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Cinefantastique double issue — Forbidden Planet
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________________

Interesting things I’ve learned from this article — part 4

According to the sketches on page 28 (image #25), the C-57-D was originally planned to have spindly legs which held it up, and a spiral staircase the wound down from the dome on the bottom like a screw!





The spiral staircase is a great idea . . . but I like this MUCH better! Very Happy





Concerning those great uniforms created by Walter Plunkett . . . he actually states in the article that Forbidden Planet was his least favorite film to work on! Heck, he didn’t even like Helen Rose’s costumes for Altaira, stating that they made her look “more like a Rockette than something of the future.”

I beg to differ. Wink



__________


Plunkett also designed radiation suits and helmets that were supposed to be worn when the ship’s core was removed to power the communications device they needed to report back to Earth for instructions.





By the way, I just realized that when Adams told Morbius they needed to build a transmitted that would “distort the space/time continuum on a five or six parces level”, he was talking about a communications device that would send messages faster than light! Otherwise Earth wouldn’t have gotten the message for sixteen years, and the answer wouldn’t have come back until thirty-two years later! (Altair is 16 light years from Earth. A parsec is 3.26 light years — which means the Millennium Falcon can make the Kessel run in less than 39 light years.) Cool

~ Concerning the location at MGM studios of the miniature landscape for the landing set (something a few members were wondering about), the article states that the landscape was built on —

“ . . . Lot 3, which contained standing outdoor sets like the St. Louis street, also contained a large 300 foot square water tank for filming special effects. The tank was frequently used for the construction of miniature sets not requiring water. The miniature set was constructed outdoors because there was no stage facility high enough to accommodate the hugh 75 foot tall backdrop needed to the planet’s sky and horizon and the rigging necessary to manipulate the saucer miniatures from an overhead track.”

The miniature landscape also had to be filmed outside because they needed sunlight to “film at high speed for realism.”

Please note, folks, that the painted backdrop for the landing scene was 75’ X 300’ high, while the backdrop for the full-sized saucer set was 40’ X 350’. When I first read the article in 1979 I was surprised to learn that the two backdrops were fairly close to the same width, but the landing scene backdrop for the miniature landscape was almost twice as high!

~ Concerning the evolution of the Id monsters design, Kent Hultgren, an artist who was not employed by either MGM or Disney, was called in by Josh Meador to come up with an Id monster that would satisfiy Nicholas Nayfack, who didn’t like any of the designs suggested thus far. It was Hultgren who designed the two-legged “lion head” that was eventually used.

Josh Meador actually provided the FX for one scene at least that wasn’t used in the movie! In the scene shown below — (click on the image to see a 1,024 pixel version.)






— Robby zaps the monkey just once, and the greedy little simian flees in terror. But the article states that the original scene included several assaults on the fruit bowl, each one repulsed by Robby’s anti-monkey beams. However, the scene was cut because “audiences misconstrued the scene during the film’s previewing stage.”

I’d like to find those audience members and beat an apology out of them! Evil or Very Mad

I wonder if the extended scene was constructed so that each of the monkey’s “raids” on the fruit bowl happened in quick succession, or were they interspersed with scenes of Adams and Ostrow arriving a few seconds later.



_____


Perhaps the addition monkeyshines occurred after Adams hears the girlish giggles of a wet gal in the swimming pool and dashes off to see if she needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation — which she sort of did, as it turned out! Wink

Meanwhile, Doc watches Robby wag war on the wily little banana bandit!



___


It’s hard to imagine a “new” scene in Forbidden Planet that doesn’t seem “stuck in” and unnecessary, because after watching it dozens of times over the last 52 years I can’t help loving it just exactly the way its constructed (despite the fact that it’s Ferris Webster’s “rough cut”, and Gord has expressed a few negative feelings about it), but it’s still fun to fantasize about things like this.

~ The section of the article which deals with the FX done by the Disney animators concludes by mentioning a young Disney artist name Joe Alves who was 18 years old and started working for Disney when he joined Josh Meador's team to work on Forbidden Planet

Ironically, Joe Alves left Disney a short time later to join John P. Fulton’s at Paramount and work on the animation FX for The Ten Commandments.

