While web surfing some time ago I came across a reference to a movie that I hadn't seen before, Colossus: The Forbin Project. I finally got a chance to watch it this weekend and it was fun.
Filmed in 1970, I understand this to be the first movie with the primary theme of a super-computer being given complete control of the nation's defenses, achieving sentience, and overtaking mankind for its own good. Given the period in which this was filmed, I was expecting much "cheeze" and nonsensical computer technology. Instead, it turned out to be a pretty good treatment of the concept based on sound principals. Of course there was some cheeze but this can only be expected from a forty year old movie.
The primary lesson to be drawn from the movie - don't build a super complicated mission-critical system, go straight into production, and then make it impossible to disable it. Advice that continues to hold value forty years later.
Worth watching if you're into this kind of movie.
