Saw this on Sat afternoon TV, mid 70's. Had no idea what the movie was about. Just plopped down and started watching. Was hugely surprised. As young as I was, I got the idea. That poor guy, sitting there calmly, knowing there was no way to escape a nuclear blast. Scared the hell out of me.This became an instant favorite, and I have been recommending this classic for decades.
I stumbled across this movie in an unusual way. I'm a HUGE Planet of the Apes fan & when I watched the 3rd film, Escape, I fell in love with the villain, Otto Hasslein. He was mad, bad & dangerous to know but I couldn't help but love him. Years later, I was flipping channels on TV & Colossus was on one night. Upon watching for literally less than a minute, I realised "Hey, Forbin IS Hasslein!". Both played by the insanely talented (and handsome 😏) German actor Eric Braeden. Upon realising, I ordered a DVD copy of Colossus immediately & watched it. Absolutely brilliant & terrifying, it's INSANE how a film from 1970 warned us about our current situation with AI & technology.
"The Andromeda Strain" bears up well today because it's produced to look like a government documentary...so it's supposed to be a bit stodgy. That's the original, not the more recent miniseries remake, which changed the entire original premise.
@@kirkdarling4120Agreed, Andromeda Strain is highly recommended. It looks somewhat less dated than Colossus and at least for many decades, way more plausible.
I saw this in a theater when first released in 1970. I was 9 and it was a movie I've never forgotten, one that haunted me for decades and my god is so relevant now. I have the DVD, it can be bought! GREAT reaction, and love your reaction at the end. Amazingly it did not do well at the box office, but is one of the better movies of that decade. More amazing that few people these days know of it!
@@RKnights This film definitely made a lasting impression on me. I first saw it in a theater in California in 1971, when I was stationed in Monterey. I was finally able to get it on DVD, but it was a pan and scan copy, which detracted from the suspense. The film was made in widescreen and in 2018 Shout Factory put it out on blu-ray in the correct aspect and with a commentary.
You overlook the reality that in general, people are idiots, and many suffer from cognitive dissonance which is why they will complain about privacy yet willingly give all their information to countless companies, both social media and others. It reminds me of a test that was done, a couple decades ago, that showed that despite everyone knowing to keep the Social Security Number private, but most people would list their SS# if offered a free cookie to do so. 🤡🌎
I saw the Forbin Project on tv in the mid 70’s, probably the same week that I saw a similar themed movie Demon Seed. The plots of both are blended in my memory so that I didn’t recall offhand which movie this was. I worked on James Cameron’s Titanic for about 9-10 months, and recognized lead actor that I’ve seen but I didn’t place him from this movie. Wish I had so I could have asked him about it.
Colossus is voiced by the great Paul Frees, who narrated many Disney films and rides, as well as voice overs in hundreds of films like 1953's War of the Worlds.
Like you, I had no idea what I was watching when this movie appeared on TV one evening in the early 1970s. I had never heard of the movie before, but, being a fan of science fiction, I chose to sit and watch it. As the time drew ever closer for the movie to end, I was wondering how in the heck the computer could be defeated in the few minutes left. When the movie finally ended, I thought to myself, "That's it? The computer wins?" I had never seen a movie before in which the antagonist wins. However, a few years later, I learned that the movie was adapted from the first book in a trilogy. Now the denouement made a little more sense. I have since read the remaining books in the series ("The Fall of Colossus" and "Colossus and the Crab") and found the story to be a fascinating early look at artificial intelligence. Glad to have seen your look at this under-appreciated movie. I know you were given a lot of suggestions of movies to watch over the summer, and I am hoping that one of those requests is "The Andromeda Strain" made a few years after this one, based on the best-selling novel by Michael Crichton.
Thanks for the review, really enjoyed it; I remembered seeing this film around 1979. The first time it shocked me with the ending & stayed with me all these years; I've probably seen it about 10 times, to me this film is a masterpiece & the most frightening sci-fi movie ever produced have a good one 🖖
Oh lord...a certain contingent out there might start using stills of Connery for their Real Men Wear Diapers movement. (For those outside the US, a real thing, in tribute to their leader)
Aloha Ray! So happy to see you checking this one out. Had this shown to me in a high school class back in the early 90's and it really stuck with me. I need to go watch your take on it now. I also need to go check out Balatro.
This is playing for free on UA-cam. Saw this movie when it was first released to television, loved it ever since. Chilling message for today. Could this have been the birth of Skynet?
