"Michael Rennie Was Ill The Day the Earth Stood Still"
I took a trip to the classics...

Most anyone who's seen what's likely to be the biggest cult movie of all time knows what I'm referring to up there, but I ain't likely to talk about what you expect.

See, at first, I was thinking about riffing on "Christians" for their total lack of Christian behavior. You know what though? There's no point. Not one iota. They wouldn't listen. They have no understanding of the very thing they base all the standards by which they judge things....oops again on them...I'm pretty sure that the Bible says that only one being in the universe gets to judge...oh, and what's that name again...you've heard it before...Oh, right! God! I read this stupid story about the "Christian" townsfolk of some town in one of the Carolina's harassing some Wiccan woman who wanted them to take the overtly religious aspects out of their town government.

Now on one end, she was right: separation of church and state, and no establishment of one religion over another. Fair enough. The fact that these religious folks have retaliated to her stirring things up by gutting and hanging her cat amongst other things is pretty disgusting and not only in the literal sense. They're wrong from both a legal and a spiritual standpoint. If they really have faith, then it's up to God to sort her out, not them.

Of course to be fair, I have the suspicion that this woman has to be a total busybody. Most people I've known who've moved to the middle of nowhere did so to get away from things, not immediately install themselves on the city council. The fact that this article keeps bringing up her Wiccan beliefs also makes me believe she made a point out of bringing it up. Now she may have been right, but I think she was wrong too at the very least in how she went about dealing with it. To me it comes down to two things: 1) At what point have members of the Judeo-Christian/Islamic faiths ever reacted well to self-proclaimed "witches"? So why would you think a bunch of small towners from South Carolina would act any differently just based on that? and 2) ignoring any religious aspects, has anyone ever reacted to some stranger who has moved into their hometown and tried ramrod their changes into their traditions and ways of doing thing? Go back to colonial times in your history book and look at how many cultures have merely rolled over and changed for an interloper.

Granted, I've got a bad slant on this. I mean I got Everest-sized issues with Christianity, but I also tend to think that Wiccan/Pagan beliefs are so much bullsh!t as well. As Harry Angel put it: "Eye of a newt, toe of a frog? That kinda sh!t?" I know that's a gross over-mediated version of it, much like the Hollywood treatment of voodoo, but it still gets how I feel across. Besides, I'm gonna tell you now, like the Christians, you Wiccan folks need some new spokespeople. Every interview I've ever seen with these guys and gals they're always the most pompous, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-enlightened @$$holes I've ever seen. Not to mention the fact that most of the fellas come across like overgrown middle-aged Dungeons & Dragons veterans who are all too willing to bore you with the past couple of thousands of years of pseudo-history of the crap they claim to believe in.

Moving on. I mean, I went ahead and brought it up because it feeds into what I'm getting too.

Also, I debated talking about one of the other movies I watched this weekend, Garden State and Collateral. I did enjoy them both, and would have plenty of things to say on either topic. For one thing, though, you could easily go to see or read about those yourself. Two, though Garden State impacted me on a personal level it didn't have the farther reaching implications of what I am gonna talk about it.

Back to the song above: "Anne Francis stars in...

Forbidden Planet (1956, d. Fred M. Wilcox)

The Story: Despite being warned off, a military rescue ship lands on Altair 4 where it finds a scientist recluse, his young daughter, and a murderous secret.

The Review: I'll admit, I was chock full of doubt about this one in some ways. Most of that doubt was the result of my feelings about 50's science fiction. I don't have anything against it. I simply associate it with the Cold War paranoia that fueled such sci-fi classics as The Thing From Another Planet, Invaders from Mars, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Well, I've already seen those, I'm not sure I need to continue adding to the heap. In the past, I also mistakenly identified it as having something to do with Lost in Space. I couldn't begin to tell you why (I just did) and at a younger age, being of the Star Wars generation, I couldn't appreciate that kind of campy shlocky fun.

I would say that now I feel foolish for not having partaken of it before, but I don't. Truth is, like so many things, it took the addition of my many movie hours to provide me with the proper tools to enjoy this movie. It's true, though I will say that I find it to be truer with literature than movies as far as the accumulated knowledge thing goes. Anyhow, I'm glad I picked the time to finally sit down and watch it that I did.

So first, my only complaint: What the hell was with the love story? The lusty space marines wanting to get ahold of Altaira Morbius I get, but the way the competition for her affection plays out between Leslie Neilsen and Jack Kelly is just strange. Neilsen seems to be genuinely disinterested in her and if anything feels paternal toward her. Then she hates him, and then she'll do anything for him. And Kelly just gives up pursuite with the old "she picked the right guy" line. It was just weird and clunky.

Ok, I got that off my chest.

This movie was genuine cosmic murder mystery story with a resolution that reflected one of science fiction's loftiest aims: taking responsibility for the technology we create. At the same time, while creating an air of alien menace it managed to prove once again that man's greatest enemy is man. That's two very powerful themes, well-handled, and both in the same movie. Think of it.

