"Forbidden Planet" as TOS prequel?
- Thread starter TOS Purist
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Well, according to Star Trek our first encounter with alien life is with the Vulcans in 2060-something, when Cochrane test flies something explicitly identified as a "warp drive." In Forbidden Planet they use something referred to variously as "quanto-gravitic" or hyperdrive. It does not function like either Cochrane's or Archer's warp drives, requiring that crewmen be suspended in some kind of unidentified field during acceleration and deceleration; we see no indication of that in either ST:FC or Star Trek Enterprise. Also, there's effective faster-than-light communication in Archer's era, whereas communication with distant points in FP requires the disassembly of the ship's drive and the construction of a custom device to "short-circuit the continuum on a five or six parsec level."
Really, the only way to fit FP in even with TOS's continuity is to construct such elaborate exceptions to terminology and backstory that one can boil them all down to "Everything in the Trek universe is like this before and after the immediate era of the C57-D mission, during which brief time it turns into something really different before snapping back into place."
I'd be more interested in constructing a history moving forward from Forbidden Planet that led to something analogous to, but more broadly imaginative in science fiction terms than, the Trek universe.
BTW, one visual detail that Trek might have picked up from FP was the rotating nacelle effect that was added to the Enterprise after the pilots. It is the same, essentially, as the engine drive effect on the C57-D: an internal light and spokes rotating on a central axis to throw patterns on a frosted dome.
Really, the only way to fit FP in even with TOS's continuity is to construct such elaborate exceptions to terminology and backstory that one can boil them all down to "Everything in the Trek universe is like this before and after the immediate era of the C57-D mission, during which brief time it turns into something really different before snapping back into place."
I'd be more interested in constructing a history moving forward from Forbidden Planet that led to something analogous to, but more broadly imaginative in science fiction terms than, the Trek universe.
BTW, one visual detail that Trek might have picked up from FP was the rotating nacelle effect that was added to the Enterprise after the pilots. It is the same, essentially, as the engine drive effect on the C57-D: an internal light and spokes rotating on a central axis to throw patterns on a frosted dome.
Just because Cochrane recognizes a Vulcan does not automatically mean he met them at the same time as when he tests his warpdrive experimental hardware. He could have met Vulcans sometime in the decades after that. Indeed there's absolutely nothing in "Metamorphosis" that says both events happened at the same time and I'm inclined to think it's just too cute-and-tidy and so contemporary Trek to assume they did.
I also recall that in the James Blish adaptation of the episode Cochrane says something like, "You're a Vulcan, aren't you? When I was there..." and then he's distracted by looking over the shuttlecraft. I might be remembering this wrong but that is what I remember. We know that JB often based his adaptations on earlier script drafts and it's possible that that was Cochrane's original statement before it was changed. If it is based on a line in an earlier script draft then it strongly suggests that the writers were saying Cochrane's experiment and when he met Vulcans are separate events in time and not at all related.
I also recall that in the James Blish adaptation of the episode Cochrane says something like, "You're a Vulcan, aren't you? When I was there..." and then he's distracted by looking over the shuttlecraft. I might be remembering this wrong but that is what I remember. We know that JB often based his adaptations on earlier script drafts and it's possible that that was Cochrane's original statement before it was changed. If it is based on a line in an earlier script draft then it strongly suggests that the writers were saying Cochrane's experiment and when he met Vulcans are separate events in time and not at all related.
Cochrane meets Vulcans at the end of Star Trek: First Contact; it's not even a bit of backstory continuity like some canon but is actually shown on-screen. So it's definitely core Star Trek continuity and can't be ignored for purposes of an honest exercise.
Now, there is obviously a lot of weasel room in Trek continuity with respect to the fact that even TOS canon is self-contradictory at least with respect to things said on-screen that are not shown.
An early example is Scott describing the Romulan power source in "Balance Of Terror" as "simple impulse:" we will come to learn that in the Trek universe "impulse" always refers to sublight drive, if not a specific drive technology, and it's therefore impossible for the Romulan ship to do what it's said to do since it lacks an FTL drive. Hell, if it's so important for the Romulans to return home in order for their mission to succeed (despite one of them having "broken the code of silence" to inform home base of their victory) then the Federation will have decades if not centuries to prepare for their next attack.
For such reasons it's useful to rank Trek's continuity by privileging anything we see when it contradicts something that we're merely told has occurred at some other time.
That may be a path to madness, since fans get so good at rationalizing almost anything within Trek that contradicts anything else, and once one develops those "muscles" there is no hard-and-fast rule by which anything cannot be torturously fit into the Trek universe. Shoehorning 2001: A Space Odyssey in there could be done. Philip Jose Farmer could probably reconcile every fantasy story ever written with Star Trek before breaking for lunch.
