Viking Night: Forbidden Planet
By Bruce Hall
August 24, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Maybe there really is a planet ruled by bronze skinned Amazon robot women. Maybe they’re dialed into planetary war against the evil race of fish-people who live on their moon. Maybe they need me to teach them the unpredictability of human emotions to finally give gain the edge in their eons long struggle with the Calamari Syndicate, as I have chosen to call them.
Obviously, once victorious, I would be obligated to serve as their king.
Yeah, laugh if you want. Good science fiction used to be harder to come by than it is today. Case in point - Forbidden Planet. MGM’s ambitious 1956 classic quickly became an institution, inspiring a generation of fans and filmmakers alike. And then, like most things, it faded off the pop culture radar. I’m sure I saw it as a child, probably around the same time I read Huckleberry Finn for the first time. Like that small cultural window of time when roller skates made a comeback, it became one of those lovely experiences from childhood that we don’t ever expect to have again.
I mean, when am I going to read Huckleberry Finn again, and why? And God knows I’ll die before I try on another pair of skates (I’d probably die if I did, truth be told). But I did just watch Forbidden Planet again, because someday I’m going to write the article that finally gets me out of that cubicle. And let me tell you, this movie really took me back. It’s not that I remembered it all that well, but it’s just the kind of thing I would have loved when I was a young-un. It doesn’t happen often enough, but it’s a lot of fun when something you enjoyed long ago still lives up to your expectations.
Forbidden Planet takes place in a universe where we didn’t land on the moon until sometime in the late 21st century. That probably sounds lame, but you’ll be glad to know we make up for it by also discovering how to build sweet looking flying saucers that can travel through hyperspace. Of course, these ships are crewed entirely with square jawed, white male Protestant boys with snappy haircuts and sharp uniforms.
This story concerns one such vessel, the gallantly named Starship C-57D. At the head of the crew is Commander JJ Adams (Leslie Nielsen), who seems to have an informal command partnership with best buds Lt. Farman (Jack Kelly) and the ship’s doctor, who is conveniently referred to as “Doc” (Warren Stevens). The C-57D has spent an entire year traveling to the Altair system, where another ship disappeared two decades earlier. Their mission is to ascertain what happened, and recover any survivors.
I’m going to go ahead and reveal that no, the movie at no point ever explains why it took so damn long to send help. Fortunately it doesn’t end up making any difference. When the C-57D arrives, they’re immediately told to beat feet back to Earth. The fiendishly named Dr. Edward Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) is the sole survivor of the doomed science ship Bellerophon and he does not with to be rescued. I’m additionally going to reveal that no, the movie never explains why future people suck so bad at picking out ship names.
Adams insists on landing, and is ominously warned that he will regret this, and also “welcome." When Adams and his men arrive, they find that the good Doctor is not so alone after all. The fashionably postmodern split-level he inhabits was built with the services of a hulking robot named Robby. Robby can speak 187 languages, shoot lasers out the back of his head, create complex objects out of raw matter at will and lift a hundred times his own weight. Evidently, Doctor Morbius built Robby himself, out of whatever was just lying around the planet.
Everyone initially finds this suspicious, but then moves right past it. Ironically, it becomes kind of important later.
Morbius also has a daughter named Alta (Anne Francis) who looks absolutely smashing in a miniskirt. Her first reaction to meeting her first human beings other than her parents is to immediately flirt with them. Adams and Farman spend the rest of the movie competing over her like a pair of stupid frat boys. Except Farman comes on strong, while Adams plays it all cool like he doesn’t care. And bear in mind, this juvenile clash begins literally moments after discovering that the Bellerophon was disintegrated, and its crew was brutally ripped to shreds by an alien hell-beast.
But hey, it’s the future. It’s a fast paced world where women are commodities to be passed around like baseball cards, and there’s just no goddamn time to mourn the dead.
Well, that’s not true. There actually IS an alien hell-beast, but the surface of Altair is littered with graves. First, the Bellerophon crew and then, the thing starts stalking Adams and his men, too. If that weren’t enough, the creature is also invisible, and armed with claws as big as a toddler. They manage to fend it off, buying valuable time. Of course, it will be back, but Morbius and his daughter are the only ones the beast seems to ignore.
Also, in what is surely a completely unrelated turn of events, Dr. Morbius has discovered a fantastic secret in the bowels of Altair that has the potential to change the course of human history. There’s quite a bit going on here, with Alta running around in the middle of it, constantly changing out of one unbelievably sexy dress into another. But while my description probably sounds campy, Forbidden Planet actually takes itself relatively seriously.
There’s a lot of reasonable sounding technobabble and high minded talk about pure energy and the ultimate evolution of species. It’s said that this film served as inspiration for Star Trek, and once you know that, it’s pretty obvious. This is a cerebral film that manages to spend almost a full half of its runtime on exposition and character development without the story ever running out of steam. Despite being a little on the horny side, Adams seems like a curious and capable commander who really likes his men. And his men seem like a rowdy but capable bunch who really like him, too.
It’s actually pretty entertaining watching a bunch of hyper-fit professional soldiers who haven’t seen a girl for a year land on an alien planet where they happen to meet a twenty year old swimsuit model who’s never met a man before. Believe it or not, the script juggles all of this well enough to keep everything light and tight, so to speak. Before long, it seems perfectly reasonable to continue trying to get laid - even after your nuclear powered laser cannons fail to destroy the aforementioned hell-beast that is picking off your men one at a time.
Really, there’s something for just about everyone in this movie. It’s filled with really smart, progressive sci-fi elements, but also boasts a satisfying balance of horror and humor. And the sets and special effects deserve particular mention for still looking so sharp. There are some ingenious images late in the film of some vast interior spaces, comprised of the most eerily convincing combination of miniature, matte painting, animation and composite photography that I think I’ve ever seen.
And yet there’s also two grown men trying to cockblock each other over a woman they just met while their friends are dying around them. So, the kids today will probably like that.
Bottom line, I love this movie. It’s fun, fascinating, and it’s so well made that it doesn’t look old so much as it looks genuinely alien.
I feel inspired again. I might have to dust off that Calamari Syndicate graphic novel.