PRESENTATION
In 1956, Philip MacDonald, under the pseudonym of W.J. Stuart, published a novel that mixed the police investigation genre with the new space adventure genre.
I'm talking about the novel: 'Forbidden Planet'.
At this point many would like to tell me that it was the film of this same title that inspired this genre of science fiction, and even a famous TV fiction series called 'Star Trek'. And in fact this is true. It was not the novel, but the film, which with a profit of $2 million convinced Hollywood producers that the time had come to take advantage of public consensus.
So what merit did the novel have in the origin of stories of this genre? Perhaps, very little.
The mystery that surrounds the understanding of which science fiction work (the novel or the movie) has the merit of being the progenitor of this genre of stories and TV fictions is very intricate and, unfortunately, has the flavor of copyright infringement. Maybe I will publish a post later to explain the story in detail. In this post, however, I will focus on analyzing this novel for the merits it has in the history of science fiction literature and, believe me, its merits are many.
'Forbidden Planet' is a novel that after almost seventy years still manages to excite the reader, accustomed to space stories of all types. Its scientific verisimilitude has not yet been surpassed and the narrative style is emotionally intense and suitable for the narrative standards of any era you want to read it.
ANALYSIS
The science fiction theme on which the entire novel is based is that of a utopian civilization with a highly technological system of civil life.
It is the myth of mental power shared among the inhabitants of a planet, a standard of living thanks to which it is possible to achieve anything, satisfy any desire, it is enough to be able to imagine it.
Allowing this mental power to give material form to ideas is a vast and colossal machine that spans the entire planet and takes the energy it needs to function from the heart of the planet itself: its incandescent core.
A perfect machine, capable of functioning forever, a prodigy of technology, the culmination of a technological progress that lasted thousands of years and which places its creators, the Krell, at the peaks of the technological capacity of the galaxy.
But as in every story, a medal, however precious it may be, always has its downside.
With the moral of this story, the myth of Icarus comes to mind, who, forgetting not to fly too close to the Sun, soared up, up above the clouds and even higher, until the wax that kept his feathers attached to his His arms melted away, his feathers fell away, and he fell to the ground, thus meeting his end.
In this story, the danger to be kept at bay is the subconscious of the mind.
The subconscious is the place where passions, fears and aggression take shape and in certain moments of mental activity re-emerge at an intermediate level of consciousness, which we all experience when we dream.
It is easy to understand, then, that a mind trained to use a machine capable of materializing all its ideas, if the mind visualized emotionally irrational ideas that come from its subconscious, would give this machine instructions to materialize even the irrational 'monsters' that they take shape in the subconscious, scattering them along the streets of cities and allowing them to carry out all kinds of atrocities and destruction.
This, in fact, is exactly what happened in the prestigious civilization of the Krell, giving rise to an apocalyptic event of destruction that engulfed the civilization of that people into the oblivion of history in the space of one night.
As a science fiction theme, that's a pretty strong topic, isn't it?
A very strong argument from a philosophical point of view that the narrator of this novel decided to tell using a military narrative action.
His choice to use a crew of space soldiers, accustomed to tackling problems with military professionalism, is in stark contrast to the distinctly intellectual context where the problem of the danger of the powers of the mind takes shape.
This contrast of contexts, the military one and the ethical and psychological one, is what makes the narrative action of the novel extremely suggestive.
The reader is constantly led to alternate reasoning of utopian philosophy with reasoning of military tactics and operating procedures of life on board an interplanetary cruiser, thus entering into a perspective that takes shape in his mind and where the incompatibility of these two kinds of reasoning involve him mentally.
A constant use of gestural details and expressive phrases visually and psychologically create a social environment made up of real people, as if they were actors in a film, who come to life before the reader's eyes. This narrative technique is not only useful for giving realism to the narrative, but also for causing amazement and anxiety in him at certain moments of the story, exactly as if he were the audience in a cinema hall.
Furthermore, it is important to explain another advantage in putting military discourse in dialectical juxtaposition with that of high psychological philosophy.
During the narrative action the reader witnesses a progressive reversal of power relations between the PRACTICAL character of military reasoning versus the THEORETICAL character of philosophical reasoning, when the object of philosophical reasoning turns out to be much more dangerous and overwhelming than the military themselves , involved in the story told.
