Review #22: Forbidden Planet
If the mind could make monsters…
“Creation by mere thought… But like you, the Krell forgot one deadly danger — their own subconscious hate and lust for destruction.” — Horny, horny Commander Adams
Synopsis
The time? The future. The place? Altair IV. The crew? Entirely men, which becomes especially strange when they mention that the mission of the United Planets is the colonization of the galaxy, but I digress. United Planets vessel C-57D (I guess they’ve run out of names by the 23rd century) is on a reconnaissance and rescue mission of a vessel which disappeared on Altair IV two decades prior. There they find one surviving member of the crew, a Dr. Morbius, who has somehow managed to construct a pretty awesome house, create a butler robot named Robby, and raise a daughter, Altaira, in complete isolation from other human beings, which somehow gives her the ability to communicate with the planet’s native animals. While the entire crew takes turns hitting on Altaira, mysterious things begin to happen — their ship is sabotaged by an invisible intruder preventing them from leaving, their protective forcefield shorts out one night, and finally, a crew member is brutally murdered. With only footprints as evidence to the creature hunting them, the crew begin to suspect that Dr. Morbius may be playing a role, and undertake a secret investigation of his house.
When the crew find evidence that Morbius has been hiding information, Morbius resolves to show them how he has survived. His house sits atop an ancient alien super machine hundreds of cubic miles in volume, whose purpose, Morbius has discovered, was to advance the Krell race to a point where they no longer needed any physical devices; “creation by mere thought”. They were close to achieving this objective, when something annihilated their entire species in a single night. Back on the surface, the ship is assaulted by the invisible intruder again, this time warded off by the crew’s battery of Hoth-looking turrets. They finally arrive at the conclusion that Morbius has been tinkering with the alien technology, and has accidentally imagined to life the creature which has been tormenting the crew, and which killed his last crew. They also determine that this was likely what befouled the Krell 200,000 years prior. In a final standoff, Morbius is forced to face this fact in order to de-imagine the monster. He succeeds, but dies from the stress in the process. Altaira falls in love with the commander for some reason, and they and the remaining crew whiz off into space, blowing up the entire planet to make sure that no one can imagine anything ever again.
Review
The era before 2001: A Space Odyssey was a dark and tumultuous time for science fiction film. The majority of the genre throughout the 40’s and 50’s was confined to endless monster flicks and silly alien invasion films, sorely exasperated by low-budget effects and cheap acting. There were, however, a few exceptions to this trend, and I think its fair to say that Forbidden Planet meets those criteria. The film immediately establishes its credibility in its opening scenes. Not only is the circular ship bridge design, the Star Trek-looking uniforms, and even some of the ship equipment incredibly forward thinking for 1956, but the sci-fi lingo is also surprisingly on-point. There are multiple instances throughout Forbidden Planet where the fairly realistic science puts movies from decades later to shame: the crew must be suspended in special forcefields while entering and exiting light speed, the super strong alien structural material was explained as having molecules more densely packed than steel, and most of the tech depicted in the film is wireless. This was groundbreaking stuff coming from a time before cellular phones and Hot Pockets.
Though the design of the C-57D is clearly inspired by the saucer of The Day The Earth Stood Still (or perhaps just a dinner plate), it is the very first instance of an explicit faster-than-light ship used in film, and the first time that a flying saucer had been depicted as being human in origin. Even if the scenes of it hovering over the surface of the planet by an almost-visible string look silly 70 years later, these facts are important to remember while watching. The film continues to amaze with the introduction of Robby the robot who, despite being essentially an upside down fish bowl atop a cash register, manages to be an incredibly interesting character. Robby is programmed to never hurt a human being which, for some reason, doesn’t prevent him from replicating 60 gallons of whiskey for the ship’s cook to get blasted on. Robby’s amazing programming is flaunted extensively during the film, from him making coffee in seconds to him disarming people without issuing a scratch. His ultimate “fault” comes when Morbius tells Robby to kill the monster, which Robby cannot, as he knows that the monster is a piece of Morbius. What an incredible plot element.
It’s a shame that the forward-thinking components of this film’s plot and themes are almost immediately squelched upon the appearance of Morbius’ daughter, Altaira. I had seen this film once before, perhaps in middle school. I did not remember these scenes aging so poorly back then. Upon meeting Altaira, the Lieutenant immediately comments on her attractive appearance, and takes no time in whisking her aside right in front of her father. In response, the Commander tells Morbius something like, “You’ll have to excuse him, we’ve been shut up in space for more than a year now without any women, and from here the view looks… very nice.” THAT’S HER DAD! The scenes with Altaira only get worse, with crew members whistling at her, taking advantage of her not knowing about human customs by “teaching” her how to kiss, and finally, the Commander scolding her for wearing revealing clothing because it’s too distracting for his men. Later, he himself ends up making out with her too! CONTROL YOUR HORNY MEN AND SELF, COMMANDER! It’s fortunate that the plot veers away from Altaira for the last third of the movie, because those scenes were more uncomfortable to watch than Luke and Leia kissing on Hoth.
The cinematography of this film is so far ahead of its time. Some of my favorite scenes include the invisible monster footprint scene, the insane tilted camera angles and breathtaking views of the alien mechanism, and the battle scene between the monster and the ship’s turrets. The battle scene becomes even more impressive when you realize that some bloke had the job of editing every single frame to add in those blaster and forcefield effects! I do have to wonder, though, if the inclusion of an invisible monster was really added for the sake of the plot, or perhaps for budgetary reasons… Though the video effects certainly exceed par, I do question the integrity of some of the audio effects. The sound of Robby’s motor car travelling across the desert sounds like a washing machine with a broken belt, and the ambient sound effects of the planet’s atmosphere are reminiscent of giving a Theremin to a raccoon. I know that some of these effects were probably impressive for the day, but I can’t help but wonder how many executives listened to this and thought “Yep. That’s the sound we’re looking for!”
In the end, the movie’s grand themes cannot be ignored. With Morbius disowning his monstrous creation and the crew heeding his warning to not turn the Krell technology over to the United Planets, I sense some neat parallels between the film’s mind-creation technology, and the real life advent of the fission bomb in the 40’s; both are technologies that had great potential, but were misused by those who didn’t understand how to apply them. The clear theme of the inner feral tendencies of intelligent life is accompanied by a suite of smaller motifs regarding the limits of robotics, the power of the mind, and the consequences of contact with alien life. Some general plot issues: When they arrive in orbit, the Lieutenant says “There are no signs of civilization” yet Morbius’ house is YUGE. Also, what was the purpose of the animals turning on Altaira? Hmmm, Wikipedia tells me it was supposed to be a metaphor for her no longer being “pure” because she kissed the commander… Yikes, okay moving on… Why is their radar able to pick up the monster before the second battle, yet they never detected it when it sabotaged their ship? Lastly, what is an “oil job”, and why was Robby busy giving himself one?!
Conclusion
If you are able to see through the thick shroud of outdated sexism, Forbidden Planet is really a surprisingly clever and thought-provoking sci-fi work. Serving as a template of inspiration for the genre, it is clear to see how this film impacted other creations decades down the road. Forbidden Planet proves that there were indeed a handful of Star Sapphires buried in the abyss of plain old diamonds and emeralds before the post-2001 era of science fiction.
