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Forbidden Planet | Year: 1956 Classification: Science Fiction Directed: - Fred M. Wilcox Actors/Actresses: - Walter Pidgeon Holds up well after all these years! "Classic" is a term brandished about too frequently but "Forbidden Planet" is a film worthy of that recognition. This is an intelligent, well-written, and paced well with few lapses in action. The special effects, while dated in comparison to today's computer-generated wonders, are still impressive. The electronic score by Bebe and Louis Baron is a one-of-a-kind listening experience, otherworldly and provocative. It is obviously a work that provided 50's movie patrons with something unheard of before. Besides the previously mentioned actors, the movie also features performers who would later regularly appear on primetime television: Jack Kelly ("Maverick"), Earl Holliman (Angie Dickinson's boss on "Police Woman"), Anne Francis (the 60's "Honey West"), Richard Anderson ("The Six Million Dollar Man"), James Drury (TV's long running "The Virginian") and in a very small role, James Best who would later find fame on "The Dukes of Hazzard". Shakespeare's "The Tempest" set in space Others may argue but to me the two big movies of 1956 were The Ten Commandments, and Forbidden Planet. Now while Ten Commandments is certainly a great movie, I don't think it had anywhere near the influence on subsequent films that Forbidden Planet did. Forbidden Planet is essentially a Shakespearean play, The Tempest, set on a distant planet and in the far future. And that's what I liked best about the movie--it made relevant for me an ancient play that I had never really understood. Several elements of the movie influenced modern science-fiction films. The first was the use of serious, state-of-the-art, special effects to create major characters in the movie. There's a robot who plays a pivotal character, and there's the evil creature that's born of alien technology and human frailty. And there's a willingness to deal with serious subjects like the nature of the human subconcious, jealousy, the will to survive. The characters are real, and well-acted. Though for folks used to seeing Leslie Nielsen in comedic roles it may take some getting used to in this serious role. All around a well-crafted, thoughtful, and influential piece of cinema. Highly recommended. END Great Sci-Fi Like all good film science fiction, "Forbidden Planet" keeps its concepts simple but their ramifications grand, which is just one of the reasons it is a timeless classic. Made at a time when sci-fi was the junk that kept restless kids in theater seats on Saturday afternoons, this ambitious take on Shakespeare's "The Tempest" nonetheless also aims for adults that grew up on the pulp fiction of the 1920s and 30s. (Its delightful production design is a seamless mix of colors, forms, and shapes familiar from those imaginative magazine covers.) The premise is Star Trek a decade before Star Trek, as a military cruiser commanded by the hard-nosed but humane J.J. Adams (Leslie Nielsen doing an effective melodramatic turn) visits a world populated by a secretive scholar (a wonderful Walter Pidgeon), his curious daughter (a sometimes grating Ann Francis), their robot butler (the epitome of mechanical men) and a mostly unseen terror (illustrated by topnotch Disney animators). Beyond great special effects and an innovative musical score, the film also engages a firm--if now familiar--science fiction plot, unlike so many of the noisy and expensive but ultimately overwrought and empty-headed sci-fi movies of today. Buy Forbidden Planet at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Forbidden Planet Search with the Priority Search Engine on Forbidden Planet This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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