Forbidden Planet is a 1956 American science fiction film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, produced by Nicholas Nayfack, and directed by Fred M. Wilcox from a script by Cyril Hume that was based on an original film story by Allen Adler and Irving Block. It stars Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen. Shot in Eastmancolor and CinemaScope, it is considered one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s, a precursor of contemporary science fiction cinema. The characters and isolated setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and the plot contains certain happenings analogous to the play, leading many to consider it a loose adaptation.
Theatrical release poster
Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis in Forbidden Planet
Drive-in advertisement from 1956
Warren Stevens (Doc Ostrow), Richard Anderson (Chief Quinn), and Earl Holliman (Cookie) at San Diego's Comic-Con International, July 2006.
Science fiction is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, mutants, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition.
Metropolis (1927) by Fritz Lang was one of the first feature length science fiction films. It was produced at Studio Babelsberg, Germany. (Photo shows the statue depicting the Machinenmensch before it is given Maria's soul, at Filmpark Babelsberg).
Transformers characters at Universal Studios Hollywood