Great movie, bad DVD, here's the solution
Added 9/21/2009
Buy the Region 2 DVD (released by Fabulous Films in 2008) from amazon UK. It's widescreen (*not* pan & scan), plus it comes with a Director's Commentary which offers good insights from Joseph Sargent (who also directed the original "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three").
Admittedly, it won't be cheap. Current exchange rate amounts to eighteen bucks plus shipping. But you'll then be able to enjoy one of the classics of science fiction. It predates WarGames by more than ten years, and offers a more realistic--if darker--vision of the future of computer intelligence.
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UPDATE November 2009
Looks like this has been discontinued by the manufacturer. Wonder if that means a proper Region 1 release (widescreen) might be in the works? Maybe a 40th Anniversary Edition next year??
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Ahead of It's Time
Added 9/12/2009
While science fiction has frequently dealt with creations getting out of control, Colossus' has enough grounding in reality to be frightening. Long before The Terminator, and the creation of Sky Net, Colossus was created to be the ultimate computer-controlled defense system, which almost as soon as it comes on line, wants links to similar computers in other countries. Instead of creating machine monsters to conquer mankind, it uses the threat of launching nuclear weapons to control the actions of humans, in order to create a machine's vision of a perfect world.
As with many sci-fi stories there are themes that comment on our strengths and weaknesses, not the least of which is a warning about concentrating too much power in one system/entity.
While the technology seen is obviously dated: in one scene Colossus has to design a data to voice system for the stupid humans; it doesn't mean that this film doesn't hold relevance today.
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Richard's look
Added 9/10/2009
Quite a surprise to view an older movie that will never go out of date "Technically".Envision a super computer that rules the world and has no true feelings."Love It or Die"!
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Evilest Computer Ever
Added 8/29/2009
Forget HAL from 2001. He was just confused by humans trying to teach him to lie.
Forget Skynet from the Terminator series. It was an incompetent fool that would rather monologue and design elaborate death traps, reminiscent of Dr Evil, than just crush John Conners.
Forget WOPR from War Games. It was stupid and would rather play tic-tac-toe.
Colossus, the super computer from The Forbin Project is more perfectly evil than any villain conceived in the world of fiction ever. Its detached ruthlessness makes other evil computers look like toys. Its ambition for control and power just might be the destination where man's quest to reproduce by mechanical manufacturing, instead of sex, may lead us. As mankind continues on its path to invent homomechanicus, we may end up with our creation becoming not our slave, but our master - or worse our god.
Watch this movie, made in the early 1970s, and remember that somewhere a secret black project is twenty years ahead of what you read about in WIRED magazine.
Sleep tight.
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I knew going in that this was a 4:3 NOT 16:9 movie but I remember this movie from years ago and enjoyed it. Only 1 star because of the aspect ratio, 4 stars for the movie.
Note to studios: The dual sides DVDs with 4:3 on one side and 16:9 on the other side are bad enough but this is the 21st century. Get those movies out in their original formats!!!
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