10 Dec Forbidden Planet (1956)

Parallel Futures

In creating my own list of favourites, I put this at the top of my SciFi category. But that was based on viewing a long time ago. So I rented it recently and was shocked. Times have changed, and science fiction depends so much on the consumers’ context.

I still like this because it revolves around an intelligent idea rather than cheap scares (Alien) or cowboy myths (Star Wars). But check it out.

Science Fiction is all about extrapolation. What makes this film even more interesting than when it was new is that the world has changed so fundamentally. Their future is now different from our future, and the differences between these parallel universes are striking.

This is before computers, at least the solid state kind. `Solid state’ is now an obsolete term, being so fundamental. Their computers have the quaint clack of relays. Notice how there are NO computer displays. You have either binocular viewers (very much superior for 3d) or electromechanical models (which the Krell have made virtual). There is no notion of Artificial Intelligence; that whole exercise has risen and fallen since. Instead, the amplification and projection of human intelligence is the focus. How unique this seems now.

This was just on the cusp when we changed from celebrating the hugeness of engineering marvels to their miniaturisation. Hence, the scale of the powerplant/computers (20 miles cubed by 400 locations), and incidentally their powering by fission.

Also curiously outdated is the notion of the ID-monster (and its contrast in ‘pure’ feminine innocence). Freud and his following detractors saw the human as essentially simple. Here, the ID is an uncontrollable, violent, invisible beast. Today’s viewers would be asking’why invisible, why not a schemer, why not enter the minds of others, why be limited by death, is the ID a social construction and (considering the Krell), what does that say about the universality of social conventions?’

I rate this as the current top science fiction film, but not because it was great when it was new. Instead, it has become great because it offers a parallel future now inaccessible. That’s because we have become besotted by computation — hence a relatively simple notion of reason. And (perhaps as a result) our common notion of social construction has so many new taboos we cannot manage any clear vision other than those relatively weak notions of ‘rights’ and ’personal expression.’

See this. I wonder if we (or our children) will ever see `Blade Runner’ in a similarly new context.

Posted in 2000

Ted’s Evaluation — 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

IMDB