texman

I don't if this has been brought up before, but as we know, Dallas was the filming location of Robocop (1986). Though the movie was set in Detroit, I always thought they made a good decision for picking Dallas to flim it in during the 80s. The movie was set in the futurisitic 90s as one taken over by a violent, consuming society ruled over by huge corpotations. See it, its pretty good, LOT OF SHOTS OF DALLAS. I found some pictures though that they did for the movie. The totally redid downtown with new buildings but you can see the resemblance between the two. Such as, if you look for SBC plaza they made it much taller. Also they did a markup of city hall making it over 100 stories.

gc

Cool. I am not sure I knew that.

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Geaux Tigers

Part of the film was also shot in Pittsburgh at one of the old (read: closed) steelmills. In fact, the entire part of the movie where he gets shot up before becoming Robocop was shot in Pittsburgh. But, you're right, there are TONS of scenes with Dallas in the background!

BTW, how did you get a still of a movie and make it a picture? I only ask because I think my boss was in 3 O'Clock High (awesome John Hughes movie) and I want to get a still of him! His role was Jock #3 (Tom Taylor).

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bloodandpopcorn

there are a few picutres that i think are even better of the unaltered dallas skyline... i will try to capture them this weekend and put them up here. I love the film, and seeing Dallas in it is a big bonus!

drumguy8800

wow! amazing. i'd love to see more stills!!!

Is this Dallas?



It's from Robocop2.

This one's from Robocop3..



http://robocoparchive.com

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bloodandpopcorn

No. Robocop 2 is Houston and 3 is Atlanta.

drumguy8800

Thanks.. I was gonna say, that round building looks a lot like the Peachtree Tower.

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freewaytincan

I have been trying to get screenshots of the OCP Tower for so long! Thank you so much!

rantanamo

in some scenes you can see Reunion Tower in the background

freewaytincan

Almost the entire movie was made here (the stuido parts were made in Las Colinas), except for the steel mill, which was in Pittsburgh. The only time Detroit is in the movie is at the very beginning, with the stock helicopter shot.

RobertB

Since some board members may not have even been *born* in the mid-80s, I'd like to point out that the "enhancements" to the Dallas skyline were done before computer graphics made it easy. So don't be too critical if you can see a bit of a seam between the actual building and the 100-story addition...

Wasn't the climatic running gun battle filmed in The Crescent's parking garage?

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texman

The scene where you see reunion tower is when robocop was fighting the bad guys shooting out of his police cruiser. Many mistake the road robocop was driving on for I-35 but its actually N Houston Street (current location of AA Center) with Reunion Tower in the background.

Also I found this picture at the robocop website of when the "OCP" execs were in a board meeting. See the building in the background. Look familiar?

bshiker

Those board room scenes were filmed on the top floor of the Rennasaince building. When I worked in Dallas, I worked at the law firm of Winstead, Sechrest & Minick. It has the top 4 floors, and those scenes were actually done in the law library.

freewaytincan

As I suspected. The lobby of the OCP building was the atrium of the Plaza of the Americas, with more of that very impressive mattework. If you look in some of the scenes in the board room, you can also see Momentum under construction.

xen0blue

I just got done watching the movie robocop (shot 1986-1987 in Dallas) and it's real interesting to see so many of Dallas' buildings back in the 80s, and some of the most prominent buildings we take for granted today even under construction! I've put an arrow by some of the buildings I can't identify or find interesting. Can anyone point out which buildings are under construction in the movie which are in the pictures or tell me why city hall looks so tall and where this 'southland life insurance' building is? And is that really Dallas' old city hall in that one picture?

RayM

Southland Life building is the Adams Mark now.

The first construction photo looks like the Chase Tower.

The second one looks like the Chase (neé Bank One) Buildling.

City Hall looks tall because it's had a painting extension added.

Not sure which photo you're talking about as old City Hall. I don't see any caps with any previous City Hall in it. If you're talking about the next-to-last arrow, that looks like Baylor.

Edit: Oh, yes. I was looking for the arrows. That one cap (without arrow) is the old Municipal Building.

bshiker

All of the executive office and Board scenes were shot on the top floor of Rennaissance Tower. That is the law library for the law firm of Winstead Sechrest & Minick. Its a great location for viewing buildings if you can get access (used to work there).

RobertB

I mergified this thread with a previous Robocop thread. Still one of my favorite movies, even more so now that I know the buildings better (I was new to Dallas when it came out).

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Spjz

I think you are asking whether or not the ninth picture down is the old municipal building? I don't think so, but I am working from memory. The only other building like that in DT Dallas is the old post office. I am thinking that might have been shot in Fort Worth?

RobertB

No, it's definitely the "MVNICIPAL BVILDING" in downtown Dallas.

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As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09

barrykooda

That was a fun film to watch being made. We got thrown off the set in a couple of different locations. The "shoot the bad guy through the hostage's dress..." scene was in a parking lot on main behind where we hung out at the Twilight Room. (2111 Commerce) and then we were ousted again when Kurtwood Smith (Red Foreman from 70's show" was blowing up the 6000 S.U.X. .
Good times...

Spjz

RobertB, what street are those cars parked on? Where is the old police station?

