FORBIDDEN PLANET….I whiled away a couple of hours yesterday watching Forbidden Planet on DVD for the tenth or twelfth time, and a couple of questions sprang to mind:
-
I’ve heard dozens of times that the film is a science fiction adaptation of The Tempest, but where does this come from? Did the filmmakers acknowledge this, or is it something that fans have intuited from a few surface similarites between characters? Frankly, the comparison has always seemed like a stretch to me, sort of like claiming that any film about teenagers falling love against their parents’ wishes is based on Romeo and Juliet. (For an opposing viewpoint, though, see here for a good rundown of the similarities. Aside from the Altaira/Miranda comparison, however, these mostly strike me as pretty forced.)
-
How come it’s never been remade? Sure, a remake would probably get done by someone like Jerry Bruckheimer and end up being a horrible embarassment, but then again, you never know. Maybe somebody decent would make it and do a good job with it. In any case, it certainly seems to have more potential for a retelling than Flight of the Phoenix.
Anyway, too bad about those Krell, though. Millions of years old, and yet they somehow forgot about their unconscious minds. That was quite an oversight on their part, wasn’t it?
