robomatic, I'm sorry about your friend.

Odd as it might seem, comparing the Ukraine situation to various science fiction dystopian stories (written and on film) seems to fit.

Years ago my kids and I did movie nights with films that were interesting and/or important. I had them sit through 2001: A Space Odyssey and my son was just writhing and "mom, what is this about?" as the living room scene goes by. But as it concluded they paid attention. Later when he was at the university he asked me to send him my copy because he wanted to use it for a writing project (and didn't want to sit in the university library to watch the copy they had available). Anyway, right now Zelenskyy is asking Hal to open the pod bay doors.

BTW: I didn't realize the Colossus novel, cum film, was the first in a trilogy (see the link above to the Wikipedia entry for the novel and follow the link to the author). I'll have to look into those.