Scene VII

The climax of the film and, critically, the climax of why this book existed in the first place!

We’re back at The Residence.

Adams puts first dibs on getting his brain boosted, but Ostrow is evasive enough to allow himself some leeway on that competition. The front ‘door’ (for which substitute some form of trendy shower curtain. Honestly, can’t a house with automated security shutters afford a decent oak-paneled front door?) opens. Robby is in sentry mode, which is the same as his normal mode just a tad less polite; there’s no “gentleman” at the end of his ’no access’ message. Adams utters a classic Kirk-esque line:

“Maybe if we reasoned with him,” he says, and gives Ostrow a look that’s clearly out of section 93(b) of the United Planetary space manual.

Robby kens all this and tells them in a roundabout way that he’s fully conversant with United Planetary regs so they shouldn’t bother. Adams and Ostrow, clearly aghast that a copy of the secret regs could have been compromised, have a go anyway with predictable consequences. 

Ostrow comments that there’s a paradox here. Robby can’t harm them, so they should just be able to walk in. Robby thanks him for this philosophical enlightenment but stands firm. Ain’t no uppity humans getting across the threshold tonight. Robby knows full well what Adams is after, and protecting Altaira’s virginity is one of his prime directives. The officers begin what looks like the beginning of a Greek wrestling dance. They are saved from embarrassment by Altaira, who arrives on the scene and obviously disagrees with Robby’s protective instincts. She tells Robby to get out of the way, using an emergency override called Archimedes.

Adams and Alta head to a shadowy corner, giving Ostrow a prime-time opportunity to leg it to the lab. The lovers indulge in some necking. The only purpose of this is to allow insufficient passage of time enough for Ostrow to reappear, carried by Robby. Poor Doc has what he wanted, but the price has been too high. Still, he’s able to deduce what Morbius hasn’t. Standing back from the problem, Ostrow understands that the Krell had forgotten about the monsters residing in their subconscious. If only the Krell had read Bertrand Russell. 

Ostrow dies. Adams says “Oh Doc” in the same manner I say “Oh Mac” when my dog does a doo doo inside the house. Morbius enters and sheds not a tear over Ostrow’s demise. Much like when an oft warned child injures itself he says, ‘I told you so’. Alta, no longer struggling with which side to be on, cuts her father to the bone by calling him by his surname. OMG the ridicule! If either of my daughters called me “Glennon” I’d know I was in some serious s**t. 

Adams figures out the conundrum of what happened to the Krell. Morbius accepts the reasoning, clearly hearing the truth of it. But the (loosely defined) scientist in him does not reach the obvious conclusion, perhaps even now not allowing his subconscious to release the truth. Adams already has it, and he’s about to ‘drop the mic’ on Morbius when Robby interrupts. Something is approaching. Clearly this isn’t one of Alta’s (remaining) cuddly friends. Morbius dims the lights and we see an invisible foe crashing through the perennials. So the creature lives even if Morbius is awake. The id sleeps not, but drives the machine yet the conscious should rule it.

Morbius activates the security permitter. No-one looks relieved as the barriers come down. And it’s then proven that Morbius should have gone for the gold security package. The monster is slashing through the metal like…oh let’s go for ‘a knife through butter’ as the cliche of choice. Morbius orders Robby to kill it but fails to have foreseen that, when he programmed the Archimedes emergency override for the front door, an override for the Three Laws could also have been useful.

The trio make a run for it as the sub-standard Altarian concrete gives way. In the lab, Adams spins the roulette wheel of the door mechanism to make sure the monster can’t unlock it from the outside. This seems foolish - Adams has seen the monster and surely can’t imagine it twirling the delicate instrument to open the door. The monster is Hulk not Banner; smash seems to be its modus operandi. Now Adams delivers to poor Morbius, who’s still reeling from the realization that the monster is him, the coup d’état. It was Morbius who caused the death of the Bellerophon crew. Even back then, the machine was ready to do his bidding and rend them limb from limb. And wasn’t Morbius secretly glad? It wasn’t his fault if he was immune. 

The Krell lab door is holding out for now, but it’s clear that time isn’t on their side. As the gauges go increasingly crazy, like some reverse countdown clock, Adams’ hair gets more and more out of place, and Morbius is practically pulling his goatee out. Altaira, on the other hand, looks stoic. One wonders if she’s weighing her odds. Would the monster kill her? Adams yes, but her? Could her father kill her for defying him? 

