Rewrite of the 1956 classic, “Forbidden Planet” from which “Star Wars”, “Star Trek” and “Lost In Space” evolved. A crack squad of male and female troops is beamed from Earth to find out what happened to the marooned colonists on Altair-4. They find a single surviving scientist and his daughter. They also find a hideous monster that roams the planet and to which there is no defense.

SYNOPSIS:

IMDB rates Forbidden Planet 8/10.

From IMDB:

"Brilliant: Undiluted Pulp Science Fiction on the big screen. This is the Roman Empire of Science Fiction films. All films before lead into it, and all films since flow out of it. It captures the romance, the spirit, and the nifty look of 1950's pulp science fiction. This is one science fiction movie with a theme, not just eye candy. No matter how high humanity climbs on the evolutionary scale, no matter how advanced our technology becomes, we must never forget the primal instincts of our darker nature. This film is a masterpiece."

AUTHOR’S COMMENT:

Being a 1956 film I looked long and hard at the storyline elements and was surprised to find how strong they were. It was after I finished adapting “Forbidden” and

researched the movie’s history that I discovered the original script was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” plot, and one reason behind its great success.

In terms of special effects it was also regarded as the benchmark for an incredible 14 years until the advent of “2001 – A Space Odyssey”.

“Forbidden” is still an entertaining film now, and what impresses one is the intelligence of the script. There were elements, however, that jarred, especially to do

with technologies that audiences in the 50’s would accept out of general ignorance, but modern audiences would reject. For instance, when the crew of the space ship

encounter Robbie the robot they ask him if he is a robot, for they have never seen such an entity – this when they have traveled in a space craft capable of light speed.

The obvious question is also not asked of Dr. Morbius – how does a philatelist (a languages expert) build such an advanced technology, especially given the lack of an

industrial infrastructure on the planet?

I was intent on remaining true to the intelligence of the film, not just slapping a new coat of paint on it via Special fx, and there were numerous plausibility points

like this which I sought to rectify. The ramifications of this exercise drew the writing inexorably to a much darker conclusion to the theme i.e. that the Krell, the

beings that once inhabited the planet, were not the hapless prey falling victim to the monster from the id, as Morbius was to later do, but beings swept up with a

maniacal ambition for total control over nature, in essence to deliberately destroy their planet and through their technology become god-like. The relevance of this conclusion, I believe, will reverberate far more deeply in modern audiences,

especially given our current dilemmas with our own planet.

ALTAIR-4