“Forbidden Planet” exists in a peculiar dead-zone for famous Hollywood sci-fi’s. It’s too campy and stilted to be called truly great, but it’s also too grand and philosophical to belong to the McCarthy era B-movies of the period that in some cases have aged even better. It’s an imperfect film on numerous levels, but it works so memorably because “Forbidden Planet” is all about the pursuit for human perfection and the beauty in humanity’s flaws.
Though famous for its ahead-of-its-time special effects, Cinemascope aesthetic, high budget, early Leslie Nielsen performance and lofty ambitions, it’s actually one of the more subtle Shakespeare adaptations of its kind. Based on “The Tempest,” a group of soldiers hundreds of years in the future have ventured to the Earth-like planet Altair, where an entire colony had gone missing and never reported back. The one sole survivor is Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon in a steadied, but high in the clouds performance), who has since fashioned a comfortable life with a talking robot named Robbie and his short-skirted vixen of a daughter, Alta (Anne Francis). Commander J. J. Adams (Nielsen) is tasked with discovering what became of the colony just as his own crew is slowly slaughtered by an unknown, invisible force.
You can see how “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” could be quite literally lifted from moments of “Forbidden Planet.” The pseudo 3-D title card recalls “Star Wars'” iconic opening credits, a cleansing pod on Adams’s ship resembles the transport beams on the Enterprise, and at one point a crew member comments on the natural beauty of Altair’s two mooons. Even the bulbous, slow moving Robbie the Robot seems to be a direct ancestor of Marvin the Paranoid Android and The Robot from “Lost in Space.” Continue reading “Rapid Response: Forbidden Planet”