Despite having vastly inferior special effects compared to Forbidden Planet, the popular Biblical epic won the special effects Oscar in 1956. My reaction to this injustice is to say that it took an"act of God" to beat Forbidden Planet out of that Academy Award!

Dammit . . . Shocked

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Last edited by Bud Brewster on Fri Aug 03, 2018 10:28 am; edited 6 times in total
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 25, 2018 11:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think it was so much an "act of God" as it was Hollywood's prejudice toward science-fiction films. It took a while for the powers that be in Tinseltown to get behind looking at sci-fi as anything above a "B" movie or kiddee fare project.

FORBIDDEN PLANET had a very real superiority to the mass of genre films of the 50's and 60's but was not realized (Except to a select few!) until Stanley Kubrick's 2001:ASO arrived in '68 . It took multiple showings on TV (Even in cut up versions!) before it started to gain the respect it so much deserves.

Still....I remember distinctly the first time I saw it. Sitting in the back seat peering over the front seat of my Dad's old Chevy Bel Aire at the screen ABSOLUTELY mesmerized by what was unfolding before my eyes! The Monster from the Id (Whatever the heck that meant!) was the most terrifying thing I had ever imagined! Invisible except when illuminated in scarlet rays...bellowing out it's frightening roar accompanied by the electronic "spacey" music was the most horrible thing My 10 year old imagination could handle! Yet I LOVED every second of it!

And the magnificent Krell lab...the beautiful open air home of Doctor Morbius... were only overshadowed by the fantastic Robby the Robot!

All and all no film until 2001 had the impact on my mind that FORBIDDEN PLANET did. There were a few...considered failures at the time...Citizen Kane....Casablanca....Wizard of Oz....All films that touched the real arbiters of "what is really worthwhile" , but none have had the impact to me that FORBIDDEN PLANET did.

To this day this film fills my 70 year old soul with the same wonder it did 60 years ago. I think that's why I find it a very "personal" movie.


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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 12:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud, you replied that "Yes, he didn't hide the fact that he thought he was the "smartest man in the room", but since this was undeniably true (and the other guys knew it), I don't fault him from displaying confidence and intelligence with no false modesty. "

Remember, this was long before the crew knew about Morbius's "brain boost". To them he was just a guy with a Phd in literature acting like he was the King of Altair.

They looked at him as an intellectual peer, or maybe even less. After all he was a Doctor of Arts, not of Science as many officers in the space force would be.(As even today most Astronauts have been Phd's in Engineering and the sciences.) Not even as prestigeous as a Doctor of Medicine as Dr. Ostrow would be. As a Doctor of Philology he was looked at as hardly their intellectual peer...even though he acted as one.

His conversation was obviously holding back information and illusive. His description of the Belleraphon destruction was without detail and illusive.

Look at his body language while lecturing to the crewmen. Closed off and superior...arms folded. A sure symbol of assumed superiority and a closed mind.

He was as a God among mere men.







When Alta appeared the crewmen were completely taken aback. What other details were Morbius withholding from them?



Actually...quite a bit.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2018 6:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

_______________________________________

First of all, a correction of a statement I made at least once on the Forbidden Planet thread.

The seventh post on page 32 of the FP thread includes my incorrect statement that the Cinefantastique article said the original negative burned up in a fire which destroyed the contents of an MGM vault.

I'm happy to report that having finished reading the entire article, no such statement was made. Happily, I was mistaken. This is one time I'm very glad to be wrong! (But I won't let THAT happen again, by gum . . . Rolling Eyes)

And now, here's today's post of —


Interesting things I’ve learned from this article — part 5

The story of how Louis and Bebe Barron landed the assignment to create the amazing soundtrack is delightful. Very Happy

After creating electronic music for a series of “experimental films”, the two composers wanted to find work in Hollywood, and they heard that studio head Dore Schary at MGM was the man to see.

These Greenwich Village beatniks heard that Dore Schary’s wife was a painter and she was having a one-woman show in a New York gallery, so they crashed the opening and wandered around among the rich guests, looking for a man who wasn’t trying to impress anybody.