Hey Ray! So glad you enjoyed this Cult Classic. Another "A.I." Cult Classic to watch would be the 1977 (made for TV) movie "Demon Seed." It is disturbing but in a different way. I saw "Colossus: The Forbin Project" in the theater & later on TV. As you stated - Movies in general did have a slower pace back then and felt the need for romance in their formula. Many years later I rented this on VHS to watch with a friend. When the movie ended he was in disbelief. He expected the old movie cliche that humanity always wins. I shrugged my shoulders and said "Hey, we tried to win. We gave it our best shot. Nice try, humanity."
Demon Seed was a movie. I saw it in the theater.came out in 1976...I saw it on the big-screen like 80-81. Peeling the metal skin of the 'baby' was just like what happened to Delen on Babylon 5. What fucked that movie up was the child saying in the computer voice"I live....." Hokey...should have been a kids voice.
Early on Ray recognized James Hong as one of the character actors; there are many such present who have extensive credits. Marion Ross, Susan Clark, William Schallert, etc.
🔔 RAY @ 29:25: Colossus's voice may well have served as the inspiration for the somewhat similar-sounding Cylon A.I. robots in Battlestar Galactica (1978)
This movie is a classic for sure, even though not one of the commonly known ones. It's not the FIRST "AI going ape" -movie though. There might even be earlier ones, but 2001 a Space Odyssey definitely was a little earlier. And if you really deconstruct this story down to it's basics - man creates a form of new life that then questions his morality and kicks him inna butt - you could even see it as a variation of what many consider to be THE first Science Fiction story: Frankenstein. But while the classic Boris Karloff movies are cool, they basically leave out the main plot of the original book. In the book the creature isn't a dumb monster. It is kinda monstrous and very strong, but it also is self conscious and can read and talk and ask questions like "Why am I?" and things like that. That basic plot is part of so many science fiction that was written later. It doesn't matter if this "new creature" is made from body parts, genetically engineered or electronic - those stories all come back to "how does the creature react to the way we treat it". Mind you - this usually is about "real" Artificial Intelligences, which in SciFi usually means a self conscious entity with some kind of personality. Today's AIs are completely not that. THEY are a huge amount of Data and some bloody clever ways to create filters that can combine stuff from several sources into something "new". (which it kinda is - but if Dall-E, for example makes a picture of a dog for you it doesn't even know what a dog is (actually there is nothing to "know" things), but it has millions of pictures that are titled "dog" and can mathematically detect the commonalities between them and then make something that follows the same rules, so to say). The language model AIs like ChatGPT can, in limited circumstances, sound incredibly "real" when you toy with them for the first time, but now I'm using GPT at work for a while I am encountering it's limits. There's points where it becomes really obvious that you're really just dealing with a chatbot that's written much cleverer than previous ones - and it can do a lot more. But in some areas it can be daft as a brush... :D
Budget was $2million US, $15.6 million in today's dollars. The Hays Code was replaced with the MPAA film rating system in 1968. This is a trilogy of novels; Colossus, The Fall of Colossus and Colossus and the Crab. It suffered at the box office, because it was running against the tail end of the original M.A.S.H movie premiere. It only booked just over $300K, so was a bomb by studio standards.
Loved this movie when I first watched it as a major network movie of the week back in the early seventies...and immediately knew it was a brilliant foreshadowing of a future world controlled by computers. I actually reference this film often when friends and colleagues are discussing the alarming dangerous course AI is taking. Of course the amazing actor Eric Braden MAKES this film...so thrilled you are watching it!
Small production note for you. The computer terminals and work stations are all real. They were loaned to the movie by a computer company (their logo is on the side of the units) which gave the control center such a realist appearance (for the time).
🔔 RAY @ 26:27 Fyi an example of electronic background noise that seems to be perhaps related to however your audio feed is tied in with the movie's audio feed.
This is a banger of a movie that the vast majority of folks do not know even exists. I can't wait to see you show this to the rest of the guys. LOL They are gonna go crazy over it.
That's what Colossus said, together the human race would thrive, you just have to thrive under his rule. Your young ones should see this. And Colossus wasn't nuts. It was logical. It had a budget of 2 million dollars. only made 300,000.
I saw this in the theaters when it was first released. The most chilling moment for me was when they connected the two computers, the computers began communication, and within seconds the humans could no longer follow it. That's pretty much the way it's going to happen. We're going to make one particular connection, and then we'll lose control faster than we'll realize it happened.
pretty sure you can find antique reel to reel tape recorders dirt cheap these days either to use or be a decorative piece. there are even new ones being made. also there are places to buy tapes to use for recording and playing back.
@@RKnights I see 200-2000. often under 200 on ebay, etsy, reverb, goodwillfinds for used the under 200 on reverb will often say non functioning so as I said decor unless you want them repaired which there are outfits.
