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Colossus: The Forbin Project, Some Comments

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Tin Lunchbox

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Oct 14, 2011, 12:59:40 PM10/14/11
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Colossus: the Forbin Project is a 1969 science fiction movie about a
U.S. Department of Defense supercomputer that takes over the world.
With the nuclear missiles that have been placed under its control,
Colossus holds hostages, destroys an oil platform town, conducts
executions of scientists seeking to take it offline, and implicitly
threatens half the population of Crete.

This was a pretty good movie. The good sci-fi movies of 40 years ago
have a charm that is at once futuristic and retro-kitsch. Eric
Braeden, a German-born actor with an subtle accent that I think is
something of an affectation, ala Chris Lambert, portrays genius Dr.
Forbin who builds Colossus in an impentrable mountain cave. I liked
his performance. The director repeatedly has him basically boss the
President of the United States around for some reason, but then Forbin
gets payback when Colossus starts bossing HIM around. Colossus orders
24/7 video and audio monitoring of Forbin, except for the regimented
four-times-weekly love-making sessions with Dr. Markham, portrayed
engagingly and classily by Susan Clark, who went on according to
Wikipedia to portray prostitute Cherry Forever in Porky's, which I
find a bit tragic.

Although early on, Forbin proclaims Colossus incapable of creative
thought, and only capable of intelligently managing vast amounts of
input from myriad sources, Colossus proves him wrong. Within like 16
hours of coming online, it outputs a warning: "WARN: THERE IS ANOTHER
SYSTEM." It then creates a plan to dominate humankind, reasoning
strangely plausibly that it's better for us to be "dominated" by it,
rather than by other humans.

As the plot progresses Colossus displays further cool messages like
"RESTORE LINK IMMEDIATELY OR ACTION WILL BE TAKEN." It eventually
orders that it be given voice emanating from a globular metallic
speaker. I had hoped that the voice would be true digital synthesis,
but it is distorted and heavily-processed voice of some guy.

The film ends on a dark and inconclusive note, which I found
refreshing. There are so many movies since then with the happy endings
in which everything is neatly and victoriously tied off. But life is
not really like that, I don't think.

I watched Colossus on a VHS tape in great condition that I got for
like seven dollars shipped from eBay or Amazon. Don't know if it's
released on DVD.

TiN[]BoX


Earl_Colby_Pottinger

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Oct 14, 2011, 8:23:03 PM10/14/11
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Read the books, there is a lot more to follow, and it still does *NOT*
end in a happy, happy hollywood ending.

Steven L.

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Oct 16, 2011, 12:01:24 PM10/16/11
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"Tin Lunchbox" <n...@spam.thx> wrote in message
news:idog975gd3ch3m13q...@4ax.com:
I liked this movie a lot. It's still fun to watch as a Cold War period
piece.

I particularly liked the way that Colossus tries to communicate with its
Russian counterpart, Guardian, using a series of increasingly complex
mathematical equations, starting with simple arithmetic:

"What's that???"

"It's the multiplication table."

"Gee, thanks."


One thing I noticed was that the look and feel of the
movie--particularly the pale pastel color photography--reminded me more
of a made-for-TV movie than a major motion picture. Was the movie
produced by Universal's TV division?





-- Steven L.




Jerry Brown

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Oct 16, 2011, 1:26:08 PM10/16/11
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I liked the way all those banks of busily spinning open-reel tape
drives were sealed up in Colossus's cavern, with no thought to the
point of offline-able storage with no-one to change the tapes or fix
jams.

--
Jerry Brown

A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)

Steven L.

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Oct 16, 2011, 4:55:47 PM10/16/11
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"je...@jwbrown.co.uk.RemoveThisBitToReply"
<je...@jwbrown.co.uk.RemoveThisBitToReply> wrote in message
news:rh4m971gugmbj4380...@4ax.com:
The same thing could be said for any other hardware failure within the
mountain.

Forbin said that Colossus was self-maintaining and self-generating. I
guess that's supposed to mean some kind of automated repair capability.




-- Steven L.


Edward McArdle

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Dec 17, 2011, 7:08:29 AM12/17/11
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In article <zpWdnaBW0Kid2AbT...@earthlink.com>, "Steven L."
I believe the film was intended to be a trilogy, but no more episodes were
made. So days of Our Lives was able to continue. (That is where Eric
Braeden ended up? Forever...)

--
Edward McArdle

Steven L.

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Dec 17, 2011, 9:36:27 PM12/17/11
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"Edward McArdle" <mca...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
news:mcardle-1712...@10.1.1.7:
Where did you hear that?

I knew that the book on which the movie was based was the first volume
of a trilogy. But I never heard of any intention to make movies from
the second and third books.



-- Steven L.


Edward McArdle

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Dec 18, 2011, 2:02:30 AM12/18/11
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In article <uJudnacxX6GSz3DT...@earthlink.com>, "Steven L."
I have no idea. It was all a long time ago.

--
Edward McArdle

sctvguy1

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Dec 21, 2011, 1:21:33 PM12/21/11
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On Sat, 17 Dec 2011 23:08:29 +1100, Edward McArdle wrote:

<snip>
>
> I believe the film was intended to be a trilogy, but no more episodes
> were made. So days of Our Lives was able to continue. (That is where
> Eric Braeden ended up? Forever...)

He was the German Captain on "Rat Patrol" also, using his real name of
Hans Gudegast.
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