Flashback: Forbidden Planet—Everything You Need to Know
“This 1956 pop adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest is one of the best, most influential science fiction movies ever made.”—Amazon.com
The 1956 classic science fiction film Forbidden Planet—ranked as one of the great SF movies—was a huge inspiration for Star Trek. Elements of the story have been compared to William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, inspiring many to consider it a loose adaptation.
In the 23rd century, a rescue mission heads to a distant planet to learn what happened to a colony that has gone silent—and only finds two survivors, one of whom holds a deadly secret. Soon, the crew finds themselves endangered by a hidden monster. Watch the video below from JonnyBaak for more info about the film…
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The film stars Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film was produced by Nicholas Nayfack, directed by Fred M. Wilcox, scripted by Cyril Hume, and was based on an original film story by Allen Adler and Irving Block.
Forbidden Planet is chock full of elements that we’ve since seen in lots of sci-fi movies: A dutiful robot named Robby speaks 188 languages. An underground lair provides astonishing evidence of a populace a million years more advanced than Earthlings. There are many wonders on Altair-4, but none is greater or more deadly than the human mind.
“Unlike other sci-fi films that are rather obvious Cold War allegories, Forbidden Planet is one of those rare productions that both define and transcend their era. Watch it and you’ll agree–though you’ll sleep a little less easily afterwards.”—Dan Schneider, Alt Film Guide
“Forbidden Planet is still dazzling and subversive, and an influence on most major space opera science fiction.”—Jim Knipfel, Den of Geek
“Forbidden Planet elevated science fiction as a Hollywood genre, effectively reintroducing it to audiences as a brand of cinema capable of stimulating the intellect as well as the imagination.”—Ian Olney, Library of Congress
Forbidden Planet is the granddaddy of tomorrow, a pioneering work whose ideas and style would be reverse-engineered into many cinematic space voyages to come. Leslie Nielsen portrays the commander who brings his space cruiser crew to the green-skied Altair-4 world, home to Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), his daughter (Anne Francis), the remarkable Robby...and to a mysterious terror.
Featuring sets of extraordinary scale and the first all-electronic musical soundscape in film history, Forbidden Planet is in a movie orbit all its own.
Related: Leslie Nielsen Might Have Been The World's Very First Star Trek Fan
In his role as the space captain in Forbidden Planet, Leslie Nielsen was clearly laying the groundwork for future portrayals of Federation officers. So it was all the more of an honor when he called the Star Trek staff in 1966 to compliment the show.
In a 2016 interview, Star Trek writer D.C. Fontana told the Associated Press about something that happened during the early days of broadcast when she was a production secretary. The phone rang at 9 a.m.—and it was Forbidden Planet star Leslie Nielsen calling.
“I was in the office at 9 o'clock as usual, and the phone rang. [Gene] Roddenberry wasn't in yet, so I picked up and answered 'Star Trek.' This very familiar voice on the other end said, 'Hello, this is Leslie Nielsen.' [...] He said, 'I saw the show last night and I thought it was wonderful and had a great future,' [...] I'm paraphrasing him a bit, but he was very effusive about the show ... I was thrilled to death, because I loved 'Forbidden Planet.' For him to call and say he really liked the show — what a huge compliment.”