They figured that guy would be Dore Schary.

They were right, and they found him. Very Happy

The Barrons struck up a conversation with Schary and told him that they really liked his controversial new film, Bad Day at Black Rock. The flattery worked, and Schary listened to their description of the electronic music they composed. He gave them a standing invitation to visit MGM whenever they happened to be on the West Coast.

So, what did our beloved beatniks do? They drove cross-country and stayed with Bebe’s parents who lived in Los Angeles. Then they called Schary, and he agreed to see them that afternoon.

How does Mr. Schary remember all this when interviewed for the Cinefantastique article?

“I was absolutely stunned. I got a big kick out of those two kids. Their persistence was just marvelous.”

By the way, one of the stars of Bad Day at Black Rock is . . . (drum roll, please) . . . Anne Francis! Very Happy



__________

__________


At the meeting with Schary, the Barrons played some recordings of their work, and he was so impressed that he hired them to score “portions” of Forbidden Planet. A short time later they were invited to the home of MGM music director Johnny Green, where the Baron’s dazzled a gathering of all the studio’s staff composer with tapes of their music.

The Barron’s received a generous contract which stated that if absolutely none of the score they created was used, they'd still get $5,000. If as little as three seconds were used, they’d get $10,000. And after that, they were paid by the number of minutes the score was used, up to $25,000 — which is what they eventually received.

You can enjoy the complete soundtrack of Forbidden Planet at the YouTube link below! And use the link right above it to enjoy All Sci-Fi member Bob Tarmack’s magnificent compositions in the tradition of Louis and Bebe Barron!

Trivia note: Bob enhanced All Sci-Fi's logo several years ago, and he improved it so much that it became the one we use on the board AND on our T-shirts!


Bob Tarmac — Electronic Tonalities - Alien Sound

_______________ Forbidden Planet soundtrack


__________

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2018 9:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

______________________________________________

Interesting things I’ve learned from this article — part 6

The description on page 46 (picture #48) of what the studio did to test out the Barrons' electronic score before the final dubbing was done for the release prints is amazing!

After the Barrons spent six weeks supervising the integration of their score into specific scenes of the film, the raw tapes were taken to a preview screening of the film, using a print which had no electronic music on the soundtrack. As the article describes it:
______________________________________________

In the middle of the theater a sound technician worked a tape recorder which had been synchronized with the projector. As the film progressed, the technician would adjust the volume, treble, base, and balance controls, testing the range of the innovative new sounds.

During the early scenes where the starship lands on Altair 4, the mixer opened the volume controls and the eerie sounds poured out of the giant theater speakers. The audience erupted in spontaneous applause.






Folks, we can add this event to our list of historic occasions we want to travel back in time and be part of! And since this was a “preview” screening of the film before the electronic tonalities had been added, the print was undoubtedly the one with the deleted scenes before Ferris Webster removed them!

It would, for example, have the additional scenes of the Robby / Monkey battle that audiences didn't care for.

Gosh, when I die I sure hope heaven has a big movie theater which features experiences like that one! I can just hear the announcement on God’s PA system! Very Happy

“Attention, heavenly host! Next Saturday we’re featuring King Kong — with the spider pit scene! And God has promised to provide a special miracle! Miss Fay Wray will be sitting next to each and every one of the audience members!”

“I know what you’re thinking, folks! How can Sister Fay be sitting next to everybody at the same time? Well heck, how did Jesus feed the 5,000 with no more food than a couple of fish dinners from Long John Silvers? Hey, He’s God, for God’s sake! He can do anything!”
Shocked
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2018 4:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
His conversation was obviously holding back information and illusive. His description of the Bellerophon destruction was without detail and illusive.

Look at his body language while lecturing to the crewmen. Closed off and superior...arms folded. A sure symbol of assumed superiority and a closed mind.

When Alta appeared the crewmen were completely taken aback. What other details were Morbius withholding from them?

Gord, we differ greatly in our opinions of Morbius.