Now, there is obviously a lot of weasel room in Trek continuity with respect to the fact that even TOS canon is self-contradictory at least with respect to things said on-screen that are not shown.
An early example is Scott describing the Romulan power source in "Balance Of Terror" as "simple impulse:" we will come to learn that in the Trek universe "impulse" always refers to sublight drive, if not a specific drive technology, and it's therefore impossible for the Romulan ship to do what it's said to do since it lacks an FTL drive. Hell, if it's so important for the Romulans to return home in order for their mission to succeed (despite one of them having "broken the code of silence" to inform home base of their victory) then the Federation will have decades if not centuries to prepare for their next attack.
For such reasons it's useful to rank Trek's continuity by privileging anything we see when it contradicts something that we're merely told has occurred at some other time.
That may be a path to madness, since fans get so good at rationalizing almost anything within Trek that contradicts anything else, and once one develops those "muscles" there is no hard-and-fast rule by which anything cannot be torturously fit into the Trek universe. Shoehorning 2001: A Space Odyssey in there could be done. Philip Jose Farmer could probably reconcile every fantasy story ever written with Star Trek before breaking for lunch.
Warped9 wasn't in denial orbeing picky with the evidence (one for the books), just pointing out that this was a case of needlessly "cute" writing. Which I rather agree with.
OTOH, they did need to show a First Contact with some alien species at the end of that movie, and there really was no competition. It couldn't really have been the Klingons, and all the other aliens would have been too obscure by far. Besides, ST:FC made it possible to introduce the ENT storyline of annoying or even oppressive Vulcans, one that I personally like a lot.
But that's keeping with Trek continuity: according to "A Piece of the Action", a ship out in the sticks could not maintain Archerian contact with home base. Whether Altair would have qualified as out in the sticks is anybody's guess, but there certainly is a dearth of evidence that Starfleet or the Federation would have been frequenting that spot in the early 23rd century.
But the titillating thing here is that the terminology is so similar. There's this united planet federation thing that's almost smack on...
Timo Saloniemi
OTOH, they did need to show a First Contact with some alien species at the end of that movie, and there really was no competition. It couldn't really have been the Klingons, and all the other aliens would have been too obscure by far. Besides, ST:FC made it possible to introduce the ENT storyline of annoying or even oppressive Vulcans, one that I personally like a lot.
But that's keeping with Trek continuity: according to "A Piece of the Action", a ship out in the sticks could not maintain Archerian contact with home base. Whether Altair would have qualified as out in the sticks is anybody's guess, but there certainly is a dearth of evidence that Starfleet or the Federation would have been frequenting that spot in the early 23rd century.
But the titillating thing here is that the terminology is so similar. There's this united planet federation thing that's almost smack on...
Timo Saloniemi
number6
Vice Admiral
Fortunately for fans of Star Trek, your opinion doesn't count as canon.
FC and ENT are as ligitimate parts of the Star Trek universe as the rest of it, like it or not.
FP, otoh, is a seperate film unto itself and isn't really part of the story..but an inspiration. Nothing more. Nothing less.
FC and ENT are as ligitimate parts of the Star Trek universe as the rest of it, like it or not.
FP, otoh, is a seperate film unto itself and isn't really part of the story..but an inspiration. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I like FP just as it is, part of its own universe. I see no need to bring it into the already over-crowded (even w/o the spin-offs) Star trek continuity.
Well, to the extent of having the word "United" in there somewhere, but that's hardly "smack on." By the same token we can make the United States and the United Nations congruent with the "United Federation of Planets." Hell, "United Colors Of Benetton" is pretty close.
There's not much similarity in terminology. "Quanto-gravitic" versus "warp." "Blaster" (an old sf generic) versus "phaser" and so on...
I think this is by far the most clearly sensible conclusion to draw from this discussion, and particularly for the reason that Christopher articulated: Forbidden Planet is an imaginative achievement at least equal to the creation of Star Trek and probably greater - after all, it probably made Trek's creation as it exists possible. That one has become a successful entertainment franchise and the other was a modestly successful but still-remembered film doesn't make one the greater and there's no reason that the earlier work ought to be subsumed into the later.
Now, though: what might the Forbidden Planet universe have been like a few decades or a century later? Even with the destruction of Altair IV, the C57-D is returning home with some pretty startling new knowledge of the Universe - the very existence of previously unsuspected ancient alien civilizations - and a bag of tricks in the form of Robby that could represent a big leap forward in technology.
Continuing along their current path of development, you can guess that they might eventually figure out a more practical type of FTL radio - they can use the principles, after all, they just have power problems. OTOH, there's not a thing in the movie to suggest that even the Krell had any means of teleporting objects.
