mon 11/10 Miley
thurs 11/13 Derwin, Byers (screening Week End)
mon 11/17 Burns, Nichols
thurs 11/20, Milewski, Wright (screening Clockwork Orange or Network-poll?)
mon 11/24 Nurre, Klane
thurs 27 Thanksgiving
What do you think Forbidden Planet says about the culture and memes of its time? (1956)
Does it carry any new weight in 2008? Elaborate on what you think it says to a contemporary viewer. Any comparisons? What is the film's technological, social, political, scientific, artistic, significance? Remind you of anything?
for some more insight, read this
7 comments:
Forbidden Planet was not only a huge step forward in entertainment, but in imagination of the final frontier. I imagine all the people who were involved in creating this had a blast coming up with new space aged idea's, such as flying saucers, self sufficient robots, distant planets, and ancient civilizations that were years beyond our technology, knowledge, and understanding. Of course, the film has its limits in how believable it is because of 1950's ideology and mannerisms (such as the crews interaction with the Dr.'s daughter, shooting the "ID" monster), very cheesy. But this didn't take away from the impact of the film. It confronts the issues brought forth by technology and how if its complications are not understood, or fall into the wrong hands, it could cause grave danger. In looking for influence from the time on this film I think that its very apparent that the Cold War could have brought along some influence on this film. The US and the USSR striving to 1 up one another as world superpowers can/could/may cause grave complications. As much as advancing into new realms of knowledge and technology can bring about good things it can also bring unseen evil. As is personified by the "ID" monster, created by accident in trying to advance society. I don't believe the film is trying to say that technology is bad, but it cant always be trusted no matter how perfect or self sufficient it is. Even today, with so many sources of knowledge available to the public its hard to tell if what your reading is worth the time, or even if its entirely honest! The film deals with the revelation of this problem, and lets hope it doesn't end in the same way for us here on earth as it did for the Krell society of Altair IV.
Forbidden Planet presented interesting ideas into the time. When the movie came out I could imagine technology was on the brink of reaching limitless realms. Consequently I can conjecture people also viewed society as becoming more intelligent because of all the opportunities technology could present. Therefore, when the foreign planet presented a society that reached the limits of what technology and intelligence could give. The result of this was their suppressed thoughts and stubbornness to realizing they did not hold all knowledge wiping out their entire civilization. This possibility of becoming to intelligent for our own good I think put the future into perspective. I think the movie tried to put technology in perspective for everyone that there are some things we cannot conceive.
I also thought it was interesting that they made fun of the commander the whole movie and when it came down to it he ended up saving the day and figuring out what was seemingly everyone else who was smarter than him self’s pitfall. It was also funny that the girl went for the commander as opposed to the scientist.
This movie is pretty timeless in its theme because the unknown force in it is abstract and different from most doomsday hi-tech movies. In a time when technology is only becoming more prevalent definitely gives this film just as equal weight as it had when it first was released. I think the commentary of this movie is more of the theme then the plot. It presented something unexpected and put it in light of current issues. It explored many aspects of what was happening except put it in a different environment. The same motifs you could find in a society that didn’t take anything with moderation. I can’t really think of another movie this reminds me of but a lot of the words I used in this post reminded me of my presentation. Haha. Good post Matt, I just read it now to see if you mentioned movies in yours to give me ideas. I like how you mentioned the Cold War because that didn’t come to me until you mentioned it.
Even though it had sub par acting and the special effects aren't what we are used to today, this film made giant leaps in the industry. We've kind of been desensitized in film by all of the special effects and CGI that we see that when a movie like Forbidden Planet is watched, it seems cheesy. If you put it in the context of the time period though, this movie was magic. There are somethings done in this film that I personally couldn't have done. Now, like I said, the acting wasn't really that great, but I don't think that is what this movie was trying to achieve. It was breaking free from the mold and utilized creative minds to come up with a complete new genre of film that has captivated peoples imaginations. This movie then goes one step further as to put in a very strong theme to warn society. If you look past the visual eye candy and plot of the story, you realize that this movie is about the dangers technology and of complete knowledge. Sometimes the mind is not meant to be all knowing or to mess with machines of unknown possibilities. These ideas are still present today in an ever growing technological world.
A movie I feel this relates to is the Faculty. The Faculty is about parasitical aliens who take over a school. This reminded me of memes and also Forbidden Planet!
Forbidden Planet said a lot about its culture and time period when it was released in 1956. This movie was trying to get away from the regular and typical Hollywood films. It used the imagination rather than imitation to create the story. The set design was ahead of its time like the set design in Metropolis was. I believe the specific intention of the director was to get the audience to focus on how incredible technology is yet how devastating it can be. Another through-line is that knowledge is power but too much knowledge may be the death of you and perhaps ignorance is bliss.
Either way, the memes coming from this film are numerous. Robby the Robot rivals every robot used today including C3PO from Star Wars. The way they envisioned Robby the Robot speaking and acting is mimicked all the time. The fact that the robot had a law for not harming humans is a direct reference to the Will Smith movie, iRobot. This movie was way ahead of its time and the memes in it have even inspired me to use a little science fiction in my next project.
Forbidden Planet, one of the first science fiction films, ever. With that classification, it more than exceeded my expectations. When we first sat down to watch this movie, I thought it was going to be ridiculously corny with terrible special effects, a "B-movie" production to say the least. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Among many other incredible things in this movie that really threw me for a loop, was the fully electronic soundtrack. The use of a wild instrument called a Theremin, blew my mind to say the least. After arriving home from the screening, I promply went to the Youtubes and searched for videos of theremins. I was shocked to find all sorts of covers that used the theremin, from a cover of Gnarls Barkley's song "Crazy" to the Super Mario Bros. theme, it's all there,
I had actually seen this before on cable at home, I put it on because I'm a Leslie Nielsen fan and was interested to see what he was like in the 1950's.
I enjoyed it enough the first time to finish the movie...which I think is saying something, especially when cable is so easily changed.
Nevertheless I enjoyed it even more the second time around, I think the effects are really great for that time period (even the guns you don't have to shoot...but shoot lasers anyway), these compliment the concepts produced in the movie such as the monster from within the Doctor's subconscious which is killing the crew members.
Post a Comment