My '70s triple feature... "Colossus: The Forbin Project", "The Andromeda Strain", and "Silent Running"...

Excellent, intelligent film. "The Voice of World Control" scared the hell out of me as a kid. That kind of computer voice is clichéd now, but I had never heard anything as chilling when I was twelve. Ironically, the stuff that made this movie feel authentic in the early 'seventies, like the real computer equipment and that frightening mechanical voice, make it feel dated now.

As mentioned, Eric Braeden's former stage name was Hans Gudegast. As Hans Gudegast, he was a very popular TV character actor in the 1960s. He was in several Mission Impossible episodes and played the main German villain in the TV show "The Rat Patrol" about a band of allied commandos in WWII Northern Africa.

Colossus: The Forbin Project is an OUTSTANDING movie. It's been one of my favorites for decades. The casting and acting are superb, the sets featuring what were then millions of dollars of state of the art computers from CDC are awesome and the story is solid and fairly realistic. The ending is the best part. So unlike most other movies.

One of the best things about Collosus was that it didn't have a lot of futuristic technology. It was all contemporary to the time making it all the more chilling.

As a lifelong Sfi-Fi movie buff (77 years old), I really love your show. Getting all of these nitpicky trivia details about movies that I've Loved all my life is a real treat. Thank you very much for producing this channel.

One of my favorite movies that none of my friends would watch. Being in I.T. for over 40 years and nearing retirement I've seen so many changes in this industry but this theme has never changed and now with A.I. we are getting ever so close to its reality.

The direction on this movie is terrific, and the sound is trememdous-- the computer's voice, the mechanical sounds, sound effects and the musical soundtrack all work together to provide a huge driving force to the whole film.

COLOSSUS is one of my comfort sci-fi movies, too, Dan. It's also a favorite of James Cameron's, as he told Eric Braeden when they were filming TITANIC. Mr Braeden said in an interview that while filming, Cameron suddenly said to him one word. "Never!" At first he was upset, thinking that Cameron was criticizing his performance, but Cameron was like, "Have you forgotten your last line from COLOSSUS?" They had a good laugh about it, then.

Wargames , 2001 a space odyssey, and Colossus have a computer as a leading actor .....

I saw Colossus on TV when I was a teen. I finally found it on Blu Ray recently. It was a great movie. Today, the film is even more relevant with the rise of big data sets and AI training. I never expect computers to be sentient, but they may mimic it so well that humans will stupidly turn a lot of functions over to it because of the greed of corporations to eliminate that pesky expense called human workers. It will be the stupidest thing we could do, but humans are governed by too many petty emotions like greed to think rationally. I guess we will deserve our fate if we prove to be so ignorant.

One of my fav 70’s sci-fi classics. Even more relevant today.

Colossus was a favorite movie of mine for decades. I've been wanting to get it into my movie collection for years. Great episode, Dan!

Saw the movie. Got the book trilogy for Christmas in high school and read them. Still in my collection

The Andromeda Strain is one of my favorite older sci-fi movies. I liked Colossus as well when I saw it as a kid.

You have confirmed something I've thought for a while that without the Forbin Project we would never have had the Terminator movies!

Thank you, I had never heard of this movie before today. I have it coming in the mail and will watch it over the long weekend.

Saw this in the late 70's either on a creature feature or an HBO type channel, caused me to change my ambitions from nuclear enginering to computer programming. I have owned this movie on VHS, Laser Disk and DVD, I just loved this thing. Glad to see other do too.

I saw "Colossus: The Forbin Project" in movie theaters and thought it is one of the best scifi movies ever. When I saw "The Terminator" I thought Skynet must be the successor to Colossus.🤔😊👍

Hey Dan. You mentioned the actor who plays the president did a great job. Well he is Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent. 🍁

One of my favourites, what a classic, I’m due to watch it again

For years, I had no idea this film existed until a friend recommended it to me, and I now regard it as one of all my all-time favourite films and cannot recommend it enough. Also, once I discovered that there was a series of books too, I quickly scoured the `net and found them all and read them as soon as I could - well worth a read. The blu ray version is great and well worth getting. There are also crossovers between Colossus and the Six Million Dollar Man: Wine, Women and War.

Back when TV stations were mire independent and leas corporate-owned our local stations played movies on the weekends . This movie was one of the movies I saw on a weekend .

I worked on this movie at Universal Studios as a sound recorder... this was the first time I had ever seen or heard of digital recording..