You continue to make the common mistake of thinking he was being deliberately evasive and smugly superior. You insist that he's hiding things of a sinister nature.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Morbius was a completely honest and open man from the very start, but he was a man deeply disturbed by the things he did NOT understand — like the fact that he and his wife had been spared while the entire Bellerophon crew were ripped to pieces by an unknown force no one had even glimpsed!

And he was extremely upset by the possibility that the men from Earth would force him to leave his beloved Altair 4 — exactly the same thing the crew of the Bellerophon crew tried to do after he and his wife fell in love with the planet and wanted to make a home that was "far from the hurry and strife of human kind."

He was also deeply troubled by where the animals came from, because their sudden arrival made no sense whatsoever! He didn't believe for an instant that the Krell specimens from Earth survived for 200,000 years after the Krell themselves were wiped out, reproducing for thousands of generations so that a few of these animals could wander up to his house one day and conveniently provide his lonely daughter with friendly pets . . . including a tiger, for God's sake! Shocked

How can anyone who appreciates the intelligence of this movie accept an idea so ridiculous?

I guarantee you that if we could ask screenwriter Cyril Hume where the animals came from, he'd say, "Hell's bells, from the Krell machine, obviously! Duh!"

I can't for the life of me understand why anybody could think they were just a small group of offspring from the Krell specimens whose ancestors survived for two hundred centuries and then showed up in middle of the desert!

Meanwhile, there's a giant alien machine underground that responds to Morbius' subconscious hopes and fears, killing off the innocent people who threaten his own happiness and that of his daughter.

Gord, with all due respect . . . I swear you've got it all backwards!

Morbius isn't hiding anything when he folds his arms in a gesture you interrupt as "closed off"! In fact, the meaning of the gesture is just the reverse. He's expressing his need to protect the things he feels are being threatened! Shocked

His home and happy lifestyle are being threatened (for the second time) by people who want to make him leave Altair 4.

His desperate need to protect mankind from the dangers of the Krell science is being threatened by the possibility that the United Planets will take possession of it — with results that both he and WE know would be disastrous!

His daughter is being threatened by a group of handsome and horny young men who want to take advantage of this gorgeous young virgin! One of them tries and fails. The other one succeeds and wins her love!

Gord, you and so many other people who watch this great movie want to view Morbius as a dark villain who is hiding secrets!

The truth of the matter is that Morbius is the clearly the innocent victim of this story, a man who wants to study the secrets of the Krell science, a benefactor who wants to determine what aspects of it can be safely shared with mankind, and a loving father who is completely dedicated to serving his daughter's best interests.

None of the terrible things which happened were in any way Morbius' fault.

His normal, perfectly human subconscious reactions to the things which affected him, his lifestyle, and his daughter were misinterpreted by an alien machine which received weak and misunderstood signals from Morbius' subconscious. This powerful machine acted on these misunderstood "mental requests", just as it was designed to do . . . and the results were horrifying!

So, please try to view Morbius as the good man he was — a human being who wanted nothing but the best for all those around him.

But in the climax of this remarkable story, Morbius was crushed by the revelation that his normal subconscious thoughts were the catalyst for the actions of a soulless machine which had wiped out an "almost define race" (as he described the Krell), and it was on the verge of destroying his own daughter just because she had chosen to give her heart to the man she loved!

As I said, Morbius is the clear victim in this tragic tale. That's why Adams' finally words in the film are, "Your father's name will shine again."

He's stating the fact that Morbius has shown us the best of mankind's basic nature . . . and paid a terrible price for merely being human.

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2018 7:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

___________________________________

Interesting things I’ve learned from this article — part 7

The story of how the workprint was discover makes some very interesting reading for fans of Forbidden Planet.

I’d forgotten the fact that Bill Malone visited the Barrons to watch Forbidden Planet in their home during the period when Bill was assisting with preparations to release the movie's soundtrack in 1977. The article does a great job of describing how excited Bill and the Barrons were when they realized that the print the Barrons had was not just a 16 mm copy of the movie but a raw version with no music and few sound effects or special effects.

And it included many scenes that didn’t make it into the final cut.

