arm itself and proceeded to go on a bloody rampage. Outraged at first, Old Man comes to his senses and deduces that the havoc caused by the company's latest creation would cause extremely serious problems for OCP. But for now, all he could do was to tell Johnson to send out the best spin team they've got to rehash the RoboCop 2 situation, in favor of putting their business in a brighter light.
After a long, extended and bloody shootout synonymous with a warzone that caused numerous fatalities and injuries, Murphy was finally able to bring down and defeat his crazed counterpart by extracting Cain's brain in a short but brutal brawl and destroying it. With so many dead and wounded, the Old Man focuses on damage control and attempts to minimize soon-to-be pouring of lawsuits. OCP's attorney Holzgang gave his employer a very grim financial prospect, but the shareholder of the business concern shrugs it off as "only money". Instead opting to ask about criminal proceedings, only to be dismayed to hear his lawyer assure there would be major indictments which'll lead into prison terms while assuring the Old Man that they would to whatever it takes to protect him. The latter angrily reprimanding his personal suit that his shaky promises aren't good enough. Johnson then suggested to his overseer that blame be assigned onto Dr. Faxx, seeing as she was the one who chose the brain for the RoboCop 2 Program, and it wouldn't be hard to embellish how the Doctor had betrayed company trusts and abuses its resources for personal gain. The Old Man approves of said conduct, especially after his leech of a district attorney promised he'd allocate condemning evidence to support such findings behind her back. Before calmly leaving the carnage, Old Man instructs Johnson to get right on their agreements and Johnson, who never liked Faxx to begin with, replies with a resounding yes. Once again, the malignant businessman ends up not taking any responsibility for the massacre he'd indirectly caused via a rogue machine which his company created, much to the annoyance of RoboCop and his partner Anne Lewis.
With destructive cyborgs like RoboCop 2 as Delta City's enforcer, it is not difficult to imagine how the Old Man's venture would intend to 'keep the peace' in the new city.
Project Afterlife[]
In his final years and in a desperate bid to prolong his life, the Old Man signed off on a secret project called Project Afterlife, which after gathering evaluation data from RoboCop via Dr. Olivia Blanche and successful tests with human brains, the Old Man would be resurrected. He believed that RoboCop's experience was evidence that he would be able to not only retain his humanity from within RoboCop 2, but still be considered a human being and be able to continue his plans for Delta City.
Shortly after being hospitalized from a heart attack, the Old Man died. However, when he did finally undergo the Afterlife procedure and implanted within the RoboCop 2 cyborg body, the Old Man went on a rampage in the OCP Headquarters. The police arrived to find almost everyone killed with RoboCop witnessing the Old Man killing Becker. The Old Man fought RoboCop and he died at the scene.
Legacy[]
The company founder does not make an appearance in RoboCop 3. Johnson tells Fleck "Remember the Old Man, Jeff. Everyone's expendable"; it's the only reference to the Old Man in film. Here, it is revealed that his dream of building a new city, involved nothing more than forcibly evicting current residents. But thanks to Murphy, his police associates and Detroit residents' heroic attempt to protect their homes, the Old Man's dream of building a new city at the expense of the have-nots is ruined beyond repair and OCP, the company which he built upon greed, went bankrupt. Never again would OCP threaten the livelihood of Detroit citizens.
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 Villains
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OCP Boddicker's Gang Nuke Cult Urban Rehabilitators OmniCorp Others | ||