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Colossus: The Forbin Project - Region B (1 Viewer)

Johnny Angell

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There are other threads about this movie, but that was for a German release. This is an English only release I ordered from Amazon.uk.

First, without some restoration work, this is the best this film will look and it's very good. Good detail, colors don't look faded, audio is fine, though I forgot to check what it was while I was playing the disc. I am playing on my Oppo 203 with my region free mod set to region B and it plays without a problem.

I am very happy with this purchase, though I have a few complaints. 1) The commentary by the director (Sargent) is not very good, at least so far. There's no content to it. 2) The teletype noise made when ever Colossus communicates (even on a screen) gets annoying after a while. 3) When Forbin makes the perfect martini he uses way to much vermouth especially when it's going to get poured out. 4) Forbin neither shakes nor stirs the pitcher. Tsk..Tsk..Tsk.

The performances are all fine and after watching this I have to wonder why Eric Braden did not have a bigger career. This movie should have put him in line for at least substantial supporting roles and some starring roles.

Ok, so some of the FX is dated but a lot of it looks very good. BTW, this is based on the book Colossus and if memory serves, is reasonably faithful. The author wrote two more sequels which went in surprising directions. I can recommend them too.

I highly recommend this blu ray.
 

Dick

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The film does follow the novel quite closely.

The DOS system used by the computer ages the film more than any other element, and if remade today (as rumor would have it), the actual "Colossus" unit would probably fit into an average NSA storage closet. But, taking all that into an account, it's an intelligently-scripted, well-acted and sometimes quite scary thriller and well worth having as a part of one's "must-have" 70's sci-fi library.
 

Johnny Angell

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The film does follow the novel quite closely.

The DOS system used by the computer ages the film more than any other element, and if remade today (as rumor would have it), the actual "Colossus" unit would probably fit into an average NSA storage closet. But, taking all that into an account, it's an intelligently-scripted, well-acted and sometimes quite scary thriller and well worth having as a part of one's "must-have" 70's sci-fi library.
I don't recall a point were DOS is seen, maybe I'm so familiar with it I didn't notice. When was DOS revealed?
 

Worth

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I was a bit disappointed in the transfer. It's clearly one of Universal's older masters, with too much sharpening.
 

dpippel

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Yep, it has some problems, but this is likely the best we'll ever see this film look. I chose to refrain from technical criticism and just enjoy watching the movie in HD for the first time, warts and all.
 

Dick

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I don't recall a point were DOS is seen, maybe I'm so familiar with it I didn't notice. When was DOS revealed?

I am assuming (and I am anything but a geek or computer historian) that when you see a black screen with emerging green letters as a message is typed or received, it was indicative of DOS. Or, at least, pre-Windows.
 

dpippel

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DOS wasn't brought into the world until a full decade (1980) AFTER this film was made, so comparisons to it are a little misguided.
 
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Angelo Colombus

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It sure beats the pan-and-scan atrocity that was released to DVD previously.
That pan & scan version made me angry and had to watch the movie at that time on my letterboxed laserdisc. Universal releasing a pan & scan dvd was just dumb & lazy and a insult to the consumer!!
 

rsmithjr

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If by DOS you mean Microsoft MS-DOS, this is not possible. MS-DOS was first released in 1981 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS). The movie was released in 1970.

The term DOS stands for "disk operating system" and was used in a number of contexts outside of MS-DOS.

The computer interaction shown in the film could have been any of a number of machines available then but most would have been mainframes such as the Digital PDP-10. Possibly a Digital PDP-8 minicomputer was used.

The film was partly shot at the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley so perhaps the film makers borrowed some ideas from that institution. See IMDB and Wikipedia.
 

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