There’s no doubt that many of the deleted scenes should have been left in the film, and one of the most interesting of these is the discussion which Adams, Ostrow, and Farman have aboard ship while gazing at the view screen and speculating about what became of the Bellerophon. They discuss the possibility that they made contact with the first intelligent aliens which mankind had encounter — which is an interesting bit of info to learn about the fictional universe of this story.

In means that mankind had yet to encounter aliens during is space explorations! (Another good reason for why a sequel should have been made. Very Happy)

The article describes the conversation after lunch as being considerably longer and different in nature than what we see in the film. Here’s what the authors of the article say about it.
___________________________________

In the workprint, Morbius meanders over the past, unsure of himself. He is melancholy, less precise. In the final version, thanks to a great deal of dialog editing, he begins to talk straight from the shoulder, as if he’s actually trying to make the officers stay short and to the point.
___________________________________

These and other edits in Morbius’ dialog throughout the movie are said to have altered his character significantly, making him appear much less cold and formal towards the crewmen. I suspect that if these scenes had been included in the theatrical release, the discussion here on All Sci-Fi about whether or not Morbius acted superior and condescending would seem less true to us.

It would appear that screen writer Cyril Hume didn’t intend for the character to be quite so haughty and confident. By eliminating the moments when Morbius let his emotions show, we get the impression that he’s a much colder and unfriendly man.

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 11:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting things I’ve learned from this article — part 8

The portion of the article which discusses The Invisible Boy contains comments by director Herman Hoffman who describes an incident with Robby that’s remarkably similar to one which occurred during the filming of Forbidden Planet!

Anne Francis even makes reference to it in her on-stage reunion with the cast in the YouTube video below at the 13:30 mark.


__________ FORBIDDEN PLANET CAST REUNION


__________


According to Anne, “There were two guys who working inside Robby the Robot, and one day the fellow who was doing Robby had a three-martini lunch.”

During the first take of Robby’s departure from the car after arriving at the spaceship, Robby started down the ramp and he began to tip forward. Anne said, “You never saw fifteen grips move so fast, and they grabbed him just before he hit the ground.”

Anne cracked up the audience with here description of the event, and concluded by saying “That poor guy was never allowed back in [Robby] again.”

She never mentioned the name of the operator, but we know from the article that Frankie Carpenter was replaced by Frankie Darro because the Screen Actors Guild wanted an actor in the suit. So, if she’s right about the man who got plastered and almost wrecked Robby not being allowed in him again, that must have been Frankie Carpenter.

Here’s the weird part, guys.

Herman Hoffman’s tells a remarkably similar tale about an event during the filming of The Invisible Boy, but with marked differences. Hoffman said Frankie Darro was operating Robby during a disaster on the set, near the end of shooting.
___________________________________

We had Frankie Darro doing Robby, and he had a few drinks for lunch that day. And he started getting a little wobbly. Before he put his head on, I started briefing him on where I wanted to go, then I returned to the camera and began shooting.

Darro took three steps and fell right on his ass.

It was a horrible moment. You could hear glass shattering, and all his electrical gear shorting out. His arm twisted under him, and his head twisted out of its fixture. We stopped the camera and got the electronics expert over on the double. He set up a long table, and we laid Robby out. It was a regular operation, and we didn’t know if he would be fixed or not.

A few hours later, the electrician operated successfully, refitting Robby with new parts, and shooting was resumed. We lost four hours, but it had seemed like an eternity.

___________________________________

These two stories might both be true, of course. But if they are, was it Frankie Darro in both incidents, and was Anne just being funny when she said the guy in her story was never allowed inside Robby again?

If it truly WAS Frankie Darro, you’d think the guy would have learned his lesson after almost damaging a very expensive prop in FP. Maybe Asimov should have included a 4th Law of Robotics:

A robot must never consume alcohol at lunch, or be operated by anyone who has consumed alcohol — even if NOT doing so conflicts with the first three laws!




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PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

___________________________________

Now let’s go back and see what we can find in all those picture captions I skipped over while reading the article! Very Happy

Interesting things I’ve learned from this article — part 9

The caption on picture #3 identifies the Robby who appears on the next page in front of a surviving portion of the cyclorama as Bill Malone’s first replica, built in 1971. Notice how glossy and smooth his Plexiglas dome is.





