Recent viewings

Forbidden Planet (1956)
I've heard great things about this movie for years. Turns out they're right.

From a 2006 perspective, the movie looks a lot like an above-average episode of the original Star Trek series. One can only imagine what a gigantic leap forward and upward this must have been from the frankly dismal production values of early science fiction television serials like Flash Gordon and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.

The effects and props don't look bad even today. The three-dimensional navigational display on the bridge of the protagonist's spaceship looks cool and maybe even functional, although it does take up a good deal of room. The alien planetscapes are surprisingly believable, and the animated interpretations of futuristic weapons and their effects, if not quite believable, are at least colorful and dynamic. Even the plot makes sense on its own terms, possibly because it was, famously, partially inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest.

In fact, the only truly jarring bits are the "flying saucer" appearance of the spaceship from Earth, the dated "futuristic" fashions worn by the only female on the planet, and a few jokey allusions to 1950s stereotypes such as a food replicator being "a housewife's dream". Some of the acting is a bit stiff and hokey, especially from Leslie Nielsen, who plays an entirely straitlaced "hero" role here. I suppose I can accept some stiffness and hokeyness as part of a "military bearing".

The identity of the "monster from the id" that attacks the spaceship crew, when it is finally revealed, anticipates a surprising degree of knowledge of psychological terms and principles on the part of its audience. Would it get green-lighted today?

I find myself wondering if the invisible monster that terrorizes the planewrecked survivors of Lost is indirectly descended from Forbidden Planet's "monster from the id" . I had a moment of deja vu when the "monster from the id" came crashing invisibly through the grass and trees of the garden, much like the unseen monster of the island crashing through the trees on Lost.

Well worth seeing for any fan of filmic science fiction.