Forbidden Planet Reviews

Forbidden Planet, was MGM's high-budget, risky venture at making the one of the finest Color Sci-Fi classics in the 50's. Unlike many of the low budget movies of the genre, FP remains to this day a very entertaining and captivating film. I have to say, that it changed my life as a kid, because it gave me the desire to explore more books about Sci-Fi. Now, I am a Software Engineer with thousands of video tapes. Monster movies are my favorites, and speaking of monsters, the one in FP is on the top of my list of BEST MONSTERS (those you really don't want to ever meet in a dark...even a well lit alley).

The story: Based on a screenplay by Irving Block and Allen Adler (Fatal Planet), it takes its inspiration from Shakespears's THE TEMPEST. In a nutshell, Spacemen come to rescue a lost group of colonists, only to find that most have died long ago. Only Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis) remain. They tell Commander Adams (Leslie Nielsen) that 20 years ago, when they first landed, some invisible power killed everyone but Dr.Morbius and his wife (now deceased from natural causes). Soon, we find that the good Doctor has discovered that the KRELL, a once powerful race of aliens, lived below the surface of Altair-4 (where they are) and they created a machine that is 20x20x20 miles square (thats 8000 cubic miles of Klystrons and Relays...and they never stop self repairing themselves!). Well, before you know it, the Monster is back...and people are dying...and well, the big, bad disintigrator beams from the ship's main weapons are NOT stopping it!

I must mention that this was the first movie with ROBBY THE ROBOT. ROBBY was based on Asimov's Robots Rules of order, and for the most part was just a big lovable teady-bear. He could never hurt anyone, but watch how Morbius proves this by having Robby point a "BLASTER" at the Commander! The way Nielsen clinches his fists was so telling!.

The sets were beautiful, the saucer flys perfectly (notice the shadows and the dust when it lands). So much here that you simply must watch very closely to the detail, it really is worth it. Speaking of detail, the Monster was pretty easy...because it was MOSTLY invisible. Joshua Meador (on loan from Disney Studios) made the animation of the monster. It is Crude by comparison to the new Computer Generated Animation (CGA), but for its time it was AWESOME! The monster, by the way, is powered by 2700 thermo-nuclear reactors, and can recreate itself, microsecond after microsecond! NO! IT CANNOT BE DESTROYED! (You thought ALIENS were tough! HAH!)

Well, there is a little love story going on with the Commander and Altaira, and Daddy doesn't like it. Go Figure! Anyway, I won't give it all away, just GET IT AND ENJOY!

For a SNEAK PREVIEW, Surf the Web and go to http://www.planetario.it/fbhome.htm , this is an unofficial Forbidden Planet webpage and will give you some more details. END

Rating: 3 - Not just a classic sci-fi film -- a classic film, period.
Not everything is perfect, of course. Here are some pros and cons:
Good: The faster-than-light travel. Contrast this with another good sci-fi film, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" -- both made in the 50's, but only FP's writers had any clue as to interplanetary distances and the speeds required to cross them. Also, the "DC" (deceleration) procedure was good, complete with "DC stations" and post-DC physical effects on the crew that were treated matter-of-factly rather than explained to the movie viewer. Quite good.
Bad: First moon landing in the "last decade of the 21st Century"? They missed that one by 130 years.
Very good: Most of the special effects.
Not so good: Some of the Disney-supplied cartoon effects (not that I'm really complaining; they weren't all that bad, and it was the 50's after all).
Great: Morbius' house and surrounding grounds.
Not so great: The caps that the commander and lieutenant wore briefly with their short-sleeve shirts.
Great: Anne Francis as Altaira (a babe, no matter what star system you're in)
Great: Robby the robot
Not so great: Earl Holliman's ship's cook character. A little bit went a long way.
Great: The underground Krell complex (more good f/x)
Good: the electronic music score
Great: Walter Pidgeon's performance as Morbius
Good-but-not-great: Leslie Nielsen's performance as the commander of C57D.
Good: C57D; remember, this was the same time most sci-fi was still using the finned rocket ship.
Not good: the fact that the DVD is not letter-boxed. It would have been better to see the whole screen.
And the list goes on, of course, but you can add your own after you see this excellent movie.

Rating: 5 - "It will remind us...after all...that we are not God..."
"It will remind us...after all...that we are not God..." --Leslie Nielsen as Commander J.J. Adams in the last scene in FORBIDDEN PLANET.

WHAT A CAST!!! WHAT A SCREENPLAY!!! WHAT FANTASTIC MUSIC!!! WHAT A ROBOT!!! WHAT A MOVIE!!! The producers of FORBIDDEN PLANET took Shakespeare's "The Tempest," teleported the play to the year 2200 in outer space, threw in the United Planets flying saucer C 57 D, a rugged, handsome space commander, a mad scientist and his beautiful daughter, a long dead race called the Krel, an invisible Monster from the Id, the best robot ever to appear on a movie screen--Robby--and a terrific cast with LEADING MAN OF ACTION Leslie Nielsen, beautiful Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Earl Holliman, and character actor Richard Anderson, plus:Freudian Psychology, a murder mystery, and a classic boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl love story with a white hot finish, and it's nothing less than the best science fiction movie ever made!!!

Or as Leslie Nielsen says in FORBIDDEN PLANET's final scene, "It will remind us...after all...that we are not God..."

Chari Krishnan RESEARCHKING

For more details and to buy the Forbidden Planet DVD from Amazon, you might like to try:

Forbidden Planet