Of course, those themes are older than Forbidden Planet (think Frankenstein as one example), but in the 50 years since the movie was made our technology output has increased multiple folds and were still no more repsonsible about it than ever. And gee...I just realized, there was one more important theme in there...well, two that go in hand, one illustrating the other: Knowledge is Power, and Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely.

Let's look at it.

When the rescue team arrives and finds that the crew of the Bellerophon has all passed on save one scientist, Dr. Morbius, the suspects are pretty limited. The suspicion is then expanded to his mechanical man-servant Robby. As the movie progresses, it does something smart, it shows us that it can't be Morbius and that it can't be Robby. Then as Morbius's background story unfolds, so too does the alien menace storyline. Our villain is invisible, and we know that this ultra-intelligent alien race vanished. Being human myself, I naturally got suspicious of this all too-intelligent and too-benevolent race. No one's that good/wise/selfless, they have to be up to something right? So about twenty minutes from the end, I'm convinced that the alien race achieved their cosmic power goals and is now making monsters to get these interlopers the hell off their planet.

So I figure that somehow, some power struggle has to erupt wherein the rescue crew has to destroy the giant planetary reactor that's feeding these space b@stards....

I'll only admit it here...because you don't know me personally...that I who have seen thosands of movies...was nearly duped by a movie from 1956.

A few moments before Leslie Neilsen breaks into his rap that unravels the rest of the plot, I figured it out. It was a little too close for my intellectual comfort. You will just have to watch the movie yourself as I feel that it's a good movie, and that frankly, I've said too much already. On to the rest...

The performances have gotten a little kitschy with age, but are genuinely solid. Anyone who has never seen Leslie Neilsen as anything other than Frank Drebin is likely in for a suprise for his youth, his seriousness, and the fact that he's d@mn near a movie hunk. Anne Francis was a beauty, who, though a New Yorker in real life, seems to have this southern accent that fades in and out. Walter Pidgeon does an excellent job of walking that fine line in the common movie character who is either the obssesive scientist or the deranged madman.

Ok, the special effects are 1956, but lest we forget, this is M-G-M in 1956. This wasn't the bargain basement cutrate Robot Monster of 1953 with the "alien" in the gorilla suit with an old diving helmet on. This studio poured money on movies back then, and was even accused of losing other aspects of movies to lavish production design (maybe that's where my love story went). Nonetheless, they are dated, but I still think they look d@mned fine. In fact, there's something warm to their quaint nostalgia as composed to the cold overblown effects of today. Particularly striking were the various mattes used to illustrate the underworld of the alien reactor. Also the rest of it's design, the wardrobe and what have you, it managed to escape the dating that begins to border on the painful.

I just realized how difficult it is to tie together my story above and my movie review without saying more. I'm sure if you look at the clues you can figure it out. My point, ultimately, is that we need not fear any alien menace to destroy us. After all, it's not like genocide stopped with the Holocaust, it's just not genocide that we let bother us here in North America. Besides that, we spend an awful lot of energy destroying our own planet and resources. You know, stuff we like to talk about but never actually make any moves toward achieving.

Like those folks above it's the parts of our psyche that make us as much man as animal that often block us from reacting in the way we should or wish that we could. Fear and hate are considered hardwired in our brains while love and happiness are constructs. What does that tell you? If those good folks really were "Christian" they wouldn't disturb that woman or her property in a harmful manner. If anything, they would try to act above her and shake their head at her silly heretical ways all the while embracing her as a sister among them. Come to think of it, if "Christians" all acted like that there'd probably be a whole lot more Christians. Instead we got @$$holes who call themselves Christians, and a bunch of @$$holes who hate "Christians" for being a bunch of petty hypocritical @$$holes. And so on.

Then there are Wiccans who can be just as smug self-righteous b@stards as their "Christian" counterparts, but who somehow believe themselves superior merely for not being "Christian." Fantastic.

And I still wanna know where these Al Queda guys got the 72 virgins thing from? I mean, I understand telling some twenty-something fanatic that he's gonna get laid a lot in heaven, and him buying it. Again, it's a matter of true faith. I've always believed paradise to be above and beyond all that kind of b.s. Why would you be rewarded in heaven with something your monkey @$$ could get here? (Ok, maybe not 72, and maybe not virgins...but do you really need to keep score like that?) Even my mother saying that stuff about getting a mansion in heaven, and how big it is depends on how good you were...huh? I was always under the soul, no physical body, 'why would I need a frickin' mansion?' mentality. Maybe that's just me...and it's that blind faith, imagination thing that people seemed to have so much trouble pulling off.

Anyhow. Forbidden Planet. Excellent stuff.

And I end up with that damn Rocky Horror song in my head every time I say the title.