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Forbidden Planet Customer Reviews (46 - 48 of 61 Reviews)

Shakespeare's "The Tempest" set in space
Others may argue but to me the two big movies of 1956 were The Ten Commandments, and Forbidden Planet. Now while Ten Commandments is certainly a great movie, I don't think it had anywhere near the influence on subsequent films that Forbidden Planet did.

Forbidden Planet is essentially a Shakespearean play, The Tempest, set on a distant planet and in the far future. And that's what I liked best about the movie--it made relevant for me an ancient play that I had never really understood.

Several elements of the movie influenced modern science-fiction films. The first was the use of serious, state-of-the-art, special effects to create major characters in the movie. There's a robot who plays a pivotal character, and there's the evil creature that's born of alien technology and human frailty.

And there's a willingness to deal with serious subjects like the nature of the human subconcious, jealousy, the will to survive. The characters are real, and well-acted. Though for folks used to seeing Leslie Nielsen in comedic roles it may take some getting used to in this serious role.

All around a well-crafted, thoughtful, and influential piece of cinema. Highly recommended. END

From sci-fi's golden age...
Forbidden Planet is probably the best representative of science fiction's golden age at the movies. The 1950's and 60's saw a generation of writers produce a series of excellent, though-provoking films that were all the better because they were grounded in hard science and ideas. Movie like Planet of the Apes, Forbidden Planet and Day the Earth Stood Still. Today's deriviative unimaginative sci-fi garbage films don't hold a candle to them for all their cgi glory.

The Forbidden Planet deals with an Earth ship investigating a previous landing on a nearby planet. Only one man and his teenage daughter survive and the fate of the other crew -- and the nature of the planet itself -- is shrouded in mystery.

The plot is basically The Tempest in space. And those with a keen eye will see how this movie heavily influence the original Star Trek. But this is still a treat. Anne Farris and (talk about surprises) Leslie Nielson give good performances. The special effects stand up remarkably well after so long.

But again, what sets this movie apart are the ideas. See the detail when the crew take their ship apart to build an insterstellar communicator. Or how the crew carefully and systematically deals with the dangers they are presented with.

I can't recommend this film to everyone, since too many people will get caught up in the movie's age and that many of its original ideas have been copied so much as to now be cliche'. But if you like serious sci-fi, you will love this movie. Here's a quick litmus test. If you liked the recent flashy-but-pointless Planet of the Apes, you will not like this movie. But if you liked the original though-provoking Planet of the Apes, don't hesitate to add this to your colllection.

Great Sci-Fi
Like the best film science fiction, "Forbidden Planet" keeps its concepts simple but their ramifications grand, which is just one of the reasons it is a timeless classic. Made at a time when sci-fi was the junk that kept restless kids in theater seats on Saturday afternoons, this ambitious take on Shakespeare's "The Tempest" nonetheless also aims for adults that grew up on the pulp fiction of the 1920s and 30s. (Its delightful production design is a seamless mix of colors, forms, and shapes familiar from those imaginative magazine covers.) The premise is Star Trek a decade before Star Trek, as a military cruiser commanded by the hard-nosed but humane J.J. Adams (Leslie Nielsen doing an effective melodramatic turn) visits a world populated by a secretive scholar (a wonderful Walter Pigeon), his curious daughter (a sometimes grating Ann Francis), their robot butler (the epitome of mechanical men) and a mostly unseen terror (illustrated by topnotch Disney animators). Beyond great special effects and an innovative musical score, the film also engages a firm--if now familiar--science fiction plot, unlike so many of the noisy and expensive but ultimately overwrought and empty-headed sci-fi movies of today.

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