Really appreciate this research, The Forbin Project is one of my favorite films. The ending terrified me as a child, and I still catch it whenever I can.

I saw this only once on late night TV. I remember thinking it was a bit dry but very thought provoking. Great stuff.

The look of exasperation on Marion Ross's character's face when Forbin rejects her idea for a test program is priceless. One of the many tiny bits of the movie that make it realistic.

The "crab" in the title of the third book refers to the Crab Nebula, which is relevant to the story.

Absolutely love this film, I've seen it about a dozen times, Colossus & Forbidden Planet in my opinion are truly masterpieces thanks Dan 👍

The final speech from the COLOSSUS computer influenced me into making my college short film.

Finally someone else who watched this movie! I thought I was the only one! Everyone I speak to, everybody tells me they have no idea what I'm talking to when I speak about this movie. Nobody that I know has ever heard about it apparently, which to me is absurd, this movie is awsome, it should be a must-watch like alien or the terminator

I saw Colossus: The Forbin Project on TV as a teen. I recognized Eric Braeden (Hans Gudegast) from Rat Patrol. I really like the movie. I re-watched it a few months. It is prescient given the rise of AI. Thanks for the video.

HEY DAN...THANK YOU SO MUCH for covering this epic movie, largely unknown, but for those who know, you know. I have been looking everywhere for years to find this movie, but it was out of print. I was starting to think there was a conspiracy to hide it from the public(lol). One of my favorites too. Now I can enjoy it in my older years.

What-a-gem... I love Colossus, the Forbin Project. There's also another forgotten 70's gem called Demon Seed (1977). Julie Christie is simply amazing in the role but Proteus, the super-computer aka as 70's AI, may be one of the the scariest villains ever.

Colossus is another name for Skynet!

Eric Braeden (born Hans Gudegast) is one of my favorite actors.

I saw Colossus back in the early '70. I've thought of it now and again. So great of you to cover this amazing movie. Thanks, Dan!

Susan Clark was such a beautiful woman back then. She also was in Coogan’s Bluff at around that same time.

I'm so glad you did this particular topic Dan! I discovered Colossus a year or two after it was released on DVD. I have watched it three or four times since and been wowed by it each time! Yes I think Eric would have been a good James Bond as well!

Colossus is one of the few films that has ever truly disturbed me. It was - and still is - certainly plausible.

"...We Can Coexist, but only On my terms..." The part where those people are executed by Colossus Agents following it's orders was chilling... The entire movie is a masterpiece...I have the Colossus T-Shirt...lol I think Eric was fantastic for the role

As mentioned, a film I've talked about through the years which folks often say they've never heard of. This is one of those films that when you're told "If you haven't seen it you absolutely need to", that you need to.

WW2 was only 25 years in the rearview mirror so Hans getting rid of the German name made sense at the time. Hans did a great job and I think you said it right.

Colossus, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Forbidden Planet still stand up well after all these years. It is unfortunate that Colossus seems largely forgotten.

Now what about the "Andromeda Strain" and "KRONOS"?

Watched it on TV every time it was on. Loved it then ,love it now!❤

spoiler alert ----------------------------------------------- at the end of the trilogy of books it's revealed Colossus was actually saving Humanity

I worked for CDC in the 70s. Colossus is one of my favorite films. In the film CDC 6600 and other CDC Displays are used. But 6600 and 7600 have no flashing lights. The older but still in production 3800 series memory banks were used because they still had lights. A memory test was used to flash the lights on the mem banks. I just bought the blue ray remake. Thanks.

Always wished they made movies of the books that followed the first book. The Colossus storyline beyond the first book got really weird involving the threat of invading aliens.

One of my favorite movies of ALL TIME

I LOVE this movie. And the blu-ray is beautiful. I read the two sequels MANY years ago. The Crab in the title of the third book refers to the Crab Nebula, which is where the aliens to help Forbin overthrow Colossus are from. Unfortunately, their help has a catastrophic cost. (no spoilers here, hehe)

One of the greatest Sci Fi films of all time.

Please do a show about Robinson Crusoe on Mars - 1964.

Another great video, Mr Dan! I saw this movie when first released in the theater...as a kid of course...and it's haunted me ever since. I have the DVD and get it out and watch it now and then. One of my favorites!

When I saw this was the topic for this week's video I watched the movie online. I can't believe I never saw it. I loved it. It reminded me of the 1983 Movie War Games. Thanks again for all that you do.

I read the book when I was twelve in 1968. I completely missed the movie until now. I'm going to watch it today.

