Forbidden Planet

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This article is about the 1956 film. For the bookstore chain, see Forbidden Planet (bookstore).
Forbidden Planet

Film poster
Directed by Fred M. Wilcox
Produced by Nicholas Nayfack
Written by Cyril Hume (screenplay)
from a story by
Irving Block
Allen Adler
Starring Walter Pidgeon
Anne Francis
Leslie Nielsen
Jack Kelly
Music by Louis and Bebe Barron
Cinematography George J. Folsey
Editing by Ferris Webster
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Warner Bros. (DVD)
Release date(s) March 15, 1956 (sneak preview)
Running time 98 min.[1]
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Budget $4,900,000 (estimated; source: Kirk Kerkorian)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Forbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox and starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis and Leslie Nielsen. The characters and setting were inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest,[1] and the plots are very similar.

The film features a number of Oscar-nominated special effects, groundbreaking use of an all-electronic music score, and the first screen appearance of both Robby the Robot [2] and the C-57D flying saucer starship.

Contents

[edit] Plot

United Planets Cruiser C-57D landing on Altair IV.
United Planets Cruiser C-57D landing on Altair IV.

In the early 2200s, the United Planets Cruiser C-57D is sent to the planet Altair IV in the Altair star system, sixteen light-years from Earth, to find out what happened to the Bellerophon expedition, sent out some twenty years earlier. As their spaceship arrives after a year's voyage, the crew detects an immense power source "radar scanning" the ship.

They are contacted by Dr. Edward Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), the expedition's philologist, who warns them to stay away, but refuses to provide a reason. Upon landing, they are met by Robby the Robot, who takes Commander John J. Adams (Leslie Nielsen), the first officer, Lieutenant Jerry Farman (Jack Kelly) and Lieutenant "Doc" Ostrow (Warren Stevens) to Morbius' home. Morbius explains that a year after the expedition's arrival, some unknown force wiped out nearly everyone in his party and vaporized the Bellerophon as the last survivors tried to take off. Only he, his wife (who later died of natural causes) and his infant daughter survived. Morbius fears that the same fate may await the crew of the C-57D.

First Officer Jerry Farman speaking with Altaira.
First Officer Jerry Farman speaking with Altaira.

The officers are dazzled by the house and its array of technology, advanced beyond anything known to mankind, including Robby, which Morbius claims to have "tinkered ... together during my first months up here". The men meet Morbius' nineteen-year-old daughter Altaira (Anne Francis), who has grown up, like Shakespeare's Miranda, not knowing any man except her father. She is therefore very curious to learn about human relations. Several officers and men are more than willing to help with her education, but Adams keeps them in line, much to Altaira's puzzlement.

Morbius tells Adams he has been reconstructing the history and science of the Krell, the long-extinct natives. They had possessed a technology and society a million years ahead of that of humanity, but had all died 200,000 years before in a single night of inexplicable destruction. Morbius shows his guests what he calls a "plastic educator". He explains that his first use of it put him into a coma for almost two days, but also resulted in doubling his intellect, enabling him to build Robby and the rest of the wondrous devices. Morbius also takes them on a tour of the Krell facilities, including a cube-shaped underground machine 20 miles square, powered by 9200 thermonuclear reactors, which has been operating, self-repairing, since the extinction of the Krell. When asked its purpose, Morbius is evasive.

The Great Machine, dwarfing the three men walking on the platform.
The Great Machine, dwarfing the three men walking on the platform.

One night, a valuable piece of equipment in the ship is damaged, though the sentries report they saw no intruders. In response, a force-field fence is set up to protect the ship. However, it proves to be useless. The unseen thing returns, shorts out the fence, and kills Chief Engineer Quinn (Richard Anderson), literally tearing his body to pieces. A plaster cast is made from one of the huge footprints found on the ground afterwards. Dr. Ostrow is puzzled by what he can deduce from it; the creature appears to violate all known evolutionary laws.

