Review of Forbidden Planet (1956) by Adrian A — 06 Mar 2009

For all the cheesiness of its understandably dated special effects, I thought this movie was awesome. it's not the most impressive script in the world (rather bulky and wooden at times), but also not entirely inarticulate.

I love that the plot is based loosely off of shakespeare's the tempest, but it goes a step beyond even what shakespeare imagined, and delves into fascinating questions about human desire for control, id/nature/natural force vs intellectual/technology, colonisation, discovery and so on in its sci-fi format.

I'm surprised that it was rated G, given its complex themes about human greed (and esp. the oft pointed out weird, incestuous infatuation that mobius clearly has with alta).