Morbius' Monster From The ID

The Morbius Monster

**Morbius' Monster From The ID** is the antagonist in the 1958 film, Forbidden Planet.

Morbius describes how all other members of the expedition had been killed one by one, by a "planetary force" and how their starship had been vaporized as the last survivors tried to leave in it. Only Morbius, his wife (who later died) and their daughter Altaira were somehow immune. An artifact of the Krell (an advanced race that perished overnight 200,000 years ago), is a 20 square mile (32 km2) underground machine, still functioning, powered by 9,200 thermonuclear reactors. A device that enhances the intellect, which Morbius had used and barely survived, doubling his intellectual capacity, is in a control room of the great Krell machine. When Altaira tells her father she will leave with the ship, all the power meters of the great Krell machine peg to full power. The great Krell machine manifests the monster from the ID of Morbius as an unstoppable force.

## Appearance

**Morbius' Monster From The ID** is invisible until it contacts the power of the forcefield around the ship. It then glows with an electrical outline of its shape. A manifestation of the Monsters of the ID from the power of the Krell Machine. Sourcing from the fears and limitations of the subconscious human mind of Morbius.

## Powers and Abilities

Morbius' Monster From The ID possesses the following powers and abilities:

* Indestructible
* Unstoppable
* Draws ever more power from the Krell machine to make it stronger
* Has no potential limits

## Fate

**Morbius' Monster From The ID** can only be killed by killing its source...Morbius. Realizing this, Morbius confronts the monster and the monster vanishes but the Krell machine, set to auto-destruct by the crew before they leave, destroys Morbius, the planet and the technology.

## Trivia

* The animated sequences of Forbidden Planet, especially the attack of the Id Monster, were created by veteran animator Joshua Meador.
* A close look at the creature shows it to have a small goatee beard, suggesting its connection to Dr. Morbius, the only character with this physical feature.
* This film marked one of the first times a science-fiction project had received a large budget.
* The famous poster for the film shows a menacing robot carrying a struggling pretty girl - a staple of "monster movie" posters from the 1950's. In fact, no such scene occurs in the film itself and the robot portrayed in the poster is of course actually the very likeable Robby the Robot.
* The reaction from the preview audience was so positive that the movie was released as it was, with no further changes.
* Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry has been quoted as saying that this film was a major inspiration for that series.
* Bellerophon is a hero from Greek mythology. His greatest feat was the destruction of the Chimera, a monster who breathed fire.
* The planet on which Edward and Altaira Morbius live is Altair IV, which according to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) is also a Federation planet
* The screenplay by Irving Block and Allen Adler, written in 1952, was originally titled "Fatal Planet". The later screenplay draft by Cyril Hume renamed the film "Forbidden Planet", because this was believed to have greater box-office appeal.
* The sound of the Id monster's footfalls were used in the last scene of Breaking Bad: Crawl Space (2011).
* The lighting effects to imply the body of the invisible "Id monster" as it approaches the ship were the most difficult.
* According to the follow-up movie The Invisible Boy (1957), the C57D spacecraft returned to Earth on March 26, 2309 A.D. at Chicago Spaceport.
* Most of the characters are called by their titles throughout the movie, except for Altaira, who has no title. Curiously, when the Id monster attacks the home, Robby alerts, "Morbius" without the title of Dr.
* Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.
* According to various sources, when the crew members are firing at the Monster and it roars, menacingly moving its head from side to side (before it ultimately kills two of the crew members), the actions of the Monster are, in an "inside joke", actually mimicking those of "Leo the Lion", the MGM mascot who appears at the beginning of this and every other MGM film.
* Ironically, although the movie establishes the term "Id Monster" as outdated and in disuse, it turned in a world wide icon of Sci-Fi since from its release ahead. According to Dr. Morbius, Id Monster refers the irrational and subconscious thoughts of any sensitive and intelligent being, as a distant but still latent memory of the primitive beast which all races emerged, living inside the rational mind to be a figuration of the unleashed and out-of-control instinct where moral values and ideals miss.