Well...when Anne Francis is on the screen, it's hard to see anyone else...
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Forbidden Planet
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Originally Posted By: expat
On YouTube there are a bunch of FP out-takes. Interesting!
Best thing about the movie is what don't show, and leave to the imagination.
Not only with the Id-Monster, either. When Morbius is about to show Kirk and McCoy -- oops, I mean Nielsen's captain and Warren Stevens's doctor -- the Krell complex, he points to the squashed pentagram-shaped door: "I suggest you consider it in relation to one of our functionally-designed human doors." So without showing us a Krell or going into detail, the film gives the thoughtful viewer an idea of something like a large crab, low and wide to fit through the door, as humans fit through a tall rectangle.
When they first saw the film in the Fifties, Frederik Pohl and other SF writers agreed that it was the first SF movie that could almost have been a serial in the old Astounding Science Fiction magazine. To us today, of course, it's like a first draft of Star Trek -- but it stands on its own. Grand, grand stuff.
On YouTube there are a bunch of FP out-takes. Interesting!
Best thing about the movie is what don't show, and leave to the imagination.
Not only with the Id-Monster, either. When Morbius is about to show Kirk and McCoy -- oops, I mean Nielsen's captain and Warren Stevens's doctor -- the Krell complex, he points to the squashed pentagram-shaped door: "I suggest you consider it in relation to one of our functionally-designed human doors." So without showing us a Krell or going into detail, the film gives the thoughtful viewer an idea of something like a large crab, low and wide to fit through the door, as humans fit through a tall rectangle.
When they first saw the film in the Fifties, Frederik Pohl and other SF writers agreed that it was the first SF movie that could almost have been a serial in the old Astounding Science Fiction magazine. To us today, of course, it's like a first draft of Star Trek -- but it stands on its own. Grand, grand stuff.
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Originally Posted By: expat
On YouTube there are a bunch of FP out-takes. Interesting!
Best thing about the movie is what don't show, and leave to the imagination.
Not only with the Id-Monster, either. When Morbius is about to show Kirk and McCoy -- oops, I mean Nielsen's captain and Warren Stevens's doctor -- the Krell complex, he points to the squashed pentagram-shaped door: "I suggest you consider it in relation to one of our functionally-designed human doors." So without showing us a Krell or going into detail, the film gives the thoughtful viewer an idea of something like a large crab, low and wide to fit through the door, as humans fit through a tall rectangle.
When they first saw the film in the Fifties, Frederik Pohl and other SF writers agreed that it was the first SF movie that could almost have been a serial in the old Astounding Science Fiction magazine. To us today, of course, it's like a first draft of Star Trek -- but it stands on its own. Grand, grand stuff.
Today when a movie resorts to "invisible monsters," it usually comes off corny and you just know they did it to save on effects dollars. But it *still* works in Forbidden Planet, and the reason is the scene where they light up the monster with the security fence and weapons to reveal just enough of its outline to give a sense of size, "alienness" and terror without ever actually having to show enough detail that it could possibly look like styrofoam and shag carpeting. Excellent, excellent scene.
The other scene that still works so well is when they walk into the huge planetary machine, and you get this perfect sense of immense size and barely-controlled power that could vaporize you in an instant. That idea and imagery was replicated extremely well for a sub-plot in 'Babylon 5,' but even with (at the time) advanced computer animation, it still didn't quite match up to the matte artists and green screen of Forbidden Planet.
And what the heck, I'll add a third thing I loved: just the genius of making the sky emerald-green instead of blue! It was such a tiny, simple thing but it did a lot toward helping make the outdoor scenes feel alien and threatening.
Originally Posted By: expat
On YouTube there are a bunch of FP out-takes. Interesting!
Best thing about the movie is what don't show, and leave to the imagination.
Not only with the Id-Monster, either. When Morbius is about to show Kirk and McCoy -- oops, I mean Nielsen's captain and Warren Stevens's doctor -- the Krell complex, he points to the squashed pentagram-shaped door: "I suggest you consider it in relation to one of our functionally-designed human doors." So without showing us a Krell or going into detail, the film gives the thoughtful viewer an idea of something like a large crab, low and wide to fit through the door, as humans fit through a tall rectangle.
