| For my money, Forbidden Planet remains the best sci-fi movie after almost 50 years, because it closely follows the book, because MGM spent a ton of money to get it right, and because of its amazing contradictions with other sci-fi and monster flicks of this time period. For starters, the people on the flying saucer are from earth, and they are the good guys. And they land on an alien planet, Altair Four, which has no aliens, only earth people who are hostile to the invaders on the saucer. There is the Eden-like garden of Dr. Morbius with its alien trees and rocks but filled with Tigers, deer, monkeys and other earth animals that a dead race called the Krell brought all the way from earth. There is the sparkling clean 1950s-looking house with its flowers and labor saving appliances--a household trash disintegrator and of course Robby the robot who does all the scut work, contrasted with the gloomy appearance of the brooding Dr. Morbius, who wears a sort of black magician's robes. There is the monster which cannot be run away from because it is carried around in the heads of all the earth people. Unlike the monsters in the cheap Fifties thrillers, this one is directed, and it even has a personality since we know whose monster it is. And under everything else, literally under the earth of Altair is the fabulous power station of the Krell, unattended for 20 million years, waiting for. . .what? And to think all of this will be destroyed by a kiss--it's Sleeping Beauty in reverse.
A couple of other things. There's Robby's inability to harm intelligent life, which predates Asimov's three laws of Robotics. People still smoke cigarettes but they don't use matches--there is a tear-off tab igniter, like the tear off tabs on pop cans that weren't invented yet. The marvelous electric perimeter fence around the space cruiser. And for you history buffs, here's the real kicker: MGM had never done a sci-fi movie and they wanted to promote this one really big. They tried to buy a rocket from the Army to launch a space satellite. The Army said NO, of course. Imagine if a movie studio had beat the Soviets into space. Now there is a 'what might have been for you. . .' |
