Okay, Logan and Diane are arguing over what movie to watch, Logan wants to watch Forbidden Planet and Diane isn’t having it. Logan thinks it’s campy fifties sci-fi that we respect because it was important but wasn’t any good. Diane thinks it’s actually fantastic genius sci-fi disguised as goofball monster flicks. As someone who loves both of you dearly, I have taken it upon myself to explain to Logan why Diane is right and he needs to watch Forbidden Planet with his brain on.
People tend to write off Forbidden Planet as outdated silliness, but that’s just what MGM wanted you to think when they were selling tickets in 1956. What MGM actually produced was pure psychological genius disguised in lasers and space gorillas so everyone would just shut up and watch.
For starters, Forbidden Planet came out in 1956 (Britannica), right in the middle of everyone being insanely terrified of nuclear annihilation but also patting themselves on the back how awesome science was making America. The movie tapped into all that fear and made a smarter movie than your average spaceship harasses earth nonsense.
| Director | Fred M. Wilcox |
| Year Released | 1956 |
| Genre | Science Fiction |
| Runtime | 1h 38m (IMDb) |
| Our Rating | 8/10 |
We included it in our look back at influential science fiction movies of the 1950s because it proved you could spend B-movie prices and still have brain in your movie. Don’t just take my word for it, look at the reviews. It has 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from critics (Rotten Tomatoes) and Metascore of 80 (Metacritic). Forbidden Planet wasn’t tossing aside subtext in favour of tits and explosions.
## Shakespeare Travels Lightyear
Yep, Forbidden Planet is essentially adapting The Tempest, but they didn’t just slap aliens on and call it a day. Shakespeare was asking questions about power corrupting people and civilization vs savagery. Forbidden Planet understands that.
Morbius plays Prospero, the scientist whose love of knowledge left him alone with his experiment for so long he gained godlike powers. But instead of learning from Prospero and rejecting his magic to return to society, he wallowed in it. That’s why Morbius is failing his primary duty as a father. He became so obsessed with his research that he let his desire to protect his daughter destroy his better judgement.
The natives aren’t really technically aliens, they were an ancient civilization that existed thousands of years before the movie takes place. The Krel were not mystical space wizards that flew around in big shiny spaceships. They were what humans would eventually become if we took our society far enough. Their tech could materialize anything you can think of. Well, almost anything. Their culture literally self-destructed overnight.
They had weapons, that’s their monsters. They had technology that could grant every desire your mind can conceive. That’s their fairy godmother witchcraft. They had everything and were going to conquer space, but their own darkest emotions killed them all in their sleep.
Forbidden Planet is deep psychologic sci-fi posing as a monster movie. It knows that if we continue to evolve scientifically but not psychologically we’re going to repeat the mistakes of the Krel civilization on a global scale. Technology will only magnify our problems, the more powerful it becomes the more important it is to understand what we actually are underneath it all. Humanity is on the verge of leaving Earth like the Krel left theirs. We’d better learn from their example.
Morbius’ monster isn’t invisible, it can phase through objects. His id made violent by Krel technology. Everything he denies about himself, his emotions, his jealousy of a man half his age commanding his daughter, his ego and intellectual hubris.
The movie projects modern psychology onto its characters using the trappings of science fiction, but it does so to educate as well as entertain. The Id, those ugly feelings we don’t like to associate with ourselves, can make us violent even when we think we’re being “reasonable.”
## Gosh Darn It They Really Did Make It Look Like Another Planet
When you guys watch Forbidden Planet pay attention to how they sell you Altair IV. The Krel’s underground complex doesn’t look like a cheap costumes decorating a studio backlot. It looks other. Unusual and exotic to human eyes without being impossible to comprehend. Just walking around those sets feels like you’re on another planet.
Robby might be iconic, but he wasn’t a meme in 1956. They actually studied real robots to make him feel mechanical without losing expressiveness. Robby’s head is transparent so we can see his gears turning. He sounds and moves like he has thoughts and desires. He feels alive without being human.
The music is electronic, composed entirely on keyboards and early synthesizers. You’ve never heard these sounds before because they couldn’t exist without technology. It makes the world feel other. Familiar enough that we understand the drama, but alien enough that the drama feels dangerous and new.
Most of Altair IV was painted onto blank sheets of glass. When you watch the film pay attention to how big these sets look. The matte painters made the Krel city a masterpiece of implied scale. It goes on for miles, wider than our characters can see. Robotic trees stretch up higher than the towers Krel built to civilization. It makes you feel like there’s a society out there that thinks differently than we do.
