Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17637
Location: North Carolina
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 Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2022 3:27 pm Post subject: FEATURED THREADS for 7-9-22 |
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More proof that Forbidden Planet is an inexhaustible source of fascinating concepts for us to discuss. 
Below are two examples of the many debates we've had concerning the true nature of the Krell machine and the actually origin of Altaira's pets.
Throw in a nice post about Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and I guarantee you'll find something to comment on in a reply. 
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Forbidden Planet (1956)
| orzel-w wrote: | | All very convincing, young man... But if that explanation holds true, then we probably need to say that Morbius, artificially expanded intellect and all, missed the significance of the gauges lighting up when the birds flew over and the buck deer fought. He appears to have thought they also monitored external energy expenditure. |
Yes indeed, Wayne, the story relies heavily on the idea that Morbius didn't figure out what the rest of us now know — after a mere 58 years of intense concentration on our part.
Story-wise, however, Forbidden Planet has all it's ducks in a row and can't be faulted in very many ways. Remember, the movie only had 90+ minutes to give us a lot to think about for the next half-century, so Doc's brief comment just before he died —
"Morbius was too close to the problem . . . "
— is supposed to forgive Morbius for not solving the big mystery. And since this is the Gospel accord to St. Cyril Hume (the screen writer), I never question His divine word in these matters.
In other words, if Cyril rose from the grave and said to me, "Bud, you're wrong. The animals are real," I'd just shoot myself repeatedly with rubber bullets until I expired from bruising and internal bleeding. 
And if Larry chooses to reject my assertion that the animals are machine creations, he could counter with the argument that the active gauges simply indicated the use of energy being expended by the machine's "sensors" to observe the movement of the animals — just like it scanned the approach of the C-57-D!
After all, the gauges do, in fact, light up whenever power was being used for any reason, and the movie includes a scene at the beginning in which we're told the machine is scanning the C-57-D while it's in orbit. Obviously the machine would have to possess vast arrays of sensors to allow it to "project solid matter to any point on the planet" without ever putting said matter in the wrong spot and exploding some poor Krell's head from the inside!
So, I'm sure the machine was constantly aware of everything happening on every square inch of Altair 4 — and in orbit around it, for that matter.
This means I have to retract the cracks I made yesterday about the Krell machine spying on birds and deer and volcanoes! The machine actually did spy on everything, as part of it's constant readiness to send the requested "solid matter" to it's Krell masters at a moments notice without making it appear inside walls, or a mile above the recipients.
However, I still feel confident that what Cyril had in mind all along was that the animals were not natural, they were "machine made" (so to speak).
In fact, I think the Krell machine was a busy little beaver throughout the whole twenty years Morbius lived on Altair 4, even though Morbius didn't know it.
The machine was diligently listening to Morbius' murky subconscious thoughts and doing it's best to create things it decided Morbius wanted. The machine may have modified the weather, or kept the plants healthy, or kept the pool filled with clean water, or any number of subtle things that Morbius didn't realize were being done for him and Altaira.
After all, their home is quite a pleasant little oasis in the middle of the stark Altair 4 terrain. Desert homes like this in Utah and Arizona rely on the public water supply to keep their swimming pools topped off and their expensive landscaping watered. But the Morbius home seems to be doing just fine without the aid of public utilities and illegal Mexican gardeners.
I mean, this place looks like Las Vegas, smack in the middle of Nevada!
Of course, nothing the machine made ever just appeared out of thin air, even the Id monster. The animals were the most obvious thing the machine made, and Morbius couldn't quite figure out where they came from. But he didn't want to admit this to John Adams, so he declined to comment when John made the obvious assumption about the animals after Morbius said the Krell were fond of bringing home souvenirs when they vacationed on other planets.
Meanwhile, Morbius spent two decades brilliantly analyzing the Krell database and deciphering an amazing amount of data, knowing that someday he would begin to dole it out carefully to the human race and revolutionize human civilization in the process.
Edward Morbius was a man with a plan. A damn good plan, too.
But he missed the big, invisible elephant in the room — the fact that the Krell spent thousands of years developing a giant machine that would allow them to simply want it . . . wish for it . . . and have it.
For the Krell, Every day is Christmas just wasn't good enough. They wanted every second to be Christmas!
On a related note, Wayne, I have to disagree with the last sentence in this statement.
| Wayne wrote: | | . . . we probably need to say that Morbius, artificially expanded intellect and all, missed the significance of the gauges lighting up when the birds flew over and the buck deer fought. He appears to have thought they also monitored external energy expenditure. |
Reiterating what I said in my earlier post, there's nothing in the movie to suggest that Morbius thought the gauges displayed the detection of power being created somewhere else. Morbius knew the gauges lit up when power was being used by the machine — but he didn't know what the power was being used for when the active gauges coincided with the seasonal activities of the birds and deer.