MacDonald's merit is to have resorted to this narrative invention, where the military is entrusted with the task of understanding the dramatic intellectual error of the Krell, while the fruit of their alien intelligence is falling on the frightened, but courageous, earthlings.
Completeness of Information
As far as the parameter of completeness of information is concerned, this novel is extremely rich.
A great prologue informs the reader about the space navigation technology used by the Earthlings of this story, obtaining with this type of information a scientific verisimilitude rarely achieved by other novels or films of the same genre.
The consistency with which MacDonald describes the main characters throughout the novel also deserves special praise. He not only tells us who they are, what, when, where and why they do what they do, but he also describes to us the way in which they carry out their actions and say their sentences.
To prove what I said, I prepared a short profile of each of the main characters, obtained thanks to the information that the writer put in the novel. The author of the novel also went so far as to describe the character and typical mood with which each character experiences his adventure, with a precision that even allowed me to draw a pencil portrait of each one.
Professor of linguistic sciences. He is the survivor of the interplanetary expedition that left with the 'Bellerophon' spaceship 20 years earlier. He has learned the secrets of Krell culture and technology thanks to his skills as a linguist. He is driven by a great thirst for knowledge, but this is also his flaw, in fact he is jealous of the culture of the Krell, which he alone has managed to understand and which he has taken possession of.
She is the daughter of the professor. Morbius and was born on the planet Altair 4. She. She is just over nineteen years old and she does not know the social life that exists on Earth, just as she would have learned to know an Earthling girl of her own age. In fact, Altaìra is very naive and has the personality of a thirteen-year-old teenager. however she has many friends, they are land animals who kept her company while she was growing up. For this reason she has a sunny and trusting character towards others.
He is around 60 years old, he is a widower and nothing now ties him to the Earth. He is not a professional space navigator, but he thought of pursuing his profession as a doctor by joining the military corps of spacemen to give new opportunities to his life and make himself useful to humanity beyond the stars. He has a character who is very open to dialogue with his fellow adventurers and at the same time is amazed by the wonders of technology and the cosmos, with the typical attitude that every man of science has.
He is the commanding officer of the spaceship and is just over 30 years old. He is energetic and authoritative in maintaining discipline; he requires maximum commitment from his crew but is always attentive to every single useful clue to understand how to successfully complete the mission of the entire team of which he is commander. Although he is known to have a reserved nature, with people he respects, he is unexpectedly friendly.
He is the spaceship's navigator and co-pilot. He too, like all the crew members, is young, in fact he has just turned 30. He has a very friendly and witty character, sometimes he even manages to make fun of his colleagues, especially beginners, like Medical Major Ostrow. In addition to being a valid first-officer of the spaceship, he has a reputation as an expert seducer and in every space-port he always tries to woo some woman who comes within his reach.
His role is that of 'Chief Engineer Officer' on the starship. He is the third pilot on the command bridge and is also responsible for operating the spaceship's analytical detection instruments used for the investigation mission. Like all engineers, he is very precise, perhaps too precise, and for this reason the rest of the crew affectionately nicknamed him 'Lonny'.
He is the boatswain of the spaceship. He has the task of maintaining discipline during the execution of the commander's commands and of verifying that all directives regarding life on board are applied according to the regulations. He has a friendly nature, which will help Doctor Ostrow greatly to endure the annoying safety procedures required for the acceleration and deceleration moments of the spaceship during the journey. Zachary won't make the doctor feel like he's nothing more than a 'rookie' to them on that space cruiser.
He is a junior starshipman. By being a cook on the spaceship he takes some liberties that the other crew members, more controlled by the boatswain, do not dare take. In fact, Di Rocco, on his own initiative, comes into contact with Professor Morbius' robot, provoking the anger of the commander, who immediately formalizes a warning note to be recorded on the spaceman's service status.