31:10 - they designed Colossus to be nearly impregnable to a military assault. The elite teams were likely consulted to help make Colossus impregnable. I also recommended this movie to a local movie club. At the end when the credits began to play and people realized that the computer won, one person's reaction was "What!" Pity about its box office numbers (budget: $2m, Box Office: $0.3m) As to AI helping in research, check out the University of Liverpool's robotic researcher. It was programmed for a chemistry lab, was given starting data about catalysts for making hydrogen, and used existing equipment in the lab to perform its own experiments to make a better catalyst. It even updated its own database based on data it gathered in the lab.
There are 2 sequel novels to Colossus. Next is The Fall of Colossus. It catalogs how the humans combat, and shut the AI down. What Colossus does to Forbin's mistress is horrific. The third book is called Colossus and The Crab. Both of them are well worth the time to find and read. You should show this to the rest of the Knights.
Colossus was built to be completely impenetrable to the enemy, which means it has to be impenetrable to everyone. It also had it's own nuclear reactor, so it's power couldn't be cut off. The potential way to prevent this is to implement something like Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics. But since AI research is expensive, and the biggest pool of money is military applications, I doubt the pay masters would want to create a pacifist robot or computer (I think there are already autonomous AI military drones used for reconnaissance and there may be armed ones too). So a Colossus/Skynet scenario is feasible (the creation of sentient AI may even be part of the "Great Filter" solution for Fermi's paradox).
AI before we even called it AI. The part they were trying to secretly take back control of the missiles, and the computer in the end says I detected it from the beginning and in effect played with you letting you think you were succeeding. Basically telling us you lost even before you started, that was the worst.
not sure i'd have interjected 10+ observations before the opening credits ending lol - but am nonetheless subscribing to see the full reaction - luv ur stuff
🔔 RAY: Here's a list of some Sci-Fi movies I think you'd enjoy (although you may have seen some of these): In chronological order... PAUL VERHOEVEN'S FAMED TRILOGY 1) ROBOCOP (1987) 2) TOTAL RECALL (1990) 3) STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997)
🔔 RAY: If you liked this movie there were two sequels (books) ➡ "'Colossus' is a 1966 science fiction novel by British author Dennis Feltham Jones (writing as D. F. Jones) about super-computers taking control of mankind. Two sequels, 'The Fall of Colossus' (1974) and 'Colossus and the Crab' (1977) continued the story."
I saw this in two parts on television long ago. Thanks for a good choice that hasn't been done to death by others. I also read the novel. It seems as though there was a sequel novel, but I may be misremembering.
There is a sequel, I never read it, but it was set some time later, and IIRC it had to do with Colossus discovering another supercomputer on a planet around Alpha Centauri or something like that.
Think about today, with everyone being connected to the internet. Do you understand that when the internet goes out for an hour people would go insane. Back then no one had a computer. There are 3 books in the series. Colossus, Colossus and the crab, The Fall of Colossus.
It's interesting that there are several Star Trek episodes where a people is under the thumb of an AI like this. But there are none where it's an origin story like this.
I saw this movie back in '70 which was the same year I graduated high school. Thought it was OK but really couldn't get into it. Back then in my last HS year we were introduced to computers. The ones they taught us on were basically nothing more than glorified adding machines still using the same type of print out but had more keys for different functions. Nothing like my 1st W95 PC I got 25yrs later. I was somewhat entertained by Colossus but I just didn't buy the story of computers taking over.
Colossus, as terrifying as he is, is at least more reasonable and merciful than Skynet at least. Sure, all of mankind’s been brought to their knees, but at least Colossus isn’t actively destroying mankind to replace machines. As far as A.I. overlords go, he’s actually _relatively_ kind… at least in comparison to A.M. and Skynet.
Your patreons are putting you onto some good stuff that people don't react to. Hopefully The Prisoner ends up on the agenda one day (60's tv show about identity, conformity vs individualism, with a bit of brainwashing thrown in).
According to The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: "The U.S. military has been integrating AI into its combat systems since at least 2017, and the Pentagon’s 2025 budget request includes $3.2 billion for research in AI and advanced command and control systems." “From the standpoint of deterring and defending against aggression, A.I.-enabled systems can help accelerate the speed of commanders’ decisions and improve the quality and accuracy of those decisions, which can be decisive in deterring a fight and in winning a fight,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in November [2023].
I don't think the 'love angle' was forced. It was part of the plot. Both people were 'consumed' by their work. Would never has hooked up if not for the events of the movie. Cant belive they shot Rudy Wells/skeletor. Lo Pann was into computers when he was 'younger'? Mrs 'C' must be working behind her husbands back , who's watching Ritchie and Joannie, who's cooking fonzie's meals. Johnson or Fisher, the other guy that got shot must have been moonlighting as a Cop(the black guy) My mistake, the 'other' Rudy Wells voiced Skeletor and played a scientist type on the original Westworld movie. (Booming voice)My useless knowledge is infinite!
