MovieChat Forums > Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) Discussion > Did they edit out dialog in new DVD vers...

Did they edit out dialog in new DVD version? OMG

posted 20 years ago by onmountain
11 replies | jump to latest

Hi. I am a huge Colossus fan. I remembered watching this movie in the 70's on TV reruns when I was a kid, and I was really excited this week to be able to get it from netflix on DVD. However, as I watched it, it seems slightly different. I was wondering if anyone could validate this for me, or is this all the memory of a 42 year old who hasn't seen it since he was 11 years old? Ok here is one scene that really it has to have been edited:
The military/CIA are working at a silo to alter the missle settings - the helicopter lands - the brass get out and hustle over to the TV set (BTW great reception for being out in middle of nowhere :-). Colossus announces the tampering and everyone starts scrambling to get away. The CIA guy puffs on a pipe or cigar. Then it blows. I REMEMBER that some young soldier runs up to the guy calmly puffing to get him into a jeep or something, and the guy calmly says something like: "Son, you can get far enough away fast enough to make a difference". Does that ring a bell to anyone or am I cross circuiting with another unknown movie?
Also, I ended up a Computer Enginer because of this movie and Start Trek :-)
Well, at least because of Susan Clark...

[–] ablebravo 20 years ago

"Any technology sufficiently advanced would be indistinguishable from Magic."

Well... I've seen this film maybe 10 times in 30 yrs and I'm sorry to say I do not recall that line of dialog in that sequence (one of the most chilling in the whole film). I just recall the emergency horn blowing something like 9 closely-spaced pairs of short blasts and on the 9 and 1/2 one...BOOOOOOOOOM...and we cut back to a horrified Forbin with that inhuman voice of Colossus continuing as if nothing happened!! **shudder** This was a classic and no, to respond to a subject I've seen mentioned in several other posts concerning this film, Terminator was nowhere near a retread of this story.

Cheers

[–] eddiemacarthur 20 years ago

the video vhs version i have shows the cia guy sitting down for a cigarette as the bomb blows up. not with the dialogue above though; will check later.
As for Susan Clark; yes, she was superb. Also excellent in Coogans Bluff.
and, surprisingly, she played a prostitute in Porky's!
Ed

[–] ralfee 20 years ago

I have just watched that part on the MGA home video VHS tape and it is the same as the DVD.
I recorded it very poorly off a TV broadcast in April 1985 and pulled it out too, and I played that scene and the DVD at the same time and identical from when Colossus says he will restrain man, up to when someone yells Grobber and you know what blows.
I recorded the sound on cassette tape, about 1975 time frame, but doubt if I could find it now, assuming I haven't thrown it out.
And I saw it a year or so before that, but I don't remember that scene exactly, but do remember that he was the one person who knew better than to run around in circles.

[–] Tipster 19 years ago

William Schallert, the actor who plays the CIA guy, once said in an interview that that thought was what was going through his character's mind when he refused to run. Maybe you read that interview, and that made such an impression on you that now you think he said it in the movie?

[–] crc-4 19 years ago

You know its funny too cause I could have sworn I rember dialog between the machine and forbin to the effect of Forbin threataning to kill himself and the machine explaining that if that were to happen it would begin destroying the world or something.

[–] esskayess 19 years ago

Such a line would be absurd, anyway. No one within miles of that explosion would have had a chance.

[–] mugi-1 19 years ago

Absurd? The "Get those men out of the silo's" with the alarms going off just before the big bang doesn't rank much better. And that is in the movie.

Funny, I made a cassette of all of the Colossus dialog off of T.V. in the mid seventies as well. (Los Angeles KABC 3:30 movie)

I wound up using the Colossus speech in a music mix I did in the early 80's and funny enough can still recite it (The goofy things your brain keeps hold of).

Still have both cassette tapes.

It's the same as the VHS tape and sorry to say there isn't that specific line about "couldn't get away far enough".

You got me curious and I cracked open the book "Colossus" by D.F. Jones as well.
The entire scene at the end is different of course, so it isn't from that.

I gotta go get the DVD now.

[–] pdw123 19 years ago

Possible variation of wording is said in WARGAMES (Matthew Brodrick) or little known HBO film MIRACLE MILE (Anthony Edwards) The William Shallert interview is also likely.

[–] esskayess 19 years ago

What surprised me about the DVD was how much footage was snipped out of a copy I made off network TV long ago, including the au natural shot (carefully framed so as not to actually show anything) of Cleo before she goes to bed and the scene where she and Forbin get steamy under the covers. Even the funny dialogue about how many nights Forbin needed sex was missing. Uptight twerps.

[–] msmith40 18 years ago

I last saw this movie in September 1971.

I recall William Schallert being the CIA guy, and I remember him sitting there stunned once COLOSSUS' message sank in. I also recall him having a cigarette in his mouth....and it may have just dropped onto the ground as he realized he was doomed. All the while, everyone else around him was scrambling to get out of Dodge.

msmith40

[–] bigal_a 18 years ago

Memory can be very fallible - mine played me a similar trick. I saw the film many years ago and remembered Grauber hearing the alarm, sighing and then sitting down to calmly light his cigarette just before the missile blew.

I got hold of the DVD recently, and it wasn't that way at all. Still, IMHO, my memory-scene is cooler.