Forbidden Planet revisited

The 50s was a golden age for big screen sci-fi. The decade saw the appearance of a succession of genre classics, including Destination Moon, The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Thing From Another World, The War Of The Worlds and This Island Earth.

The period's movies reflected America's fascination with the possibilities of future technology, and also a creeping sense of paranoia about the subversive potential of Communism, reflected in spectacular ‘Reds under the bed' films such as Invaders From Mars (1953) and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956), in which an insidious alien menace stripped mankind of its individuality.

Of all those 50s classics, one film stands among them all as a true 50s sci-fi icon. Released in 1956, director Fred M. Wilcox's Forbidden Planet was the most expensive and ambitious genre film to appear on the big screen in decades, requiring the construction of huge sets and the creation of groundbreaking special effects.

A 23rd century reworking of Shakespeare's The Tempest, Forbidden Planet starred Leslie Nielsen as Commander John J. Adams, the alpha male captain of the saucer ship C-57D. Like James Cameron's Aliens three decades later, Adams and his crew's mission is to head to Altair IV to discover the fate of the planet's colony, established 20 years earlier and now worryingly silent.

Adams arrives to find the Eden-like planet inhabited by just two people, the sinister Dr. Morbius (a commanding Walter Pidgeon) and his innocent, 19-year-old daughter Altaira (Anne Francis), who are waited on by the hulking mechanical butler Robby The Robot.

Morbius reveals that Altair IV was once home to a now long dead alien intelligence, the Krell, and shows Adams around their labyrinthine underground reactor.

That night, Adams' ship is attacked by a giant, invisible monster, which kills a member of his crew. Setting up a defensive perimeter fails to repel the creature when it returns 24 hours later, and its huge, flickering outline is spectacularly revealed as it clashes with the force field Adams' crew has erected.

Heading back to Morbius' lair, Adams discovers that the doctor has been using Krell technology to increase his intellect, and that the creature that attacked the C-57D was a manifestation of Morbius' anger, or, as the doctor dramatically puts it, "Monsters! Monsters from the id!"

While certain aspects of Forbidden Planet may seem quaint to a modern audience (and its portentous dialogue often drifts into self-parody), the film's visual power remains almost entirely undiminished.

Robby The Robot remains an iconic, instantly recognisable character. A product of his time, Robby resembles a walking jukebox, and Robert Kinoshita's design is filled with personality and 50s charm.

For a genre picture, Forbidden Planet's lavish production values were unprecedented in 50s Hollywood, with its alien world created using huge sound stages and beautifully rendered matte paintings. Irving Block and Allen Adler's story may take place on a small canvas (compared to modern offerings such as Avatar, it's like a stage play, with its action taking place over a mere handful of locations), the movie's generous budget afforded an epic sense of scale.

Forbidden Planet's key scene is its night time laser battle with the id monster. Created by Disney animator, Joshua Meador, it remains a spectacular sequence, Meador's hand-drawn creature roaring and baying with feral menace.

One of the most important movies in science fiction, Forbidden Planet rose above the wave of low-rent, creature-feature schlock that cluttered up the genre throughout much of the decade. Producer George Pal's Destination Moon may have been a more mature sci-fi picture, attempting to depict a lunar mission with an accuracy that wouldn't be attempted again until Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, but Forbidden Planet was inarguably the more entertaining film, marrying a respect for its genre (and a welcome reference to Asimov's Three Laws Of Robotics) with the heroic action of a mainstream cinema filler.

The most beautiful sci-fi movie of the 1950s, Forbidden Planet was also the most enduringly influential. The crew's interactions aboard the C-57D were a clear inspiration for Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek in 1965, and Leslie Nielsen's macho performance could also be seen as a precursor to William Shatner's Captain Kirk.

Rejuvenated on Blu-ray, George J. Folsey's epic cinematography positively sparkles in high definition, and the true majesty of the Krell's weird, cavernous subterranean world can now be fully appreciated.

More than 50 years on, Forbidden Planet remains one of the brightest stars in the firmament of big screen science fiction. A true classic.

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Forbidden Planet is out now on Blu-ray and available from the Den Of Geek Store.