DISTANT FUTURE MONTH #6: Forbidden Planet, by Fred M. Wilcox (1956)

Type of Media: Film

The 1950s are considered a golden age for science-fiction films. Realizing that teenagers had disposable income ripe for the taking, movie studios began pumping out B-movies with spaceships, aliens, and blaster rifles to lure young’uns into theaters. Though most of it was schlock, a handful of movies slipped through with the budget and talent to present a good story with spectacular special effects. You had The Day the Earth Stood Still, When Worlds Collide, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but probably the most ambitious 50s sci-fi movie is Forbidden Planet.

Based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Forbidden Planet centers on a military mission in the 23rd century (commanded by a young Leslie Nielsen of Airplane! and Naked Gun fame) to far-out planet Altair IV, where colonists from Earth landed 20 years prior and then were never heard from again. The space officers find the last two survivors of the colony, linguist Dr. Morbius and his comely daughter Altaira. Morbius claims the rest of the colonists were killed by a mysterious invisible force that has disappeared since. It seems to return, though, when the military men start being killed off one by one.

Forbidden Planet has a lot of features that were common in sci-fi literature, but you couldn’t find in other sci-fi films of its time. The concept of light-speed travel, a powerful but long-dead race of aliens that are mentioned but never shown, and Morbius’ matter fabricator gave sci-fi readers plenty to sink their teeth into. The special effects are done extremely well, using painted backdrops and forced-perspective trickery to make Altair IV feel as real as possible. Morbius’ robotic assistant Robby would become a celebrity in its own right thanks to his industrial-yet-adorable design and dry wit, and went on to appear in several dozen other movies and TV shows like Lost in Space and Mork & Mindy.

It also tries to be brainy, using its aforementioned Shakespearean pedigree and introducing Freudian concepts into the plot. The big bad monster of the movie is the Monster of the Id, and as Altaira gets close to Captain Leslie Nielsen her father starts exhibiting some clear territorial aggression. Unfortunately, it’s also rooted in a very 1950s mentality of how men should treat women, with the Captain at one point berating Altaira for wearing a revealing outfit in front of his crewmen, blaming her for making them horny and saying she would “deserve” whatever happened to her (and of course, this just makes her crave his approval and later fabricate a new dress more to his modesty standards). For all of the ways Forbidden Planet was ahead of its time, gender relations was not an area it excelled in.

Even still, those hilariously antiquated and very uncomfortable moments make Forbidden Planet a sort of time capsule for sci-fi fans. Seeing how the filmmakers believed their own morals and societal beliefs would survive into the far future, when even 60 years later our society has changed to the point where they would largely be deemed unacceptable, makes for good food for thought. What assumptions do current sci-fi writers make about the politics of futuristic societies that will seem horribly backwards or naive when we look back on them in half a century?

Forbidden Planet is a great look back at how Hollywood used sci-fi before it became one of the most popular genres of film around. It’s also a great spectacle, with practical effects that hold up surprisingly well and are impressive for how inventive they are. If you’re in one of those old-timey movie moods, Forbidden Planet is a good classic watch and an influential piece of Hollywood sci-fi history.