Hollywood changed its content and aesthetic due to the film industry’s rapid changes following the Second World War. Between 1939 and 1946, the Hollywood film industry saw considerable growth in producing science fiction films such as Forbidden Planet (Langford, 2010). Their attendance and box office earnings thus fell to approximately half of 1946 levels in just seven years. Numerous factors—the majority of which were outside of the industry—were responsible for the developments. Television succeeded and challenged film as America’s most well-known entertainment source in 1950 (Langford, 2005). Since films could be directly projected into houses, this new medium may reach a wider audience than the one drawn to motion pictures. Hollywood was inhibited from making politically contentious movies due to the creation of HUAC and the subsequent events. Widescreens and color photography played a major role in changing the subject matter of Hollywood and science fiction movies. This essay explores the post-war development and aesthetics of visual effects and the social and cultural ramifications brought about by the increased production of science fiction films like Forbidden Planet.
Hollywood has had a century-long impact on the globe through its films and contributions to the business. Every period Hollywood encounters, from the masterpieces of the golden age to the contemporary blockbusters, brings significant changes to the world of cinema. The inspiration and rivalry from Hollywood propel the international film industry to develop to a higher level and deliver high-caliber feature films to consumers worldwide. The 1940s significantly impacted speaking patterns, political opinions, fashion, and moral attitudes thanks to films. Most Americans in the post-World War II era possessed TVs, which took the place of cinema as the culture’s primary influence (Goller, 2018). Through the employment of monsters, space exploration, urban modernism, and analog visual effects, science fiction of the postwar era echoed some aspects of the Second World War (Grimsley et al., 2022). Through the narrative allusion, historical context, and location of the science fiction films of the 1950s, the studio system had developed and was representing the modernity of the postwar age. Hollywood’s move from warlike to postmodernist condition is reflected in its ideas and methods for producing visual effects. Science fiction uses new technical advancements and structural changes in production processes to create visual effects.
The studio system aggressively regulated traditional Hollywood as the production process gave rise to the development of digital effects, particularly with the advent of the blockbuster idea and the appearance of new computer technology. The defining trait of compressing time and space present in postwar films emerged with the shift from Fordism to flexible accumulation. It indicates that doing so results in a progression from analog visual effects like front projection to digital effects like rotoscoping. The visual effects of the 1930s and 1940s are very different from those of the 1950s and after because back projection and matte painting, which were popular filmmaking techniques, were used in the latter years.
The Forbidden Planet marked the start of a period of science fiction in which the Cold War served as the primary setting. The author of the Forbidden Planet movie, Fred Wilcox, eloquently described the cultural effects of World War II (Gilster, 2017). In the movie, humans are used in place of aliens and are depicted wearing uniforms to demonstrate the rigid hierarchy throughout the service levels. For comparison purposes, the outfit in Forbidden Planet closely mimics the uniform used by the American Navy in the Second World War. The main difference was command microphones in the waists, which gave the uniform its futuristic laser blast coloration. It is deduced that the lifestyles displayed were too common to transfuse with those of the World War II era (Grimsley et al., 2022). The uniformed troops in the science fiction movies the Forbidden Planet and the original Star Wars follow the hierarchy and the flashy dogfight sequences to symbolize modernism and postwar times in the flimsy magazine settings. Orders and answers in the crew’s discourse represent the standard military structure.
It is important to note that Forbidden Planet has a distinctive speech style that distinguishes it from other science fiction films. The film’s depiction of the Second World War’s atmosphere is more accurate thanks to the planet Altair IV’s spatial setting. The crew’s actions are reminiscent of what World War II troops performed during their free time. All the personnel, including Farmen, Dr. Ostrow, and Adams, are enchanted by Altaira in the scene where she first appears. Farmen makes an effort to make small talk with her by proposing they have coffee. Altaira gets a call from Chief Quinn in another scenario when Adam arrives for a view monitoring check-up from the spaceship. This scene vividly captures the image of soldiers during World War II. It exemplifies the common scenes in war movies where soldiers are on leave, like in Fred Zinnemann’s From Here to Eternity (1953). Although the Forbidden Planet’s setting, in this case, attempts to deal with the future, it focuses the audience’s attention more on the past rather than the future (Gilster, 2017). The Cold War battlefields are also shown in the science fiction landscapes using a cinematic style.
Science fiction movies feature monster characters that reflect Cold War-era paranoia and keep the possibility of an enemy attack alive, such as Darth Vader in Star Wars and Hal in Forbidden Planet. The movies place a high value on reason and justify the deformed repercussions of the machine civilization through the humanity of characters like Luke’s Force, Bowman’s intelligence, and Adam’s leadership. The films make a clear distinction between wartime development and post-war growth. Cel animation is extensively utilized to support the Forbidden Planet’s usage of Freudian psychoanalysis (Gilster, 2017). Hollywood used the subjective fundamentally modern idea exclusively, giving the film a postwar atmosphere (Bordwell et al., 2003). According to Frank (2016), Cel animation only appears when there is intense dramatic tension; in Forbidden Planet, the monster only appears at such times.
