Far ahead of its time...

[bryheinnen]

I recently dusted off my videotape of "Forbidden Planet" and watched it for the first time in a long time. Once again, as always, I was surprised at just how damned good it was and how far ahead of its time it was.<br /><br />Yeah, there was some silliness in it--but I was what? 12? when it came out and being an avid SF fan and used to being frustrated at how bad and hokey most SF movies were in that era, I was absolutely blown away by it.<br /><br />The first use of electronic music was excellent. Acting--Walter Pidgeon, Anne Fraqncis, Leslie Nielsen (yeah, he was a leading man before his "Naked Gun" days) and Warren Stevens--was super compared to the crap in most SF movies of the time. The matte paintings of the Krell underground were superlative, imaginative, and original. Special effects were outrageously advanced for 1956. But most of all it was the overall concept that was just superlative. We weren't to see anything of its quality again until Kubrick did 2001 more than a decade later.<br /><br />A GREAT film. Too bad we are stuck today in space opera like the Star Wars stuff, which for me at least got boring and repetitious long ago.