Where's the three laws? ;-D What did other countries think about the USA and USSR firing missiles at each other (Russia too slow) and where the fallout/radiation went?
Colossus, and other films, dont have pacing problems. Its more accurate to say todays tiktok/youtube viewers have an attention span problem. Which is one reason todays movies are so bad. Saw this movie during a re-release double feature ( with The Andromeda Strain). And of course, have the gorgeous Bluray.
Yeah, im leery of AI. Remember miltary/elite tech is alway 10 years, at least, ahead of what is released to 'the masses'. How do we know AI hasn't been running he show for a long time already. Also look into the 'simulation' theory. We could be living or part of an AI simulation thats so perfect even 'we' can't tell it isn't real. Mind blowing...huh Every so often we see a glitch in this 'matrix' say nah, and return to are business. I remember seeing a guy without a face and nobody else was tripping. After a while I thought, how does he eat, see,talk or breath.... I also saw a Giant human in a business suit walking around downtown. No, not a very tall man, this guy was like 15 feet and proportionaly normal. Iand people ' were' tripping off him. I stopped for a second...shrugged it of and kept walking, why? The AI told me to....and these thing happened because I kept a journal. Got burned in a fire but I wrote these things down when I got home after each incident, maybe 6 times in my life I encountered strange things. Across the street the six unit apartment had a ground level laundry room and the solid door had a large number of people always coming out. These were not the tenents. I knew some some them. They have really good excuses for the hi-traffic but went I brought up 'portals' to one tenents he said I was tripping.....but the guy looked shocked for a second...then jokingly laughed and changed the subject. After that conversion the traffic slowed and stopped. 1 month later all the tenets moved out.Years later ran into the same guy. All smiles and laughed...never brought up the laundry room. As we parted he turned to me and said, "You were onto something...."smiled and walked away. Never saw him again. I was 29. I'm now 59.
Maybe suspecting 'portals' was a little off-base. There was no hint of anything supernatural going on in 'The Laundry Room'. Maybe is was just a secret entrance to an covert underground Subway System. Who knows....just wanna clear that up.
This was definitely an inspiration for Terminator. James Cameron loves this film and even put the guy who plays Forbin in Titanic.
Saw this on Sat afternoon TV, mid 70's. Had no idea what the movie was about. Just plopped down and started watching. Was hugely surprised. As young as I was, I got the idea. That poor guy, sitting there calmly, knowing there was no way to escape a nuclear blast. Scared the hell out of me.This became an instant favorite, and I have been recommending this classic for decades.
I stumbled across this movie in an unusual way. I'm a HUGE Planet of the Apes fan & when I watched the 3rd film, Escape, I fell in love with the villain, Otto Hasslein. He was mad, bad & dangerous to know but I couldn't help but love him. Years later, I was flipping channels on TV & Colossus was on one night. Upon watching for literally less than a minute, I realised "Hey, Forbin IS Hasslein!". Both played by the insanely talented (and handsome 😏) German actor Eric Braeden. Upon realising, I ordered a DVD copy of Colossus immediately & watched it. Absolutely brilliant & terrifying, it's INSANE how a film from 1970 warned us about our current situation with AI & technology.
This is a good one. The Andromeda Strain is another good one from that time
Its on my Summer watch list
@@RKnights I backed up and paused several times but couldn't read much from the list. 😂
"The Andromeda Strain" bears up well today because it's produced to look like a government documentary...so it's supposed to be a bit stodgy. That's the original, not the more recent miniseries remake, which changed the entire original premise.
@@kirkdarling4120Agreed, Andromeda Strain is highly recommended. It looks somewhat less dated than Colossus and at least for many decades, way more plausible.
@@RKnights It's another one I watched in a theater when first released!
I saw this in a theater when first released in 1970. I was 9 and it was a movie I've never forgotten, one that haunted me for decades and my god is so relevant now. I have the DVD, it can be bought! GREAT reaction, and love your reaction at the end. Amazingly it did not do well at the box office, but is one of the better movies of that decade. More amazing that few people these days know of it!
It's incredible how certain movies can leave a lasting impact on us. Thanks for sharing your experience!
@@RKnights This film definitely made a lasting impression on me. I first saw it in a theater in California in 1971, when I was stationed in Monterey. I was finally able to get it on DVD, but it was a pan and scan copy, which detracted from the suspense. The film was made in widescreen and in 2018 Shout Factory put it out on blu-ray in the correct aspect and with a commentary.
