巨人：福 宾计划

Eric Braede
n stars as Dr. Charles Forbin, who has
created a supercomp uter nam e

d Colossus, built solely fo  r the purpose of contr olling the nuclear defe
nse s of the Western alliance. It isn' t  too long after, however, 
that the

Russians an
nou n ce
 that

they too have b
u
 ilt a similar co
mputer for those s ame p urpos
es on their side
-
 -Guard ian. And
 when the two machines begin sharing inform
ation at a spee
 d
 nobo dy can believ e, a n att empt is made to disab
le  t hem.　　T his unfortunately just raises the machines' ire; and in retaliation, they launch their weapons at each other's home nations. The result is a 
chilling scenari
o that is pot
entially be
comi
n g all too real these days.　　COLO SSUS THE  FORBIN PROJECT was not a big hit at the box offic e for various reasons. One is  that it s c

ast wasn't  ex
actly wel l  known. Another reason is that its endin g is
n' t exact ly a happy one. Still a th
ird reason is t
ha t Universal  had t rouble trying to promote it in the wake of the   huge s 
uccess of Stanley K ubrick's 2001 A SPACE ODYSSE
 Y. The latter reason is obv iou
s Colossu 
s and Guardian

, like HAL in  t he Kubrick movie, become central c haracters here. The
 d if
ference  here is 
that while HAL malfunctions due to  a programmin
g conflic t , Colossus and  Guardia n remain

all to o stable, convinced beyond  a doubt that they know how to pro tect Mankind
 be
tter  tha

n Man himself. As the computer s 
point out One ine
v itabl e ru
le is that Ma nkind is his own worst en emy.　　Josep h Sargent's direction  is eff i cient,

and  the special effec  ts 
w 
ork   of Albert W  h
itlock still manages to

work  despite its obvious
a ge. An
 o

ve 
rlooke d  gem in the sci-fi
 
genre, th

is should b
e given a revival.