Forbidden Planet has one female character, Anne Francis’
Alta, whose entire role is essentially to stand around and look pretty. She’s
even dressed in outfits designed solely for how revealing they are (outfits
that actually aren’t that different from those of the female crew members of
Into Darkness). And if that weren’t bad enough, in the film, she’s all but
called a slut for the way she dresses. Oh, dear lord, there is an embarrassing
amount of victim blaming and slut shaming in Forbidden Planet. The truly
terrible thing is that the character has been isolated from all humans, except
for her father, for her entire life and so she has no clue about social convention
or propriety. But, despite this fact, the characters judge her based on cultural
values that are beyond her. In one scene, a shipmate takes advantage of the
fact that she doesn’t know anything about kissing, and it gets highly predatory
and creepy – and if that weren’t bad enough she gets blamed for the incident,
not the shipmate. When Alta isn’t around for the sake of looking attractive or
being wooed, she exists to be saved in damsel in distress fashion.
Now consider Into Darkness’ Dr. Carol Marcus (Alice Eve).
She’s supposedly a brilliant doctor and a proficient fighter, and yet we rarely
see her doing either. The one time she goes off to use her scientific knowledge
to investigate the suspicious torpedoes, we never actually see her in action.
Instead, we witness her strip down into her underwear, and for no better reason
than to tantalize us. Dr. Marcus is reduced from a complex, smart fighter and a
valuable asset to the Enterprise crew to a body. Similarly, the only other
major female character, Zoe Saldana’s Nyoto Uhura, is diminished to the
importance of a subplot where she has romantic squabbles with her boyfriend Spock
(Zach Quintos). Uhura only matters as far as she can serve the story of Spock, the male character.
But these depictions of gender grow out a larger valutative
shortcomings in these films. Forbidden Planet’s space crew is part of an
intergalactic peacekeeping organization quite similar to the one of Star Trek (not
entirely surprising since Gene Roddenberry cites the film as an influence), and yet the
crews in both violate primary directives. The amount of cultural judgment
placed upon the people of another planet by Forbidden Planet’s crew throws into
question their ability to be arbitrators of justice. In Into Darkness, the
Enterprise's crew ends up causes more damage than good. They wreck large parts of
Earth in their efforts to defend it and the galaxy at large. They’ve ethically
compromised themselves, and if anything, all members of the Enterprise should
be put under a hearing for their misconduct, no matter how good their intentions were.
Forbidden Planet, however, is redeemed due to its thematic intentions and its groundbreaking special effects. Forbidden Planet could have worked as an episode of the original series of Star Trek if its runtime were trimmed. The film is about people with different beliefs and values at odds, and how the good intentions of characters end up causing more harm than they ever planned to. But unlike Into Darkness, Forbidden Planet’s tighter plotting actually allows it to sit on ideas and mull them over. When the revelation about what Walter Pidgeon’s Dr. Morbius has done comes through, it not only makes sense and rewards us, but it puts the film into some surprisingly dark thematic territory. This is a film about obsession and the refusal to recognize humanity's limitations. The damage wrought in Forbidden Planet is actually more wide-scale than Into Darkness but it grows from an understandable and far more intimate place, and that makes all the difference.
Forbidden Planet had highly questionable gender depictions but they were a product of its time. What’s Into Darkness’ excuse?
Forbidden Planet, however, is redeemed due to its thematic intentions and its groundbreaking special effects. Forbidden Planet could have worked as an episode of the original series of Star Trek if its runtime were trimmed. The film is about people with different beliefs and values at odds, and how the good intentions of characters end up causing more harm than they ever planned to. But unlike Into Darkness, Forbidden Planet’s tighter plotting actually allows it to sit on ideas and mull them over. When the revelation about what Walter Pidgeon’s Dr. Morbius has done comes through, it not only makes sense and rewards us, but it puts the film into some surprisingly dark thematic territory. This is a film about obsession and the refusal to recognize humanity's limitations. The damage wrought in Forbidden Planet is actually more wide-scale than Into Darkness but it grows from an understandable and far more intimate place, and that makes all the difference.
Forbidden Planet had highly questionable gender depictions but they were a product of its time. What’s Into Darkness’ excuse?
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