Forbidden Planet boasts better special effects than Hollywood had bestowed upon any science-fiction movie that came before it
Video:
MGM spared no expense on the production, filming in 2.35:1 ratio CinemaScope and Eastman color. Likewise, Warner Bros. spared no expense digitally restoring the film and transferring it to HD-DVD in a widescreen ratio that measures about 2.20:1 across my TV. My objections to the film's standard-definition reproduction was that while it did a good job with black levels, natural hues, and object delineation, it tended to make images a tad dark, and it pointed up the film's inherent grain. The result was free of age but not so smooth as a more-recent film might look.
With the exception of the film no longer looking quite so dark to me, its grain still shows up to an extent that makes the picture appear a tad rough. However, it is slightly more detailed now in high definition, with better flesh tones than in standard def. Robby's mechanical body seems more metallic, Morbius's lab instruments, and the vast underground Krell power plants are more realistic than ever. The better definition creates a bit more dimensionality in the image, too. There is not as much difference as in some SD/HD comparisons I've made, a result of WB's already fine, high-bit-rate, anamorphic standard-definition transfer, but there is enough difference to make the HD-DVD picture that much better.
Audio:
Like many older films in stereo, this one has voices that follow the characters realistically left and right across the sound stage rather than being anchored out in the center channel. Nonetheless, like the regular Dolby Digital 5.1 on the standard-def disc, the Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 remastering doesn't display a very wide front-channel spread, and there is still very little surround activity beyond some small musical and noise enhancement. Otherwise, like the regular DD 5.1 track, the DD+ sound is fairly quiet--a little hiss at volume--and well balanced, with the DD+ exhibiting perhaps a touch stronger dynamics and an overall cleaner, clearer response. If anything, I'd say I noticed a greater difference in the improved DD+ sound than in the improved HD picture, but that may only be my imagination. Certainly, there is more air around the dialogue and sound effects now.
Extras:
The HD-DVD contains all of the items found on WB's 50th Anniversary Edition, and that's quite a lot. First among the extras is an entire bonus movie, Robby the Robot's follow-up film from 1957, "The Invisible Boy." The ninety-minute, black-and-white, widescreen motion picture is quite juvenile, as expected, and it was the first of many subsequent appearances by the celebrated robot, one of his most recent being a cameo in "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" (2003). You might want to proceed through "The Invisible Boy" at your own risk, but the transfer is very clean, if slightly soft.
Following the bonus movie, there are three newly made documentaries. The first is the TCM original, "Watch the Skies: Science Fiction, the 1950s and Us," fifty-five minutes long and divided into twelve chapters. Mark Hamill narrates, and it contains comments by directors Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and James Cameron, among others. The second documentary is "Amazing: Exploring the Far Reaches of Forbidden Planet," twenty-six minutes long with film-specific commentary by Anne Francis (looking as lovely today as she did fifty years ago), Leslie Nielson, Earl Holliman, Warren Stevens, John Carpenter, Joe Dante, John Landis, and various other filmmakers, writers, and film historians. The final documentary is "Robby the Robot: Engineering a Sci-Fi Icon," thirteen minutes on the famous, walking-talking mechanical device.
Next, you'll find about thirteen minutes of deleted scenes, a series of eleven "work prints," actually, often quite rough, and nine more minutes of lost footage, rare test scenes that have spent the last fifty years locked away in a film vault. After those things are a couple of excerpts from the "MGM Parade" television show, with host Walter Pidgeon telling us about "Forbidden Planet" and Robby the Robot. Then, speaking of Robby, there is "Robot Client," a 1958 episode of "The Thin Man" TV series with Peter Lawford, Phyllis Kirk, and Robby. And that's followed by a science-fiction theatrical trailer gallery that includes trailers for "Forbidden Planet," "The Thing from Another World," "The Time Machine," "Them," and four others.
The extras conclude with twenty-five scene selections but no chapter insert, English, French, and Spanish spoken languages, and English, French, and Spanish subtitles, with English captions for the hearing impaired. As always, WB also include pop-up menus, an indicator of elapsed time, a zoom-and-pan feature, and an Elite Red HD case.
Parting Thoughts:
Nothing is probably as good as one's memory makes it, so if it's been a while since you last saw "Forbidden Planet," you could be a tad disappointed. However, taken in the right spirit, and despite the rather silly tone it sometimes strikes, the film does delve into some intelligent issues, and Pidgeon's acting elevates the proceedings well above the ordinary. Visually, the film is no match for today's computer-graphic extravaganzas, but on HD-DVD it holds its own. So, with minor reservations, I'd say "Forbidden Planet" remains one of Hollywood's better sci-fi accomplishments.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]20186[/release]