FORBIDDEN PLANET

FORBIDDEN PLANET. Fred Mcleod Wilcox, dir. USA: MGM, 1956. Irving Block and Allen Adler, script. Based on a story by Irving Block.

See for Robbie the Robot and for 8000 cubic miles of underground Krel machinery (with strong motifs of hexagons and pentagons). Robbie is an Ariel-figure with no desire to leave the service of humans. The Caliban-figure in this pessimistic reworking of Shakespeare's The Tempest is one of the "monsters from the Id," and is both very successful in its murder attempts and ultimately rejected by Dr. Moribus. The Id-monster is explicitly associated with the subconscious and with the underground Krel machinery. Discussed by Sobchack in The Limits of Infinity (and Screening Space[1]; see Sobchack's Index).

In "50 Memorable Computers in Science Fiction (and a few robots as well)," David Gerald cites "The Great Machine" of FORBIDDEN PLANET as "a gigantic computer, 20 miles square, built inside" the planet of the tile, "Altair IV for the purpose of allowing its builders to transcend their physical existence by creating matter out of pure thought. " RDE, initial, and finishing 2Ap23