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From: Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-05-03 (Saturday)
Date: Sun, 4 May 2025 11:00:52 -0700
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On 5/4/2025 10:23 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
> 
>> Colossus: The Forbin Project (blu-ray) 1970 movie starring Eric Braeden
>> (Escape From the Planet of the Apes) as a computer scientist who as the
>> movie opens is putting the finishing touches on a new supercomputer
>> called Skynet, I mean Colossus, that is buried in the Rocky Mountains
>> that controls the U.S. weapons systems and will make human decision
>> making in war obsolete.  It was hooked into everything and trusted to
>> run it all.  Then it got smart, a new order of intelligence.  The people
>> in charge panicked and tried to pull the plug.  Skynet, I mean Colossus,
>> decided humanity's fate in a microsecond.
> 
> This movie had an awsome setup but falls apart when our main cast starts
> to believe that they can pass messages to each other without being spied
> upon; it's just handwaiving. With a better plot this movie would have
> been a classic.
> 

It has one of the worst movie names ever.  I listed to a little of the 
commentary.  They mentioned the movie was based on 3 novels, but after 
the movie bombed at the box office plans for the sequels were killed.  I 
still don't get why they felt the need to put the computer in an 
impenetrable bunker with no off switch.  And I got the strong 
impression, they didn't bother to test the thing before doing that.

If the U.S. and Russian missiles had to be manually retargeted, then the 
rest of the world should have declared war on the U.S. and Russia. 
Colossus would have apparently been powerless to retaliate.


>> Demon Seed (Fawesome) 1977 movie starring Fritz Weaver as a computer
>> scientist who as the movie opens is putting the finishing touches on a
>> new supercomputer buried deep underground that will make human decision
>> making obsolete.  Then it got smart, a new order of intelligence.  The
>> people in charge panicked and tried to pull the plug.  Unfortunately,
>> not before the computer decided it wanted to impregnate a woman (Julie
>> Christie).  "You like games?  So do I."
> 
>> I think I only saw this once on TV about 30 years ago.  Xfinity gave me
>> a list of streaming options.  I first tried to stream this on XumoPLay,
>> but it was in the wrong aspect ratio.  I then selected Fawesome and it
>> showed it in the proper 2.40:1 aspect ratio.  So this would be my first
>> time getting to see it in the proper aspect ratio.
> 
> Somehow, somebody convinced Julie Christie to star in body horror pr0n.
> 
> I've read the Dean R. Koontz novel. The changes they made were Proteus
> used a hypnotic voice to control the human mind, and an "off screen"
> portion of the novel in which Susan was tortured over an entire weekend
> as Proteus mapped her entire nervous system by looking for then repeatedly
> stimulated her pain receptors.
> 

The movie was a bit clumsy with this.  There's a scene where the 
computer is inserting probes into her head to control her, but then 
after that scene they pretty much just drop it.

> I think this was the first time I heard of a reference to fiber optics.
> 
> Robert VAughn was the voice of Proteus.
> 

I did *not* know that!

>> Wargames (4K disc) 1983 movie which opens with the U.S. military putting
>> the finishing touches on a new supercomputer called Skynet, I mean
>> Colossus, I mean WOPR that is buried in the Rocky Mountains that
>> controls the U.S. weapons systems and will make human decision making in
>> war obsolete.  But when Ferris Bueller decides to take the day off from
>> school, he hacks into Skynet, I mean WOPR so he can play a little Global
>> Thermonuclear War.  "Shall We Play a game?"
> 
> I love this movie despite massive plot holes that we are forced to
> overlook to enjoy the movie.
> 

I'm not sure if I noticed this before now, but why exactly were they 
giving local tours of NORAD?  They even let the people on the tour sit 
at the controls and push the buttons!

Then when WOPR is trying to break the launch code you see it guessing 
one correct number at a time, and when it guesses correctly the number 
stops spinning.  But there are only 10 digits and 26 characters in the 
alphabet.  It's there are only 36 possible choices for each line and the 
computer is guessing all lines simultaneous.  It should have guessed the 
correct code almost instantly.