Forbidden Planet Comparison To Shakespeare free essay sample

# 8217 ; s The Tempest Essay, Research Paper On first glimpse, Forbidden Planet can easy be seen to parallel many other plants associating to engineering, nature, or both. One of the most obvious analogues is, of class, to Shakespeare? s The Tempest, the narrative of a adult male stranded on an island which he has single-handedly brought under his control through the usage of thaumaturgy. Indeed, the characters, secret plan, and lesson of Forbidden Planet mirror about precisely those of The Tempest, with the exclusion that where The Tempest employs charming, Forbidden Planet utilizes engineering. At this point, it is utile to remember one of Arthur C. Clarke? s more celebrated thoughts, which is that any engineering, when sufficiently advanced, is identical from thaumaturgy. Indeed, the engineering presented in Forbidden Planet is non meant to be understood by the audience, but instead is, for all purposes and intents, thaumaturgy. This is doubtless in portion because the engineering doesn? t exist and hence can non be explaine d to us. What is more of import, nevertheless, is that how the engineering works is irrelevant for the intent of the film, which is to entertain and to learn us a lesson about adult male? s control over the elements and over his ain technological creative activities. At this point a brief outline of the film would look to be in order, with particular attending as to how it relates to The Tempest. In The Tempest, a adult male named Prospero and his girl Miranda have been exiled to a distant island which is wholly uninhabited, salvage for an evil monster and her boy Caliban, and which is in a province of cardinal pandemonium. Using the charming powers he has cultivated all his life, Prospero bit by bit brings the forces of nature on the island under his control, and manages to somehow enslave Caliban, whose female parent has died in the meantime. ( Some of these inside informations are fuzzed because I am familiar with The Tempest merely through Marx ) . A group of crewmans is shipwrecked on the island, one of whom falls in love with Miranda, the lovely girl of Prospero. Finally, Caliban and other retainers secret plan to subvert Prospero, but are thwarted and taken back into servitude, thankful to acquire off that easy. Having summarized The Tempest, it is easy to sum up Forbidden Planet. A adult male named Dr. Morbius and his girl Altaira are stranded on a distant planet when a authorities ship lands at that place, whose commanding officer falls in love with the beautiful Altaira. The lone important difference in the two plants, other so puting, is the decision of each. Before we look at the differences at that place, nevertheless, it is necessary to look more closely at the symbolism behind each. In The Tempest, Prospero? s thaumaturgy is a symbol of engineering. It lets him chasten the island, is wholly at his bid, and even is apprehensible by those who take the clip to analyze it. Caliban represents the forces of nature, which Prospero has enslaved utilizing thaumaturgy, a.k.a. engineering. It is deserving observing here that Shakespeare perceives? nature? in the signifier of a wild, hostile environment, non as a? garden of Eden? signifier, a construct he pokes merriment at in one of the gap sce nes. Finally, nature rises up and lashes out at Prospero, but ( from what one can garner from Marx ) , his charming saves him. He so accepts Caliban back into servitude. The perfect harmoniousness is therefore achieved # 8211 ; adult male utilizing engineering to chasten nature, and making it so good that he achieves the best of both universes. Forbidden Planet teaches a different lesson, and Teachs it in two separate narratives. The first is the narrative of the Krell, a superintelligent race that rose to its extremum and so fell 2000 centuries before Dr. Morbius and his girl set pes on the planet. The Krell had achieved what they considered to be the pinnacle of engineering # 8211 ; they had left behind their physical organic structures in exchange for computing machines. Their consciousness resided in computing machines, which? projected? organic structures for them, so to talk. The perfect blending of adult male ( or animal, anyhow ) and Te chnology. They were, in fact, a version of Hardison? s? silicon animal? –they had no physical organic structures, save for a series of 1s and nothings stored someplace in the memory of a supercomputer 40 stat mis long. What the Krell had forgotten to research, nevertheless, was their ain mind. Confronted with the virtually illimitable power they had due to the nature of what they had become, all they did was booty, public violence, and otherwise prosecute in suicidal activity, so that in one twenty-four hours the full race was destroyed. In this instance, engineering in the signifier of the Krell? s supercomputer became a slave to the most basic signifier of nature–the subconscious, where cardinal emotions fury with all the rage of a physical storm. As we see, the consequences when nature controls engineering are black. The 2nd narrative is the narrative of Dr. Morbius. At the beginning, Altaira IV could easy be mistaken for Eden, albeit an waterless and alone one. While the country that the ship is in is a desert like clime, the brooding topographic point of Morbius and Alta seems climactic plenty. Deer frolick in the nearby wood, and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelams which are usually awful slayers are petted like kitty cats. It is the tiger which is the first hint that things are traveling incorrect. An obvious symbol of nature, a tiger attacks Alta one twenty-four hours while Commander Adams is at that place. Adams rapidly uses his chargeman on the tiger, typifying the arrant laterality of engineering over nature on Altaira IV. Shortly afterwards, things start acquiring worse, and culminate in a awful onslaught by? nature? in the signifier of Morbius? s subconscious on Adams? s ship. As the secret plan unfolds, we find out that Dr. Morbius, by tampering with engineering he didn? t to the full un derstand, managed to unwittingly kill tonss of people. It is deserving observing that Morbius realizes on some degree the extent to which things have gotten out of manus when his girl pleads with him to assist the crew of the ship. His answer to her is along the lines of? I can non assist him ( Commander Adams ) every bit long as he stays so wilfully? . In short what Morbius is stating is strongly reminiscient of Frankenstein? s message, that is, ? This engineering that I am purportedly? maestro? of has gotten out of my control, and I am powerless to halt it? . Dr. Morbius is a inexorable reminder once more of what can go on when engineering is allowed to increase unbridled, to the point where human existences can no longer understand it, allow entirely command it. Ironically, Dr. Morbius himself warned against the unbridled growing of engineering by declining to let world entree to the Krell? s fantastic secrets. Alternatively, he insisted that he would distribute what pearls of wi sdom he saw tantrum, the better to maintain world from destructing itself. In the terminal, of class, the full planet was destroyed, along with several neighbouring star systems. There are several lessons to be learned from Forbidden Planet. The first is that before adult male can trust to command nature or engineering, he needs to larn to command himself, as evidenced by the catastrophe which destroyed the Krell. Second, when engineering and nature are in direct struggle, the consequences will non be good, and will likely be destructive. Third, when engineering and nature are excessively far off balance from each other, the consequences will once more be damaging. In short, Forbidden Planet is a sort of Frankenstein which is more developed and has better symbolism, which is to state that it councils the same class of action that Florman does # 8211 ; cautiousness, but non inactivity. If we allow nature to run rampant, we clearly can non last. ( This statement once more takes the premise that? nature? is a storm, non a garden of Eden. ) If we allow engineering to travel unbridled, it will finally overpower us when we least anticipate it. And if we pit the two against each other, it will destruct our full solar system. The proper class of action, so, is merely what both Florman and Morbius propose # 8211 ; proceed easy, and take into history the fact that all that is new is non needfully good.