Forbidden Planet (HD DVD)

Imagine the scene… it's 1955, Hollywood, at the headquarters of the MGM film studios. In a smoked filled room, three overweight studio executives are sitting round a table smoking Havana cigars. They are discussing the production of a new film…. At the end of a lively meeting they have decided to do a sci-fi film with a script by Shakespeare!! Were they crazy…No they weren't… Forbidden Planet was a landmark film. It is a film in the tradition of 50's pulp sci-fi films so popular in the 50's except that its better made than most and it dealt with some more serious themes beneath its Technicolor surface. It is fair to ...

This is easily the best science fiction movie to come out of the 1950s and the first one to cost over $1million to produce - and its easy to see why. The special effects here are still passable by today's standards with its high budget and the intelligent use of the camera allowing for some liberal 'wangling' to achieve the desired effects. Commander Adams(Leslie Nielsen) is forced to land his space ship on Altair-4, a planet which was once played host to an Earth colony some years before, but now only features the mysterious Dr. Morbius(Walter Pidgeon) and Altaira(Anne rank), his beautiful daughter - and Robby The Robot who greets tham on their ...

Forget all of the comparisons with Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' - the story has taken a few elements from that play's plot, but it's nothing too significant. 'Forbidden Planet' should be enjoyed on it's own terms as a rich and imaginative science fiction adventure, with glorious designs and wonderful ideas, A spaceship visits a long-ago discovered planet to investigate what survivors remain from a previous voyage, only to discover that there are just two: Dr Morbius (Walter Pigeon) and his daughter Altaira (Anne Shirley). While the crew marvel at the alien civilisation discovered by Morbius underneath the planet's surface, they ...