"Monsters...Monsters from the Id."

[NNadir]

My wife and I have different tastes in movies, but often she convinces me to watch one she selects, and in the end, I often find myself appreciative.

She almost never wants to watch a movie that I want to watch, but she agreed to watch one I just got out of the library, made (1956) before she was born, "Forbidden Planet" that I probably saw on TV (albeit in black and white as my parents didn't own a color TV), well, before she was born.

For its time, it was a very high tech movie. You know what? I never forgot that move, even though I was a child when I first saw it.

The movie is about a relief team on military supralight speed spacecraft (which is run in a way very much modeled on the 1950's US Navy) traveling to a distant solar system to rescue a team of scientists with whom contact was lost 20 years earlier.

When they arrive, the find one scientist and his daughter there; the scientist reports that all the others were killed by a mysterious force on the planet. He then describes a very advanced civilization that lived on the planet but mysteriously vanished, just as they had developed a technology to telekinetically move matter with their minds alone.

It turns out it was a bad idea to develop that particular technology:

The movie is on my mind because maybe, it seems, the invention of the internet, a powerful tool, has unleashed "Monsters from the ID." It can't project thoughts, but it certainly can project ideas, including primitive, odious ideas. It certainly seems so.

My wife and I will watch it tonight in our dying country.

[Otto_Harper]

1. I Grew Up With This Movie as a Formative Influence

I have seen it innumerable times. And yet, it never once occurred to me to consider the parallel of the internet. A huge machine that can never be shut down. Patiently tuning and lubricating itself, replacing worn parts, and, without people realizing it, releasing everyone's monsters from the Id.

[NNadir]

2. It certainly occurred to me. It might have some merit.

[Otto_Harper]

3. I value your observation.

It will give me much to think about.

[FalloutShelter]

4. It also has echos of Shakespeare's The Tempest

And the scientist: Prospero.

[Irish_Dem]

5. Exactly, the internet magnifies the dark underbelly of human nature

and spreads it far and wide.

And will destroy the planet in short order.

[wryter2000]

6. Great movie

You'll enjoy it

[NNadir]

7. I know I will. I've seen it many times, but I'm not sure my wife has. She probably hasn't.