-- Easily, the most iconic thing about Planet is Robby the Robot. Like Gort before him, he is used sparingly, thereby heightening his effectiveness. He's not absolutely essential to the plot, but he adds colour and a sense of wonderment to the movie. (Interestingly, he embodies Asimov's robotic laws; Morbius demonstrates to Adams and the others how Robby is incapable of harming humans.)
-- Planet has a unique electronic soundtrack. Most of the time you can't tell if what you're hearing is supposed to be music or sound effects. Later in the movie, we found out that it's all being done in the style of Krell musicians. At times, it's actually pretty aggravating, but it sounds exotic and alien enough to set it apart from any other film.
The Problems
-- Earl Holliman plays the ship's cook. For a movie that pays so much attention to details, it seems incongruous that 250 years from now, a deep space mission that has limited room and resources would need the services of a cook, especially one wearing an apron. But the real problem with the character is that he's meant to be comedy relief. It's always bad news when, instead of the humour coming out of the characters naturally, it's embodied in one character. It seems far too contrived. Plus, the cook just isn't funny.
-- In A Case of Conscience, James Blish examines a interesting situation: the discovery of an alien species that had no conception of a god. Forbidden Planet also introduces us to a highly advanced alien civilization in which a god is never mentioned. Yet the filmmakers felt it necessary to have Doc comment on how "God sure makes some beautiful Worlds", and to conclude a burial with "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" (Commander Adams is also holding a Bible in this scene). This may have been the result of a Christian writer not bothering to imagine the state of religion (and of the burial process) 250 years from now. Or it was a deliberate attempt to reassure the predominantly Christian viewers of 1956 that their god was alive and well in the hearts and minds of future humans. Either way, the religious aspect has a taken-for-granted attitude about it.
Article comments
1 - HW Saxton Jr.
"There's nothing to do on this lousy
planet but sit around and shoot at beer
cans and we don't even have any beer
cans"... Deeeee Gawd,I love this movie.
Existential as all great giveafuck.
The Bebe & Louis Barron soundtrack is
also great.Waaaaaaaaaaay ahead of it's
time.It's actually much more interesting
listening isolated from the dialogue and
the film itself. Great review.
2 - Jim Carruthers
Since SF books were and are a ghetto (aside from "franchise" effects) saying "Forbidden Planet" wasn't a breakout is somewhat suspect.
Also, the movie, (like the other genre movie of the time "West Side Story") is only a retelling of "The Tempest" by Billy Shakespeare.
And who knew Leslie Nielsen could be so funny?
3 - Luiz Henriques Neto
About the problems you pointed in the movie, I´d like to remark that the cook, although technically superfluous, incarnates the baser desires that brought the krell´s downfall: he starts to corrupt the "natural state" of the planet asking Robby the robot for booze. Maybe it´s not coincidence that he is a cook: food is one of the animal necessities that ignite the baser desires. The other is sex, brought into the planet by the high-ranked officers (the upper classes?), who need not to scape reality in alcohol: they can aim for princesses. And that brings another of your problems into focus.
Certainly in the 50´s women were not thought of as military in the future, but even if the writer had imagined that, female presence in the ship would diminish the sexual tension about Altaira. We can even beg the screenwriter thinking that the armed forces wouldn´t be willing to lock couples in the hyperspace for 10 months.