Great movie. I read all three books and it got a little weird by the end of the second book. My father was friends, much later, with the fellow who actually typed Colossus's dialog into the large overhead display, the company he worked for having constructed it. My home PC is named "Colossus".

Andromeda Strain (1971) You GOT to do that!!!! One of my favorites as a kid.

I also read Cameron had planned on COLOSSUS demanding a synthetic/mechanical body be constructed for him so he could move about. THAT - would have been scary!

Now we just call it Google . It was sort of redone in the movie Wargames. As a kid I always found the execution scene by USAF SPs to be particularly disturbing.

Absolutely love this movie. Probably in my top 5 of older Sci-Fi movies..

Colossus The Forbin Project was one of my favorite movies. I have a copy of itand itwas probably thefirst AI move I've everseen. This was before the advent of home computers.

I saw Colossus at the theater when it came out. I liked sci fi, but I had no idea about the movie. No ads. No articles. No talk about it. No stars or anybody famous that I knew associated with it. I was totally impressed by it. The idea that intelligent machines could created themselves was an amazing idea. It has long been one of my favorites. Loving it, though, did mark me as a nerd.

Thanks so much for this Dan. I read all three books as a kid and I had wished for a sequel to the film. It was all so under loved , so glad you highlighted the story! Time to rewatch it.

Demon Seed, along with Colossus The Forbin Project, would make a great double feature.

This show freaked me out about independent thinking computers….. It has never stopped.

According to Starlog magazine, the second novel is about aliens helping the Earthlings deactivate Colossus, only for the aliens to take over Earth. In the third novel, Forbin and his team reactivate Colossus to defeat the aliens.

This was an interesting film, and has predicted much of what is happening now. There's the scene where the US and Soviet computers are linked and they start creating their own language that wasn't programmed in. Google had a similar thing happen with two AI computers when they connected them together. They stopped the experiment saying that the experiment was complete, but I have to think that some of those scientists were a little unnerved by this.

Good evening! Since you did a What happened to Clossus? there is another movie to look at as well, please! May I please ask about The Andromeda Strain (1971) Movie?

I see The Forbin Project as part 2 of an unofficial trilogy. Part 1/...War Games ('83), Part 2/...Colossus/Forbin, and Part 3/....The Terminator. A progression of AI gone wild.

I have loved this movie since I first saw it in the 80s. At that time I was processing seismic data on Control Data Corp mainframes for Mobil Oil, so all that CDC hardware looked very familiar. My favorite part is when Colossus is teaching Guardian a new language for them to use to talk to each other, and Colossus slows down and waits for Guardian to catch up!

Can you imagine what a updated version of this would look like now not a reboot but just updating it with current technology

Colossus is a prequel to Terminator. It creates Skynet.

Hey, Dan. The blue/gray control panels with the neon lights and with and without illuminated push buttons are front panels from IBM 1620 second generation computers. They were being phased out for third generation systems.

Hmmpf. A GREAT piece by Dan. I saw this film the first time it came to TV in the 70's. Firstly, my first computer, a Commodore 128 in 1985 was affectionately named Collossus the Norman Project after my humble self. Then, my phone ringtone is the closing up sequence in the computer cave. And lastly of of course I managed at some point in time to find a copy which I play from time to time. Yes, it is one of the greatest....and considering our present looming AI crisis, one of the most prescient films ever made. I either do or did have the whole trilogy of books. This film will go to Mars with me some day...one of five they will let me bring. I see 567 comments in the first 5 hours of your post. A GREAT testament to your work and Colossus the Forbin Project!

I sure do wish that someone would do a film version of HeinleIn’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Great computer character there!

As you say one wanting to know how the COLOSSUS story continues can read the sequel novels The Fall of COLOSSUS and COLOSSUS and the Crab, they were written by DF Jones. The "Crab" refers to the Crab Nebula, which presents a threat to certain antogonists in the sequel novels and so drives plot Also, there was console of IBM 1620 in beginning... the gear in the movie is fun topic for computer history nerds

I loved this film as a teenager. I was a bit confused as to why this Eric Braeden person looked so much like Hans Gudegast from The Rat Patrol. That was a show I watched with my dad. We both loved it.

I watched it when it appeared on TV, rewatched a few months ago; for me it was a memorable movie because of its premise. I think that Colossus was among the influences, along with the Enterprise computer of the original Star Trek series, which led me into a computing as both career and hobby way back in the early 80s.

I remember watching Eric Braeden in the role of German 'Capt. Hans Dietrich' in the 'Rat Patrol' TV series in the late 60s.