Scientific verisimilitude
The arguments that give scientific verisimilitude to the story told in the novel are basically three:
1) History lesson of interplanetary space navigation
2) Humans employ gravitational-driven spaceships
3) Freudian Psychology explains the problem of narrated facts
At the beginning of the novel, in the prologue, there is a summary of the history of Earth's exploration into space. It is said that it all began in 1995, when the first Space Station was put into orbit around the Earth, a time when jet-propelled missiles were still used. The lesson ends with the explorations that starting from 2350 allowed Earthlings to explore distant star systems. In this case, the Earth ships used Q.G. pusher engines. 'Quantum-Gravitum' which were mounted in the center of the spaceship, and therefore the terrestrial spaceships had the shape of 'flying saucers'.
This historical premise is enriched by the names of future physicists and by technical explanations on the extent to which time is dilated for astronauts who travel beyond the speed of light, leading them to return to Earth with an age of only one year, while their peers are twenty older.
In this history lesson of future space exploration it is clear to recognize A. Einstein's theory, a theory that will determine many things that will be part of the novel.
The second argument that lends scientific verisimilitude is the type of spaceship described in the story.
Philip MacDonald abandons jet thrust for his interplanetary spaceship and is right to do so.
In fact, the spaceships mentioned in the story have the shape of flying saucers and use GRAVITATIONAL thrust, just as we would expect from extraterrestrials.
What news is this? Earthlings who build flying saucers?!
Well yes: It's exactly like that.
In MacDonald's novel, the Earthlings are much more advanced than they are in the famous TV series 'Star Trek', where the Enterprise is propelled by external cylindrical thrusters in which it is still necessary to resort to atomic fission to give rise to the physical phenomenon of the curvature of Space-Time. A truly dangerous technological system, due to the emission of radioactivity, for which Mr. Spock will pay the price.
Instead, in the spaceship designed by MacDonald there are no harmful emissions; indeed, it is possible to extract one of the engines, the auxiliary one, to make it work as a radio pulse generator to send interstellar messages.
Maybe the writer's imagination flew too far? Maybe. But everything is consistent with the narrative artifice. What matters is the description of the technical and engineering work that involves the spacemen on the alien planet to set up an enormously powerful transmitter. Not like in some stories, where you just push a button and the message reaches the other side of the galaxy in real time.
The third scientific topic on which the novel is based is the most important, that is, Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory.
In Freudian theory there is consciousness, which is the part of the mind of which the person is aware.
Then there is the subconscious (also called ID or ES), which is the part hidden from consciousness. The subconscious acts independently of consciousness and silently manages cognitive symbols, attributing positive or negative values to them, based on the instincts that move in the subconscious.
And again, there is the preconscious, which in the novel is nicknamed 'middle mind'.
The preconscious, in Freudian theory, is a border area. It is almost the active consciousness, but it is subjected to the logical activities of the unconscious and welcomes its manifestations, very often in a passive way, especially during the hours of sleep. It is, in other words, the place where dreams take shape.
MacDonald's brilliant idea of linking the educational morality of his science fiction novel to a psychological theory allowed him to make it indisputably true and real from a moral point of view, and not just an entertainment story, putting on paper the problem of limit possible future uses and technological applications of the power of the mind.
Creativity in imagination
Science fiction fiction is the product of the fusion of scientific thinking and creative fictional thinking.
However, as I explained on the 'Sci-fi Issues' page of this blog, there are different types of science fiction as there are numerous types of fictional creative thinking. It all depends on what type of creative fantasy thinking merges with scientific thinking.
This novel gives me the opportunity to explain with a practical example what I mean when I distinguish between the types of creative imaginative thoughts.
If in the parameter of scientific verisimilitude I have shown the three main science fiction topics that give the novel a scientific character, now here I am going to explain what type of creative thinking was used in each of the three aforementioned topics.
The historiographical argument that gives substance to the novel's premise is an example of 'historiographical verisimilitude'.
MacDonald's creative imagination made use of a very widespread practice among university professors, which is to distribute teaching compendiums to students to integrate the lesson with additional content.
It is in this need to simulate a didactic activity of erudition that the narrator finds all the useful elements to give, to the product of his imagination as a narrator, an aspect of historical truthfulness. So, in this case, MacDonald made use of his 'historical imagination'.
Historical imagination uses tools such as: the chronology of events marked by dates; mention the names of famous people; cite the sources from which the news is taken and their publication date; cite plausible but invented scientific theories or principles to give the impression of scientific reliability.