You're right, of course, in saying he didn't realize the gauges were lighting up because the machine was creating the flocks of birds and the herds of deer.
On the other hand, there's no question that Morbius definitely did know why a dial lit up when the ship first approached the planet. After all, his call to the ship was received a few seconds after the C-57-D was scanned. And his first words were —
"Spaceship, identify yourself. You're being tracked."
Quinn had just informed the captain that the radar scan he detected emanated from an area twenty miles square. So the tracking Morbius refers to was done by the Krell machine — and the machine had somehow alerted Morbius that a spacecraft was in orbit!
Frankly, I never made this obvious connection before. I just thought the machine had done its own secret scan right before Morbius just happened to call the ship.
But no — silly me, I should have put 2 and 2 and 2 together and gotten a solid 6! The ship was scanned by the machine, and Morbius immediately called to tell them they were being tracked. Later in the story, during the grand tour of the Krell machine, Morbius tells Adams that "nearly a whole dial became active" when the ship had approached from space.
Obvious conclusion: Morbius was working in the lab when he saw the dial light up, and somehow Morbius knew that the machine was tracking an approaching ship.
Just how the machine did this is certainly a subject for serious discussion.
Knowing this, we now see that when Morbius deflected John's question — "What's it all for?" — by commenting on the occasional activity of the power gauges, he wasn't saying he didn't know why the gauges lit up from time to time, he was just avoiding the embarrassing question about the true nature of the machine, because he didn't know the answer!
We should also consider the fact that the script by Cyril Hume contains additional dialog in that scene.
The Cinefantastique article provides an except from the script which shows that after Morbius fails to answer John's question, John presses the point by repeating it. The script includes stage directions which tells us about how Morbius behaves in this situation.
This is how that portion of the script reads in the article.
______________________________
_______________Adams_______________
"What's it all for"?
_______________Morbius_______________
____________(oddly evasive)_______________
"Sometimes the gauges register a little when the buck deer fight in the autumn and the birds fly over in the spring. And nearly a whole dial became active when your ship first approached from deep space."
_______________Adams_______________
"Dr. Morbius, I asked you — What's it all for?"
Morbius stands gripping the railing, staring down into the abyss.
_______________Morbius_______________
_________(haunted and haggard)_______________
"I don't know! In twenty years I have been able to form no conception at all."
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Later in the Cinefantastique article, the scene is discussed again, but this time the dialog is taken directly from the work print which Louis and Bebe Baron discovered, years after the movie's release.
Here's what it says on page 62 of the article, in the center column (just in case you have your own copy. )
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As the group is about to head back towards the tube car to leave, Adams repeats the question Morbius had failed to answer only moments before.
"But Dr. Morbius, I asked you, what's it all for"?
This time Morbius replies, "After twenty years of unremitting labor, I have found no answer to that awful question."
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Frankly I'm glad they rewrote Morbius' line, because the one shown from the script excerpt above kinda sucks.
But either way, it shows us that Cyril Hume intended for Morbius to be a troubled man, wrestling with all those unanswered questions that haunted him — like the basic purpose of the machine, the mystery of the "planetary force" that killed the Bellerophon crew, the unexplained existence of the animals, the extinction of the Krell, and the "final project" the Krell expected to rid them of the need for "physical instrumentalities" (tools, machines, etc.)
If I seem obsessed with the idea that the animals were created by the Krell machine, it's because I feel it's so important to the plot. I'm convinced that the creation of the Id monster was just one way the machine demonstrated it's ability to create solid matter on demand. I think the animals and many other things were created by the machine — but the movie didn't provide us with clues concerning other examples, so that's pure speculation on my part.
But I think I've settled the question of where the animals came from. It's taken me quite a while to get all the facts needed to prove my case, but I'm confident now that I'm right.
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Rocky Jones, Space Ranger
Holly Crap, Randy! How did you manage to recover images from the old board? Surely you're joshin', Dude! 
By the way, this isn't Anne Robinson as Queen Juliandra. It's Patsy Parsons as Queen Cleolanta. I've never found a really good picture of Anne like this one of Patsy. But Anne was absolutely luscious in that show.
This is the best I've found of Anne. And that black satin dress is split to just above the knee, even though you can't see it in this picture. Yummy.
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Forbidden Planet (1956)
Larry, you da' man!
I sat down at my computer this morning with a big cup of coffee and started looking over my first post about Altaira's pets just to be sure I hadn't done something really stupid, like type a common word like "shirt" and leave out the R — you know, embarrassing things like that. (blush)
But as I started reading it, I was shocked by the smart-ass tone it had! When I wrote it, I was imagining it in a jokey, friendly voice — but when I read it back I just wanted to reach out and slap myself for being such a wisenheimer.
My apologies for that. I love to write, but I miss the absence of hand gestures, facial expressions, and body language to punctuate the message and illustrate my charming, friendly nature.