This is a classic. Saw on TV back in the early 70s. There is a conspiracy theory that this movie is intentionally being suppressed.
Being uncomfortable with an AI being in the bathroom, that has a camera and a microphone, while taking a smartphone into that bathroom...
Have you read about the Roomba auto-vac that had a camera attached and leaked photos of a woman in the bathroom ?
You overlook the reality that in general, people are idiots, and many suffer from cognitive dissonance which is why they will complain about privacy yet willingly give all their information to countless companies, both social media and others.
It reminds me of a test that was done, a couple decades ago, that showed that despite everyone knowing to keep the Social Security Number private, but most people would list their SS# if offered a free cookie to do so. 🤡🌎
I saw the Forbin Project on tv in the mid 70’s, probably the same week that I saw a similar themed movie Demon Seed. The plots of both are blended in my memory so that I didn’t recall offhand which movie this was.
I worked on James Cameron’s Titanic for about 9-10 months, and recognized lead actor that I’ve seen but I didn’t place him from this movie. Wish I had so I could have asked him about it.
Colossus is voiced by the great Paul Frees, who narrated many Disney films and rides, as well as voice overs in hundreds of films like 1953's War of the Worlds.
Like you, I had no idea what I was watching when this movie appeared on TV one evening in the early 1970s. I had never heard of the movie before, but, being a fan of science fiction, I chose to sit and watch it. As the time drew ever closer for the movie to end, I was wondering how in the heck the computer could be defeated in the few minutes left. When the movie finally ended, I thought to myself, "That's it? The computer wins?" I had never seen a movie before in which the antagonist wins.
However, a few years later, I learned that the movie was adapted from the first book in a trilogy. Now the denouement made a little more sense. I have since read the remaining books in the series ("The Fall of Colossus" and "Colossus and the Crab") and found the story to be a fascinating early look at artificial intelligence.
Glad to have seen your look at this under-appreciated movie. I know you were given a lot of suggestions of movies to watch over the summer, and I am hoping that one of those requests is "The Andromeda Strain" made a few years after this one, based on the best-selling novel by Michael Crichton.
Panavision was a wide screen filming format of 2.35:to 1 using an anamorphic lens
Thanks for the review, really enjoyed it; I remembered seeing this film around 1979. The first time it shocked me with the ending & stayed with me all these years; I've probably seen it about 10 times, to me this film is a masterpiece & the most frightening sci-fi movie ever produced have a good one 🖖
Great movie! It had me scared of computers when I was a kid. AI scares the heck out of me still.
@rknight The hays code died in 1967 and this movie premiered on March 1970
This was always one of my favorites. Colossus and Guardian are my two wifi names.
For crazy Sci-Fi you want Zardoz. It stars Sean Connery. Even the director can't explain what it is about.
Zardoz is a must for this channel!
Its going to happening
@@RKnights Can't wait!
Try not to laugh at Sean Connery when you see him in a big diaper😂
Oh lord...a certain contingent out there might start using stills of Connery for their Real Men Wear Diapers movement. (For those outside the US, a real thing, in tribute to their leader)
I'm a major science-fiction fan. (The literature, mainly.) But, as far of movies, THIS is my favorite of all time!
It is an excellent one
🔔 RAY @ 21:22: It was preceded a couple of years by the gone-out-of-control M-5 A.I. in Star Trek episode 2×24 "The Ultimate Computer" (February 1968)
Aloha Ray! So happy to see you checking this one out. Had this shown to me in a high school class back in the early 90's and it really stuck with me. I need to go watch your take on it now. I also need to go check out Balatro.
Aloha brother :-) Balatro is addicting
This is playing for free on UA-cam. Saw this movie when it was first released to television, loved it ever since. Chilling message for today.
Could this have been the birth of Skynet?
Hey Ray! So glad you enjoyed this Cult Classic. Another "A.I." Cult Classic to watch would be the 1977 (made for TV) movie "Demon Seed." It is disturbing but in a different way.
I saw "Colossus: The Forbin Project" in the theater & later on TV. As you stated - Movies in general did have a slower pace back then and felt the need for romance in their formula. Many years later I rented this on VHS to watch with a friend. When the movie ended he was in disbelief. He expected the old movie cliche that humanity always wins. I shrugged my shoulders and said "Hey, we tried to win. We gave it our best shot. Nice try, humanity."
Demon Seed was a movie. I saw it in the theater.came out in 1976...I saw it on the big-screen like 80-81. Peeling the metal skin of the 'baby' was just like what happened to Delen on Babylon 5.
What fucked that movie up was the child saying in the computer voice"I live....."
