Term Papers on Forbidden Planet Comparison To Shakespeares The Tempest

Term Paper Title	Forbidden Planet Comparison To Shakespeares The Tempest
# of Words	1280
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	5.12

Forbidden Planet Comparison to Shakespeare's The Tempest

     On first glance, Forbidden Planet can easily be seen to parallel many other
works relating to technology, nature, or both.  One of the most obvious
parallels is, of course, to Shakespeare's The Tempest,  the story of a man
stranded on an island which he has single-handedly brought under his control
through the use of magic.  Indeed, the characters, plot, and lesson of Forbidden
Planet mirror almost exactly those of The Tempest, with the exception that where
The Tempest employs magic,  Forbidden Planet utilizes technology.  At this point,
it is useful to recall one of Arthur C. Clarke's more famous ideas, which is
that any technology, when sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic.
Indeed, the technology presented in Forbidden Planet is not meant to be
understood by the audience, but rather is, for all intents and purposes, magic.
This is undoubtedly in part because the technology doesn't exist and therefore
cannot be explained to us.  What is more important, however, is that how the
technology works is irrelevant for the purpose of the movie, which is to
entertain and to teach us a lesson about man's control over the elements and
over his own technological creations.
     At this point a brief synopsis of the movie would seem to be in order,
with special attention as to how it relates to The Tempest.
     In The Tempest, a man named Prospero and his daughter Miranda have been
exiled to a remote island which is completely uninhabited, save for an evil
monster and her son Caliban, and which is in a state of primal chaos.  Using the
magical powers he has cultivated all his life, Prospero gradually brings the
forces of nature on the island under his control, and manages to somehow enslave
Caliban, whose mother has died in the interim.  (Some of these details are fuzzy
because I am familiar with The Tempest only through Marx).  A group of sailors
is shipwrecked on the island, one of whom falls in love with Miranda, the lovely
daughter of Prospero.  Eventually, Caliban and other servants plot to overthrow
Prospero, but are thwarted and taken back into servitude, thankful to get off
that easily.
     Having summarized The Tempest, it is easy to summarize Forbidden Planet.
A man named Dr. Morbius and his daughter Altaira are stranded on a distant
planet when a government ship lands there, whose commander falls in love with
the beautiful Altaira.  The only significant difference in the two works, other
then setting, is the conclusion of each.  Before we look at the differences
there, however, it is necessary to look more closely at the symbolism behind
each.  In The Tempest, Prospero's magic is a symbol of technology.  It lets him
tame the island, is completely at his command, and even is understandable by
those who take the time to study it.  Caliban represents the forces of nature,
which Prospero has enslaved using magic, a.k.a. technology.  It is worth noting
here that Shakespeare perceives “nature” in the form of a wild, hostile
environment, not as a “garden of eden” form, a concept he pokes fun at in one of
the opening scenes.  Eventually, nature rises up and lashes out at Prospero, but
(from what one can gather from Marx), his magic saves him.  He then accepts
Caliban back into servitude.  The perfect harmony is thus achieved--man using
technology to tame nature, and doing it so well that he achieves the best of
both worlds.
     Forbidden Planet teaches a different lesson, and teaches it in two
separate stories.  The first is the story of the Krell, a superintelligent race
that rose to its peak and then fell 2000 centuries before Dr. Morbius and his
daughter set foot on the planet.  The Krell had achieved what they considered to
be the pinnacle of technology--they had left behind their physical bodies in
exchange for computers.  Their consciousness resided in computers, which “
projected” bodies for them, so to speak.  The perfect blending of man (or
creature, anyway) and technology.  They w...

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