The original Robby’s dome never looked quite that shiny, but that was actually better for reducing the reflections of the studio lights.





The double-page blueprint (click on the link to view it) which is on pages 10 and 11 (picture #10) includes enough information for a short article about the making of Forbidden Planet all by itself!

The diagram and the captions are packed with great info about the amazing set of Morbius' house and the area around it. I spent several hours studying the blueprint and finding pictures that illustrated parts of the finished set!

I loved every minute of it. Very Happy

The caption with the blueprints of the Morbius house says the set was built on MGM stage 30. The paintings of the landscape visible from inside the house, looking out from the front entrance towards the jeep road, was 20’ X 30’.








The blueprint says that the semi-circular cyclorama which surrounded the terrace and the pool was 28’ X 168’. But there were so many trees and rock formations around the pool that we never get a good view of the entire cyclorama — or even a large portion of it. However, the small sections we do see are gorgeous.







The caption says that the high rock wall on the right side in the picture below (behind Morbius and Altaira) and the other formation on the far left (right next to the near edge of the jeep road) are both made of painted plastic, formed from molds of rock formations in Bronson Canyon.

The rock we see on the far side of the jeep road (a small part of which is behind the front of Robby's jeep) is actually part of the painted backdrop.






I’m so impress by the fact that art director Arthur Lonergan sent a crew out to Bronson canyon to make casts of rock faces, then used the molds to make plastic rocks which were then painted.

What dedication to realism that shows on the part of these people! Shocked

Inside the house there's a wall just beyond the round indoor pool that appears to be part of the same rock wall just outside the front door — if all this was a real house located up against an actually rock face.

Built into the rock face are the horizontal slabs which form the stairs leading to the bedrooms of Altair and Morbius.



______________________



According to the caption on the blueprint, the walls of the house were painted plywood and something called “Bronson Canyon Staff Stone”, with panels of translucent plastic. I’m not sure what that is, or where those plastic panels are located. But the idea that the fictional house was built against a cliff and used the rock face as one of the interior walls is brilliant!

As much as I love the matte painting of the house’s exterior, it actually doesn’t match up well with aspects of the interior, such as the way the house is supposed to be directly against a rock face on the left side. But we can see trees with violet-colored foliage along both the left side of the house and the area outside the front entrance.

This conflicts with the fact that we should be seeing the rock face which is supposed to be in both those areas.






The caption with the blueprint states that the Central Core of the house was “ringed with the steel shutters which Morbius can call into place to seal off the house from the outside.”

"Ringed" is not exactly accurate, because I determined a few years ago that the shutters are actually divided into two sections. One section seals off the terrace/pool entrance, and the other section seals off the main entrance which leads out to the jeep road.

The rock wall with the stairs up to the bedrooms is located between these two entrances, and the two sections of shutters are designed leave a gap between them so the stairway to the second floor of the house is not cut off from the living room area.

Using a screen shot from this amazing YouTube video that gives a virtual tour of the Morbius house —


________ Forbidden Planet - Home of Dr Morbius


__________


— I created the illustration below several yeas ago for a post on the FP thread (click HERE to view the post on page 32) which shows where the two sections of the shutters are each located.

The yellow lines represent the two sections of the shutters.






You’ll notice in the movie that the shot of the shutters moving across the living room are only cutting off the pool entrance after going across the big windows and then making a 45° turn after passing the V support before they actually seal off the entrance from the pool area.









However, the scene of the three crewmen leaping to their feet (after the shutters are closed) is a shot of the second section, on the opposite side of the Central Core.

We see Morbius in front of the other V support which stands near the front door —






— the same one which Robby stands in front of when he places the artificial flowers on the table just before Adams and Doc arrive on the second morning.





But I realized while writing this post that my diagram of the shutter placement had a serious flaw!

I forgot about the small "pool door" to the right of the main pool entrance, leading directly to the stairs which go up to the bedrooms.








I altered my diagram to correct this oversight. Now the little side door is protected by the shutters' third section on that side of the house.

Bear in mind that the yellow lines appear outside the house, because the viewing angle of the graphic makes it impossible to place them inside where the shutters are actually located.