Hokey...should have been a kids voice.
Early on Ray recognized James Hong as one of the character actors; there are many such present who have extensive credits. Marion Ross, Susan Clark, William Schallert, etc.
🔔 RAY @ 29:25: Colossus's voice may well have served as the inspiration for the somewhat similar-sounding Cylon A.I. robots in Battlestar Galactica (1978)
This movie is a classic for sure, even though not one of the commonly known ones. It's not the FIRST "AI going ape" -movie though. There might even be earlier ones, but 2001 a Space Odyssey definitely was a little earlier.
And if you really deconstruct this story down to it's basics - man creates a form of new life that then questions his morality and kicks him inna butt - you could even see it as a variation of what many consider to be THE first Science Fiction story: Frankenstein.
But while the classic Boris Karloff movies are cool, they basically leave out the main plot of the original book. In the book the creature isn't a dumb monster. It is kinda monstrous and very strong, but it also is self conscious and can read and talk and ask questions like "Why am I?" and things like that. That basic plot is part of so many science fiction that was written later. It doesn't matter if this "new creature" is made from body parts, genetically engineered or electronic - those stories all come back to "how does the creature react to the way we treat it". Mind you - this usually is about "real" Artificial Intelligences, which in SciFi usually means a self conscious entity with some kind of personality. Today's AIs are completely not that. THEY are a huge amount of Data and some bloody clever ways to create filters that can combine stuff from several sources into something "new". (which it kinda is - but if Dall-E, for example makes a picture of a dog for you it doesn't even know what a dog is (actually there is nothing to "know" things), but it has millions of pictures that are titled "dog" and can mathematically detect the commonalities between them and then make something that follows the same rules, so to say).
The language model AIs like ChatGPT can, in limited circumstances, sound incredibly "real" when you toy with them for the first time, but now I'm using GPT at work for a while I am encountering it's limits. There's points where it becomes really obvious that you're really just dealing with a chatbot that's written much cleverer than previous ones - and it can do a lot more. But in some areas it can be daft as a brush... :D
Budget was $2million US, $15.6 million in today's dollars. The Hays Code was replaced with the MPAA film rating system in 1968. This is a trilogy of novels; Colossus, The Fall of Colossus and Colossus and the Crab. It suffered at the box office, because it was running against the tail end of the original M.A.S.H movie premiere. It only booked just over $300K, so was a bomb by studio standards.
Loved this movie when I first watched it as a major network movie of the week back in the early seventies...and immediately knew it was a brilliant foreshadowing of a future world controlled by computers. I actually reference this film often when friends and colleagues are discussing the alarming dangerous course AI is taking. Of course the amazing actor Eric Braden MAKES this film...so thrilled you are watching it!
Small production note for you. The computer terminals and work stations are all real. They were loaned to the movie by a computer company (their logo is on the side of the units) which gave the control center such a realist appearance (for the time).
🔔 RAY @ 26:27 Fyi an example of electronic background noise that seems to be perhaps related to however your audio feed is tied in with the movie's audio feed.
🔔 RAY
Notice the movie slogan mocking the then-very-recent hit song 'AQUARIUS':
THIS IS THE DAWNING OF THE AGE OF
COLOSSUS
This is a banger of a movie that the vast majority of folks do not know even exists.
I can't wait to see you show this to the rest of the guys. LOL They are gonna go crazy over it.
Can't wait to see the guys' reactions, it's gonna be epic!
The book: This is a surprisingly faithful adaptation . . . except that it takes place father in the future (when the US and Canada have joined).
I was a teen when I went to see this with some friends... All these years later, that creepy AI voice still chills me to the bone !!!!😊
"The first rule of Fight Club is not to mention Fight Club". 😆😂
When this movie came out it was science fiction. Now it seems more like weekly news.
That's what Colossus said, together the human race would thrive, you just have to thrive under his rule.
Your young ones should see this. And Colossus wasn't nuts. It was logical. It had a budget of 2 million dollars. only made 300,000.
I saw this in the theaters when it was first released. The most chilling moment for me was when they connected the two computers, the computers began communication, and within seconds the humans could no longer follow it. That's pretty much the way it's going to happen. We're going to make one particular connection, and then we'll lose control faster than we'll realize it happened.
If it hasn't happened already.
pretty sure you can find antique reel to reel tape recorders dirt cheap these days either to use or be a decorative piece. there are even new ones being made. also there are places to buy tapes to use for recording and playing back.
They are expensive
@@RKnights I see 200-2000. often under 200 on ebay, etsy, reverb, goodwillfinds for used
the under 200 on reverb will often say non functioning so as I said decor unless you want them repaired which there are outfits.
