I might have made this point before, but I’d say the main barrier of entry that keeps modern movie fans (especially those who enjoy speculative fiction) away from those films of yesteryear is the special effects. After all, even a painfully shitty movie like the Bayformers has giant monsters, rocket ships blasting through space, exotic locations, and enough CGI to give your average computer a hernia, and your average movie back in the day...didn’t. Sure you had giant monsters, but most of them tended to be footage of lizards and grasshoppers spliced into the scene. There were rocket ships in space, but these tended to be models hung in front of black backgrounds. As for exotic locations, well let’s just say if you’ve seen one episode of M*A*S*H you’re familiar with large chunk of movie history. Even some stone cold classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still and the ‘53 War of the Worlds, with their alien death rays and giant robots, took place in mundane towns and countrysides. You never really got to see truly alien landscapes in those days, places that originally only existed in the pages of dime store sci-fi stories.
Enter Forbidden Planet, presented in Cinemascope, that burst onto the silver screen in 1956. The year is 2200 and humanity, having discovered the properties of warp drive, has spread across the galaxy in the form of a massive unified government, dedicated to the betterment and advancement of all mankind. One such ship, captained by Commander John J. Adams, has been sent to a planet known as Altair IV to investigate the disappearance of s ship known as the Bellerophon, which was meant to settle Altair IV almost two decades ago. When Adams and crew arrive, they found out that the planet has been settled after all, by the brilliant Dr. Morbius (one of the original settlers), his beautiful but naive daughter Alta, and Morbius’ creation, the astounding mechanical servant known as Robbie the Robot. However, ol’ Doc Morbius seems incredibly resistant to the idea of other people on ‘his’ planet, as well as discussing what happened to the Bellerophon and the rest of her crew, only revealing that they had come down with a sickness that ‘ripped them apart’ in the very literal sense. Because that’s something that diseases do, right? Adams knows what’s up, but because they have to dismantle the ship in order to build the messaging equipment to contact home (humanity is capable of warping across space in the 2200s but we forgot how to make cell phones I guess), the crew is stuck there for 10 days. Just long enough to start up some romance, get stalked by a killer, and figure out just what makes this planet so forbidden anyway, give or take a heaping helping of 50’s era sexism.
If the idea of a spacefaring human civilization from the 23rd century engaged in exploration and colonization that treat starships like naval vessels and explore technicolor alien planets that somehow still have an attractive blond woman living on them, then you’ve probably seen at least one episode of Star Trek in the 50+ years it has existed. Yes, if you’re a fan of the stories of Kirk, Spock and the USS Enterprise, then you might be surprised and maybe even a little disheartened at just how much of Forbidden Planet Gene Roddenberry lifted a decade later for his show. Of course the outfits are a bit different, and Adam’s ship and crew is much more of a military outfit than Starfleet’s flagship, but switch out Leslie Nielsen and company for Shatner and the rest and there’s no difference. Aside from Adams not getting into a shirt-ripping fight scene that is, but he does make out with the movie’s only woman and gets to make at least two dramatic speeches, so he’s Kirk enough.
As I implied back in the opening and in the comparisons to Trek, design-wise Forbidden Planet is unlike any of the other sci-fi films of the time. Whether it's the barren wastes that are watched over by a endless green sky, the future chic of the Morbius compound, the labyrinthine machinery deep within the bowels of the planet, it all looks like images pulled from the covers of science-fiction magazines. Combined with the soundtrack (the most appropriate name for it, like the mating calls of the wild Moog), it gives the movie this surreal, distant, menacing, and yes, alien feel that’s unlike any other sci-fi of the time that I’ve seen. When I think of the ‘Golden Age’ of science-fiction, engineers in space, Foundation, Forbidden Planet is the aesthetic that comes to mind. You can definitely see the issues, this was 1956 after all, but they put some much work into it that you can’t help but salute them for taking that step.
Unfortunately, although Forbidden Planet captures the visual imagery, it also picked up its knack (or lack thereof) for characterization. Morbius is the antagonist so he gets to chew the scenery a bit, but everyone else is just so damn dull. I actually had to look up Leslie Nielsen’s character name post-watch and HE’S THE DAMN PROTAGONIST OF THE MOVIE. This being the 50s I expected Alta to be the nubile receptacle for the various crewman’s lusts, there to look pretty and stand in the corner while the menfolk do all the work, they even throw in a ‘it’s your fault men push themselves on you’ for extra grease factor, but she’s basically a living prop that is moved from scene to scene as needed. Although that’s not to say that the male cast are that much better, aside from the cook (whose main character trait is being a bumbling alcoholic), pretty much all of them get beat out by Robbie in the charisma department. Really undercuts the drama of seeing these folks killed off when they’re all cut from the same loaf of white bread.
That being said, the mystery and eventual ideological conflict between Morbius and Adams is classic science fiction fare, and the faux-Starfleet’s actual fight against the killer is quite the spectacle (also has a sort of proto-Predator vibe to it). Combined with the beauty of the setting and the inventiveness of the special effects, and Forbidden Planet easily earns a place amongst the stars. Those interested in exploring the history of science-fiction in film would be remiss in not throwing this into their queues, but the film does a good enough job of keeping things entertaining that even non-nerds can get a kick out of it. This Halloween, consider putting on Forbidden Planet. You won’t regret it, at least I hope not. You never know just how destructive those kinds of feelings can be.
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