R.O.T.O.R. (1987)

Richard Gesswein: Barrett Coldyron

Photos 

Quotes 

• Coldyron : Let me tell you something, mister. You fire me and I'll make more noise than two skeletons making love in a tin coffin, brother.

• Captain Barrett Coldyron : Remember what I said at R.O.T.O.R.'s christening? First prototype of a future battalion, on the battlefield highways of the future. He'll be the judge, jury, and executioner. Now, I've got to wonder: Were we playing God, breathing life into our artificial Adam? Or have we lost sight of paradise? What was it Milton said? "Did I request thee, maker, from my clay to mold me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?" Is it his fault he is what he is? Or is it ours?

• Captain Barrett Coldyron : It stops felons, judges the crime, and executes sentence. Justice served C.O.D.

• Captain Barrett Coldyron : You call the senator and you tell him R.O.T.O.R. walked through a busload of nuns to get to a jaywalker, with malice towards no one. It won't stop. It wasn't ready. Its brain functions are incomplete. It can't think twice, can't reason, can't change its prime directive. It's like a chainsaw set on frappé.

• Dr. Steele : You don't happen to know any good Indian trackers, do you?

  Captain Barrett Coldyron : I used to spend every summer on the Indian reservation. Will I do?

  Dr. Steele : Hey, I'm like a cemetary. I'll take anybody.

• Dr. Steele : Oh God. The brain matrix. It's modeled after your own lower brain functions without the higher functions to control them.

  Coldyron : A brain without a heart... a conscience without recognition... a will without a soul.

  Dr. Steele : If I miss, you're going to be fighting your own base instincts. To combat pure will, you're going to have to use pure illogic.

  Coldyron : What do you mean?

  Dr. Steele : You *will* have to allow yourself to fail. Use your failure against him! Your failure is his failure. Your weakness is his weakness. Then, only then, can you do something.

  Coldyron : Great... except I don't know what any of that means.

  Dr. Steele : Let's hope you never have to find out. Remember... you're the brains. I'm just the brawn.

• Captain Barrett Coldyron : We scientists are like degreed science-fiction writers. We're all prognosticators of the future. And since our particular purpose of vision belongs to the creed of law enforcement, we open inroads into tomorrow in ways and means of those who would serve and protect justice and order.

• L.A. Scientist : Who are we to create such a thing, heroes and villians?

  Captain Barrett Coldyron : The only difference between a hero and a villian is the amount of compensation they take for their services. At our pay scale, I'd say we're closer to heroes.

• Coldyron : The robot's electric disk drive is going to detonate the Primacord! For Christ's sake get out!

• Gunman : [holding woman hostage]  Okay, white boy. You get to watch... you get to watch while I blow her brains out and splatter all over the ground. Eh, what are you gonna do? You gonna stop me? All you got is a newspaper.

  Captain Barrett Coldyron : I got more than a newspaper. And you get to guess what it is.

  [reveals gun from newspaper and fires] 

• Mokie Killion : Say, Captain. Don'tcha know you done the right thing. But you ain't no street cop, are ya? Why don't you go back to your nice little laboratory and stay there?

  Coldyron : You're right, Mokie.

  Mokie Killion : Let us boys handle the streets. You handle the test tubes!

  [laughs as he walks away] 

  Coldyron : Sure. Cause if I don't handle the test tubes... the streets are gonna eat you boys alive. Teeth, hair, and eyeballs.

• Captain Barrett Coldyron : [to ROTOR]  Come on, you monster. What's the matter, using my brain to think with? You think I'd set you up?

• Captain Barrett Coldyron : Clearing these stumps for pastureland has always been a chore. In the past I've always used nitro or dynamite. But this new primacord explosive I can practice my roping with the same thing that blows the stumps away.

• Captain Barrett Coldyron : The metal itself can learn, remember, and teach itself. It doesn't need motors, gears, and tubes - just a flat place to stand, and a lever that's long enough, and it can move the world.