Adams pulls his blaster, ready to pop a cap in Morbius’ a*s in order to save himself and Alta. The door, white hot now, begins to cave in. Quite obvious behind it is a large prod that’s being used to push the molten metal into the room. For having molten metal on set I forgive this. It adds a sense of authenticity to the production.

We don’t see the monster enter, however Walter Pidgeon goes into epic “What have I done?” acting mode.  

Now dear reader, I take this opportunity to thank you for your patience. You have arrived at the seed of this book’s existence. The veritable zit I have been writing for over a year to burst. The worm in my mind that has been torturing me for decades since I first saw the film. 

This next part of the move is so incredible that it defies logic. We see Morbius instruct Adams on how to ‘throw the switch’ on planetary detonation. This can be summarized in the following (user manual) format:

1) Turn disc,

2) Push switch.

 Nice job. You now have 24 hours to reach minimum safe distance, which is 100 million miles. Oh, by the way an irreversible chain reaction is now in progress. 

Bejesus! There are two major issues here, even ignoring the obvious, but required for the plot, question of why Altair IV has a planetary self-destruct system in the first place?

Firstly, as Morbius stated at the beginning of the film, this lab is where Krell children came to be tested for intelligence. Now I’m sure most of them were fine, upstanding young Krell whom their parents were proud of. They had perfect manners and high IQ’s. “Oh, little neruibvieurbv is such an angel, s/he/it/they would never do anything naughty. neruibvieurbv, get away from that disc!”. But what of the Krell Bart Simpson or Eric Cartman?  Are you telling me the Krell were so confident in their kids that the “I only turned my back on you for a minute and you’ve [insert terrible thing your child has done]” scenario never happened? Any parent knows that you don’t leave dangerous objects lying around for your kids to play with. And they don’t come more dangerous than two simple devices that will cause the planet’s annihilation. My three cats could trigger that planetary detonation system given thirty minutes in that lab! Perhaps this is a cunning attempt by the writers to actually create an alien civilization that humans cannot relate to?  

The second issue is: where’s the failsafe? In Alien it seemed to take Ripley about two hours to activate the Nostromo’s self-destruct system. The poor thing had an alien practically up her a*s, and she had to read the damn instructions on the box! She had to fiddle with twiddly knobs, push little buttons and put serious effort into throwing levers designed only to be pulled down by the strapping Parker. How many failsafes does Altair IV’s self-destruct system have? None. It’s a shocking design flaw. Even the Martians in Total Recall managed to prevent anyone activating their air generation machine unless they had a Martian handprint (luckily, Arnie has big hands). And…Ripley was at least able to try and reverse the Nostromo’s self-destruct. OK she failed. But only just, and she did get to call Mother a “b***h” for sticking to the binary letter of her programming. 

The bottom line is it’s all simply too much for me to suspend disbelief about. In fact, for me the film comes crashing down at this point. I mean really, the script writers couldn’t come up with at least a nominal failsafe? Cross reference any nuclear sub trying to shoot its load: Crimson Tide for example. Think about The Andromeda Strain and the hoops the Wildfire scientists had to go through to stop the atomic self-destruct sequence. Or when Kirk, Scotty and Chekov engaged the Enterprise’s self-destruct at the end of The Search for Spock. OK I won’t labor the point; it is what it is. I suffer through every viewing of Forbidden Plane by squirming at this part. Onwards…

Morbius looks ‘done for’ (somehow). Alta’s expression, the sudden drop in music and the diminishing gauge readings tell us that he has snuffed it.

Cut to space. Adams announces they’re 98.6  million miles away and “clear now”. Oh I’m sorry, are you clear? Morbius said 100 million miles. I imagine he got that from the Krell records, and I also imagine that the Krell were a pretty damned accurate race. So actually Commander, you’re still in the blast radius and in danger of getting your newly re-set hair singed. Serves you right. Robby is along for the ride and proving a better astrogator than Jerry Farman ever was. Adams and Alta (wearing her ‘Blue Riding Hood’ outfit) go to the view screen to watch the end of Altair IV. Adams points off screen to “the bright spec below the star”. We think we’re going to see it, but when the view changes it’s a mess of bright specs. The explosion occurs right in the middle of the screen.

Adams reminds us of all that has been lost, not least the Krell’s entire knowledge. Perhaps that’s not bad, all thing’s considered. He then gets philosophical and gives Alta a pep talk which, although sounding complimentary about Morbius, sub-textually accuses her father of playing God and getting what he deserved. Perhaps this was a subtle message from the writers to post-WWII nuclear scientists. Harnessing the atom might lead humanity to the same fate as the Krell. If you play with fire, you’re going to get burnt. 

C-57D fades into space. 

THE END