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Forbidden Planet

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, 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 and the C-57D flying saucer starship.

Plot

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 a colony expedition sent out some twenty years earlier. At the end of the year-long voyage, Commander John J. Adams (Leslie Nielsen) contacts Dr. Edward Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), the expedition's philologist, who warns him to stay away, but refuses to give a reason.

Upon landing, the crew is met by Robby the Robot, who takes Adams, his 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 their starship 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.

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". Adams is skeptical, reminding Morbius that his field is philology, not physical science.

Morbius' nineteen-year-old daughter Altaira (Anne Francis) appears. She 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. He shows his guests what he calls a "plastic educator". His first use of it put him into a coma for almost two days, but also doubled his intellect, enabling him to build Robby and the rest of the wondrous devices. Morbius also takes them on a tour of a cube-shaped underground Krell installation, 20 miles on a side, powered by 9200 thermonuclear reactors, which has been operating and self-repairing since the extinction of the Krell. When asked its purpose, Morbius is evasive. He mentions, however, that it reconfigured itself some 16 years previously.

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.

Initially suspicion falls on Robby, but he is ruled out when the ship's cook provides an alibi (he was drinking with Robby, after the latter had synthesised 60 gallons of "Kansas City" Bourbon for him). 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.

While Adams confronts 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 to act out their darkest urges, resulting in their destruction.

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. Morbius deepest desire was to study the Krell and the machine fulfilled that wish.

When Altaira declares her love for Adams in defiance of her father, the monster comes for them, breaking into the house and melting through the near-indestructible door of the Krell vault where Adams, Altaira and Morbius have taken refuge. Morbius finally accepts the awful truth and tries to renounce his creation. When he is mortally injured, the monster disappears. As Morbius lies dying, he directs Adams to press a lever which sets the Krell machine to destroy itself. Adams, Altaira, Robby, and the surviving crew witness the destruction of the planet from a safe distance in space.

Cast

Walter Pidgeon as Dr. Edward Morbius
Anne Francis as Altaira "Alta" Morbius
Leslie Nielsen as Commander John J. Adams
Jack Kelly as Lt. Jerry Farman (the ship's pilot)
Warren Stevens as Lt. "Doc" Ostrow
Richard Anderson as Lt. Quinn (the ship's engineer)
Earl Holliman as "Cookie" (the ship's cook)
George Wallace as Boatswain (pronounced "bosun"; called "Steve" by Commander Adams in one scene)
Bob Dix as Grey
Jimmy Thompson as Youngerford
James Drury as Strong
Harry Harvey Jr. as Randall
Roger McGee as Lindstrom
Peter Miller as Moran
Morgan Jones as Nichols
Richard Grant as Silvers
Frankie Darro†, stunt performer inside Robby the Robot
Marvin Miller†, voice of Robby the Robot
Les Tremayne† as Narrator
James Best†, William Boyett† as Other C-57D crewmen

† Not credited on-screen.

Production

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

A full-size mock up of three quarters of the C-57D was built to suggest its full width of 170 ft (51 m). This was surrounded by a huge painted diorama of the desert landscape of Altair IV. This set took up all the space in an Culver City sound stage. This was the first film in which humans are depicted traveling in flying saucers of their own construction. The ship was reused in several episodes of the original Twilight Zone, which was also filmed at the MGM studios.

At about $125,000, Robby the Robot was a very expensive film prop for the time. 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 episodes of The Twilight Zone.

The animated sequences, especially the attack of the id monster, were created by veteran animator Joshua Meador, who was lent to MGM by Walt Disney Pictures. Curiously, shots showing the shape of the invisible monster outlined in the blaster beams were evidently removed from some prints shown on television — presumably because its 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". A close look at the creature shows it to have a small goatee beard, suggesting that it is connected to Dr. Morbius, the only character with this feature.

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

Releases

Theaters

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 six minutes of film footage cut to ensure a G-Rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

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. The movie was also released on laserdisc by the The Criterion Collection. 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. The 50th anniversary version was restored by the Warner Bros.-MGM reconstruction crew. The Ultimate Collector's Edition consists of a metal box decorated with variations of the original promo art,the 2 disc DVD contained in a steelbock case with the original poster as a cover, 17 miniature lobby cards and 3 inch toy replica of Robby the Robot.

Novelization

After the movie was released, there followed a novelization by W.J. Stuart, which chapters the story into separate POV narrations by Dr Ostrow, Cmdr Adams and Dr Morbius. 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 (although the basis of a deleted scene found on the film's fiftieth anniversary DVD), 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.

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". 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 reverberation and delay, and reversing or changing the speed of certain sounds.

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.

Track list

The following is a list of compositions on the CD:

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

Influence

Gene Roddenberry noted in his biography Star Trek Creator that Forbidden Planet was one of the inspirations for Star Trek. The Star Trek episode Requiem for Methuselah shows many similarities to Forbidden Planet, as it is also based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. The character associations are: Prospero = Mr. Flint, Miranda = Rayna Kapec, and Ariel = "M4" The Sentry Robot.

The Doctor Who serial, Planet of Evil, was consciously partly based on Forbidden Planet.

Krell is a major brand of "high-end" audio equipment.

The author Colin Wilson has likened Forbidden Planet's "monsters from the id" to claimed occult phenomena involving monsters from the subconscious , and in his novel The Philosopher's Stone, the destruction of Mu is caused similarly by subconscious monsters from the sleeping minds of the Old Ones.

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.)

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 id monster.

In The Blob, a poster of Forbidden Planet can be seen during the movie theater scene.

The title of the Melvins song "The Fool, the Meddling Idiot" comes from a line of dialogue in the film.

In the film Halloween, Lindsey and Tommy can be seen watching Forbidden Planet while Laurie is babysitting them.

In Jim Jarmusch's 1984 film Stranger Than Paradise the characters Willie and Éva are watching Forbidden Planet on television.

There is an alien race in Captain Kremmen known as the Krells who are possibly named after the alien civilisation in this film.

In the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show (1973), and later the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), the opening song entitled Science Fiction/Double Feature contains a reference to Forbidden Planet: "Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet."