Shadow of the Colossus

Colossus: The Forbin Project struck me, not just as an all-too-possible doomsday scenario, but as a deeply religious movie and concept. Think of it like this: Man has demonstrated his incapability to govern himself, so he creates god. In the absence of god in this scientific era, he creates Colossus do deal with all the tough issues he can’t tackle himself. Colossus achieves the order that man desires, but man complains that the order and security that he desires comes at the price of liberty. Colossus solves our problems. Overpopulation, war, famine and disease are all but an unpleasant memory with Colossus. But was it wrong for Colossus to be built in the first place? Yes, of course. People should never give up freedom for protection—those who do deserve neither. But as Colossus achieves godhood, the world will become almost utopian, but we achieve it by kicking and screaming. Colossus needed a failsafe. Without it, Forbin sealed the fate of humanity. That being said, Colossus isn’t bad, merely an alternative version of what we have right now. Moving toward lawlessness is the only way to reassert our humanity, but that will only make “The Machine” push back even harder.

I’m not a religious man. Hell, I can’t spell “religion” half the time, but one thing that I have noticed as a theme throughout the genre is that the doomsday scenarios and horror comes from a direct breaking of either the 10 commandments or the 7 deadly sins, usually both. Forbin is a proud man and he creates a god and a false idol. Just an observation.