Forbidden Planet (1956)
Posted by J on October 3, 2008
Forbidden Planet is a classic sci-fi male fantasy, featuring taxing analytical problems that must be solved 
and a super-naive babe who is anxious to be kissed by any male simply because she is curious. Shockingly, Forbidden Planet now seems slightly smarter than its blockbuster pals of today. That’s not a compliment, just a comparison.
Anyone who has watched just a few episodes of Star Trek will recognize Forbidden Planet’s familiar formula. Commander J.J. Adams and his merry crew are military bureaucrats investigating the disappearance of a planet’s colony. The colony has a lone survivor, Dr. Morbius, who warns the crew not to land on the planet. This wouldn’t be a movie without the crew defying his warning, so they plop down on Planet Forbidden and display their military might.
Morbius treats the crew to his created paradise. His do-it-all robot can manufacture gallons of whisky, his backyard is full of exotic pleasures, and in the middle of Morbius’ Garden of Eden is his young, innocent, virgin daughter, Alta. She’s never seen a man before except her own dad, so when she goes swimming, she doesn’t realize that undressing in the presence of men who have been holed up on a spaceship for years is sort of risque. As we said, male fantasy.
Of course, Morbius is hiding secrets. The planet he inhabites was once home to a race of ancient beings known as the Krell. The Krell manufactured an absolutely enormous whirligig, which everybody is impressed by. Morbius claims that this whirligig has doubled his IQ to 200-something. What the whirligig really does is vague — supposedly it allows its operator’s brain to create a material substance out of a mental picture. You’d think the Krell, being a race of super-beings, would’ve tried to economize on their design. But no, the whirligig is thousands of miles of tunnels and shafts, which uses trillions of tons of natural resources, all just to project a hologram from Dr. Morbius’ brain.
Forbidden Planet is a bizarre mix of Freudian psychology and American progressivism, with even a couple of references to “God” at the beginning and end of the movie. The hero is clearly the plucky, by-the-book Adams. Morbius, the resident super-genius, cannot figure out the vexing problem of why Adams’ crew is slowly being killed off. Of course it’s up to Adams — the American hero, the guy who wins Eve, and the one whom Morbius laughs at for “having a mediocre IQ” — to solve all of the movie’s problems. “Of course, how could I not have known?” Morbius exclaims, as Adams reveals to him exactly what has been going on. So much for cognitive differences. The middle-class, American military hero — not the brilliant inventor and scholar — is the one with all of the right answers.
Should we recommend this movie? Maybe, if you have time to waste. It would be silly to be merely entertained by Forbidden Planet, but it is fun to analyze. We — actually just one of us — are suckers for sci-fi schlock. Everyone has his weaknesses. If your weaknesses are PBS productions of Jane Austen, or lame-brain comedies, Forbidden Planet probably isn’t for you.
Entertainment: 6
Intelligence: 4
Morality: 5
