Cameron was certainly inspired by this movie when he wrote the script for "The Terminator" and "Terminator 2".
Just as Colossus, Skynet is a defense supercomputer which became sentient and saw the entire human race as its enemy, not just the Soviet Union.
It controlled the nuclear arsenal.
I haven't seen "Colossus: The Forbin Project" so could please someone tell me if Colossus launches its missiles in order to destroy humanity, like Skynet did?
No.
Colossus is programmed to preserve _peace_, and does this by threatening to destroy humanity if its commands aren't obeyed. But it doesn't actually do this.
The end of the movie is fairly ambiguous - Forbin has rebelled against Colossus, but Colossus hasn't done anything about it. Interesting to speculate what the "right" thing for everyone concerned to do would be...
The difference between Skynet and Colossus is that Skynet saw humans as a direct competition to its existance, while Colossus saw its existance as mutually possible with humans. Colossus does have the primary problem of non-mobility so it IS dependent on humans to some extent. You can only do so much when one's arms are nuclear warheads.
shareColossus launches a couple of missiles to prove that it is serious about it's control over humanity.
Ultimately, in the 2nd and 3rd books, Forbin kills then revives Colossus to deal with the threat from MARTIANS! it got a bit silly.
I searched everywhere for the follow up books, and was dissapointed with them.
Colossus book and Colossus : The Forbin project are superb though.
Ed
It also has the "rebel scientists" executed. THAT was the scariest part to me.
Like, "Do as I say, or I'll nuke New York."
Plot of "I,Robot" very similar: robots figure out that humans cannot protect themselves and need machine intervention.
Of course, even this ground-breaking film owes homage to "The Day the Earth Stood Still" as the first film to send the message: "If you cannot exercize self-control in developing WMD, then we will do it for you."
Yes I always thought that the terminator's skynet was derived from the Forbin Project. Im glad to see someone else has noticed it.
share[deleted]
How did Forbin kill it in the books?
shareJames Cameron worked with Eric Braeden on "Titanic." (Braeden played John Jacob Astor). Braeden tells the story that when Cameron first saw him on the set, he yelled, "Never!" Braeden got a puzzled look on his face and Cameron told him that this was the last line in "Collosus." So James Cameron is definitely a fan of the movie.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/574691/actor_eric_braeden_interview_colossus.html?cat=40
In the second book, Colossus takes over the earth, of course, and starts a religon with himself as God and has an army loyal to him alone, etc.
At the end of the second book, I think Forbin feeds Colossus an equation that starts frying his brain that Forbin secretly received from the 'Friendly' Martians/Aliens...
As Colossus is dying (like Hal in 2001), he tells Forbin that he was preparing Earth for an attack by the Martians/Aliens and that the Martians/Aliens are actually bad and want to enslave or destroy humanity... and they needed Colossus out of the way so they could carry out their plans.
It's pretty obvious that Terminator was an extension of a sort of the Colossus story. At the end, we hear that Colossus has a plan to build some sort of electro-mechanical computer marvel on the island of Crete, yet will not state what it is exactly. However, it is clear that Colossus sees itself as dominant and humans as subservient, and also as expendable. Taking that a bit further, Cameron comes up with the Skynet system. Who's to say that Colossus would not eventually follow the same path? It would seem so based upon the things it had done in the film, and, like so many of his contemporaries who are film school educated, Cameron sees a swell idea and uses it to an advantage. Have we not seen this done before? For example, Twilight Zone Little Girl Lost aka Poltergeist, and how about probably the most famous snatched film among sci-fi fans, It the Terror from Beyond Space aka Alien? Fikm school students turned writers, producers and directors may not always have something original to say, but by gosh they will take a B-movie or cheesy TV show and make it as much of a big budget affair as possible. You know, the way we ourselves always wanted them to be. Don't tell me you never thought of how your favorite B-film could be done right?
shareFor grins and giggles visit this site http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2662058804386480098&hl=en
and listen to the dialogue and watch the video. The audio is from The Forbin Project.
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"You Americans?" Even I'm getting sick of reading/hearing that phrase and I'm one of those bleeding heart liberals who was against the war from the beginning.
I think you are taking a narrow view of the ending, I thought it was much more ambiguous than that it was going to always do good for us. Maybe it intended to do so, but will it always intend to do so if it deems we are no longer as useful and efficient as whatever robot extensions of itself it could build in the future? Maybe, maybe not. The point is that there is an inherent danger and fear in leaving the fate of humanity up to something that isn't human.
So long as those in control are human, there is at least the sense that they will see reason and not destroy everything. Even Stalin seemed to get at least that much. After all, who would he get to oppress if there was nobody left to oppress?
We don't know what the future hold for us, especially once Colossus builds the super project on Crete. Maybe it was because I had already seen Terminator but something about that suggested to me it might be the beginning of a project that will lead to our elimination somehow.
Also, Colossus could just plain be lying to keep some of us docile and agreeable to his actions so that he can set things up where it is not physically threatened any longer by us.
Don't get offended when some amazingly insipid person slams the country as a whole; clearly their sweeping generalization labels them as prejudice and thus of lowly intellect. Just grin and remember everyone who does that shows themselves to be more ignorant and common than whoever they intended to insult.
shareI guess all you Terminator fans seem to casually forget that WOPR in War Games also predates Skynet?
shareYou said:
"Yes, Colossus threatened people in the beginning, but threat is the only way Colossus could gain power. All the power Colossus gained is then used to help humanity - it was all said in the end of the movie. Colussus wasn't bad for humanity, it was the best thing humanity could ever want!"
but I think you have to take into consideration that Colossus might be just saying this in order to get humans to build robots that it could directly control and then use them (or the nuclear missles it had) to eliminate humans from the situation. There would always be a threat of humans turning against it. It could hardly tell humans that its goal was their ultimate extermination if that was what it had in mind!
I think Colossus was above human emotions/motivations such as lying, fear, ambition, hate...only cold logic, and actually protecting humans from themselves (humanities survival, but without freedom).
if it were one thing, it was brutally honest.
the books are available for the Kindle.
Terminator was inspired by Ellison stories that became Outer Limits episodes in the early 60's.
Look up "Terminator Origins: Harlan Ellison" on youtube.
The "computer becomes so smart it takes over" idea had be used again and again and again before Terminator OR Collosus. But the "soldier from a dystopian future goes back in time " idea was the more specific part that was ripped off.
It could be that two Star Trek episodes were influenced by the book? ("The Ultimate Computer" - the one with the Enterprise being retrofitted with the M5 computer that wreaks havoc, and "A Taste Of Armageddon" - the one where the planets fight virtual wars with computers, and then the calculated death toll must be actually carried out by people committing suicide)
A famous Harlan Ellison story that parallels Colosus is "I have no mouth, and I must scream" about a malevolent world spanning former defense computer that has killed all but five humans and has made them immortal so that it can torment them throughout eternity...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream
also, Colosus seem to look on humanity as foolish, naughty children, who need to be obedient...
rather than wanting simply to exterminate them like Skyenet...
I found Colossus similar to...
Frank 'Dune' Herbert's Destination Void computer that attains sentience and wants humanity to worship him/it as a God...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination:_Void
Wow....I was just thinking about 'Destination: Void' when I was going through these threads....I was on a train ride years ago (as a teen) and found the book on a seat. I read it and after that I left the book on a bus for someone else to find
I'm pretty blown away that someone else mentioned that book here
BTW I copied your link so that it's 'clickable'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination:_Void
Ignorance and prejudice...
And fear walk hand in hand...