Thank you for your insight and analysis. With bootleg Romanticism, we take the good with the bad. You did not wrestle with the fact that the Krell destroyed themselves in a night of bloodlust: the Monster of the Id. The message was that no one can be trusted with "too much" power; and the technologies that we create will be our destruction. Still, the wonderful Gernsback continuum sets and the intelligence and persistence of the captain were inspirational.  

Monsters from the Id: Science is Mankind’s Last Great Hope is a film by David Gargani that touts the science fiction movies of the 1950s. In the words of director Dave Gargani: 

The 1950s was an idealistic time in American History, filled with hope, opportunity, and wonder. It was also, "The Atomic Age" where new technology promised to both save humanity as well as put it in jeopardy. All of these factors gave birth to one of the most prolific genres in film history, 1950s Science Fiction Cinema. More then just bug-eyed monsters and little green men, 1950s Sci-fi Cinema provided science inspiration for millions of eager youths across the country. Then after 1957 and the launch of Sputnik, science fiction became science fact as an inspired population worked toward one of the greatest achievements of mankind, spaceflight. Monsters From The Id weaves the intersecting themes of over thirty classic films in order to tell the untold story of the Modern Scientist and his role in inspiring a nation. The film continues to explore the psychological and cultural impact of 1950s Sci-Fi cinema in America and asks, "where is science inspiration found today?"

Though created by individuals, the art that sells the most reflects the society that pays for it.  We are living through a conflict of "Star Wars versus Star Trek."  In Star Wars a "hokey old religion" defeats a "technological terror."  In addition to Star Trek, I look to other positive portrayals such as Brainstorm and 2010: The Year We Make Contact.  (Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw were technical advisors on Brainstorm.)  But they are few and far between. The most heroic computerist in recent film was Matt Ferrell (“feral”) in Live Free or Die Hard.  Though he employs his hacker skills to help John McClain, Matt makes his day with a gun, becoming “that guy” who blasts away when no one else can, getting shot (but only wounded) and smiling while the medics patch him up.

Perhaps the essential characteristic of the scientists of the 1950s film – also not mentioned in Monsters of the Id – is that they are generalists: “scientists.”  Dr. Patricia Medford (Them) was an entomologist, just as we met physicists, astronomers, and mathematicians.  However, each of them was an artesian well of information about anything that needed to be explained at the moment.   Science is not an object or a subject, but a method.  While other people rely on faith (superstition) or force (the military solution), the scientist reasons from facts and tests her hypothesis.  

And at the end of the 1950s science fiction movie, after the guns are packed away, and the pews are empty, the scientist wonders what else is out there…

(The comments above were taken from a post to my blog, NecessaryFacts, about the movie, Monsters from the Id.)

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/03, 3:54am)

Yes, just to pick one easy author we all can like, Robert Heinlein warned about the limits to technology. His short story "Blowups Happen" was set in a nuclear power plant.  You cannot have good fiction without conflict; and romantic fiction demands a conflict of values. I think that you are well aware of Henrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People." There, the new technology was microbiology, which was very cutting edge, but the conflict was age-old: one man and the truth against the consequences of public opinion.

One a different tack, I do not want to get all conspiratorial (though I could with relish), but if you look at the credits, The Thing from Another World (1951) was produced with the co-operation of the US Army.  For The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), the best they could do was renting National Guard stuff.  

Regarding TDESS, the original was infinitely better, though the modern post-modern version speaks to the essence of the worst of our society.

It has been said - and I forget where I read this in a book of criticisms - that science fiction is the mainstream fiction of our time, while so-called "mainstream fiction" is just historical fiction set in the near-present.

"Science is not an object or a subject, but a method."

On that note:



Speaking of mad scientists: Can't go unmentioned that FORBIDDEN PLANET'S evil scientist is cousin to the evil wizard of Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST...

https://falconmovies.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/forbidden-planet-1956-is-really-the-tempest-by-shakespeare/

I perceived Prospero as amoral, a man living by his own (unstated) standards. While he was harsh, he was not in any way bound by our laws or mores. That was why he was living on the island. He was banished there and accepted his state.

Robbie the Robot would be Caliban, but, again, the parallels are not perfect.  Robbie was not enthralled to Dr. Morbius, and did not obey unwillingly to avoid pain. And Robbie was pleasant. He had a benevolent sense of life (for a robot), as opposed to the pinched and nattering Caliban.

Perhaps the best parallel was the way the crewmen got Robbie to deliver Scotch whiskey, as the sailors obtained wine from Caliban.

All in all, I understand that Forbidden Planet has been likened to The Tempest. I think that both are just expressions of the same common myth. I accept that the writers for Forbidden Planet knew The Tempest and drew from it. However, as is common myths that are handed down, elements transmogrify, morph, merge, and cleave. (We could compare Star Wars: the New Hope and The Wizard of Oz.) Brother Where Art Thou? announced up front that it was based on Homer's Odyssey, but even there, parallels failed, though many details were spot on. So, I just take Forbidden Planet  on its own terms.

 

Dr. H: "I'm sure I was not the only kid who said, on first viewing the film, "I want the laboratory! I want to see that 2o mile machine!"

 

I saw it on TV about five years after it came out in the theaters.  By then, I wanted the robot and the girl.

I actually founded my sense of "hopeful dystopia" in Wylie's When Worlds Collide. I had just entered the 9th grade and by the rules of the Cleveland Public Library, was granted (given on their initiative) an adult card. I walked around the stacks of my branch and nothing jumped out at me.  So, I asked the librarian. She gave me When Worlds Collide.  Part 2: After Worlds Collide is sort of an anti-matter Atlas Shrugged in that the challenges they face are among themselves (fascists, communists, and democrats) but in the context of a society whose technologies are handed over on a silver platter -- they even had an indoor swimming pool... I was sorry that the movie version just portrayed Part I.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 6/04, 11:11am)