CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Inside The Making Of RoboCop's 3-D Printed Suit

Co.Design | business + design: Due to open in theaters nationwide today, Sony Pictures' RoboCop remake has divided fans of the original from the get-go. Particularly contentious has been the reimagining of the RoboCop suit, which turns the original into sleek, stealthy, almost ninja-like armor. But while this new suit might look like it was inspired by Christopher Nolan's Batman films, especially when compared to the hulking chrome original, it presented a singular challenge for the makers of the film. How do you stay faithful to a classic, much beloved costume design when people's ideas about what technology is capable of have completely changed?

2 comments:

jcmertz said...

This is a pretty neat concise article about the design process of a costume. Because it is a remake of an older design, the restrictions are compounded because you need to stay true to the original design while still making it believable to a newer, techier audience. Ultimatley I think they did a great job and I love what they did with the 3D printing for the film.

Adelaide Zhang said...

This process is really quite fascinating to look at. For one thing, it's interesting that 3D printing seems to be more and more ubiquitous every day, across all areas. For another, it's cool to see how the design has changed, not only the differences between the original and the remake, but between even the first designs for the remake alone and the final ones. It also makes me wonder, if the vision of the future in 1987 was so different from what we see today, how wrong will today's vision of the next twenty, thirty years be?