Audiences only notice the monsters’ footprint motions because they are hidden. It can only be seen when it collides with an electric barrier or is struck by rays from crew members’ ray weapons. Cel animation depicts the creature’s shape and shows the Cold War era’s escalating tension. Freudian psychoanalysis is explained in the Forbidden Planet movie, one of the most effective forms of psychotherapy from the 1950s through the 1970s. The monster stands in for Dr. Morbius, who had an unhealthy obsession with emerging technology, much like the United States had when it came to obtaining it during World War II. Dr. Morbius tries to disguise the Krell technology from the C-57D crew in one scenario to remind viewers of the World War II era’s use of new technology. The Altair IV is sacrificed to illustrate the dual desire and dread of technology during times of war. Dr. Morbius’s film representation is of the intense fascination with Cold War superior technology, as per Freudian psychoanalysis.
In terms of visual effects, Tron served as the first paradigm for time-space compression in the 1950s. Both the production process and the movie itself exhibit time-space compression. In a scene from the movie Tron, Flynn is hanging from a Solar Sailer that Tron and Yori are controlling to use computer-generated live-action video of Flynn and the Solar Sailer to create the landscape. The picture includes projections of several eras and locations, while a virtual camera records the time-space compression. This type of digital compression may be seen as a representation of how cultural perceptions are compressed in both time and place. The CGIs were created at several periods and locations and then condensed into one location and time. Bricolage, taken from the scientific film’s universe, makes up the stylistic aspects of the Tron movie. Tron takes inspiration for the depiction of space from older space science fiction movies. For instance, in the scientific films, the Sark’s Transporter flying in the air resembles the mothership sailing in space.
From the 1950s through the 1980s, when the Soviet Union and the US were still engaged in the Cold War, science fiction has included exploring space as a recurring theme. The US has focused its technology and resources on space exploration, culminating in the Apollo Rocket launches during the 1960s and 1970s that marked the end of the space race (Bordwell et al., 2003). It demonstrates a new era of space exploration, an important component of Cold War policy.
The science fiction film was influenced by the space exploration grant story, which started in 1957 during the Cold War. The interest in the outer planet during the 1950s post-war period was reflected in the science fiction movies 20 Million Miles to Earth by Nathan Juran (1957), Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Don Siegel (1956), and The Forbidden Planet. The competition for space exploration reached its peak between the 1960s and 1970s, when more science fiction new films were released, like A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick in 1968 (Chris 2019). The usage of analog visual effects in science fiction movies demonstrates the effectiveness of the post-war studio system.
Front projection and matte painting are two effects that are frequently used in them. Hollywood studios employed matte painting to substitute sets since they were difficult to build and cut the expense of the filming site. It increased the productivity and efficiency of the producers’ work. Front and rear projection, on the contrary, enhance the aesthetics of the modernity of science fiction films produced under the Fordist economic system by relocating the background scenery previously captured while filming the theatre’s historical attractions.
The first project included the Zoptic System, a program shown in Superman nowadays. The program broadens Superman’s vision throughout his protracted battle. Motion control technology allowed for the unrestricted capture of realistic dogfight scenes at the Hollywood studio for the Star Wars film (Bordwell et al., 2003). Visual effects from the analog era may be seen in Star Wars, Forbidden Planet, and A Space Odyssey as a reflection of Cold War and Post-war advancement. The hit picture Forbidden Planet from 1954 is an example and helps viewers see the value of matte paintings.
Furthermore, 2001: A Space Odyssey’s visual effects show a revolutionary film. The front projection gives a good description of the beauty of space. The film has wonderful synchronicity between the musical score and the visual imagery, and it also has some intellectual depth that elevates it to the level of the arts. The majority of science fiction movies are set in cities, and Superman uses a representation of a modern metropolitan as its primary setting. In the Superman movie, Clark Kent moves from Smallville to Metropolis to pursue his desire to help others. The story of a country kid moving to a city in search of success has a narrative of upward modernism that gives Superman a leitmotif for urban modernization. As an illustration of postwar progress, Superman soars into the Metropolis Skyscraper.
In conclusion, as seen by the central themes of The Forbidden Planet, science fiction is enhanced by a feeling of awe, which broadens its significance. Technology level has not changed throughout time, and Forbidden Planet has proven to be more tenacious than first anticipated. The movie Forbidden Planet is a great illustration of how films may easily get viewers. The movie uses several postwar Hollywood filming innovations, each of which has an important influence. The forbidden planet demonstrates why science fiction is the perfect medium for fully examining the concerns of Cold War politics. The science fiction movie tackles questions of gender and sexual politics in a way that is well-tied to the context of 1950s America. In general, science fiction in the 1950s gave viewers a creative interpretation of a cultural makeup that enabled individuals to combine postwar advancements and physical nexuses like America.
Reference List
Bordwell, D., Staiger, J. and Thompson, K. (2003) “The Classical Hollywood Cinema,” 1(15), pp. 371–405. Web.
Chris. (2019). The Ultimate List of Films Set in Space or on Other Planets. Space Facts. Web.
Frank, H. (2016) “Traces of the World: Cel Animation and Photography,” Oxford Scholarship Online, 11(1). Web.
Gilster, P. (2017) Creating our own final frontier: Forbidden planet, centauri dreams – imagining and planning interstellar exploration. Web.
Goller, J. (2018) The War of the Worlds (1953) vs. war of the worlds (2005), Spectrum Culture. Web.
Grimsley, M. et al. (2022) World War II Archives, HistoryNet. Web.
Langford, B. (2010) Post-classical Hollywood: Film industry, style and ideology since 1945. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 45-72 [chapter 2, ‘The Communication of Ideas’]
Langford, Barry (2005) Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, [Chapter 8: The Science-Fiction Film] pp. 182-206. Web.