This type of historiographical tools, used with a historical method, allow us to produce a historiographic text credible enough to seem true. However, it is completely made up.
Therefore, creativity that is expressed with a rational method, simulating intellectual goals, belongs to the category of RATIONAL SCIENCE FICTION.
The engineering topic of spaceship technology gives rise to a good part of the novel's narrative inventions, thus contributing to its 'technological verisimilitude'.
The shape of the Earth spaceship, the type of engine used, Dr. Ostrow's considerations regarding the experience of traveling beyond the normal laws of space-time, are all narrative inventions that originate thanks to the use of 'technological fantasy' or technological imagination.
Technological imagination is what all engineers and inventors have. Leonardo da Vinci is an example of technological imagination and his inventions are the result of it.
Technological imagination is not the faculty of imagining machines that do not exist in reality and assuming that they can exist in narrative fiction.
To be clear, imagining that a galleon can fly in the sky thanks to a miracle of magic is not an example of technological fantasy, it's just fantasy.
Instead, imagine that that galleon, considered as small as a large boat, can fly because it is suspended in the air by an enormous hot air balloon, then yes, in this case it is a question of technological fantasy, because it imaginatively brings together the appropriate principles of technological sciences.
The technological science fiction narrative inventions present in the novel are not an example of technological creativity since they are based on invented principles of technology. However, these narrative inventions take on the character of technological culture because they imitate technological design principles that belong to real engineering sciences.
Therefore, creativity that is expressed with a rational method, simulating techincal goals, belongs to the category of TECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCE FICTION.
The psychological argument constitutes the heart of the problem around which the story told develops.
In this case, MacDonald does not create a made-up psychological theory that has medical verisimilitude. He uses precisely the 'authentic Freudian psychoanalytic theory' and builds his narrative invention on it, that of the Krell machinery to materialize the ideas of the mind.
In this case, the narrator's creativity continues to be a technological fantasy, due to the fact that his fantasy is applied where the story tell us that the Krell machinery confuses the conscious mental will with the subconscious mental will, which is expressed during the Krell's sleep.
In other words, the Freudian psychological argument only serves to explain a functional flaw in the technological invention of the aliens of the planet Altari-4.
So is it solely technological fantasy that MacDonald uses to write his novel?
Not just this.
In the novel, the alien people of the Krell are presented as a people who had reached the highest peaks of intelligence, despite this, however, they did not understand how the mind worked and, due to their ignorance, they used in a inappropriate way their wonderful invention, causing a planetary disaster, of which they are the only ones guilty.
The concept I have just expressed is the moral meaning that the narrator has constructed using his 'moral imagination' (or moral creativity).
Therefore, it is appropriate to say that this novel, considered in its entirety, develops a theme of MORAL SCIENCE FICTION, which includes the majority of utopian and dystopian fiction.
Moral meaning of the ending
Therefore, it is an ending in which the moral judgment of the entire novel converges; a novel, all in all, of moral science fiction.
The technological legacy of the Krell's fatal intellectual error is, ultimately, destroyed. The entire planet Altair-4 explodes, illuminating the starry night of thousands of worlds in the galaxy, a spectacle which planet Earth also witnesses.
As in every educational story, the natural order of things is re-established and the final 'catharsis' brings everyone's conscience, the characters, the reader and also the writer, back to a condition of positive hope towards the future.
A future told again by a university compendium for the students of Dr. - Professor A. G. Yakimara.
So, does the final conclusion of the novel, its final moral, lie precisely in this 'compendium of technological historiography'?
In short, what does Philip MacDonald want to tell us in his way of concluding the story?
Perhaps his message is a reminder that, no matter how powerful a civilization's technology may become, nothing is as valuable as the study of past history and the understanding of merits earned and mistakes made in the past.
When MacDonald published 'Forbidden Planet' only eleven years had passed since the two atomic explosions on the cities of Japan, causing, in addition to the victims, psychological and moral trauma in people all over the world.
Historiography is a precious resource to which the civil health of any people, of any technological level, is entrusted and it is no coincidence that the name of the professor of technological history cited by MacDonald has a decidedly Japanese assonance.
This name is entrusted with the task of expressing the final judgment.
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