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Forbidden Planet (1956)
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Eadie
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PostPosted: Mon May 20, 2019 5:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Altair's habitable ("Goldilocks") zone has been known for years. Here it is with Sol's for comparison:



The problem is that Altair is very hot and because of the lighting used in the movie, the axial tilt of Altair IV is extreme! When Bud posted the Christmas pictures he was probably correct in depicting deep snow!!!
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Mon May 20, 2019 6:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote


As a star Altair is really a quite interesting object.

Altair is a type-A main sequence star with about 1.8 times the mass of the Sun and 11 times its luminosity. Altair rotates rapidly, with a rotational period of about 9 hours; for comparison, the equator of the Sun makes a complete rotation in a little more than 25 days. Its rapid rotation forces Altair to be oblate; its equatorial diameter is over 20 percent greater than its polar diameter.


COMPARISON OF SIZE OF THE SUN AND ALTAIR

Theory predicts that, owing to Altair's rapid rotation, its surface gravity and effective temperature should be lower at the equator, making the equator less luminous than the poles.



According to one type of model calculations performed for the NASA Star and Exoplanet Database, the inner edge of Altair's habitable zone is located relatively far from the star at around 2.177 AUs from the star, while the outer edge lies even farther out at around 4.475 AUs.

The distance from Altair where an Earth-type planet would be "comfortable" with liquid water is centered around 3.3 AUs -- at the outer reaches of the Main Asteroid Belt's orbital distance in the Solar System.

At that distance from the star, such a planet would have an orbital period of around 4.7 Earth years. If there is life on any Earth-type planet orbiting youthful Altair, it is likely to be primitive single-cell, anaerobic (non-oxygen producing) bacteria under constant bombardment by meteorites and comets as Earth was for the first billion years.

Since there is unlikely to be free oxygen in the atmosphere of such a planet, it probably would not have an ozone layer (O3) although Altair puts out a lot more hard radiation (especially ultraviolet) than Sol.

This would make each "season" on Altair 4 to be about a Earth year long or more.

Thankfully the writers of FORBIDDEN PLANET were not required to follow the actual conditions to tell a great story.


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Eadie
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PostPosted: Mon May 20, 2019 9:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

According to all that we know Altair IV couldn't be the native home of the Krell. Cinematographer George Joseph Folsey stated that the Krell were frog-like creatures with dragging tails. Just think; Altair IV was too hot, too cold, had high UV, and (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair) Altair (designation α Aquilae (Alpha Aquilae, abbreviated Alpha Aql or α Aql) is to young for life to develop life (Altair, the star, is only 1.2 billion years old).

This gives us, with all we have discussed and speculated, a wonderful opportunity to create the sequel that Cyril Hume and Fred McLeod Wilcox planned (Robot World) that wasn't made primarily due to Wilcox's final film I Passed for White (1960)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Passed_for_White





Let's get together and either speculate and/or write the story, screenplay and script! What fun this will be!!!
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Maurice
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PostPosted: Mon May 20, 2019 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Eadie wrote:
Altair's habitable ("Goldilocks") zone has been known for years. Here it is with Sol's for comparison:



The problem is that Altair is very hot and because of the lighting used in the movie, the axial tilt of Altair IV is extreme! When Bud posted the Christmas pictures he was probably correct in depicting deep snow!!!

Sorry...what? How are you concluding its axial tilt must be extreme based on the lighting in the movie?
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Eadie
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PostPosted: Mon May 20, 2019 11:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Simple. Look at the lighting of the scenes.
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 1:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, the reality is that Altair is more luminous than the Earth's star....Therefore the ambient light on the planet would be very bright. The movie showed the daylight scenes of the exterior to be quite bright. Perhaps some of this is also due to a very scant cloud cover.

That Altair 4 was the original home of the Krell is an interesting question. It could be that they were a rapidly evolving organism and evolved to intelligence quickly from a terrestrial point of view...OR that they evolved somewhere else and Altair 4 was a colony of the race. Perhaps they evolved on a primitive Earth and migrated the 16 some light years to the Altair system.

