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FEATURED THREADS for 7-4-22

 
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 2022 10:13 am    Post subject: FEATURED THREADS for 7-4-22 Reply with quote



If you're not a member of All Sci-Fi, registration is easy. Just use the registration password, which is —

gort



Attention members! If you've forgotten your password, just email me at brucecook1@yahoo.com.
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Today we're focusing on three classic from the Golden Age of Sci-Fi.

First off, I wrote a detailed analysis of question, "Did Morbius lie about certain things in Forbidden Planet? Please not the fact that I presented my case as if I believed he DID lie — and then proved that I was wrong.

Next is The Great Porthole Debate in the This Island Earth thread. Are the two rows of glowing dots around the saucer's upper and lower sections portholes . . . or energy beam emitters? Read the post to find the answer.





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Finally, I had a bit of fun putting the C-57-D into screen shots from the 1953 classic, Invaders from Mars. Very Happy
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Forbidden Planet (1956)




Over on the Classic Horror film board, atenolol asked these questions, because he's of the opinion that Morbius was lying about many things during the story.

atenolol wrote:
Where did the tiger come from? And why a tiger?

Despite Bud Brewster's impressive posts, I think it came from Morbius directly through the machine. I think the tiger is evidence that Morbius does know how to consciously run the machine.

I composed the message below to show (through my clever sarcasm) that it didn't make a lick of sense to assume Morbius was lying about anything. I copied it and put it here for the amusement of our members.

Please bear in mind -- this is sarcasm! I don't believe any of this. In fact, just the reverse in every case.
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Wow, this idea changes Morbius' character completely! If Morbius knows what the machine does and he can consciously use it to create the tiger, it means he lied outrageously not less than twelve times in the story. And the lies get more and more outrageous as the story progresses.

Here's what I mean.

During the after-lunch conversation, Morbius tells Adams, Ostrow, and Farman that the entire Bellerophon crew had been torn limb-from-limb by "some dark, terrible, incomprehensible force" — and he had no idea what it was.

Lie #1 ~ If Morbius knows how to use the machine to create a tiger out of thin air, he'd have to be pretty dumb not to realize that the "incomprehensible force" was also created by the machine — even if he didn't realize that his own thoughts did it. And according to the Krell I.Q. Test for Average Urchins, Morbius is twice as intelligent as Dr. Ostrow, who said his own I.Q. was 161!



Lie #2 ~ This one is a lie by omission rather than of commission. When Adams says, "That explains the tiger and the deer," during Morbius' lecture in his study, he allowed his silence to give Adams and Ostrow the false notion that the animals descended from the Earth specimens brought back 200,000 years ago.



In the lab Morbius says the Krell had been working on a project he didn't know much about, except that it would "somehow free them once and for all from any dependence on physical instrumentalities."

Lie #3 ~ Blatant lie. He knew exactly what the machine did and how to operated it. If he knew how to create tigers on demand, he would know that the Krell planned to create anything they wanted, any time they wanted it. Remember, Morbius was one smart cookie.



Later, while Morbius is showing the men the Krell machine, Adams says, "What's it all for?"



Morbius avoids the question and just says, "Sometimes the gauges register when the buck deer fight in the autumn, and when the birds fly over in the spring."

Lie #4 ~ Another falsehood by omission. He knows the deer and the birds are creations of the machine, just like the tiger. It isn't a stretch to assume that he consciously created the other animals to provide his lonely daughter with her own private petting zoo!

Lie #5 ~ Morbius wasn't truthful after Chief Quinn's funeral when he showed up at the ship and gave Adams his dire warning of impeding doom. But he puts on another act, feigning ignorance concerning the true nature of the threat. Instead of being honest, he claims he had a "premonition" and says, "The Bellerophon pattern is being woven again."



Near the end of the movie we start getting the real whoppers Morbius tells. Remember, he knows what the machine is designed to do, he knows how to use it, and he knows the Krell completed it just before they were all wiped out. He's twice as intelligent as Doc (before Doc's brain boost), and he's been diligently studying the Krell database for twenty years.

So, when Adams (a man of average intelligence) figures out the nature of the machine, based on a few clues from Doc and twenty seconds of real deep thinking, Morbius sits there all poker faced when Adams tells him that the machine had "enough power for a whole population of creative geniuses . . . operated by remote control . . . operated by the electro-magnetic impulses of individual Krell brains!"

Lie #6 ~ And what does Morbius say when Adams tells him this — something which he's known since the day he created the tiger with his own brain? Why, heck fire, he just feigns ignorance again and says, "To what purpose"?

Liar, liar, pants on fire! He knew damn well what the purpose was! He'd used it to crank out a butt-load of fuzzy critters for his daughter!