Altair is, what, seventeen or so light years from Earth? We're seeing only the second expedition to it, so the extent of humanity's explorations into the galaxy is probably limited thus far to not much beyond that distance. It's not a certainty that the Krell are the first aliens discovered, but the movie does treat them as a complete novelty (and for good reason. A line of dialogue edited out of the final cut - and therefore "non-canon" he said with his tongue in his cheek - does establish definitively that no aliens have heretofore been encountered).
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It's United Planets, though--a wee bit closer.
number6
Vice Admiral
So you're saying that Benetton is part of the Trek universe??
What about United Airlines and Enterprise Rent-a-car??
I use a phaser on vocal tracks in the studio sometimes..
My Sm-58 doesn't mask hearbeats, though.
Ah, my mistake. For some reason, I was convinced it was "United Planet Federation".
They mention it twice in dialogue and once in the narrative voiceover; for the two dialogue cases, I'd not blink twice, since Kirk tended to abbreviate his "uniteds", too. The opening narration might be expected to be a bit more formal, though.
Timo Saloniemi
They mention it twice in dialogue and once in the narrative voiceover; for the two dialogue cases, I'd not blink twice, since Kirk tended to abbreviate his "uniteds", too. The opening narration might be expected to be a bit more formal, though.
Timo Saloniemi
Forbidden Planet actually might fit better with the currently-fashionable sparsely-populated or "empty universe" ideas than with Trek's "crowded universe." You look at the maps of the Federation or at the stories themselves and you know that Roddenberry's explorers couldn't throw a stick out the airlock without hitting a world filled with intelligent bipeds.
C57-D seems to be exploring a big, empty, mysterious universe where humanity has found more than one world enough like Earth to make colonization feasible, but until the opening of the movie has not encountered aliens.
And when they do find them, no pointy-eared bipeds nor a foam-rubber forehead in sight:
C57-D seems to be exploring a big, empty, mysterious universe where humanity has found more than one world enough like Earth to make colonization feasible, but until the opening of the movie has not encountered aliens.
And when they do find them, no pointy-eared bipeds nor a foam-rubber forehead in sight:
I was thinking much the same thing--I just don't like the idea that FP takes place in a galaxy crawling with actors in latex appliques.
Taking the notion of seeing the "Forbidden Planet" movie through the lens of the STAR TREK/pre-TOS Universe is an interesting concept, but a very flawed one. My memories of the movie aren't the best because I haven't seen it in ages, but IIRC this 1950's kitch classic had some significant differences from TREK:
Granted, there were many other strong similarities between TOS and FP, the whole Flint/Rayna thing in ""Requiem for Methuselah" bore a strong resemblance to the movie; maybe too much of a resemblance. But they were still very conceptually different as to be jarring in my view.
Still, it would be an interesting fan fiction / photomanip / fan film exercise to imagine Valiant or ENT-era TREKified FP story, remade in TREK's image.
- The Space Cruiser C57D had a male-dominated, all-white crew
- The enlisted men on the C57D looked like sailors, not like starship crewmen.
- All C57D personnel acted like a strictly military unit, not the pseudo-military Starfleet discipline we saw in TREK.
- Robbie the Robot was no Data or Norman; his presence suggested a society where it would not be a shock to see automated servants.
- The C57D was presented as an entire all-in-one starship not unlike the Jupiter II of LOST IN SPACE fame. This saucer had no nacelles or architecture that suggested anything remotely similar to the warp drive of TOS.
- The whole atmosphere of FP is typically less serious and less cerebral than TOS.
Granted, there were many other strong similarities between TOS and FP, the whole Flint/Rayna thing in ""Requiem for Methuselah" bore a strong resemblance to the movie; maybe too much of a resemblance. But they were still very conceptually different as to be jarring in my view.
Still, it would be an interesting fan fiction / photomanip / fan film exercise to imagine Valiant or ENT-era TREKified FP story, remade in TREK's image.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
An early example is Scott describing the Romulan power source in "Balance Of Terror" as "simple impulse:" we will come to learn that in the Trek universe "impulse" always refers to sublight drive, if not a specific drive technology, and it's therefore impossible for the Romulan ship to do what it's said to do since it lacks an FTL drive. Hell, if it's so important for the Romulans to return home in order for their mission to succeed (despite one of them having "broken the code of silence" to inform home base of their victory) then the Federation will have decades if not centuries to prepare for their next attack.
:sighs: Not THIS again. Do we really need to explain this over and over again? It is NOT a contradiction. Kirk asked for what POWER source they had, and this is what Scotty answers. POWER source, and DRIVE are two entirely different things. You can use a simple power source for the impulse drive to power a warp drive and go faster than light. You'd go slower than a full powered warp core designed to power a warp drive, hence why Kirk replies to Scotty that they can outrun the Romulans.
