Must-Watch Sci Fi Movies: Ongoing series of posts looking at sci fi and fantasy films that best represent the genre and that must get on your watch list.
What Is It?
A spaceship under the command of the United Planets returns to the previously colonized Altair IV—16 light years from Earth—to discover the fate of the colony ship The Belarathon, which landed there 20 years prior. As the ship takes orbit around the planet, it is warned off by Dr. Edward Morbius, one of the colonists, who tells the ship’s captain, John J. Adams, that he cannot guarantee its safety if it lands. The captain disregards the warnings, however, and lands per his orders from the United Planets.
Once there, the captain and his crew find that Morbius is the only survivor of the original mission and that he lives alone except for the robot he built, Robbie, and his daughter Altaira, who was born shortly after the original expedition arrived. Morbius claims that the other colonists all succumbed to some malevolent planetary force shortly after arrival, but that he and his daughter were immune. The captain tells Morbius that he and his daughter must return to Earth with them, but the professor refuses, and shortly afterward the ship is sabotaged.
Morbius then shares with the captain and his officers the discoveries he has made about the Krell, an advanced civilization that previously inhabited the planet. They had advanced well beyond humans in their technology and achievements, but then mysteriously disappeared without a trace. Remnants of their civilization still exist underground, but they provide no clue as to the fate of the Krell, though they may provide a link to what happened to the crew of The Belarathon.
Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens
Crew: Fred M. Wilcox (Director), Cyril Hume (Screenplay)
Original Release: March 2, 1956
Why Is It a Must-Watch Movie?
Forbidden Planet was the special-effects, sci-fi blockbuster of its era, and it also managed to deliver a rare, intelligent, well-made science fiction film at a time when B-movies dominated the genre.
A Closer Look:
Forbidden Planet was very much the Star Wars of its day because it delivered a big-budget, sfx-heavy blockbuster with a sense of fun, even if it didn’t draw the same mass audiences or quite change the course of genre filmmaking. But it did set a standard for science fiction movies—and a rather high one at that—and it has stood the test of time, even if its SFX, which were state of the art at the time, may seem a bit quaint compared to modern-day standards. The fact is that the film provided an intelligent, believable look at space travel and interplanetary colonization, as well as alien encounters, and it also had an important message at the core of its story—the dangers of mortals attaining god-like powers—which it delivers without feeling too heavy-handed or preachy.
The movie is loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, though it’s definitely not going to help you with any lit tests on the Bard. But it is notable for trying to inject a serious, literate story into a science fiction setting. When you consider the many low-brow examples of the genre that dominated theaters in the ’50s—Creature With the Atom Brain, Fire Maidens From Outer Space, Attack of the Crab Monsters, and other lurid titles—the intelligent handling of science fiction by Forbidden Planet was a breath of fresh air and a sign of sci-fi trying to grow up.
And even though the movie posters tried to play up the exploitative side of the film, with Robbie the Robot menacingly carrying off the girl (hearkening back to a similar gimmick used on the poster for The Day the Earth Stood Still), the film actually gives us a (relatively) realistic robot who is not the expected movie monster. And he is governed by a version of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics (as a side note, an early Asimov robot story that predated the film was titled “Robbie”).
The performances are all first-rate, and a cut or two above the standard genre movie for the time. A young Leslie Nielsen gives us the quintessential hard-nosed military captain, and Walter Pidgeon serves as the perfect foil with his performance as the obsessed yet brilliant scientist. Morbius is not an evil man, but he falls victim to his own ambitions, as do those around him. Anne Francis gets to do little more than pout and look pretty (which she does quite well), but at least she’s not the typical screaming genre heroine-in-distress, and she does assert herself at several points in the film. And Robbie the Robot (making his first of many genre appearances) steals the show, much like C-3PO and R2-D2 did in Star Wars, but not in a way that detracts from the overall quality of the film.
But of all the genre trailblazing that Forbidden Planet accomplished, there’s one very important thing it did that has never drawn much attention. This movie very much set the template for Star Trek, which would not debut on television until a decade later. Consider the similarities: a starship exploring the galaxy, the very Federation-like United Planets, the captain, doctor, and first officer leading the away team, and even the captain getting the girl. Plus, the movie wraps up a morality play in a science fiction story, one of the core driving principles of Trek throughout all of its incarnations. Without much difficulty, you could take the story of Forbidden Planet and seamlessly rewrite it as a Star Trek episode. Gene Roddenberry has claimed that he drew some inspiration from the film for his series, and you can definitely see much of the groundwork right here.
Modern viewers who have grown up gorged on CGI overload may cringe at some of the SFX, but for the most part they still look pretty good, especially the underground Krell civilization. And this one definitely holds up to a rewatch, so if you haven’t seen it in a while, it’s worth giving it another look.
Why Was There No Sequel?
Forbidden Planet was expensive and technically ambitious for its time, and while it was influential and ultimately profitable, it was not an immediate blockbuster on the level MGM was looking for to justify a follow-up. The studio viewed it as a prestige one-off rather than the start of a franchise, especially since MGM was already growing cautious about big-budget genre films by the late 1950s as television began eating into theatrical attendance.
In addition, MGM’s internal turmoil played a major role. The studio went through significant financial troubles and leadership changes in the late 1950s, leading to scaled-back production and fewer risks. Science fiction films increasingly shifted toward lower-budget B-movie territory at other studios, while MGM pivoted away from effects-heavy projects. A sequel would have required another costly production with advanced effects, something MGM was no longer eager to fund.
And at that time, sequels were simply not that common. As mentioned, Forbidden Planet was viewed as a standalone film, and turning properties into franchises was not the standard direction prior to the Blockbuster Era which started in the mid-70s. Some of the cheaper B-movies did get sequels, but this was far less common for higher-budget films.
Should It Be Rebooted?
There have been talks of a Forbidden Planet remake floating around for the past few years (with J. Michael Straczynski attached at one point), but nothing has surfaced yet. And while a remake might update some of the special effects, it could also easily succumb to the Hollywood blockbuster mentality and turn into a big, dumb sci-fi film instead of the intelligent genre entry the original delivered.
Where this could work much better is as a television series. Many Star Trek fans (myself included) have been disappointed with Nu Trek, so why not turn this property into the space-hopping show fans crave and Paramount+ has failed to deliver? As mentioned above, the premise is very similar, and Forbidden Planet actually preceded the original Trek, so Paramount can’t claim copyright infringement. They would need to update it and add a more diverse crew, but that’s easy to do, and there are plenty of directions they could take the series. Get JMS back onboard with this one (and away from the Babylon 5 reboot we don’t need), and this could turn into a heck of a good sci-fi series.
Interesting Facts:
This was one of the early sci-fi films to receive a generous budget, as the genre had not typically been taken seriously by studios and was often relegated to B-movies. Forbidden Planet did not become an immediate hit (films were given more staggered releases in those days), but it eventually turned a profit for MGM and became something of a prestige entry in their catalog.
Robby the Robot was built for this film at a cost of $125,000 (over $1.4 million in today’s money), making him one of the most expensive props ever created by a studio at the time. He would go on to appear in other movies such as The Invisible Boy and Gremlins, as well as television shows like The Twilight Zone, Lost in Space, and Mork & Mindy.
Where Can You Watch It?
The movie is available on DVD and Blu-ray and you can purchase it VOD. It is not currently streaming on any of the major services.