But that still leaves us with a serious problem. Although the ground level of the house is protected, the Id monster could easily climb up to the second floor windows, break into one of the bedrooms, and come down the stairs! Shocked

So, perhaps the shutters DO run across the area between the pool entrance and the front door, even though that would cut off the ground floor from the bedrooms upstairs.






There! I've finally found a way to protect the Morbius family from the ID monster! (Too bad that nasty monster can tear through those shutters like they were wet cardboard!) Shocked

By the way, the shot below is the only one in the entire movie which includes both the front entrance of the house and the pool entrance, both of which are covered by the shutters. (Click on the image to see a 1,024 pixel version.)




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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

_________________________________________

Interesting things I’ve learned from this article — part 10

~ On page 14 (picture #16) the caption includes several interesting items.

For example, the steps leading up to the Krell lab door were built “wild” so they could be removed “in order to use a process rear screen to depict the door melting during the films climax.”

I’ve always been amazed at well the melting door FX worked. The scene is absolutely flawless!






~ George Folsey (the film’s cinematography) was impressed by the rock-lined corridor leading from Morbius' study to the Krell lab. As with the rock face located just outside the entrance to the house and the interior wall with the steps to the second floor, the “stone” was actually plastic facades made with molds of actual rocks.

“You could walk right up to the wall and it would look like the real thing, yet two men would come over and pick up the very same wall and carry it away!”






~ Folsey also explains why the steps leading up to the Krell door had a smooth ramp in the middle. “The Krell were originally frog-like in nature, with two long legs and a big tail. It was never shown, but it was indicated in the original screenplay that the ramps between the steps were designed to accommodate their dragging tails.”

Although the drawing I did below does not have a “frog-like” appearance, its lower body seems to fit the description.






~ The caption with the picture of the lab on page 18 (picture #16) explains that the three white disc which seem to be floating in the air above the heads’ of the stand-ins for Anne Francis and Walter Pigeon (for a lighting test) are actually “muslin cut-ous suspended on four thin wires . . . and lit with spotlights to produce a glowing effect.”

I’m not sure the camera ever revealed the large round disk at the top of the tall thin spire to the left of the white disks.






The long view of the lab did actually show the central column with the radiating vanes around the top, but the disc on top of the tall thin spire (shown in the BTS shot) is hidden behind the central column's top with the radiating vanes.





~ Page 20 (picture #17) includes the caption for the blueprints of the C-57-D’s interior on the next page (picture 18). The caption describes how the “DC stations” were originally designed as “DC tubes”, somewhat similar to the tubes in This Island Earth, but with a a transparent front half which would face the camera, and an opaque back half which rotated to enclose each man.

Both the caption and the blueprints mention that the tubes would fill with smoke during deceleration. The blueprints reflect this early design.






I had a debate with several members who differed with my opinion of how the DC stations were supposed to protect the crew from the powerful force of inertia during deceleration.

I maintain that the DC stations convert each man into energy, thereby make him unaffected by the titanic force of deceleration. The opposing camp in this debate felt that the glowing light that envelopes the men was just a force field that held them in place — sort of like the ultimate “seat belt”.

I pointed out that holding each body in place was not enough when the force of inertia acting upon it is strong enough tear organs loose inside the chest, and to mash the brain so hard against one side of the skull that it would flatten like a pumpkin in a hydraulic press!

Plus, I love the idea that the DC stations are an early version of the Star Trek technology which eventually became a way to not only convert people into energy and then reconvert it back into matter, it can also transmit the energy to another location!

In other words, I vote for early transporter technology instead of just colorful “seat belts”.
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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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 01, 2018 3:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
I maintain that the DC stations convert each man into energy, thereby make him unaffected by the titanic force of deceleration. The opposing camp in this debate felt that the glowing light that envelopes the men was just a force field that held them in place — sort of like the ultimate “seat belt”.

If the columns of light were stasis fields, you wouldn't be able to see through them. You would see either the person within the light column or, if the field completely obscured the occupant, the light itself would also block the view of anything beyond it.

During the deceleration scene, however, certain details in the background are visible through the light, which are otherwise blocked from view by the occupant when the light column is not operating.

