Forbidden Planet with Special Features Blu-Ray. Brand New/Unopened still in original wrapping.

Excellent condition.
Will mail item for an additional $3 S&H

1956. NASA did not exist; it would be another two years before the US government got serious about launching men into space. The transistor had just been invented but hadn't even made it into radios yet; all the world's electronics used vacuum tubes. Grad students earned their way through the University of Illinois by dashing about the computer lab in Urbana, Illinois with shopping carts full of vacuum tubes, trying to keep the monstrous Illiac computers running long enough to get through just one program. Color movies were still something that deserved special mention. "Science Fiction" films mean B movies about giant bugs. Designers in Detroit were toying with tail fins on cars. Airline flights were for rich people, and then only on propeller-driven aircraft. Robots were an idea from science fiction; automation meant strange mechanical contraptions with ball-and-plane integrators. Women's skirts ended below the knee.

Also in 1956, MGM decided to make an A-list movie with unprecedented cinematography with a strong, cerebral theme more befitting the best of SF literature of the time; and this is it. "Forbidden Planet" is the grandfather of all serious science fiction movies. It broke the ground for all the serious SF films to come, inspiring budding film makers around the globe. Without it, it's likely that we never would have seen Star Trek, Star Wars, ET, Close Encounters, or any of the other space-themed tales that we have enjoyed over the past 60 years.

Amazingly, there's very little about "Forbidden Planet" that seems dated, even today. This Blu-Ray release makes it available for a whole new generation of SF fans to enjoy! The cook is pretty corny; every Hollywood movie had some sort of comic-relief character in those days. The interior of the space ship is rather roomy and devoid of the scratches, dust, and wear we'd seen in a well-done set today.

This version comes packaged with some incredible bonus material, including the oddly named movie, "The Invisible Boy," which is kind of a sequel to "Forbidden Planet." The setting for "The Invisible Boy" is about 300 years before C57D space cruiser landed on Altair 4, but they get Robby the Robot into the story with a bit of off-screen time-travel hand-waving. It's really a story about a scary computer that wants to take over the world and how Robby saves the day. There's a boy who does turn invisible, but the film would have been much better without the boy in it at all.

The disc also includes an episode of "The Thin Man" where Robby once again steals every scene he's in, along with some great commentaries on "Forbidden Planet" featuring several of today's leading film directors. Wonderful stuff; nicely packaged.