Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)
Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17637
Location: North Carolina
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 Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2022 5:52 pm Post subject: FEATURED THREADS for 7-14-22 |
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A post from the ultimate sci-fi movie, and two interesting post from a damn good one! 
If you leave a reply, you'll help keep All Sci-Fi alive and well.
Or you can be lazy and make me do the job myself. 
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Forbidden Planet (1956)
| Maurice wrote: | So, here's the real-world problem with the Krell machine making tigers and bucks and birds (oh my):
It's reading from Morbius's memory. If I asked the average person to draw out the details of a common housecat there would be details that were wrong. The proportions, the number of teeth, the way the claws work... now apply that to a tiger. How many stripes? What's the exact pattern and fur length in various spots. And deer . . . what do the antlers look like?
If the machine is making these things from Morbius's thoughts the creatures should look weirdly wrong to at least some others. |
Nice thought. Let's explore it.
The filmmakers in 1956 had the foresight to realize that information would be stored on computers — so the Krell's vast knowledge ("surpassing many million Earthly libraries") was in their database, the one that Morbius studied for twenty years.
Morbius would have his own computer with a vast database of mankind's knowledge (any group of scientist on an interstellar space mission naturally would have this), even though the movie never showed us Morbius' computer.
Morbius was "home schooling" Altaira, because the nearest school bus stop was sixteen light years away.
So, both Morbius and his daughter would frequently watch educational videos — many of which would show all the animals we see in Forbidden Planet — and many more.
And all the while the Krell machine was tapping into Morbius brain activity, gathering info, building a database about all aspects of Earth. Remember, it was designed to serve the wants of the Krell users, so it would store info about a users "preferences" — just like the computer your looking at right now!
But if you don't care for that theory, here's an even better one.
The Krell had brought back specimens from Earth and studied them. And where was all that knowledge of Earth organisms stored?
The Krell database!
So, Morbius could have actually have pulled up pictures of tigers and buck deer and birds right on the Krell monitor in his lab. And if he subconsciously "wished" for his daughter to have some friendly pets to keep her company, the machine would have enough data to create them — right down to their DNA.
You said the tiger might not have the right number of strips? Hells bells, Maurice, the machine could have made that tiger with the right number of chromosomes!
But of course, the strongest reason for having the animals be machine creations, inspired by Morbius' love for his daughter and his concern for her happiness, is that this important plot element deepens the story considerably. 
As I mentioned earlier, if the only thing the machine is doing is making a big scary monster that rips people apart, the story is considerably less interesting. The machine-made animals idea establishes Morbius as a good man and a caring father, and it shows that the machine's true intended purpose was to make people happy — not to make them dead and dismembered.
Confession: I had already thought of most of what I described above, but your fine comment inspired me to add some interesting refinements to it — and I really enjoyed doing it.
And yes, by gum, there DOES seem to be large bodies of water on Altair 4! If you do a bit more color enhancement on the picture you posted to see what's really there —
-- you find large areas that definitely look like water.
Good job, Maurice! Thanks!
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The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Found this on YouTube -- the raw recording of the studio session during which the soundtrack for The Day the Earth Stood Still was recorded!
The technicians and musicians chat in between takes, and we hear segments of the familiar music being recorded, often several times before they're satisfied.
Occasionally they'll stop in the middle because the performance was flawed.
This is amazing! Listen to this right now!
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The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
This thread comes with a music soundtrack — an All Sci-Fi exclusive Special Feature!
Click on the links below and let YouTube play an 18-minute section of the original soundtrack from The Day the Earth Stood Still and the 11-minute suite from The Fantasy Film Worlds of Bernad Herrmann while you read the posts on this thread!
Enjoy!
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Using Google Earth I acquired these two shots of Klaatu's landing site as seen from high orbit. The first shot shows the Washington Monument in the lower half, and the second shot is a bit closer.
Notice that the baseball fields that occupied this area in the scene from the movie are not there any longer.
Cool, huh?
However, as much as I have always loved this movie, it does have quite a few problems. Consider these puzzling aspects of this great movie.
Klaatu lands his spaceship in our nation's capitol without radioing ahead for permission, even though he speaks our language because his civilization has been monitoring our radio broadcasts for years. Hmmmmm
Klaatu steps out of his spaceship wearing his space helmet, which was totally unnecessary. Did he think the air wasn't breathable here?
After landing his spaceship, Klaatu waits two hours while a nervous group of armed soldiers surround him and get all set to shoot him.
Klaatu steps out of this spaceship wearing his opaque space helmet, preventing the trigger-happy soldiers of this dangerously hostile planet from seeing his face. So, they shoot him. Big surprise.
Klaatu steps out of his spaceship, walks towards dozens of armed and nervous soldiers, pulls out a strange device, points it at them, and makes spiky-things spring out. So, they shoot him. Naturally, no big surprise.
Gort opens his visor, zaps the first set of guns -- and nobody shouts "Take cover!"
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Were these guys perhaps a National Guard unit on their very first weekend tour of duty? (Actually, they WERE National Guard soldiers, except for the actors in close-ups, according to Robert Wise's commentary on the DVD. He couldn't get the Army to cooperate with the movie because they thought is was anti-military. Weird, huh?)
What other quirky little things did this wonderful movie slip past us for 50 years until we noticed them after the 20th viewing?
~ By the way, Klaatu has the answer to the equation. 
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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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