For billions of years...
"Forbidden Planet" as TOS prequel?
- Thread starter TOS Purist
- Start date
Yes and no. The characters functioned very much like the crew on a U.S. Navy vessel, like the crew of the Enterprise did in the earliest versions of Star Trek TOS. Yes, the C57-D crew were prime specimens of Homo Americana NineteenFiftyus - white, clean-shaven and rock-jawed except for the drunken cook. The crew was entirely male, unlike the Enterprise were only everyone important was male. Robby was indeed a robot as opposed to an imitation human being. Aside from some odd comic relief involving the cook, Forbidden Planet is about as solemnly serious as original Trek got most of the time, and is considerably more cerebral - more thoughtful, more speculative, less naive about people - than Trek got in all but a few of its stories.
The resemblance between FP and Lost In Space was not coincidental; many visual elements of LIS were derived from FP (check out the astrogation unit in the center of the LIS spaceship set) and there's some overlap of personel. I believe (am not certain) that the LIS robot was designed by the same guy who designed Robby.
I've seen a partial script for Forbidden Planet online, but never a whole one.
This is a reasonable line of speculation, and pretty much in tune with what a lot of scientists currently think about life in the Universe. Certainly there aren't many, if any, sane ones who think that the Galaxy is teaming with two-footed two-eyed Roddenberry aliens just waiting for us to park in orbit and introduce ourselves with offers of trade.
Aliens who surveyed our planet 600,000 years ago might have been impressed with the variety of life, but they'd have found no civilized species. They might have evaluated elephants or whales as the most "intelligent" here. And aliens dropping by fifty thousand years in our future might come to the same conclusion. As Brutal Strudel notes, we're talking a timeline of billions of years here - the likelihood of synchronicity between the development of two species is not very good.
You're quite correct. His name is Robert Kinoshita, and he's still around at the age of 95. Robby the Robot was named after him.
Of course, multiple Twilight Zone episodes recycled footage of the C57D in flight or reused the miniature or the set piece of the ship's underside. (Examples include "Death Ship" and "The Invaders," among others.) So if one really wanted to make a case for a '60s SFTV series being in the same universe as Forbidden Planet, one might want to take a look at those TZ episodes.
Well, FP has one element that I wish Star Trek had had: Anne Francis.
No, 600,000 years ago, Homo erectus and H. ergaster were making stone axes and probably other tools made of less durable materials.
And I don't think we are talking billions of years. The galaxy billions of years in the past would've been more hostile to life, with more radiation and cosmic turbulence, and with fewer stars with enough heavy metals to form large planets. It's possible that there aren't many inhabited worlds much older than our own.
Also, it seems likely to me that if a world evolves the potential to produce intelligence once, it can do so multiple times. A given world might spawn several different sapient civilizations millions of years apart, or else a single species might go through cycles of expansion and retreat. Even today, there are still plenty of humans who live as hunter-gatherers or subsistence farmers like their ancestors thousands of years ago. Even if a civilization advanced to the point that many of its members could travel into space or evolve to a new level or whatever, there would still be people left behind living at a more basic level, and they might forget the advanced technology and then reinvent it millennia later, and then the whole cycle could happen again and again. So there are lots of ways that the clock could be reset.
So while we're unlikely to find the Trek-style situation where most alien powers are within a few centuries of our technological level, it might not be quite the "animals or gods" scenario that's sometimes assumed.
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I know that, but so what? I doubt that within the context of that time and the panorama of life here it would be nearly as impressive or noticable as we consider it.
We've observed other creatures on this planet for quite some time and it's only been lately that we've noticed - or been willing to notice - some of the most sophisticated behaviors of other primates.
Hell, when I was a kid it was presented as a truism in popular science writing that only humans make or use tools. Animal consciousness, self-awareness...fugedaboudit.
Monkeys chipping rocks impresses the hell out of us because the monkeys was us and we know what it led to. But it's still just monkeys chipping rocks to hit stuff with. If they were really smart they'd go down to the shore, find shellfish and drop them from a height to open them...you know, like birds do.
Just because stone tools are the only ones that have been preserved doesn't mean they're the only ones that existed. The "Stone Age" is only called that because of what's preserved from that era; it's a mistake to assume it means that was all they used. They might've made shelters out of leaves, woven basic clothing out of grasses, and so on.
Also, the point I took as implicit but should've expressed more clearly was that if the capacity for that kind of tool use existed, the capacity for other advanced behaviors would've been present and observable as well. Sure, it might've been overlooked if the species in question just dropped in for a quick survey, but if they took their time observing the hominids of the day, they would've been able to deduce their intelligence -- certainly by an analysis of their neurological development.
Though you do have a point that dolphins and whales might well have been rated as more intelligent by that time. They've been around longer than we have. Maybe elephants too, but it's hard to say. Modern elephants evolved after hominids had emerged.
Also, the point I took as implicit but should've expressed more clearly was that if the capacity for that kind of tool use existed, the capacity for other advanced behaviors would've been present and observable as well. Sure, it might've been overlooked if the species in question just dropped in for a quick survey, but if they took their time observing the hominids of the day, they would've been able to deduce their intelligence -- certainly by an analysis of their neurological development.
Though you do have a point that dolphins and whales might well have been rated as more intelligent by that time. They've been around longer than we have. Maybe elephants too, but it's hard to say. Modern elephants evolved after hominids had emerged.
