-- The other quality that hasn't dated well is the all male, white crew. It's a little unfair to judge a film in this manner, especially in retrospect. But it's still unfortunate that SF writers and filmmakers can be so progressive, so forward-looking, when it comes to science and technology, yet be so bound by their era that they can't extrapolate social changes. The writers must have had some inkling of how different our culture would be in the future when they created a federation of planets referred to as the United Planets. A multicultural aspect is implicit in that title.
But these criticisms don't take away from the film. Forbidden Planet is a classic of the genre and remains one of SF's most intelligent films.
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.