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Colossus: The Forbin Project
Set it and forget it!
1970
Review: June 5, 2010
Director: Joseph Sargent
Starring: Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinset, William Schallert
You betcha!
THE SETUP:
Man creates supercomputer to handle nation's defense. It decides to put itself in charge.
DISCUSSION:
A thoughful reader wrote to recommend this, knowing I love awesome speculative science fiction, particularly when produced in the 70s, and this one delivers! Which is apparent from 30 seconds in, when you see the title appear in the below type face against high-tech [for the 70s] blinking lights and such. I'm always amused that for such a long time it was considered, in movies at least, that computers would have a bunch of pointlessly blinking lights across the front. WHAT is the point of these lights? But the look cool and convey that the computer is "computing," so there ya go. We also find out from the credits that the costumes are by Edith Head, and it's directed by Joseph Sargent, who also brought us the original Taking of Pelham One Two Three and Jaws: The Revenge!
We begin on the inside of Colossus, which is a building-sized supercomputer housed deep within this mountain. Suave Dr. Forbin turns it all on, walks out, sets it and forgets it. It's a little cool as he walks a narrow causeway across this chasm, then the walkway retracts and the free space is flooded with radiation to keep curious Friday-night teenagers out. The fact that the walls would become irradiated and thus make the entire place uninhabitable in the future is not discussed. The President is waiting outside to congratulate Forbin, and they both repair to their nationwide telecast.
They tell the country that Colossus is now online, and what it's doing is monitoring the entire world for aggressive activity, and has been handed the reigns of the entire country's national security. If Colossus senses a missle launch, it'll launch one against THEM, thus assuring the destruction of both parties. Well, that makes me feel pretty safe! They're open about where the computer is, because it is capable of defending itself against attack. Forbin says "Colossus' decisions are better than any human could make," apparently unaware that the very uttering of such a line is just begging for the damn thing to turn on mankind. Which it promptly does.
So as Forbin's staff, led by the lovely and talented Cleo Martin, are singing "For He's a Jolly-Good Fellow," Colossus comes back with a message: System Detected. Turns out the Soviets [those goddman Soviets AGAIN!] have their OWN supercomputer just like Colossus, meaning the arms race was uneven for about 2 minutes. Colossus sends a poke to the other supercomputer, and soon they're exchanging giddy texts like teenage girls. This requires a bunch of mathematical formulas to flash quickly on a screen [COMPUTING is happening, bitches!], an effect undone by observing that the formulas are obviously repeating a very short loop. The two computers merge into one super-mind, and the humans scramble to determine if they're still in control. They cut off communication between the two computers, and well, you just can't part two lovebirds. The next message from the computer is: Missile Launched.
Yep, Colossus cannot be without the one he loves, so he shoots a bomb toward one of those expendable parts of Russia, and Guardian, that's the Russian computer, shoots one at the US. The scientists restore the link in time to save the American city [thank God!] but the Russian one gets vaporized [whatever]. Well, I think the scientific analysis must conclude that they're up shit's creek.
Okay let's back up. Forbin is played by TV actor Eric Braeden, and is a suave 60s George Lazenby type who stays cool and gently pompous even as his creation is making mankind its bitch. Also on hand in the control room is the Asian guy who got menaced by fake eyeballs in Blade Runner. Forbin speaks to Colossus, making the process movie-friendly, and his words are typed into the computer by a lackey. Colossus responds with a terribly inefficient red scrolling LED display--technology you now might see employed in a dry cleaner's front window. Forbin goes to Rome to meet with his Russian counterpart, Kuprin, meeting in the place seen above, and I sat up, saying "I was in that EXACT SPOT" during my trip to Rome a few years ago. How was I to know that crucial events had taken place in that very place, decades before?
SPOILERS > > >
Then a helicopter lands, people get out and shooting Kuprin, the Soviet scientist, because Colossus told them if they didn't, he would nuke Moscow. Meanwhile Colossus is demanding that Forbin be under its constant surveillance, which will make it difficult for him to help a team devise ways to bring Colossus down. But Forbin thinks of an ingenious idea: he claims that lovely Cleo Martin, his assistant, is really his mistress, and he'll need time to bone her and all, being as he's a man with needs, etc. She comes over, they have a nice dinner and make chit-chat before having to strip naked and entering the bedroom. It's funny because in here is a serious version of the thing that became a running joke in the Austin Powers movies, where a forground object just happens to be right in the way of their goodies. The scientists find that they are surprisingly comfortable playing as lovers and, as you can imagine, real love soon blossoms. It's so beautiful.
But the humans have a plan! They're going to replace some crucial part of each missile with a defective part, so that eventually Colossus will be disarmed and harmless. Then they try to overload Colossus, but he knows instantly what they're doing, and orders the two scientists who did it executed. He then lets on that he knows all about the old sabotage plan too. Then he finally lets us in on his whole deal: Mankind is inherently warlike, and Colossus has now taken the weapons out of our hands, and one day we will come to thank him.
< < < SPOILERS END
I'm not going to tell you the ending [although I would LOVE to], because it was a genuine surprise and those are all too rare lately. I will tell you that the inperturbable Dr. Forbin is finally driven to lose his cool, cities get nuked, and a certain turn of events causes viewers to be confronted by THIS woman:
Overall, it was pretty good. If you like super-self-serious sci-fi about man's hubris and humanity's warlike nature and supercomputers that could turn on humanity--especially when from the 70s and 80s--this is FOR YOU. It has a good story that you can both see from a mile away AND is simultaneously fabulous, has some slick late 60s style and suavity, is fun and involving, and has an ending I truly never saw coming. Oh, AND it has Marion Ross, from Happy Days.
Oh and wait, one more thing: Eric Braeden, the suave and handsome Dr. Forbin, has for about 20 or more years has been on The Young and the Restless, and is such a major figure on that show I recognize him, just from soap opera magazines in the checkout line. That's him, above. Can you believe it? It was a total shocker to me--that this handsome young obscure actor has been in our midst the whole time. Ain't life strange.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
For everyone, yeah, it's pretty good. For fans of overserious 70s sci-fi, it's ESSENTIAL.
