10 Irresistible Movies Inspired By The Genius Of Shakespeare
2. Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet is packed with themes of unknown dangers, colonization and the use of ones own power as a tool control events at your will. It shamelessly acquires these themes from The Tempest and places them on the campy Sci-Fi setting of planet Altair IV and replacing Prosperos use of magic with Dr. Morbius use of science. The film continues Shakespeares explorations into power and performance by updating it with more recent psychology, such as Freuds id- It is revealed to be Morbius id which literally overcomes its weakened subconscious state to gain form in turn threaten the crew of the United Planets Cruiser C57-Ds lives.
As a child I was a huge fan of the late Leslie Nielsens dry comedic roles in Airplane, Naked Gun and Police Squad, so watching him actually act can be jarring at first, but eventually you came to love his off balance acting as something only he could do. Of course, the two stars of Forbidden Planet are the music and Robby the Robot. The electronic music created by Louis and Bebe Barron changed the way we heard Sci-Fi movies, and also became the forerunner of the electronic music scene which exploded into fashion following the films release. The second star, Robby the Robot, acts as the counterpart to Shakespeares Caliban in this case being a selfless and obedient slave rather than the oppressed and disgruntled son of a witch, Caliban. Robby also set what we would expect from robots in Sci-Fi films to come, as he was the first with a distinct personality. For anybody who claims this film isnt awesome, Robby is there to set them straight.