The intruder comes back the following night, and is discovered to be invisible. It is seen only in outline when it encounters the fence and fire from energy guns flickers over it. It kills several more crewmen, including Farman. At his home, Morbius is having a nightmare when he is awakened by Altaira's scream. At that moment, the invisible attacker vanishes.

Adams and Ostrow confront Morbius. Ostrow sneaks in and uses the educator. Before he dies from its effects, he gasps out his revelation: the vast machine was designed to let the Krell materialize anything they wanted at a mere thought. "But the Krell forgot one thing! Monsters, John! Monsters from the id!" Though the Krell considered themselves civilized, their subconscious minds were unleashed by the almost limitless power of the machine. Adams realizes that the Krell were wiped out by their own subconscious minds acting out their darkest urges, fueled by the machine's power.

When Morbius objects that there are no Krell to generate the creature, Adams contends that Morbius's subconscious is responsible, and that it caused the deaths of the Bellerophon party when they voted to return to Earth. His deepest desire is simply to study the Krell, and his subconscious used the machine to fulfill that wish.

When Altaira declares her love for Adams in defiance of her father, the monster comes for them. In the climactic attack, Morbius finally accepts the awful truth and throws himself between the monster and his daughter. He is mortally injured, but the monster disappears. As he lies dying, he directs Adams to set the Krell machine to destroy itself and the planet. Altaira, Robbie, and the surviving crew witness the destruction of the planet from a safe distance in space.

[edit] Cast

The crew works on weaponry and circuits. Ostrow is in the middle, with Adams on his right.
The crew works on weaponry and circuits. Ostrow is in the middle, with Adams on his right.

* Billed in opening credits, but not closing credits. Billed as The Robot in theatrical trailer.
† Not credited on-screen.

[edit] Production

 This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (April 2008)

The original 1952 screen treatment by Irving Block and Allen Adler was titled "Fatal Planet"; the screenplay by Cyril Hume was renamed "Forbidden Planet" because it was thought to have more box-office appeal.[3] Block and Adler's treatment took place in the year 1976 on the planet Mercury. An expedition headed by John Grant is sent to the planet to retrieve Dr. Adams and his daughter Dorianne, who have been stranded there for twenty years. The plot is roughly the same as the final film, though Grant is able to rescue both Adams and his daughter and escape the invisible monster stalking them.

The film sets were constructed at an MGM soundstage on the Culver City lot and were designed by Cedric Gibbons and Arthur Longeran. The entire film was studio-bound, without any outdoor photography. All outdoor scenes were simulated with sets and visual effects.

A full-size mockup of three quarters of the C-57D was built to suggest its full width of 170 ft (51 meters). This was surrounded by a huge painted diorama of the desert landscape of Altair 4. This set took up all the space in an MGM soundstage on the Culver City lot. This was the first film in which humans are depicted traveling in flying saucers of their own construction.[citation needed] The ship was reused in several episodes of the original Twilight Zone.

At about $125,000, Robby the Robot was a very expensive film prop for the time.[4] The electrically-controlled landcar or "dune buggy" driven by Robby and the tractor-tow truck offloaded from the spaceship were also built for the film. Robbie was later featured in the film The Invisible Boy and appeared in numerous television series and movies. Like the C-57D, Robby (and his vehicle) appeared in multiple episodes of The Twilight Zone, which was also filmed at the MGM studios.

The animated sequences (especially the attack of the Id Monster) were created by veteran FX animator, Joshua Meador, who was lent to MGM from Walt Disney Pictures. Curiously, shots showing the shape of the invisible Id Monster outlined in the blaster beams were evidently removed from some prints shown on TV — presumably because its monstrous appearance was considered too terrifying for younger viewers — and it was many years before these shots were restored. The Id Monster vaguely resembles the Looney Tunes character "Gossamer".[citation needed] A close look at the Id Monster shows it to have a small goatee beard, suggesting that it is connected to Dr. Morbius, the only character with this feature.[citation needed]

Helen Rose, who made some miniskirts for actress Anne Francis, is sometimes credited with inventing the garment.[citation needed]

[edit] Releases

[edit] Theaters

HD DVD cover.
HD DVD cover.