And some of the uniforms as well. Particularly my all-time favorite TZ, from the season of hour-long episodes, "Death Ship." The crew all wear the short-sleeved uniforms of the C57D.
Dennis, Dennis buddy, you're forgetting the particulars of this thought experiment. We're seeing how well "Forbidden Planet" fits into TOS's continuity, NOT the continuity of all combined Trek TV shows and films. The events of "First Contact," "Enterprise," and the like are not relevant to the results of this particular thought experiment. 
Because once you try to fit FP into the convoluted backstories from those disasters, yes, I agree that FP doesn't fit at ALL. But if you take TOS BY ITSELF and add FP...it fits pretty well!
Because once you try to fit FP into the convoluted backstories from those disasters, yes, I agree that FP doesn't fit at ALL. But if you take TOS BY ITSELF and add FP...it fits pretty well!
number6
Vice Admiral
If you take TOS by itself, The SNL sketch with John Belushi fits just as well.
FC and ENT are events in Trek continuity prior to the events in TOS and there is no problem with fitting all of that into this, especially as some kind of "thought experiment."
By the same process we could make a bowl of Raspberry Jello fit too.
FC and ENT are events in Trek continuity prior to the events in TOS and there is no problem with fitting all of that into this, especially as some kind of "thought experiment."
By the same process we could make a bowl of Raspberry Jello fit too.
Raspberries are not canon.
number6
Vice Admiral
It is if served up by Robbie the Robot..
I donno about the prequel angle, but I always liked the movie. It was pretty well done, I kinda liked that the enemies were
From the doctor's own mind
I agree, the organisms that are best adapted to extreme enivronments on Earth are Bacteria, not multicellular organisms. It would stand to reason that if multicellular organisms have a hard time in extreme environments on Earth, they'd have the same problem elsewhere.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Once, Earth was just extremophile simple organisms. They terraformed Earth and evolved into more complex organisms to make use of the new environment their ancestors built. The same process will be occurring everywhere.
You must also understand, that people from NASA will never admit there might be and even is more complex life elsewhere. Arthur C. Clarke, yes, that Arthur C. Clarke, said there are bushes on Mars and you can see them in pictures, and the pictures indeed show bush-like formations. Europa is an ice world with an ocean underneath it, green formation in break zones in the ice, show algea. Algea are pretty complex on their own, not single-celled organisms. NASA is always quick to go on about how there won't be any complex life down there, even though though the algea that prompted them to go check are complex-enough on their own. I'll bet there are actually things down there quite complex.
Oh, don't be ridiculous. There's no conspiracy to cover up alien life. Nobody would be more thrilled than NASA to find and publicize solid evidence of alien life, because if we knew there were alien life, it would create a renewed surge of interest in space travel and NASA would finally get enough funding to do its job rather than having to make do with the scraps Congress allows it. Saying that NASA would cover up the existence of aliens is saying that NASA would rather be broke than well-funded, and that's just nonsense. I'd believe Forbidden Planet could work as a Trek-universe story before I'd believe that a government agency would deliberately prevent itself from getting increased funding.
Sorry, that's not science - that's your faith. Currently we're working from a single example - Earth - and looking desperately for any evidence of life elsewhere. Some complex molecules have been found elsewhere, which gives the scientists who would like to find life hope, but that's all. Everything beyond that is speculation and extrapolation with a big dollop of that Ol' Time SciFi Religion.
By "fashionable," of course, I meant what is currently being discussed as likely by a preponderance of scientists. It exists on the same evidence - mainly, lack of it - as earlier more "optimistic" speculations, and is probably just as likely to be either right or wrong.
That is interesting, thanks. The Id Monster had rather a frog-like look about it in some ways, though minus the tail mentioned above. Who knows, maybe a tail-less biped was such an aesthetic affront to the Krell that it seemed horrific and the stuff of nightmares to them, like some zombie carrying its head under its arm.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
The people in charge of NASA wish to remain in control of information and you. They are also the same people in control of our governments. Cheap access to space means they lose the control they've been building so carefully over the last century.
Here's a shot from the Twilight Zone episode "Third From The Sun:"
In addition to the C57-D's astrogation unit - one of the coolest set pieces in science fiction - they used the "radar scope" from the C57-D and the "power gauges" from the Krell laboratory. I don't think the chairs come from the film - they look to be the ubiquitous Saarinen "tulips" or knock-offs thereof that were all over the landscape in those days; Star Trek used a version manufactured by Burke.
That's so far removed from anything resembling reality that it's hilarious. NASA in control of anything? Then how come they're so broke???
The federal government is too divided and ineffectual to make anything work effectively. The idea that they could possibly manage a systematic coverup of anything is pathetically naive, especially given that every reporter in Washington would sell their firstborn child to uncover a massive government conspiracy. And my God, if the Democratically-controlled White House and Congress were involved in any kind of massive coverup, then the Republicans would be falling all over themselves to expose it and drive the Democrats from power. And vice-versa if the Republicans were the ones in control. Not to mention that the White House and Congress are constantly jockeying for dominance; they're more rivals than partners.
Absolutely Right(TM). Conspiracy talk about the space program and science in general is the worst kind of uninformed, arrant nonsense. We can go from here straight to the water-powered automobile engine design that GM bought up all the patents for and had locked away in a vault decades ago.
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