Seconds later Morbius goes into an unbelievable act while he continues (for no discernible reason) to pretend he DIDN'T know what the machine was for. Adams tells him that the machine would project solid matter to any point on the planet, in any shape or color, for any purpose. Creation by mere thought.

Lie #7 ~ And does Morbius blush and look down at his toes and say, "Ah, shucks. You got me. I've known that for years." Nope. He stares off into space and says, "Why haven't I seen this all along"?



Good gawd a'might! What an act! Bill Clinton is an Eagle Scout with a merit badge for True Blue Honesty compared Morbius.

And it gets even worse!

Lie #8 ~ When Adams tells him that the Krell forgot about the savage aspects of their own subconscious, Morbius goes all google-eyed again and says, "The beast . . . the mindless primitive. Even the Krell must have evolved from that beginning."



Give me a break! Morbius must have figure all this out years ago for three simple reasons. (1) Doc got it in five minutes flat, (2) Adams came in a close second, and (3) Morbius was way smarter than John and he had a twenty-year head start!

John caps off his dramatic presentation with, "And so those mindless beast of the sub-conscious had access to a machine that could never be shut down — the secret devil of every soul on the planet, all set free at once!"

Lie #9 ~ Morbius responds with a performance worthy of a Shakespearean play, Act 2, scene 4 — "My poor Krell . . . they could hardly have understood what power was destroying them!"

Sniff . . . sob . . . sniffle . . . Hey, somebody get the hook for this ham!



Jeez, what a drama queen! This wasn't anything new to Morbius! He'd used the machine to conjure up a pet tiger (and the other animals) for his daughter, and he knew the only explanation for what killed the Bellerophon crew was something bigger and badder the machine had cranked out. Blamin' the demise of the Krell on the machine was a definite no-brainer!

Lie #10 ~ Still keeping up the puzzling pretense that he didn't know sh*t from Shinola, Morbius shifts gears and starts acting all innocent and ignorant. "Yes, young man, all very convincing . . . except for one obvious fallacy." He states that all the Krell are dead, so there's nobody around to activate the machine.



Yeah . . . right . . . sure . . . nobody except the guy who whistled up that tiger years earlier after he figured what the machine was and how to use it!

Lie #11 ~ After running into the lab, Adams continues to tell Morbius things he already knows, while Dr. Melodrama rehearses for a soap opera by acting like it's all a big revelation.



Just to round this out to an even dozen, Morbius finally admits he's the source of the Id monster — but he never comes out and says, "Okay, you got me. I did it. Read me my rights and slap on the cuffs."

Lie #12 ~ Instead, the fabricating Dr. Phiber gives us that phony display of anguish when he pretends to be all torn up by the "sudden realization" that his subconscious mind has been doing the same thing the Krell's subconscious minds did — go plum postal on everybody in sight!

So, there you have it, folks. The Real Morbius, Revealed At Last! A bald-faced liar from start to finish. That man couldn't tell the truth if you held a gun to his head — which is exactly what John is doing in this picture!



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This Island Earth (1955)

Just to get a thread going for This Island Earth, here's the debate we had about whether the saucer had "port holes" or "gun ports".

Fortunately I placed a copy of my post on that subject at the Classic Horror Film Board and was able to copy and paste it here! Very Happy
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Until recently I'd always thought the round shapes that encircled the upper and lower sections of the saucer were either view ports or gun ports -- probably the latter, because when it fires its weapon, the plasma beam seems to be coming from the holes in the side.



But I learned from orzel-w that the round shapes aren't holes at all -- they're actually indentations or dimples. You can tell from the way the hi-lights and shadow are formed when the light hits them.

In this picture, the saucers is lit from two separate directions -- but the light source coming from the left is low, only shining on the bottom, while the light source coming from the right is high, only shining on the top.



As a result, the highlights and shadows for the dimples on the top are the reverse of those on the bottom -- and each set is consistent with the direction of the light source.

It's exactly the way craters are illuminated. If the sun is on the left, the inside shadow is also on the left, and the inside highlight is on the right.

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Therefore, no matter what they're supposed to be in the movie, the miniature doesn't have view ports or gun ports.

Just lots of cute little dimples. Very Happy



This explains why the "port holes" are never illuminated in the movie!

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Invaders from Mars (1953)

Did somebody say "Invaders from Mars"?

No? Then I will.

I made the pictures below just for fun. Here's the shot of space, during the opening narration.






And here's what we didn't see, a few seconds later — the ship on its way to Earth.





And later still, when David sees it land.





I kind of wish the Martians had come in rockets. I'm partial to 'em.

And here's another use of the space background from the beginning of the movie, using a 1950s hood ornament one of the guys posted on the Destination Moon thread at the CHFB while they were talking about how the Luna might look if it had a chrome finish.








And for those folks who prefer wide screen, here's the CinemaScope version! Very Happy



_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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