And you what what the funny thing is; if you don't go by what's fashionable but by science, our present understanding of science says our universe and our galaxy, has to be positively teaming with life just about everywhere. Life can live and survive in nearly every circumstance, and we've seen the building blocks of life, if not the very first forms of life itself, in nebulae. Life thus starts in space, in the clouds that form from exploding stars, and as new planets form, they land, and away we go.
Life should be everywhere in various shapes and forms.
Besides which, 17 lightyears is in our backyard;
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/index.html
Check out 12.5 lightyears (practically 17), and a mere 20 times further 250 lightyears from earth, the number of stars in that cloud. And remember, the galaxy is a 110,000 lightyears across.
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I'd say a line like that would reinforce the idea implicit in "Metamorphosis" that before Cochrane nobody in the local stellar neighborhood had warp drive.
This is one thing that's puzzled me. If the educator and records in Morbius' lab contain the whole of the Krell's knowledge, it must contain that on their own biology and physiology unless some Krell's Id-spawn erased it. Even information on the other native life on Altair IV would give some hint... assuming Altair IV's their homeworld.
On the Wikipedia entry on the Krell I came across the only description of them I've seen:
Anybody ever seen a copy of the screenplay? What other hints might there be?
FP has already been Trekified. It's called "The Cage" with Alta as the only survivor of the crash and a handful of Krell still alive. GR's original description of the Krell was "crablike" something which might fit well through those pentagonal doors. Some lines in the script even hint the Talosians' power of illusion comes from using a machine like the Krell's rather than it being a natural ability.
I'd be interested in a further exploration of the United Planets universe, perhaps something along the lines of Ellison's proposed sequel with a search for the Krell. Barring that, which Shakespeare play should be adapted next? Titus Andronicus
"United Planets" is a very common name in fiction; after all, it's an obvious riff on the United Nations. It's the name of the interstellar government in DC Comics' 30th/31st century, as seen in Legion of Super Heroes. It's the name of a series of novels by Mack Reynolds. It's the name of a political body in a game called Galactic Civilizations, and in the anime series The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. And so on. It's such a generic and obvious name that it hardly counts as evidence of commonality.
Similarly, Blake's 7 had an outfit called the Federation, but there was no way it could be in the Trek universe. (Though I like to think it could've been set in the Doctor Who universe; there's a place where it could fit.)
16.77 ly, give or take 0.08.
Good point. It's either a "Rare Earth" universe or one where there currently aren't any sophonts within maybe a couple of dozen light-years of Earth. It's been argued that, given the lifespan of any given species, the odds are that any aliens we encountered would be either millions of years behind us or millions of years ahead of us. Given how far the Krell advanced, maybe other civilizations reached similar levels, maybe even avoiding the pitfalls that befell the Krell.
The original outline for "The Cage" described Captain Pike's abductors as crab creatures whose doorways were just about exactly like Krell doorways. Obviously budget and technology limitations required a rethink.
An early example is Scott describing the Romulan power source in "Balance Of Terror" as "simple impulse:" we will come to learn that in the Trek universe "impulse" always refers to sublight drive, if not a specific drive technology, and it's therefore impossible for the Romulan ship to do what it's said to do since it lacks an FTL drive. Hell, if it's so important for the Romulans to return home in order for their mission to succeed (despite one of them having "broken the code of silence" to inform home base of their victory) then the Federation will have decades if not centuries to prepare for their next attack.
:sighs: Not THIS again. Do we really need to explain this over and over again? It is NOT a contradiction. Kirk asked for what POWER source they had, and this is what Scotty answers. POWER source, and DRIVE are two entirely different things. You can use a simple power source for the impulse drive to power a warp drive and go faster than light. You'd go slower than a full powered warp core designed to power a warp drive, hence why Kirk replies to Scotty that they can outrun the Romulans.
Another possible interpretation: Kirk was asking about whether the Enterprise could outmaneuver the Romulan ship in combat, something that would most likely be performed at sublight speeds. So Scotty may have meant "simple impulse" as opposed to the more advanced impulse drive the Enterprise had, comparing the two ships' performance at sublight specifically.
True, but that's mostly single-celled life. It's likely that the universe is teeming with algae and bacteria and the like, but we don't yet know how common multicellular life might be, let alone intelligent, tool-using life. After all, life has existed on Earth for over 3.5 billion years, but for over 70 percent of that it's just been single cells, and intelligent life has only been around for a fraction of a percent of that total history.
Life may be everywhere in the FP universe just not intelligent life. I'm willing to bet there is or has been life on at least three other bodies in our solar system, but technologically advanced intelligence only arose on one and in one species. And life on Earth got along fine without our level of intelligence for millions of years. Or in the FP universe life itself might be extraordinarily rare, explaining the Krell's interest in Earth and the large number of terrestrial animals on Altair IV.
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