IMDb > Forbidden Planet (1956)
Forbidden Planet
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Forbidden Planet (1956) More at IMDbPro »

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Forbidden Planet (1956) -- A starship crew goes to investigate the silence of a planet's colony only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has.

Oscar Nominations    Photos    more »

Overview

User Rating:
7.8/10   14,766 votes
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Down 2% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers:
Cyril Hume (screenplay)
Irving Block (story) ...
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Contact:
View company contact information for Forbidden Planet on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
15 March 1956 (USA) more
Tagline:
IT'S OUT OF THIS WORLD! (original print ad - all caps) more
Plot:
A starship crew goes to investigate the silence of a planet's colony only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has. full summary | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
Awards:
Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 nomination more
NewsDesk:
(58 articles)
Neil Gaiman: Literary Rock Star and Me
 (From Huffington Post. 4 February 2010, 3:28 PM, PST)

Lots of Horror Hitting Blu-ray in 2010
 (From Dread Central. 28 January 2010, 1:12 PM, PST)

User Reviews:
"Forbidden Knowledge" more (213 total)
US TV Schedule:

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
Walter Pidgeon ... Dr. Edward Morbius

Anne Francis ... Altaira 'Alta' Morbius

Leslie Nielsen ... Commander J. J. Adams
Warren Stevens ... Lt. 'Doc' Ostrow M.D.
Jack Kelly ... Lt. Jerry Farman

Richard Anderson ... Chief Quinn
Earl Holliman ... Cook
Robby the Robot ... Himself
George Wallace ... Bosun

Robert Dix ... Crewman Grey (as Bob Dix)
Jimmy Thompson ... Crewman Youngerford
James Drury ... Crewman Strong
Harry Harvey Jr. ... Crewman Randall
Roger McGee ... Crewman Lindstrom
Peter Miller ... Crewman Moran
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Additional Details

Runtime:
98 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Color (Eastmancolor) (as Eastman Color)
Aspect Ratio:
2.55 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Perspecta Sound encoding) (Western Electric Sound System)
Certification:
Iceland:L | USA:Approved (certificate #17605) | USA:G (re-rating) (1972) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Sweden:15 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | UK:U | Argentina:Atp | West Germany:12

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Loosely based on "The Tempest" by William Shakespeare. more
Goofs:
Continuity: As Alta talks to the commander after being found kissing Lt Farman, her position changes from being side-on to face-on to the commander. more
Quotes:
Dr. Edward Morbius: In times long past, this planet was the home of a mighty, noble race of beings who called themselves the Krell. Ethically and technologically they were a million years ahead of humankind, for in unlocking the meaning of nature they had conquered even their baser selves... more
Movie Connections:
Featured in "Ultimate Sci-Fi Top 10" (2004) more

FAQ

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61 out of 73 people found the following review useful.
"Forbidden Knowledge", 24 August 1999
10/10
Author: Chris Christopher (rasif@inlink.com) from St. Louis, MO USA

I first saw this movie when it originally came out. I was about 9 yrs. old and found this movie both highly entertaining and very frightening and unlike any other movie I had seen up until that time.

BASIC PLOT: An expedition is sent out from Earth to the fourth planet of Altair, a great mainsequence star in constellation Aquilae to find out what happened to a colony of settlers which landed twenty years before and had not been heard from since.

THEME: An inferior civilization (namely ours) comes into contact with the remains of a greatly advanced alien civilization, the Krell-200,000 years removed. The "seed" of destruction from one civilization is being passed on to another, unknowingly at first. The theme of this movie is very much Good vs. Evil.

I first saw this movie with my brother when it came out originally. I was just a boy and the tiger scenes really did scare me as did the battle scenes with the unseen Creature-force. I was also amazed at just how real things looked in the movie.

What really captures my attention as an adult though is the truth of the movie "forbidden knowledge" and how relevant this will be when we do (if ever) come into contact with an advanced (alien) civilization far more developed than we ourselves are presently. Advanced technology and responsibility seem go hand in hand. We must do the work for ourselves to acquire the knowledge along with the wisdom of how to use advanced technology. This is, in my opinion, the great moral of the movie.

I learned in graduate school that "knowledge is power" is at best, in fact, not correct! Knowledge is "potential" power depending upon how it is applied (... if it is applied at all.) [It's not what you know, but how you use what you know!]

The overall impact of this movie may well be realized sometime in Mankind's own future. That is knowledge in and of itself is not enough, we must, MUST have the wisdom that knowledge depends on to truly control our own destiny OR we will end up like the Krell in the movie-just winked-out.

Many thanks to those who responded to earlier versions of this article with comments and corrections, they are all very much appreciated!! I hope you are as entertained by this story as much as I have been over the past 40+ years ....

Rating: 10 out 10 stars

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