As science prediction, Forbidden Planet was way off. It opens with a narrator explaining that people landed in the moon at the end of the 21st century, and a few years later figured out how to travel faster than the speed of light.
The movie was released in 1956; one year later Sputnik was launched, our first satellite in orbit, and, of course, we landed on the moon 13 years later.
In retrospect, it's odd that the writers would be so clueless about the actual prospects for space travel. But science fiction in the 1950s was more about fantasy, and a platform for statements about human nature and spirituality, hence Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, and early Kurt Vonnegut fare like Sirens of Titan. And I remember the science fiction books of the 1950s with illustrations of finned rockets landing on a cratered moonscape.
The context of science fiction back then was other science fiction, not science. This continued with the first Star Trek series, which obviously was influenced by Forbidden Planet, including the Freudian psychological motif, as well as the stinker, Lost in Space.
And then there is the computer connection. There is a Star Trek episode, Amok Time, that also features Altair, presumably as a nod to Forbidden Planet. And it was this episode that provided the name for the first personal microcomputer, the Altair 8800, sold in 1975. It was for this computer that Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote their first commercial computer program, laying the foundation for what would become a software company called "Microsoft."
Remember Robbie, the Robot? The inventor of the Altair was named Ed Roberts. Perhaps he should have named the Altair, "Robbie."
As to the movie, the acting is not much to write home about. Walter Pidgeon provides its main credibility. Anne Francis tries, but how do you play the part of a young woman who has never met a young man before, in the 1950s? (To see her really act, see Bad Day at Black Rock.) Leslie Nielsen plays it straight, with the dark hair of youth.
But back to the 1950s, it was a time when UFOs were very much on people's minds, and even occasionally in newspapers, though people might not have talked about it much. Here, comfortingly, we were the ones flying the flying saucers.
But the take was very different in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," 1951, where the UFO threatened to destroy Earth if we could not learn to live in peace, or in "Invaders from Mars," 1953, where aliens were dragging people underground and sticking implants in the back of their necks, turning them into zombies. Those are far better examples of 1950s science fiction movies than Forbidden Planet.
A big part of the effectiveness of Invaders from Mars is due to William Cameron Menzies, who was the production designer of Gone With the Wind.
If you do watch Forbidden Planet, make yourself an extra large bowl of popcorn to help keep you entertained.
The movie was released in 1956; one year later Sputnik was launched, our first satellite in orbit, and, of course, we landed on the moon 13 years later.
In retrospect, it's odd that the writers would be so clueless about the actual prospects for space travel. But science fiction in the 1950s was more about fantasy, and a platform for statements about human nature and spirituality, hence Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, and early Kurt Vonnegut fare like Sirens of Titan. And I remember the science fiction books of the 1950s with illustrations of finned rockets landing on a cratered moonscape.
The context of science fiction back then was other science fiction, not science. This continued with the first Star Trek series, which obviously was influenced by Forbidden Planet, including the Freudian psychological motif, as well as the stinker, Lost in Space.
And then there is the computer connection. There is a Star Trek episode, Amok Time, that also features Altair, presumably as a nod to Forbidden Planet. And it was this episode that provided the name for the first personal microcomputer, the Altair 8800, sold in 1975. It was for this computer that Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote their first commercial computer program, laying the foundation for what would become a software company called "Microsoft."
Remember Robbie, the Robot? The inventor of the Altair was named Ed Roberts. Perhaps he should have named the Altair, "Robbie."
As to the movie, the acting is not much to write home about. Walter Pidgeon provides its main credibility. Anne Francis tries, but how do you play the part of a young woman who has never met a young man before, in the 1950s? (To see her really act, see Bad Day at Black Rock.) Leslie Nielsen plays it straight, with the dark hair of youth.
But back to the 1950s, it was a time when UFOs were very much on people's minds, and even occasionally in newspapers, though people might not have talked about it much. Here, comfortingly, we were the ones flying the flying saucers.
But the take was very different in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," 1951, where the UFO threatened to destroy Earth if we could not learn to live in peace, or in "Invaders from Mars," 1953, where aliens were dragging people underground and sticking implants in the back of their necks, turning them into zombies. Those are far better examples of 1950s science fiction movies than Forbidden Planet.
A big part of the effectiveness of Invaders from Mars is due to William Cameron Menzies, who was the production designer of Gone With the Wind.
If you do watch Forbidden Planet, make yourself an extra large bowl of popcorn to help keep you entertained.