DFWCRE8TIVE

That's the view from Harwood/Commerce. The old City Hall / Municipal Building / Police Station is on the right and the old Gold Ring parking garage (now demolished for the future park) is on the left.

BigD5349

Ha, I missed this thread. What about these shots on Ross Avenue? In the shot with the gas station blowing up, you can see the Crescent and the old Moorland YMCA (now the Dallas Black Dance Theater) in the background...

BigD5349

Anyone know where this scene was filmed?



Here's where Robocop gets the bad guy at the end of the movie:

SDORN

That shot down Ross going south has changed. The parking the parking lot and strip center which was at Leonard and Ross has also been demolished for the wylie theater and museaum tower. I shot a bunch of photo in this location in the last year.

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txRNGr

^Uptown sure has changed since this movie. You can see how sparse Uptown used to be in that last picture.

BigD5349

This got me thinking about when I first saw this movie. It was in Palo Alto, and back in 1987, there was no dallasmetropolis.com to keep track of the new developments back home, no way to read the local newspaper. It was kind of fun watching the movie and seeing the city in it. I hope more films will be made in Dallas in the future.

kozzy

Actually txRNGr, from what I can remember in the 80's, many parts of uptown were scary. I know that the Crescent existed and a few other wonderful places like Hard Rock, but some of Upown was high crime and dilapidated. Can anyone remember when that all turned around?

RobertB

^^ Well, there was this cop named Murphy, see, and he got this cool cybernetic body...

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Double Wide

Its a travesty that DETROIT Police were used and not Dallas Police.

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mjblazin

The plot line is the city is so dysfunctional that it outsourced the police department to an American subsidiary of a Japanese firm. Detroit at the time was the most dysfunctional city in America. I doubt that Detroit was loving the exposure.

portyhead

^^^^^^^^

WAS the most dysfunctional?? :errrr:

RobertB

Dallas, spurned by the producers of the Robocop sequels, has worked hard to usurp Detroit's position.

(Although to be fair: it's one thing to have a mayor who once pimped bad mortgages; it's something else entirely if he assaults a deputy.)

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As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09

ancientshoes

Not much has changed. Well, San Francisco is the most backwards city in the US, but I digress.

RobertB

Once the world sees our signature Calatrava suspension bridge, a grand, multi-million-dollar structure towering over a shallow drainage ditch, extending from a glittering downtown to a cement plant, with another expressway in the floodway below, I think Dallas will be known as the most self-delusional city in the US. Not the world, though -- I think Dubai will always have us beat.

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As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09

texcolo2

I like the scene that takes place at Elmer's Beer and Wine... which sits on Industrial literally between the north and south bound lanes of I-35E.

jsoto3

That red brick building on the right is the back side of BraJay Salon at Elm & Central:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&i...001931&t=k&z=20

FastbackJon

Compare these shots. Movie shot versus google maps street view shot. In the movie shot there's a tall square building in the background that looks pinched at the top. Other buildings look different in the background as well.

I'm assuming the old city hall building (OCP) was edited into another location. Or were the building(s) in the background torn down?

jwest1973

Update: re-posted pics as attachments (thx RobertB)
I work in the Crescent (which you can see in the background of the gas station explosion scene) and the Robocop vs Detroit cop shoot-out takes place on our P1, P3, and P4 levels of Crescent parking garage. It starts out by our P1 elevators at Building 100 and Robocop eventually falls down a couple of levels before Nancy Allen picks him up.

Of course the movie folks could shoot here that year because the Crescent barely had any tenants yet and the paint was still drying!

I took a pic recently and you can clearly see the Bldg 100 P1 entry point where Robocop exits the stairwell. The props covered the elevator barriers with neon "garbage cans" and put a modern facade wall near the stairwell door (this wall-thickening prop's job was to hold the pyrotech "bullet holes" popping behind Robocop as the cops open fire on him).

I can post more pics from that scene if ya'll want. They show the Crescent P1 exit signs and column paint - both are still here to this day even 23 years later. Wild stuff....

Attached Images

	robocop1.jpg (102.2 KB, 34 views)
	robocop2.jpg (64.2 KB, 22 views)
	robocop3.jpg (87.5 KB, 32 views)
	robocop4.jpg (108.6 KB, 26 views)

RobertB

Blogspot doesn't seem to like embedding the pix. They're small enough to attach to your message -- let me know if you need any help.

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RobertB

Robert Willonsky <3 dallasmetropolis.com.

Because Dallas Has Always Been New Detroit
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unf...always_been.php

Been meaning to mention this for a few days, but friend of the show Justin Cozart recently grabbed a few scenes (ah, Crozier Tech) from Robocop to offer up a history of New Detroit, by which, of course, we mean Dallas circa 1986. Which reminds me: There's an even larger catalog of stills on the Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum, where folks have long dissected every last local monument, standing and otherwise, from the shooting of what several Friends insist is the best Dallas-made movie ever.

Cool, but of course you'll have to click the link and visit the DO site to get the links to the Flickr pages he's talking about. Because as much as Willonsky <3 us, he probably us when we copy his stuff and don't give anyone a reason to actually GO to the original article.

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As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. - B. Obama 1/20/09