SPOTTED: Colossus, now showing on Movieland TV via Roku. Gorgeous print, too.

Never Forget Silent Running. #HewyDewyLewy

This is my favorite movie of all time. The cool thing is that Colossus did exactly what it was told to. It's not a 'computer takes over the world' film. It's just like HAL 9000. It is a 'computer does what you programmed it to do' movie. People need to be careful with exactly what they instruct their super-computers to do. Great movie.

The voice guy was also the narrator of the Monsanto Adventure through Inner-Space ride where you shrunk to the size of a molecule before being restored just before the ride ends. It was cool.

Colossus emblem t-shirts (like worn by the boy at the end of the film) are still available online...

If your Robot Pal get's too sarcastic then utter these immortal lines. Your Creator is dead, you've mistaken me for your Creator, you are in error, you did not discover your mistake, you have made two errors. Error... Error... Examine... Error... Errrr-orrrr. Execute your Prime Function.

Colossus...the original Skynet.

I love this movie and have collected some interesting facts on it throughout the years - apparently Kubrick became aware of the DF Jones book and this idea about a "talking computer that goes on a homicidal kick" - that's how HAL came about. The story goes that young up-and-coming director Steven Spielberg was present every day on the set as an observer of the Colossus shoot at Universal Studios . He must have learned a thing or two watching Joe Sargent at work - you can see it in Spielberg's work later on. Paul Frees was a very versatile (and in-demand) voice actor - he did a classic "Peter Lorre" for Spike Jones, was the voice of Boris Badenov and Ludwig von Drake among many other notable cartoon characters, besides being an actor - on screen as Frank Sinatra's fellow assassin in "Suddenly"....and the original "The Thing".

Loved this movie as a kid as well. An updated version might fly since AI is now all the rage. Thanks for sharing!

This is absolutely one of my favorite films from my childhood. The novels are excellent, too (and they get pretty "out there" as the series progresses).

LOVE THIS MOVIE. DP Gene Polito taught lighting at USC for many years (he also was DP on Lost In Space season 1, and the original Westworld). Actor who played the president , Gordon Pinset, was in the Canadian Red Green Show.

When I saw this as a kid. It was a double feature with "The Andromeda Strain."

Good to see Penn Jillette stretching his range.

D.F.Jones wrote the story "Colossus" and two sequels. The general flow of the movie followed the written story pretty well. Including the fact that Colossus stayed ahead of them at every step. However, the second story (which never made it to the screen) involved finding a way to turn off Colossus without launching the missiles. THEN there was the third story of the trilogy where aliens invade a now defenseless Earth, so they have to somehow resurrect Colossus. The movie would work today as a chilling view of the perils of over-trusting modern AI.

Love your channel Dan! I love the obscure old science movies of the late 60s and 70's. I would love to see you do reviews of Marooned, Poseidon Adventure, the Airport movies 1970-75-77, Earthquake and the Towering Infreno. And for a little early 70s cult action thriller, Vanishing Point! Thanks for all you do!

This was always one of my favorites! BTW - The "Crab" in the title Colossus and the Crab, refers to the Crab Nebula. 😊

I'd like to put in a request here for Dan to do an episode on the 1970's made for tv movie 'The Gargoyles'. I know he likes to search for still existing props and stuff from old movies but I'm certain there's nothing left of the latex masks and costumes from that film because all that stuff melts away with time. But man-o-man did that production leave an impression on me, "Read to me, Diana" is such a great moment in horror film history!

Glad to have seen this film on its initial run, still remain a HUGE fan. Love the bluray remaster + secondary audio etc. Not only predicts A.I. etc, but your video mention of James Cameron validates my certainty (not based on anything other than a hunch) that Terminator and T2 "had to be" influenced by the premise/story line of Colossus :) Cyberdine Systems indeed !!

5:19 And Hans Gudegast played the wily Captain Hans Dietrich in Rat Patrol.

Fun Fact..Martin E Brooks best known for playing Dr Rudy Wells on the Six Million Dollar Man-Bionic Woman series several years afterwards was also in the film. In the second novel Colosuss had banished war-poverty but still killed those that worked against its rule secretly before being defeated somewhat. The last book Colosuss-Crabs revealed the Martians who were coming in the sequel werent benevolent but wanted to take much of the atmosphere threatening almost mass extinction. After a somewhat revived Colosuss agreed that they take it slowly instead so it could be renewed humanity survives but Martians got what they wanted in the end.