Directed by Fred M. Wilcox
Screenplay by Cyril Hume
Story by Irving Block,Allen Adler
Loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest
With: Walter Pidgeon as Dr. Edward Morbius, Anne Francis as Altaira “Alta” Morbius, Leslie Nielsen as Commander John J. Adams, Warren Stevens as Lt. “Doc” Ostrow, Jack Kelly as Lt. Jerry Farman, Richard Anderson as Chief Quinn, Earl Holliman as Cook
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on…”
After a journey of over a year in hyperspace the United Planets saucer-ship cruiser C 57D arrives at its destination, the main-sequence star Altair, some 16 lightyears from Earth. The mission is simple; rescue any survivors of the starship Bellerophon, twenty years out from Earth to Altair IV and no word from her since that time.
Mysteriously Dr. Edward Morbius, the only survivor of the Bellerophon, denies a need for rescue and advises the ship’s captain, Commander John J. Adams, to return to Earth without landing. He hints at some unnamed danger for those unwelcome on the planet.
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
Upon landing Adams is greeted by a robot that is “monitored” to respond to the name, Robbie. The robot conducted Adams, his XO and the ship’s doctor to meet the mysterious yet gracious Dr. Morbius.
He explains the others of the expedition all perished one terrible night, torn apart by some unseen planetary force. Seems they did not enjoy the green sky, two moons and harsh desert. Only he and his wife enjoyed immunity. ( His wife died a few months later of natural causes.)
Altair IV was the home of a race of fantastic beings known as the Krell, now dead these 200,000 years, the philologist Morbius tells them. What is left of the civilization now lies buried under the sands of the desert, but he has had some small success in reading the surviving Krull texts he has discovered. The robot is a result of his effort.
The Krell were on the verge of a great leap in technology which would free them from instrumentality. However, on a single night 200,000 years ago the entire Krell race disappeared. Poof.
The three spacemen are pleasantly surprised to meet the doctor’s daughter, Altaria, born on the planet and had never seen a man other than her father.
“O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in’t!”
The men are charmed, to say the very least, none more than Commander Adams. Now comes the conflict. Morbius refuses to leave his studies of the Krell( he has made a Faustian bargain with the dead) and refuses to share the Krell technology with Earth.
The saucer-ship must remain grounded until Adams can request and receive new orders from Earth. That night the ship’s commutations equipment is sabotaged despite being surrounded by a force field. Attacks accelerate until the ship is assaulted by an invisible monster that can only be seen when illuminated by the neutron blaster beams that fail to destroy it.
We will see mystery solved but at a terrible price. The monster unmasked. The Morbius Prospero will renounce his powers.
“Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant, and my ending is despair, Unless I be relieved by prayer, which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon’d be, let your indulgence set me free.”
Forbidden Planet is simply one of the best science fiction movies ever made. I have seen it at least two dozen times since I first saw it in 1960. I never grow tired of it. It is original in a way popular science fiction that came later is not. It is believable decades before the arrival of CGI, in Cinerama and Metrocolor.
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