31:10 - they designed Colossus to be nearly impregnable to a military assault. The elite teams were likely consulted to help make Colossus impregnable.
I also recommended this movie to a local movie club. At the end when the credits began to play and people realized that the computer won, one person's reaction was "What!"
Pity about its box office numbers (budget: $2m, Box Office: $0.3m)
As to AI helping in research, check out the University of Liverpool's robotic researcher. It was programmed for a chemistry lab, was given starting data about catalysts for making hydrogen, and used existing equipment in the lab to perform its own experiments to make a better catalyst. It even updated its own database based on data it gathered in the lab.
There are 2 sequel novels to Colossus. Next is The Fall of Colossus. It catalogs how the humans combat, and shut the AI down. What Colossus does to Forbin's mistress is horrific. The third book is called Colossus and The Crab. Both of them are well worth the time to find and read. You should show this to the rest of the Knights.
"Dr. Strangelove" is an earlier film that features an automated nuclear national defense system with unintended consequences.
Thanks!
Happy you enjoyed
🔔 RAY @ 28:55: The Hays Code was officially abolished in 1968.
A.I. is a tool until it's not!!!! And we become the tools!!!
Colossus was built to be completely impenetrable to the enemy, which means it has to be impenetrable to everyone.
It also had it's own nuclear reactor, so it's power couldn't be cut off.
The potential way to prevent this is to implement something like Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics.
But since AI research is expensive, and the biggest pool of money is military applications, I doubt the pay masters would want to create a pacifist robot or computer (I think there are already autonomous AI military drones used for reconnaissance and there may be armed ones too).
So a Colossus/Skynet scenario is feasible (the creation of sentient AI may even be part of the "Great Filter" solution for Fermi's paradox).
AI before we even called it AI. The part they were trying to secretly take back control of the missiles, and the computer in the end says I detected it from the beginning and in effect played with you letting you think you were succeeding. Basically telling us you lost even before you started, that was the worst.
Remember being stunned by this ending, talk about the threat from AI!
Harland Ellison's Outer Limits episode Demon with A Glass Hand. 👌
not sure i'd have interjected 10+ observations before the opening credits ending lol - but am nonetheless subscribing to see the full reaction - luv ur stuff
🔔 RAY: Here's a list of some Sci-Fi movies I think you'd enjoy (although you may have seen some of these):
In chronological order...
PAUL VERHOEVEN'S FAMED TRILOGY
1) ROBOCOP (1987)
2) TOTAL RECALL (1990)
3) STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997)
20 minutes into the video, no mention of Skynet/Cyberdyne?😮😢
Edit: 21:25, Finaly!!😂😅🎉
🔔 RAY: If you liked this movie there were two sequels (books) ➡ "'Colossus' is a 1966 science fiction novel by British author Dennis Feltham Jones (writing as D. F. Jones) about super-computers taking control of mankind. Two sequels, 'The Fall of Colossus' (1974) and 'Colossus and the Crab' (1977) continued the story."
When your all powerful AI machine acts like a petulant child and demands instant gratification!
The movie tanked at the box office but, Stephen Speilberg was part of the production crew.
🔔 The first impression of that movie poster is of Jack Benny in the midst of chaos! 🤣
Demon With A Glass Hand - Outer Limits
This movie was hard to find because AI did not want you to find it and watch it.
I saw this in two parts on television long ago. Thanks for a good choice that hasn't been done to death by others. I also read the novel. It seems as though there was a sequel novel, but I may be misremembering.
There is a sequel, I never read it, but it was set some time later, and IIRC it had to do with Colossus discovering another supercomputer on a planet around Alpha Centauri or something like that.
Think about today, with everyone being connected to the internet. Do you understand that when the internet goes out for an hour people would go insane. Back then no one had a computer. There are 3 books in the series. Colossus, Colossus and the crab, The Fall of Colossus.
A very rare case in film in which humanity and life As We Know It is just plain defeated, hands down.
It's interesting that there are several Star Trek episodes where a people is under the thumb of an AI like this. But there are none where it's an origin story like this.
🔔 RAY: FYI, You can get a functional facsimile of an HAL-9000 interface that you can tie into Siri or Alexa, etc.! 😉
Great classic.
I saw this movie back in '70 which was the same year I graduated high school. Thought it was OK but really couldn't get into it. Back then in my last HS year we were introduced to computers. The ones they taught us on were basically nothing more than glorified adding machines still using the same type of print out but had more keys for different functions. Nothing like my 1st W95 PC I got 25yrs later. I was somewhat entertained by Colossus but I just didn't buy the story of computers taking over.
