- Messages
- 14,905
- Reaction score
- 2,434
- Trophy Points
- 228
63 years ago...
Forbidden Planet (1956)
Director: Fred M. Wilcox
Country: United States
Length: 98 minutes
Type: Sci-Fi
I'd watched the first half of the influential Sci-Fi film 'Forbidden Planet' before but never finished it until today. The debt owed by 'Star Trek: The Original Series' (and 'The Motion Picture') is indeed obvious, although the unusual electronic score is more like early Radiophonic Workshop Doctor Who. The costumes, designs and concepts all look very dated and naive now but the technical brilliance and precision of the Visual FX still hold up. Huge faultless matte paintings, impressively large sets, clever back projection and convincing animated elements really bring the alien planet alive. Like TOS, one of the elements that has not aged well are the sexist attitudes. It seemed like half the film was devoted to the crew creeping on the young girl Altaira, including a guy "teaching" her about kissing and our "hero" implying she would deserve what might happen to her if she didn't stop dressing sexily around his sex-starved crew. The story would have made a great 45-minute Star Trek episode but feels a bit too slow and padded at 98-minutes.
A film by Kon Ichikawa next.
Forbidden Planet (1956)
Director: Fred M. Wilcox
Country: United States
Length: 98 minutes
Type: Sci-Fi
I'd watched the first half of the influential Sci-Fi film 'Forbidden Planet' before but never finished it until today. The debt owed by 'Star Trek: The Original Series' (and 'The Motion Picture') is indeed obvious, although the unusual electronic score is more like early Radiophonic Workshop Doctor Who. The costumes, designs and concepts all look very dated and naive now but the technical brilliance and precision of the Visual FX still hold up. Huge faultless matte paintings, impressively large sets, clever back projection and convincing animated elements really bring the alien planet alive. Like TOS, one of the elements that has not aged well are the sexist attitudes. It seemed like half the film was devoted to the crew creeping on the young girl Altaira, including a guy "teaching" her about kissing and our "hero" implying she would deserve what might happen to her if she didn't stop dressing sexily around his sex-starved crew. The story would have made a great 45-minute Star Trek episode but feels a bit too slow and padded at 98-minutes.
A film by Kon Ichikawa next.