Below I've posted three images consisting of partial frames of the three DC stations on the left. The first is the DC effect in full operation. The second is a composite of frames showing as much background detail as I could get without crewmen in the way. The last is just after the DC fields are shut down.

Note that background details are visible through the DC fields that is obstructed from view by the crewmen when the DC is not operating.




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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 01, 2018 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As the ship was supplied with an artificial gravity I think the DC stations channeled a null gravity field within the force field.

Remember the command to "Stow all breakable gear"?

During the DC (deceleration) procedure the ships gravity was turned off and all power transferred to the DC "tubes".

Converting all the crew to "energy" and reconstituting them afterwards is a complicated way of doing it.

Null gravity would make the crew inertialess but would be a strain on their bio systems. Hence their discomfort on emerging from the field.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
Null gravity would make the crew inertialess but would be a strain on their bio systems. Hence their discomfort on emerging from the field.

Forgive me, Gord, but your science is deeply flawed. Sad

Gravity and inertia are completely independent of each other.

A "heavy" object has weight on Earth because it has a lot of mass for the gravity to pull on. And that mass is not diminished one bit by the lack of gravity when that same object is in space. It floats because there's no gravity pulling on it. But that "heavy" object is harder to move around than a lighter one, because it has more mass.

Heck, Gord, the Disney program Man in Space explained that to both of us back in 1955! If you think I'm mistaken, watch the video below at the 29:40 mark. It explains the flaw in your theory very clearly.


Disney Animated Educational Video Man in Space 1955



Adams told Quinn to store his breakable gear because the mass of the objects would make them smash into the foremost bulkhead of the ship when it slowed to sublight!

It's the same thing that happens in our cars if we put things on the car seat that will slide off onto the floor if we suddenly hit the breaks!

It's not gravity that makes those objects slide off the seat, although gravity does make them fall to the floorboard. And it's not gravity that makes you slam into the airbag when the car collides with something.

It's INERTIA!

Therefore, turning off the artificial gravity would have no effect at all on the mass of the men, and therefore no effect on the interia.

And no matter how well they were held in place with some kind of force field, the colossal force of inertia would tear them apart internally. You'd have to lock every atom in place somehow.

Maybe you're suggesting that the green beams were doing exactly that. But if so we'd still SEE the men's bodies! Wayne addressed that interpretation quite well.

The ONLY way to make an object — like a human body — not have any inertia when a spaceship slows to sublight from 16 times the speed of light (the speed it would take for the C-57-D to travel 16 light years from Earth to Altair 4 in about one year) is to convert the object from matter (which has mass, and therefore inertia) to energy (which does not).

Changing the men into energy might be "a complicated way of doing it", Gord, but it's the ONLY way to do it.

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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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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, not necessarily. The null gravity field unlike a "zero gravity" field also shields those within it from the Higgs field. The Higgs field gives quantum particles mass through the Higgs-Boson sub particle.

To understand what this field does read this brief description from Wiki :

"The Higgs field is a field of energy that is thought to exist in every region of the universe. The field is accompanied by a fundamental particle known as the Higgs boson, which is used by the field to continuously interact with other particles, such as the electron. Particles that interact with the field are "given" mass .The result of a particle "gaining" mass from the field is the prevention of its ability to travel at the speed of light.

Mass itself is not generated by the Higgs field. It is the Higgs Boson particle that does that when exposed to the Higgs field.

If the Higgs field did not exist, particles would not have the mass required to attract one another, and would float around freely at light speed. Also, gravity would not exist because mass would not be there to attract other mass."

Shielding from the Higgs field would make them inertialess since they would have no mass at all. Heck, the DC effect could ONLY be to shield the Higgs field, not effecting gravity at all!

In a null Higgs field your dog could sneeze all he wants without being propelled backwards!

Remember, the ship is propelled by means of the Gravito-Quantum principle in the first place.

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 01, 2018 10:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In the novel, there were no DC stations, you strapped yourself in to your bunk. Real tightly! Coming out of Hyper Space was tough thing to go though as you transitioned to normal space.

David.
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