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| Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) by Mischief Maker 11/15/2022, 5:45pm PST | ||||
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| Hugely influential rogue AI movie, especially for The Terminator, that unfortunately was not a hit in its day since its President character is a less-than-flattering rendition of JFK, and Kennedy got assassinated right as the film was wrapping up, so nobody was in the mood for a hapless JFK-alike in over his head.
The lead is Charles Forbin, a brilliant and suave scientist who has just completed a secret project to put control of the US nuclear arsenal in the hands of an independent AI located deep in a fortified bunker. As he smugly explains to news crews, the Colossus AI is capable of analyzing more data than a normal human could comprehend so as to detect a secret soviet launch, and is capable of making end-of-the-world-tier decisions with perfect emotionless clarity. It does not go as planned. Colossus is well aware that its only means of affecting the world are launching ICBMs and printing out limited text on crappy dot matrix displays so it needs the cooperation of humans. What follows is a game of cat-and-mouse between Forbin and Colossus. The computer spits out various demands with strict timetables under threat of nuclear annihilation and Forbin attempts to find means to neutralize his unassailable computer even as the cage it traps him in grows smaller and smaller. Unlike Skynet, Colossus doesn't have an army of killbots, but it's smart enough not to need them; if someone's a problem just blackmail their government into killing them or it'll nuke a major city. Forbin is every bit as unflappable as he is suave, keeping a cool head as Colossus grows increasingly demanding and the bodies start to pile up, but time and time again he's caught off-guard by how well his rational and emotionless supercomputer beats him at his own game. In one scene, a captive Forbin is passing the time playing Chess against Colossus, when the computer informs him that an attempt to deactivate it was thwarted and his colleagues directly responsible will be executed outside his window, then without missing a beat announces its next Chess move. It's a great film that does a much better rendition of an implacable machine intelligence than many of the later attempts. Recommended! |
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Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) by 11/15/2022, 5:45pm PST  I was killed in 1963, buddy by 11/16/2022, 10:35pm PST Oh, that's what I was told. Weird they'd go with a hapless JFK-alike post-murder NT by 11/17/2022, 4:28am PST Well he's dead now by 02/27/2023, 2:52am PST They don't seem to have Gordon Pinsent Berates a Cat on YouTube :( NT by 02/27/2023, 2:08pm PST Re: Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) by 12/18/2022, 6:51am PST Seems like Harlan Ellison should have sued his name into the credits of this too NT by 12/18/2022, 8:58am PST No, cold, logical Colossus is the polar opposite of vicious, raging AM. by 12/18/2022, 10:09am PST I really liked Colossus: the Forbin Project by 02/27/2023, 4:36pm PST |
