I thought I had seen nearly all the dystopian/computer-ruled-future sci-fi movies out there, especially that of the 1970’s (the decade that pretty much invented the genre) but recently came across one I had not – 1970’s Colossus: The Forbin Project.

While this movie is a bit dated given its Cold War theme (the USA builds an invincible computer to run our missile defense system – then we find out the Soviets have done the exact same thing) and the fact that it’s 42+ years old now, it still presents a somewhat different take on the now-common TRON/Terminator/Matrix vision of man handing off control (either by mistake or on purpose) to technology, and then having to fight to regain freedom.

Here, the computer(s) (Colossus from the USA and Guardian from the Soviets) ‘discover’ one another, begin communicating (we never find out what about, save that they progress through simple math into subjects alleged to be beyond human capability within a day or so and never look back) and then start taking over as they gain sentience.  When the humans try to regain control, well, that doesn’t work out so well of course.  Finally Colossus forces the technicians to install a weird-looking speech unit, and issues an edict to the world by the end, that it is ushering in a new era of peace, ‘on my terms’.  Enforced by control over the world’s nuclear arsenal, which is re-aimed at countries still not under its control computer-wise.

The difference to me on this movie was the ‘peace enforcement’ angle – usually all-powerful computers want to enslave or worst case, exterminate all humans once they gain power, right?  Here Colossus hints that he’s going to force Dr Forbin (his creator) to evacuate Crete and build an even bigger, autonomous computer complex there that will control all world communication within 5 years.  To which Dr. Forbin naturally replies – ‘never!’

So on the positive side, the plot is pretty decent, although there could have been a bit more editing of somewhat tedious long shots after the main sets are established – I really liked the opening of Dr. Forbin walking around the huge Colossus complex as it goes online – you really get the impression of scale (it’s an impregnable fortress in the Colorado Rockies). The acting is generally effective, with even a few familiar faces, including Marion Ross, James Hong and William Schallert, although only the latter gets much to do.

What’s also amusing in these movies (and in similar books – helped by hindsight of course) is how the ‘humans never learn’ – they always go creating something magnificent to solve some enormous problem – and it ends up creating far more problems than it solves – and they wonder why? But it must be human nature (or a time-honored/tiresome element of sci-fi plots) to try and try again….

On the negative side – the main computer interface they use is similar to those neon ‘announcement’ lights you see by the side of the highway or in a shop window, backed by typing sounds.  Even 2001’s HAL (from several years earlier) had a much more advanced interface (those all-too-menacing ‘eyes’ located all over the ship) than this.  And that Colossus doesn’t learn to talk until about the last 15 minutes of the movie?  And that we never see or really hear from Guardian (the Soviet computer) at all, save that it effectively becomes Colossus’ partner in world domination by the end – why not have it be a rival instead?  That would be another interesting take – most movies have computers vs. humans – why not computers vs. each other, with us caught in the middle?  While the Matrix addresses that theme a bit, we never really know WHY the computers in that movie decide to help us out, it’s really just assumed that some are ‘good’ and some are ‘bad’…?

Anyway, this was an interesting movie, if you like old-school sci-fi and don’t mind that the Cold War is now over (replaced by the ‘invent-a-war’ nature of the world now, arguably more unstable in some ways)….

Other reviews:
The Chicago Reader
Eccentric Cinema

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I’ve been watching 1998’s Cowboy Bebop on Adult Swim over the past several months (at one episode a week with 26 episodes, it can take a while) – finally finished them last week.

This is a great anime, if you like bounty hunters in space and don’t mind occasional crazy violence (and that they don’t usually explain a lot of what’s going on – you have to infer or watch all the episodes to really get it). The main characters’ backstory are slowly revealed throughout the entire timeline, and even though Spike’s fighting abilities seem a bit beyond his outward appearance – it still works. And the overall visuals are pretty much pre-CGI – now rare for a space-opera but like Akira – the animation is more than adequate and well done.

I think the only real downside for me was having to watch it dubbed in English – I prefer watching them in Japanese with subtitles to get the flavor of the original actors/authors as possible. But that wasn’t really too big a deal here.

The other downside is that now i’m done with the main anime’s on Adult Swim – I’ve seen Ghost in the Shell at least twice all the way through; I tried to watch an episode of Big O but just couldn’t get into it – and the others they show aren’t really of interest – doh!

check it out in any event – i’ll be headed back to Scarecrow myself….

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wow. Thankfully I’m a ways away from THAT milestone yet 🙂

Gaming History Milestone: Spacewar! 50-Year Anniversary

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I have to say I like either ‘the Viewmaster’ or ‘the cylon’ the best….

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I rewatched TRON: Legacy yesterday.  While my original reactions largely still stand, I’ve begun looking into a fan fiction project around this.  It would seem I’m not the only one working on TRON stuff – here’s a 10 minute short they must have done as they filmed TRON: Legacy, and a teaser trailer that was apparently included in the Blu-Ray edition.  Finally, as apparently they are working on an animated TRON television series TRON: Uprising – here’s a trailer for that too.

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TRON: The Next Day

Dillinger easter egg:

TRON:Uprising

it’s made of people! 🙂

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So I finally read the Gibson short story Johnny Mnemonic this past week, and as I had never seen the movie, thought i’d get that too.  Hmmmm…not so much.  While the short story is set in the Neuromancer/Count Zero/Mona Lisa Overdrive ‘universe’ of cyberpunk and The Sprawl – the movie just falls flat.  The director and Gibson himself (screenwriter) changed too many elements (IMHO) of the original – apparently Molly Millions was changed to ‘Jane’ due to someone else’s ownership rights, but the whole NAS thing is silly – the short story is just much more taut and effective.  The movie has many sequences that either lack dialog (where it’s needed) or have oddball distractions that don’t add to the plot, and the pacing of the movie isn’t very good, either.  Too many slow parts that could have been edited out, and the action sequences are fairly clumsy, too..

A few interesting things I noticed, however.  The LoTek clan’s hideout is on a burned out suspension bridge from Newark – echoes of his first Bridge Trilogy book Virtual Light (which had come out two years before this movie in 1993, although the ‘bridge’ in that trilogy was the Golden Gate Bridge in SF)?

Also, the look and feel crib (or steal, depending on your perspective) VERY HEAVILY from Max Headroom in a multitude of ways.  Astute cyberpunk fans could say that MH in turn stole from (or was certainly inspired by) Gibson himself, given that his first two cyberpunk books, Neuromancer and Count Zero, appeared before MH debuted.  It’s likely a tossup either way.  The ‘wasteland future’ look here might also have been influenced by the even earlier Escape from New York, too.

Johnny’s overloaded ‘head of data’ – billed as 120GB but ‘stuffed overfull’ at 320 GB – seems quaint at best now, given you can buy a TB-sized USB drive at Fry’s for around $150 these days.

It’s interesting to think that while this movie was a failure, Keanu would be back in cyberspace MUCH more successfully only a few years later as Neo in The Matrix.

Finally – the depiction of ‘The Internet’ as conceptualized by the Neuromancer series was thought for a long time the way we’d browse – sadly didn’t turn out that way, despite similar thinking as seen in say, The Lawnmower Man.

So read the story – skip the movie.

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This infographic speaks for itself….candybowl