I shall seek forgiveness for this sin by saying 10 Hail Caesars and 10 Our Gang Comedies. That should do it, I think.
Now, on to business.
| larryfoster wrote: | . . . the real descendant Earth animals are still roaming wild, in the Altair-4 forests, on the other side of the planet - unless you have an Altair-4 planet-map... showing the 'entire planet' as barren desert.  |
Oh, hell yes! A desert-wide planet is all well-and-good for Luke Skywalker, but planets that support human life in the middle latitudes would have the full range of climates and habitats between the polar ice caps.
Unless that handy little helper, the Krell machine, was maintaining that one area of Altair 4 as the perfect vacation resort for the Morbius family, the planet ought to have all the oceans and forests and lakes and rivers we'd need to postulate one helluva wild ecosystem comprised of life forms from all over this region of the galaxy.
The late, lamented original All Sci-Fi (sigh ) had a wonderful discussion between me and bongopete on this subject, and we agreed that the story possibilities for such a region were pretty darned exciting.
For example, when the Bellerophon first arrived at Altair 4, the crew might have discover a large area in which a variety of organisms from various planets had established a stable ecosystem over the millennium, despite the fact that these creatures originally evolved on dozens of different planets.
Naturally the Krell specimens that could not survive "in the wild" on Altair 4 would have died out after the hordes of Id monsters ran amok and killed off the Krell. But the creatures that had been placed in open zoo-like habitats by the Krell eventually escaped (since all the zookeepers got ripped up by those nasty Id monsters), and these creatures started mixin' and minglin' and makin' new friends and eatin' the ones they couldn't get along with.
Some species would become extinct, others would come close to overrunning the environment, but if things eventually evened out (as things often do in nature), then I think it might end up looking something like this.
If we conduct this mental exercise by the rules, Larry, we'll have to use the appearance of Altair 4 as shown in the movie and in the test shots available in the special features of the DVD/BD, like these.
I hate to say it, but the makers of Forbidden Planet didn't seem to make Altair 4 look as if the had the large green areas and big oceans we need, anywhere on it!
Our beloved Altair 4 — which looks so gorgeous on the ground in the area near the Morbius home — is as plain as my cousin Patty back when she was 13. Uncle Nat and Aunt Bebe wouldn't let her read romance novels because they didn't want her to get false hopes. A sad situation . . .
We're going to need an innovative solution to this problem to make the story I got in mind work.
The one I came up with in the thread with bongopete back on the old All Sci-Fi (sigh . . . ) involved the Bellerophon scientist being puzzled by the fact that the life forms they examined didn't conform to the theory of evolution because they had such wildly different types of DNA. The old "descended from a common ancestor" idea clearly didn't work.
But what really threw these learned folks into a tailspin was the discovery of Earth animals running around here and there!
Of course, somebody in the group figures out that many of these life forms — like the monkeys, tigers, and deer — were specimens brought to Altair 4 from other planets. And this starts the search for any remnants of the intelligent creatures that brought the specimens.
Somewhere along the way they discover the entrance to the Krell complex, and the rest is history.
Hey . . . wait a minute. That gives me an idea.
Since the space shots of Altair 4 don't give us a lick of wiggle room in terms of making any part of Altaira 4 be remotely like Earth —
— what if we put the Krell Super Zoo in a gigantic underground complex, with all the different environmental conditions artificially maintained in huge rooms that recreated the home worlds of the various creatures, as if they were outside in their natural habitats, with holographic skies and the illusion of distant horizons. They would represent a record of the worlds the Krell had visited, preserved in these recreations!
Yeah, yeah, I know — this is a very different idea than the region-gone-wild, with the intermingled life forms co-existing. But it has it's own kind of appeal if we're willing to give up the former wild region concept. The underground facility would offer a way to "visit" hundreds of alien worlds — a treasure trove of knowledge just as wondrous as the Krell database Morbius was studying.
The facility could be entirely self-serviced and self-maintained, just like the Krell machine. All the Krell who were in the facility on the Day of the Id Monsters were killed, just like the ones in other areas of the planet. The alien life forms were spared (mostly) because the Id monsters only did whatever they did to other Krell (for reasons I've never fully understood, but never mind that, eh?)
Anyway, Larry, now we've got the makin's of a Forbidden Planet prequel and a sequel.
I wish some brilliant filmmaker would have the nerve to do both movies in a manner that perfectly matched the original in every respect. Something like that might seem like just a nostalgia trip to folks who think Forbidden Planet looks ancient and obsolete — but I suspect the films would have a remarkably novel look and flavor if they were done to match Forbidden Planet, using modern FX techniques to create the same kind of beauty the original presented "the hard way". I think they would attract younger viewers because these movies gave them something "new" — the way Avatar did.
What do you think?
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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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