Forbidden Planet was first released on April 1, 1956 across America. Its Hollywood premiere was at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and featured Robby the Robot on display in the lobby. It ran continuously at Grauman's until the following September. The film was subsequently re-released in movie theaters in 1972 as one of MGM's "Kiddie Matinee" features, with 6 minutes of film footage cut to ensure a G-Rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.[citation needed]

[edit] VHS and DVD

The film was first released on MGM VHS and Beta Video in 1982. It was reissued by MGM/UA in widescreen VHS for its 40th anniversary in 1996. Warner Bros. then released it on DVD in 1999 after MGM's back catalog was sold to AOL-TW by Turner Entertainment and MGM/UA in 1998. The 1999 release came with both standard and widescreen formats. This was followed by a release of the 50th Anniversary HD DVD and the Ultimate Collector's Edition DVD on November 28, 2006.[5] The 50th anniversary version was restored by the Warner Bros.-MGM reconstruction crew.[6]

[edit] Novelization

After the movie was released, there followed a novelization by W.J. Stuart. The book delves further into the mystery of the vanished Krell and Morbius's relationship to them. In the novel, Morbius repeatedly exposes himself to the Krell mind machine, which (as suggested in the film) increases his brain power far beyond human intelligence. Unfortunately, Morbius retains enough of his imperfect human nature to be afflicted with hubris and contempt for humanity. Not recognizing his own limitations is Morbius' downfall, as it had been for the Krell. While not stated explicitly in the film, the novelization compared Altaira's ability to tame the tiger (until her sexual awakening) to the medieval myth of a unicorn being tamable only by a virgin woman.

[edit] Soundtrack

The movie's innovative electronic music score (credited as "Electronic tonalities" partly to avoid having to pay movie industry music guild fees) was composed by Louis and Bebe Barron. MGM producer Dore Schary discovered the couple quite by chance at a beatnik nightclub in Greenwich Village while on a family Christmas visit to New York City. Schary hired them on the spot to compose the film music score. The theremin had been used as early as 1945, in Spellbound, but their score is widely credited with being the first completely electronic film score. The soundtrack preceded the Moog synthesizer of 1964 by almost a decade.

Using equations from the 1948 book, Cybernetics: Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine by mathematician Norbert Wiener, Louis Barron constructed the electronic circuits which he used to generate the "bleeps, blurps, whirs, whines, throbs, hums and screeches".[4] Most of the tonalities were generated using a circuit called a ring modulator. After recording the base sounds, the Barrons further manipulated the material by adding effects, such as reverb and delay, and reversing or changing the speed of certain sounds.[7]

As Louis and Bebe Barron did not belong to the Musicians' Union, their work was not considered for an Academy Award – in either the soundtrack or special effects category. Curiously, MGM avoided producing a soundtrack album when the film was first released. However, film composer-conductor David Rose released a 45-rpm single of his original main title theme, which he had recorded at MGM Studios in Culver City, California in March 1956. This theme had been discarded when Rose, who had originally been contracted to compose the film’s music score in 1955, was discharged between Christmas 1955 and New Year’s by Dore Schary.

The innovative soundtrack was finally released on a vinyl LP album by the Barrons for the film's 20th anniversary in 1976, on their own PLANET Records label (later changed to SMALL PLANET Records and distributed by GNP Crescendo Records) and, later, on a music CD in 1986 for its 30th Anniversary: with a six-page colour booklet containing images from Forbidden Planet plus liner notes from the composers, Louis and Bebe Barron, and Bill Malone.[7]

[edit] Track list

The following is a list of compositions on the CD:[7]

