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Forbidden Planet: 50th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Edition
01/09/2007 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
Region 2 DVD. pub: MGM/Warner Bros Z1 66912. 2 DVDs 2 x 94 minute films with loads of extras. Price: £ 9.98 (UK) if you know where to look) stars: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielson and introducing Robby, the Robot. Buy Forbidden Planet: 50th Anniversary in the USA - or Buy Forbidden Planet: 50th Anniversary in the UK  check out website: www.warnerbros.co.uk
If you've never heard of the 1957 film 'Forbidden Planet' then you shouldn't be calling yourself a Science Fiction fan. If you've never seen the film, then you definitely shouldn't be here. If you don't own a copy of the film then now's the opportunity with this double DVD that is loaded with extras.
'Forbidden Planet' is probably the first and last SF film to date to owe its literally origins to William Shakespeare using The Tempest' as its template. When a starship, led by Captain John Adams (actor Leslie Nielson), arrives at Altair IV to see how colonists are getting on, they resist the instructions of its inhabitant, Morbius (actor Walter Pidgeon), to stay away. However, once they are arrived, Morbius is a little more cordial, introducing some of the crew to his servant, Robby the robot, and his daughter Altaira (actress Anne Francis). The rest of the colonists had died when their spaceship had been attacked trying to take off. When events appear to be repeating itself with this starship when an invisible creature damages their equipment and kills members of the crew, they discover Morbius has been investigating the Krel, a now extinct alien race's artefacts. In doing so, he has brought to life the same kind of creature that killed those about him. Well, you should know the rest from this point.
If anything, 'Forbidden Planet' is one of the first serious 50s SF films, probably predated by 'This Island Earth'. It did, however, have a greater impact on the upcoming generation of writers and directors. There wouldn't have been a series called 'Star Trek' without it although creator Gene Roddenberry left including a robot in the crew until the next series. When you have the likes of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and John Carpenter explaining the influence of the film on starting their careers then you have to consider what would have happened had there been no 'Forbidden Planet'. Certainly, visual SF would have been vastly different to what it is today.
Information gleaned from the extras shows that after all its other films of the time, MGM decided to make a definitive SF film, helped along by its production crew who decided not to do half-measures stretching its budget along the way. It held all the collective elements from SF from spaceships to a monster to a robot, even if the publicists didn't really know quite what to make of Robby, invariably portraying him as a menace when he was really nothing of the sort. Such was the price of Robby and his popularity that he was also used in a TV episode of 'The Thin Man' and a second film, 'The Invisible Boy' - both of which are included in this DVD package. 'The Thin Man' is a typical 50s detective series starring Peter Lawford playing the smug detective knowing all the answers.
This was my first opportunity to see 'The Invisible Boy' and I can quite understand the reluctance for it to be shown on TV in the UK. If 'Forbidden Planet' was the beacon of what good SF was to become, then this film was quite the reverse. Typical 50s playfulness combined with spanking a child would do no harm to a computer that probably has less power than the machine that is facing you today. Robby was brought in to spice the film up and again, the publicists of the time still portrayed him on the posters as the menace when the reverse was true.
That aside, this should not sway you from adding this 'Forbidden Planet' DVD to your collection. It is not only a classic of its time but successfully manages to maintain its aura of uniqueness amongst SF films.
GF Willmetts
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