Axial tilt would be displayed in the severity of the seasonal variation, and alas, we weren't there long enough to really see that. The seasons' extremes would have been more severe than that experienced on Earth. Summer for example would be over a year long with the mid-point much warmer than what we experience. Of course a lot would also depend on how close to A-4's equator you would be. I would imagine that Morbius's residence was in a more temperate zone.

This is all conjecture of course, but it does fit into the fundementals of the story.

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Eadie
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 2:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

By the co-ordinates given it would appear that the C-57-D centered at the north magnetic pole. There's an awful amount of light coming from almost directly overhead!

* * * * * * * * * *

I think I've found the Robby the Robot toy from that movie with Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti, Jr.) The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959):






















* * * * * * * * * *

A silkscreen print by Joe Petro III:



* * * * * * * * * *

Yugoslavian Edition Movie Program:








* * * * * * * * * *

Japanese Ikebukuro Theatre Program:




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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 2:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great toy!
It originaly had a clear plastic dome on it.
I had one way back in the 50's!

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Eadie
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 5:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just evidence that the Krell probably did not originate on Altair IV. If they were frog-like creatures with dragging tails (as cinematographer George Folsey, Jr, maintains) then it was too hot, too cold, too much UV for a planet around Alpha Aquilae, (abbreviated as α Aquilae, Alpha Aql and α Aql) and is only 1.2 billion years old (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair) waay too short for advanced life to develop according to current theories,

With all we know and have discussed here THIS gives us a great opportunity to create a wonderful sequel story with new characters (except Robby) to play with. After all a sequel was planned (Robot World) by Cyril Hume and Fred McLeod Wilcox but wasn't made due to Mr. McLeod's final film — I Passed For White (1960) — being a major flop and because the owners of M-G-M didn't want to spend money and loose financially like Forbidden Planet.







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Eadie
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 6:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Galactic Ambassador Green;

Yes the lighting of the sets was done for filming purposes BUT we (the audience) must take the lighting for the "real" conditions (just as the actors did).

I hope that the shadows in these two pictures are visible enough to illustrate my point:






* * * * * * * * * *

Life imitates art! A robot nurse carrying a patient like Robby does!:


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 9:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Is there any way we can justify the color of the sky? It's tough to explain the green color near the horizon which shades up to a very narrow band of dark purple, and then BLACK above that . . . in the daytime . . . somehow!



Since the light from Altair seems to be no different in color than Sol's, and since the atmosphere is essentially like Earth's (with a little more oxygen), why wouldn't the sky just be blue? Confused

Henri Hillinick's painting of the house presents the sky differently, with a bluish-green color for the visible portion, and only the slightest suggestion at the top of any shading to a darker color.



The painting of the graveyard presents the color of the sky a about the same as the house painting, butit's certainly not like the sky in the landing scene or Robby's passage across the landscape (both of which used the same cyclorama behind the miniature landscape).




However, the matte paintings for the house and the graveyard do appear relatively consistent with the cyclorama around the actual house set! Very Happy



And let's not forget the OTHER matte painting, the one for the Chief Quinn's funeral, which combined a portion of landing site full-sized set (the lower 2/3 of the saucer) and a matte painting of the upper half. Even though it's another matte painting (possible by Henri Hillinick), it presents the "dark sky" seen in the cycloramas, rather than the "light sky" for the house and the graveyard.



The sky in all these matte paintings and cycloramas is beautiful, and I'm actually glad that Altair 4 did not have a blue sky, despite the fact that I doubt it can be explain scientifically. The strange and beautiful sky of Altair 4 looks like an alien world, and that's just what the movie needed.

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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 2:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As it's stated in the film there is an atmosphere at the surface containing oxygen at an appropriate pressure to support human's requirements for breathing. This oxygen probably comes from the plant life that may abound throughout the planet. This also would mean that there was a sufficient amount of Carbon Dioxide to allow the process of photosynthesis (Or something similar). This Oxygen/Carbon Dioxide combination would provide the biosphere required to support life.

