Forbidden Planet (NR, 1956)

It is the year 2200, and Commander Adams (Leslie Nielson) directs his spaceship to an earth-like planet called Altair-4 in search of a former earth colony, out of contact for many years. They receive a transmission from Dr. Morbius, telling them to go away, but they insist on landing. A huge robot named Robby brings Adams and two crew members to the home of Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon). Morbius tells them that, with the exception of Morbius and his wife, everyone else in the colony was violently killed by an unseen force, which then disappeared. Now widowed, he lives with his daughter, Alta (Anne Francis) and Robby. Alta has never seen any human other than her father. Morbius explains that a great race once lived on the planet, and he has studied their artifacts. In an attempt to use their minds and spirits to create something, he inadvertently created a creature made up of their fears and anger. It is called the Id. It reappeared when the colonists arrived, out of their subconscious urges. And, with the arrival of the crew from earth, it has come back again. The invisible being damages the spacecraft and kills three of the men before Morbius, realizing that the Id came from within him, renounces that part of himself, destroying both of them. Adams and Alta escape with the crew before the planet explodes.

FORBIDDEN PLANET was the first big-budget science fiction movie, and the only one for over a decade. It is loosely based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, the story of Prospero the Sorcerer and his daughter Miranda, who are alone on an island until a storm brings their former countrymen to them. Robby the Robot is the obedient Ariel. And the Id is the powerful and angry Caliban. The gadgets and special effects seem almost quaint to us now, but the movie is still fun to watch for younger children and it still raises some important questions for older ones.

The Id, of course, is named for Freud's famous concept of the id, the instincts and impulses of the unconscious mind. Morbius says that he and his wife survived because they were the only ones who loved the planet and wanted to stay, that the monster was created from the fears and jealousies of the other colonists. The implication (more explicit in portions cut from the film), is that Morbius' jealousy when Alta falls in love with Adams brings the Id's destructiveness out again. In a way, this movie is more a way of exploring unconscious feelings we all harbor than it is speculation about life in the future or on other planets.

Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Fred McLeod Wilcox
Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, Warren Stevens
Genre: Science Fiction
Run time: 98 minutes
Theatrical release: March 15, 1956
DVD release: April 18, 2000
MPAA Rating: NR