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Forbidden
Planet (1956)
In director Fred Wilcox' influential, classic science-fiction
space adventure - the first science-fiction film in color and CinemaScope
- and an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest - a forerunner
of the entire Star Trek (and Lost in Space) franchises:
- the film's story - a journey by astronauts on a
flying saucer-shaped United Planets space cruiser C-57D to a distant
planet-star named Altair-IV with green skies, to investigate the
fate of a colony planted 20 years before
- the first appearance of the film's real star -- friendly
Robby the Robot (voice by Marvin Miller) (who influenced and was
the progenitor of many other future robotic creations), functioning
as both a house servant and guard, and providing comic relief: ("Sorry
miss, I was giving myself an oil job!")
- the entrance of reclusive philologist Dr. Edward
Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) - and his lovely, doe-eyed and very naive
19 year-old daughter Altaira (Anne Francis) who had never seen
men - and upon seeing three crew members marveled: ("I've
always so terribly wanted to meet a young man, and now three of
them at once"), and who innocently asked after found swimming
nude in a pool: ("What's a bathing suit?")
- Altaira's kissing scene with Lt. Farman (Jack Kelly)
- and after a few moments, her comment that she couldn't feel any "stimulation" -
and the creepy subtext of the film - Dr. Morbius' incestuous feelings
for Altaira
- Morbius' tour of "Krell wonders", prefaced
by his words: "Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical
scientific values, gentlemen"; he showed some of the crew members
a huge network of underground rooms, laboratories, deep shafts (composed
of "78 hundred levels"), and cranium head-set devices that
were reportedly the remains of an advanced technological and sophisticated
civilization from 2,000 centuries earlier, inhabited by a mighty
race of beings who called themselves the Krells: ("In times
long past, this planet was the home of a mighty and noble race of
beings which called themselves the Krell. Ethically and technologically
they were a million years ahead of humankind, for in unlocking the
mysteries of nature, they had conquered even their baser selves.
And when, in the course of eons, they had abolished sickness and
insanity, crime and all injustice, they turned, still in high benevolence,
outward towards space....The heights they had reached, but then,
seemingly on the threshold of some supreme accomplishment, which
was to have crowned their entire history, this all but divine race
perished in a single night. In the 2,000 centuries since that unexplained
catastrophe, even their cloud-piercing towers of glass and porcelain
and adamantine steel have crumbled back into the soil of Altair-4
and nothing, absolutely nothing, remains above ground")
Morbius' Tour of Underground Krell Labs
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- the scene of the night attack on the crew of the
flying saucer by the sinister, invisible Id monster - a living,
giant biped monster with sloth-like claws, who killed some of the
crew at the perimeter of a force field fence
- the scene of Morbius commanding Robby to kill Commander
Adams (Leslie Nielsen) with a laser, and Robby's 'short-circuiting'
- following one of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics to
never kill a human
- the ending sequence of Commander Adams confronting
Morbius and demanding that he explain the Id ("What is the ID?");
at first, Morbius called the Id an outdated and obsolete term: "the
elementary basis of the subconscious mind"; Adams warned about
the Krell's shortsightedness: "But like you, the Krell forgot
one deadly danger - their own subconscious hate and lust for destruction";
Morbius agreed and offered names for the invisible Id monster ("The
beast. The mindless primitive! Even the Krell must have evolved from
that beginning"); Adams continued: "And so those mindless
beasts of the subconscious had access to a machine that could never
be shut down. The secret devil of every soul on the planet all set
free at once to loot and maim. And take revenge, Morbius, and kill!";
Morbius was slowly beginning to see that the Krell ("My poor
Krell"), from 2,000 centuries earlier, didn't realize the power
that was destroying them from within - when inner subconscious thoughts
could be instantly realized; Morbius was reluctant to face the conclusion
that he himself was "the living monster" when Adams became
accusatory about him being the awakened monster: "You still
refuse to face the truth...Morbius, that thing out there - it's you!"
- the realization in a startling confession by Morbius,
that the Id was his own projected or externalized sub-conscious;
Morbius explained that he was the source of the monstrous creature,
after the Krell had built a machine able to release his inner beast;
Morbius was forced to realize that he was unable to control his subconscious
desires ("Guilty! Guilty! My evil self is at that door, and
I have no power to stop it!")
- the concluding sequence of Morbius' instructions to
explosively destroy the 'forbidden planet' of Altair (after triggering
the machine's self-destruct mechanism, and due to detonate in 24
hours) to prevent its terrible technology from being used again
- Commander Adams' final assurances to Altaira (who
was saved with the crew) as they watched the planet's destruction
from afar in space: ("Yes, Alta, your father, my shipmates,
all the stored knowledge of the Krell. Five seconds, four, three,
two, one. Alta, about a million years from now, the human race will
have crawled up to where the Krell stood in their great moment of
triumph and tragedy. And your father's name will shine again like
a beacon in the galaxy. It's true, it will remind us that we are,
after all, not God")
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The Flying Saucer Landing on Altair-IV
Dr. Morbius with Altaira
Swimming Nude: "What's a bathing suit?"
Kissing Scene
Nighttime Attack of the Id Monster
Robby Refusing to Fire
Adam's Confrontation with Morbius, Who Eventually Admitted
He was the Id Monster
The Destruction of the 'Forbidden Planet' of Altair-IV
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