  1. Main Titles (Overture)
  2. Deceleration
  3. Once Around Altair
  4. The Landing
  5. Flurry Of Dust - A Robot Approaches
  6. A Shangri-La In The Desert / Garden With Cuddly Tiger
  7. Graveyard - A Night With Two Moons
  8. "Robby, Make Me A Gown"
  9. An Invisible Monster Approaches
  10. Robby Arranges Flowers, Zaps Monkey
  11. Love At The Swimming Hole
  12. Morbius' Study
  13. Ancient Krell Music
  14. The Mind Booster - Creation Of Matter
  15. Krell Shuttle Ride And Power Station
  16. Giant Footprints In The Sand
  17. "Nothing Like This Claw Found In Nature!"
  18. Robby, The Cook, And 60 Gallons Of Booze
  19. Battle With The Invisible Monster
  20. "Come Back To Earth With Me"
  21. The Monster Pursues - Morbius Is Overcome
  22. The Homecoming
  23. Overture (Reprise) [this track recorded at Royce Hall, UCLA, 1964]

[edit] Influence

  • A number of similarities between Forbidden Planet and later science fiction movies and TV shows have been noted by observers. The film has even been called "The First Episode of Star Trek", both as a result of its general structure and in the plots and details of various episodes (e.g., the C-57D's advance team consists of the Captain, First Officer, and Ship's Doctor, a trope of many later Star Trek episodes). Indeed, Gene Roddenberry noted in his biography Star Trek Creator that Forbidden Planet was one of the inspirations for Star Trek.[8]
  • The Doctor Who serial, Planet of Evil, was consciously partly based on Forbidden Planet. [9]
  • In Serenity, the movie finale to the TV show Firefly, the plot revelation is made on the planet Miranda, which itself contains several references, including uses of the number C-57D.[10]

[edit] References in other media

  • In Babylon 5, one particular shot of the Great Machine of Epsilon 3 (as seen in the episode "A Voice in the Wilderness") bears a strong resemblance to the bridge through the Great Machine of the Krell in Forbidden Planet. (Babylon 5's producer has stated that this similarity was clear at the time of production but the form the shot took was due to production requirements, and was not a deliberate reference to the film.)[11]
  • In the computer game Space Quest 6: The Spinal Frontier, when an invisible creature attempts to escape from a cell, it is revealed in an outline similar to the monster.
  • The title of the Melvins song "The Fool, the Meddling Idiot" comes from a line of dialogue in the film.[citation needed]
  • In the film Halloween, Lindsey and Tommy can be seen watching Forbidden Planet while Laurie is babysitting them.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Forbidden Planet (1956). Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2006-08-14.
  2. ^ The Robot Hall of Fame : Robby, the Robot. The Robot Hall of Fame (Carnegie Mellon University). Retrieved on 2006-08-14.
  3. ^ tkm fav the forbidden planet. klangmuseum.de. Retrieved on 2006-08-16.
  4. ^ a b Forbidden Planet. MovieDiva. Retrieved on 2006-08-16.
  5. ^ Forbidden Planet: Ultimate Collector's Edition from Warner Home Video on DVD - Special Edition
  6. ^ HD DVD review of Forbidden Planet (Warner Brothers,50th Anniversary Edition) - DVDTOWN.com
  7. ^ a b c Notes about film soundtrack and CD, MovieGrooves-FP
  8. ^ Alexander, David (1996-08-26). "Star Trek" Creator: Authorised Biography of Gene Roddenberry. Boxtree. ISBN 0-7522-0368-1. 
  9. ^ A Darker Side, documentary on Planet of Evil DVD (BBC DVD1814)
  10. ^ (2005). Serenity. Retrieved on 2006-12-17. (01:41:44)
  11. ^ Straczsynski, J Michael (1995-10-29). JMSNews. Synthetic Worlds. Retrieved on 2006-10-23. “My second thought was, "Shit, somebody's going to gig us on the Forbidden Planet thing." Nonetheless, it was the right shot, for the right reasons, and we chose to go with it.”

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:


v • d • e
Fred M. Wilcox
1940s
Lassie Come Home • Courage of Lassie • Three Darling Daughters • Hills of Home • The Secret Garden
1950s
Shadow in the Sky • Code Two • Tennessee Champ • Forbidden Planet
1960s
Short films
Joaquin Murrieta