When they first saw the film in the Fifties, Frederik Pohl and other SF writers agreed that it was the first SF movie that could almost have been a serial in the old Astounding Science Fiction magazine. To us today, of course, it's like a first draft of Star Trek -- but it stands on its own. Grand, grand stuff.
Today when a movie resorts to "invisible monsters," it usually comes off corny and you just know they did it to save on effects dollars. But it *still* works in Forbidden Planet, and the reason is the scene where they light up the monster with the security fence and weapons to reveal just enough of its outline to give a sense of size, "alienness" and terror without ever actually having to show enough detail that it could possibly look like styrofoam and shag carpeting. Excellent, excellent scene.
The other scene that still works so well is when they walk into the huge planetary machine, and you get this perfect sense of immense size and barely-controlled power that could vaporize you in an instant. That idea and imagery was replicated extremely well for a sub-plot in 'Babylon 5,' but even with (at the time) advanced computer animation, it still didn't quite match up to the matte artists and green screen of Forbidden Planet.
And what the heck, I'll add a third thing I loved: just the genius of making the sky emerald-green instead of blue! It was such a tiny, simple thing but it did a lot toward helping make the outdoor scenes feel alien and threatening.
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
The movie was HUGE in its day, and was very influential on later SciFi movies. They got real mileage out of Robby the Robot, recycling him for the TV series Lost In Space. I still watch it whenever it comes on satellite.
Producers recycled parts of Robbie and of the Krell control room in Man from U.N.C.L.E. and a hundred other TV shows and movies in the ensuring years. The robot in Lost in Space was physically similar to Robbie, with the exception of the head unit -- circular on the LiS robot, a tapering cone on Robbie. Robbie, though, followed Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics (though that was never mentioned in the film). I'm not sure the LiS robot did.
The other amazing thing about Forbidden Planet is that almost no one connected with the film was versed in science fiction. The writer, for instance, was best known for writing Tarzan films. But somehow it all worked.
The movie was HUGE in its day, and was very influential on later SciFi movies. They got real mileage out of Robby the Robot, recycling him for the TV series Lost In Space. I still watch it whenever it comes on satellite.
Producers recycled parts of Robbie and of the Krell control room in Man from U.N.C.L.E. and a hundred other TV shows and movies in the ensuring years. The robot in Lost in Space was physically similar to Robbie, with the exception of the head unit -- circular on the LiS robot, a tapering cone on Robbie. Robbie, though, followed Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics (though that was never mentioned in the film). I'm not sure the LiS robot did.
The other amazing thing about Forbidden Planet is that almost no one connected with the film was versed in science fiction. The writer, for instance, was best known for writing Tarzan films. But somehow it all worked.
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
The robot in Lost in Space was physically similar to Robbie, with the exception of the head unit -- circular on the LiS robot, a tapering cone on Robbie. Robbie, though, followed Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics (though that was never mentioned in the film). I'm not sure the LiS robot did.
The LiS robot was "B9."
It also had tracks instead of legs, so only the torso had much similarity to Robbie.
But don't forget, Robbie himself made a guest appearance in LiS for one episode, 'War of the Robots.'
The robot in Lost in Space was physically similar to Robbie, with the exception of the head unit -- circular on the LiS robot, a tapering cone on Robbie. Robbie, though, followed Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics (though that was never mentioned in the film). I'm not sure the LiS robot did.
The LiS robot was "B9."
But don't forget, Robbie himself made a guest appearance in LiS for one episode, 'War of the Robots.'
So all this inspired me to pick up Nielson's 'autobiography'. It's called 'The Naked Truth', so far it's sort of like reading 'Airplane'.
Interesting the poster indicates "Photographed in Eastman Color". Cinemascope was relatively new, wide screen technology married to the first ( I guess today's tag would be 3.0) sound system, stereo plus center channel.
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