Just because the C-57-D landed in a desert area doesn't mean that the planet is heavily desert. No more than if you came down in the heart of the Sahara could you assume that the entire planet was dominated by vast areas of sand.

If Altair 4 had a molten core to provide a magnetic field around the planet it could protect the surface from the intense radiation of it's sun, Altair. At the same time it could provide a shield to capture and retain rare gases like Argon and Xenon that when excited by the magnetic field and radiation from Altair could have a greenish blue hue when viewed from the surface. Variations in color could occur as different levels of gasses are excited by Altair's radiation.



It would appear that the atmosphere is rather "thick" and heavy near the surface and thins out in layers in higher levels.

Again, just conjecture and maybe a bit of "back engineering" to make the filmed visions workable and possible.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Back on page 3 of this thread you'll find an extensive discussion about the way Altair 4 is presented in the movie, both with shots that made it into the final print —



— and test footage of the planet that wasn't used in the film.



My comment earlier about how the sky on an Earth-like planet ought to look blue also applies to the fact that an Earth-like planet out to look similar to Earth when viewed from space. I mean, heck, that's why it's "Earth-like", not just "habitable".

But Altair 4 looks more like Mars, but with more atmosphere. Curious, eh? Confused

However, this made me think of something.


Gord Green wrote:
As it's stated in the film there is an atmosphere at the surface containing oxygen at an appropriate pressure to support human's requirements for breathing. This oxygen probably comes from the plant life that may abound throughout the planet.

This also would mean that there was a sufficient amount of Carbon Dioxide to allow the process of photosynthesis (Or something similar). This Oxygen/Carbon Dioxide combination would provide the biosphere required to support life.

Hey, you're right! Very Happy

If Altair 4 has a higher oxygen content than Earth, is MUST have a significant number of large areas which are rich in planet life. In fact, an article on the EarthSky website about the Earth's oxygen content says, "Most of this oxygen comes from tiny ocean plants — called phytoplankton — that live near the water’s surface and drift with the currents."

That's a strong argument for the idea that, whether we see the non-desert areas in the movie or not, they've got to be there — probably in the form of forest, jungles, and oceans.

On that note, I'll throw in a related idea I posted years ago somewhere on this thread.

I'd love to see a prequel to Forbidden Planet that told the story of how the Bellerophon party explored Altair 4 and were delighted to find areas teaming with animal life. But slowly they discovered that much of it was not indigenous to Altair 4, because a study of the DNA showed that they did not all evolved on the same planet.

The scientist didn't realize that the plethora of lifeforms was actually a hodgepodge of the descendants from the Krell specimens they'd collected on the hundreds of planets they'd visited.



The scientists didn't know this, of course, and they were astounded when they even found various species of Earth animals!

All this is based on the idea that the benign and intelligent Krell had set up habitats for the various specimens they'd brought back, thus creating small versions of the planets they'd visited. The habitats could be visited by Krell citizens for entertainment and education.

But of course, when the Krell machine caused the extinction of Krell, many of the habitats and their occupants were unharmed, and all the animals just did what comes naturally, you might say. Wink

So, Altair 4 would be an amazing scientific find, a place where biologist could come and study plant and animal life from many different worlds!

But . . . we all know the rest of this sad story. Sad

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Krel
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 5:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jerry's comment upon checking the landing coordinates, about the landing site being out in the desert, indicates that Altair IV is not a desert planet. We saw that there was at least a small oasis withing walking distance from the ship.

Robby's answer to the question about the oxygen content, lists a high oxygen content in the atmosphere.

Altair IV probably has a thriving ecosystem, it just wasn't necessary for the movie to show it. It was that thought that made me consider, that Altaira's tiger might not be just a pet, but also a protector from native life.

David.
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Eadie
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PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 5:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And here I've been assuming that the green layer was similar to the one described in the novel After Worlds Collide — an atmospheric plankton that forms in layers.
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