## MGM Didn’t Fuck Around With The Budget
Forbidden Planet was given a budget of $1.9 million to make (The Numbers). That might sound like a lot of money, but by MGM standards it was chump change. The studio considered it a mid-level budget picture. It’s why you get crapulations like The Hucksters these days. That’s how far MGM was willing to stretch for Forbidden Planet.
The thing is MGM did NOT fuck around with that money. They created special effects and production values that held up for decades. The film made $3 million worldwide when it was released (The Numbers). People ate up smart science fiction when it was wrapped in this kind of package.
Forbidden Planet works because it respects the audience enough to take its characters seriously. The crew of the Robinson works through the science of the Krel so when we learn about them the characters learn along with us. There’s no info dumps or hand-waving. Everything the movie needs you to know, it teaches you. They aren’t smarter than we are, they’re just regular guys trying to understand what the hell is going on.
Leslie Nielsen’s character doesn’t overshadow our romantic leads. He compliments them by showing how civilized they are trying to be when that monster strikes. Not everything Robby does pushes the plot forward, but his existence does. He’s there to show how humanity can work with technology, not be enslaved by it.
Forbidden Planet may have looked at a bunch of old sci-fi movies and said “What if we made one that dealt with real issues?” They learned a lot from serials, but they were also learning about why we watched them in the first place.
Fred Wilcox worked in MGM’s B-picture factory before getting a shot at directing The Enemy Below and Forbidden Planet. He understood that good sci-fi used familiar fears and applied them to the future.
Atomic warfare wasn’t some distant threat to MGM, it was front page news. They channeled those anxieties into a story about a society that literally killed itself out of technological arrogance. The Cold War was a hidden enemy that might destroy us at any moment. So they made a monster born from the inside out.
Screenwriter Cyril Hume didn’t rush the mystery, he let it marinate. The ideas introduced in the first act aren’t sacrificed for cheap thrills. Characters talk about what they’re learning. Scientific principles aren’t dumbed down for the audience. The movie trusts you’re smart enough to keep up, but also serves up the popcorn punch you paid to see.
## Psychology Horror Story Extraordinaire
Forbidden Planet knows we all have an Id we don’t like to admit contains our darkest thoughts and desires. The Krel tech didn’t make those things up, it gave form to what Morbius buried deep down. The violence he thinks is civilized and logical is just a bunch of trash talking to itself with his power.
Morbius sees himself as this rational man who lives by logic and knowledge. But his anger and desire to control everyone around him betray him at every turn. He doesn’t think he’s jealous of Commander Adams youth and blood access to his daughter, but he is. He doesn’t think he’s a tyrant who thinks he’s always right, but he is. He screams about how smart he is while wielding technology that would make Einstein blush.
When the id actually appears on screen it’s behemoth of terrifying brutality. A monster so violent and alien it can kill a crew just by ripping through the ship’s deflector shields. Everything he told us was under control? Literally ripping apart from the inside.
Morbius has to accept that he’s been lied to by his own mind the entire movie. He has to look himself in the mirror and realise he’s becoming something horrifying. That he needs to destroy his precious Krel technology before it destroys him.
## Conclusion
Forbidden Planet is loved by critics today for a reason. It has a 7.5 out of 10 score on IMDb (IMDb) and audiences have given it an 88 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes (Rotten Tomatoes). Logan is just afraid to admit it scared the hell out of him when he was a kid.
Sci-fi shouldn’t be dumbed down and neither were you. They made a movie that actually respects your intelligence and showed you could do both. They proved you could have big ideas without being pretentious about it.
Time has been kind to Forbidden Planet, because it was excellent science fiction when it came out and remains so today. Things might have changed in the sixty years since its release, but us weird ape creatures haven’t.
We keep inventing shiny new toys that expand what we can do without making us any wiser. We love to tell ourselves we know our motivations. We aren’t afraid to lie to ourselves about who we really are deep down.
Video games aren’t lasers and moon boats. Human stupidity is our constant, science fiction’s job is to hold up a mirror to it.<
Max is a sharp-tongued critic with a biting wit, best known for skewering modern sci-fi tropes with unrelenting sarcasm. His reviews are fast-paced and brimming with cynical humor, offering readers a humorous yet insightful look into the absurdities of the genre. Max’s deep knowledge of sci-fi gives him the authority to point out the flaws in today’s popular films, shows, and games. Whether he’s tearing apart overused plot devices or mocking Hollywood’s franchise obsession, Max’s articles always keep readers entertained while delivering hard-hitting truths. Follow him for a wild, sarcastic ride through modern entertainment.