“Forbidden Planet” review
by V.E. on March 2nd, 2010
filed under entertainment, recap/review
IN CASE YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THIS ENTIRE POST: My review is in three parts. I thought Forbidden Planet was (1) corny, but (2) the science in the science fiction was actually pretty good, for the time, and (3) it was woefully sexist (not to mention: there are no people of color whatsoever).
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On Sunday evening at my father’s request, the family watched Forbidden Planet (wiki), a 1956 film that—
my dad says that some scientists say—is the best science fiction film of all time. (Others contend that 2001 is the best and that Forbidden Planet is the second best, but we’re just going to go with it for now.) Wikipedia has the plot if you want to read about it, but the beginning goes like this:
In the early 23rd century, the United Planets Cruiser C-57D is sent to the planet Altair IV, 16 light-years from Earth, to investigate the disappearance of a colony expedition sent 20 years earlier. Before landing, the ship is contacted by Dr. Edward Morbius, who warns them to stay away.
Upon landing, the ship is met by Robby the Robot, who takes Commander John J. Adams, Lieutenant Jerry Farman, and Lieutenant “Doc” Ostrow to Morbius’ home. Morbius explains to them that an unknown force killed all of the other members of his crew and destroyed their starship, the Bellerophon. Only Morbius, his wife (who died later of natural causes), and his daughter Altaira, now 19 years old, survived. He fears that the crew of the C-57D will suffer the same fate. Altaira has never met a man besides her father, and is interested in getting to know the new arrivals and learn about human relations.
Morbius explains that he has been studying the Krell, the natives of Altair IV who, despite being far more advanced than humanity, had all mysteriously died in a single night 200,000 years before, just as they had achieved their greatest triumph.
I was less-than-impressed with Forbidden Planet, though I was expecting it to be worse than it was in terms of dealing with women, corniness, and actual science. Let’s work backwards. The science displayed in the movie was… not bad, for 1956. Upon viewing, it’s apparent that it directly influenced both the original Star Trek and the Star Wars movies. The captain is almost a carbon copy of Captain Kirk (or rather, visa versa, since Kirk didn’t exist until 1966), and he has a lieutenant and doctor with him that are eerily similar to Spock and Bones in that they go everywhere with him. The trailer reminds me of Star Wars‘s opening sequence, yellow words moving off to the horizon and all. 
My dad and I made jokes about the Krell‘s underground laboratories (“The Great Machine”) looking like something out of Empire Strikes Back. (“Luuuuke, I am your father.” / “Noooo! Never!” and so on…)
Robby the Robot was introduced in Forbidden Planet and has apparently been a staple of science fiction since then (check the appearances list, seriously). That’s interesting to me because it seems that, if he’d been created today, there would be a lot more trouble to have him featured in other media after his introduction. And yet, as the appearances list indicates, he got/gets around quite well. He even has a cameo in Episode I, for Christ-sakes, and that’s more than 40 years after his first scene in Forbidden Planet.
As for the corniness, well, I’m assuming that fifty years from now, stuff from this time period will also seem corny, so I’m going to give this movie the benefit of the doubt. There are, however, some seriously toe-curling lines that I just can’t… gah. Some of it’s pretty bad. Just watch the eye-roll-inducing trailer if you don’t believe me.
Now, there’s some blatant sexism in Forbidden Planet and I’m saddened by the idea that even the “greatest sci-fi movie” still couldn’t/didn’t think ahead enough to make women equal to men. The entire crew of the starship is men—white men, no less—and they’re so… picture perfect that it’s hard for me to even tell them apart. Alta’s the only woman on the whole planet—literally—not to mention the only woman in the movie. She spends her time totally oblivious to the potential danger she’s in, hanging around all these new men who’ve landed on Altair IV and at one point the captain yells at her for kissing the crew, claiming that it’d be her own fault if things had gotten out of hand and he hadn’t been there to stop what was going on. (Victim-blaming, anyone?) She, having never been taught by her father, Dr. Morbius, what in the hell to do in a situation with another man (or woman, for that matter, though there are no other women to speak of), gallivants around kissing the crew members as if it’s normal because she literally doesn’t know any better. 
If she’d been my daughter, I’d have sat her down to give her “The Talk” the minute the captain and his crew hailed me to land, if I hadn’t already. I was thoroughly unimpressed with the way the men treated her, and the completely oblivious way she acted. Science fiction is supposed to be in the future. How could the producers/director not have foreseen any change in the way men and women relate? Ugh. It was… just… ugh.
On that note, notice the commercial poster that was produced at the time (to the above right). That scene doesn’t happen in the movie, not to mention Robby the Robot is a good guy, unlike what this poster implies. (My mother likened it to King Kong, which I thought was apt.) Alta is never incapacitated thusly, and, for that matter, Robby just isn’t that big compared to a human, even (gasp) a petite woman. The cover for the 50th anniversary DVD edition is, thankfully, more accurate.
Though, it does make me want to read The Tempest.