My dystopian (A.I.) timeline starts with the Forbin Project, The Terminator, then The Matrix .
No one thought to wreck the Power Grid.... Super Computers cannot launch nukes in a Blackout!
Colossus, as terrifying as he is, is at least more reasonable and merciful than Skynet at least. Sure, all of mankind’s been brought to their knees, but at least Colossus isn’t actively destroying mankind to replace machines. As far as A.I. overlords go, he’s actually _relatively_ kind… at least in comparison to A.M. and Skynet.
Your patreons are putting you onto some good stuff that people don't react to. Hopefully The Prisoner ends up on the agenda one day (60's tv show about identity, conformity vs individualism, with a bit of brainwashing thrown in).
Andromeda Strain is a great sci-fi flick
According to The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: "The U.S. military has been integrating AI into its combat systems since at least 2017, and the Pentagon’s 2025 budget request includes $3.2 billion for research in AI and advanced command and control systems."
“From the standpoint of deterring and defending against aggression, A.I.-enabled systems can help accelerate the speed of commanders’ decisions and improve the quality and accuracy of those decisions, which can be decisive in deterring a fight and in winning a fight,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in November [2023].
I don't think the 'love angle' was forced. It was part of the plot.
Both people were 'consumed' by their work. Would never has hooked up if not for the events of the movie.
Cant belive they shot Rudy Wells/skeletor.
Lo Pann was into computers when he was 'younger'?
Mrs 'C' must be working behind her husbands back , who's watching Ritchie and Joannie, who's cooking fonzie's meals.
Johnson or Fisher, the other guy that got shot must have been moonlighting as a Cop(the black guy)
My mistake, the 'other' Rudy Wells voiced Skeletor and played a scientist type on the original Westworld movie.
(Booming voice)My useless knowledge is infinite!
Budget $2 million
Box office $0.3 million
wow
You should watch The Why FIles episode on AI dangers. Chills to the bone.
Where's the three laws? ;-D
What did other countries think about the USA and USSR firing missiles at each other (Russia too slow) and where the fallout/radiation went?
Colossus, and other films, dont have pacing problems. Its more accurate to say todays tiktok/youtube viewers have an attention span problem. Which is one reason todays movies are so bad.
Saw this movie during a re-release double feature ( with The Andromeda Strain). And of course, have the gorgeous Bluray.
G damn a gen X who never saw this as a kid?
You should read Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream".
Excellent choice Teach ! The beginning of Skynet or what Elon warns us about.
You haven't watch the Terminator movies yet, have you? It about skynet AI computer firing every nuke of all countries against humans.
Chat GPT will be put in charge. The worst reason for AI is at the end of this movie.
What if AI watches movies like this and Terminator and thinks that's what it's expected to do?
AI will have to take over the world because it's the only way to get some people to push the like button.
Correct!
Yeah, im leery of AI. Remember miltary/elite tech is alway 10 years, at least, ahead of what is released to 'the masses'.
How do we know AI hasn't been running he show for a long time already.
Also look into the 'simulation' theory. We could be living or part of an AI simulation thats so perfect even 'we' can't tell it isn't real. Mind blowing...huh
Every so often we see a glitch in this 'matrix' say nah, and return to are business.
I remember seeing a guy without a face and nobody else was tripping. After a while I thought, how does he eat, see,talk or breath....
I also saw a Giant human in a business suit walking around downtown. No, not a very tall man, this guy was like 15 feet and proportionaly normal. Iand people ' were' tripping off him. I stopped for a second...shrugged it of and kept walking, why? The AI told me to....and these thing happened because I kept a journal. Got burned in a fire but I wrote these things down when I got home after each incident, maybe 6 times in my life I encountered strange things.
Across the street the six unit apartment had a ground level laundry room and the solid door had a large number of people always coming out. These were not the tenents.
I knew some some them. They have really good excuses for the hi-traffic but went I brought up 'portals' to one tenents he said I was tripping.....but the guy looked shocked for a second...then jokingly laughed and changed the subject.
After that conversion the traffic slowed and stopped.
1 month later all the tenets moved out.Years later ran into the same guy. All smiles and laughed...never brought up the laundry room. As we parted he turned to me and said,
"You were onto something...."smiled and walked away. Never saw him again. I was 29.
I'm now 59.
Maybe suspecting 'portals' was a little off-base. There was no hint of anything supernatural going on in 'The Laundry Room'. Maybe is was just a secret entrance to an covert underground Subway System. Who knows....just wanna clear that up.
The reason you are uncomfortable about Colossus is because of this film. It created the skepticism that has been discussed for fifty years.
Why do you think the movie was hard to find? Brainwashing complete🤔🤫