Welshrogue

A mission to look for settlers on a distant planet are shocked to find that there are only two survivors. One of these survivors warns the newcomers that if they don’t leave they will fall prey to the same thing that killed the other settlers.

Loosely based on William Shakesphere’s The Tempest, The Forbidden Planet stars Leslie Nielson and Walter Pidgeon. This is a classic 50′s sci fi movie. It looks like it was made in the 50′s. The spacecraft and sets look like they were designed in the 50′s. Its brilliant. Leslie Nielson plays it straight faced as the commander and the cuts quite a heroic figure. The special effects aren’t great by today’s standard but for the 50′s, its great.

While the plot is perhaps a little simple compared to some, this is still a classic movie. It was the movie that introduced audiences to Robbie the Robot who would go on to star in Lost In Space. It is also the movie that inspired a musical stage show “Return to the Forbidden Planet” and of course, the title was used for a hugely successful line of comic shops.

This is a movie you must see if you enjoy science fiction movies. It is a big stepping stone on the path to movies such as Star Wars.

My wife gets me going.

Ok people, minds out of the gutter I didn’t mean it quite that way. Well she does but I don’t want to talk about that yet, after all, this is early on in the list.

Before I met my wife online, I lived 3000 miles away on a small island called Britain. I had never traveled that far, either by myself or with others but my soon to be wife had visited me, and therefore, I had to overcome my concern (I wouldn’t call it fear) about how strange it looks when planes take off, and fly, by my lonesome, 3000 miles to the great white north for a quick two week date.

It was a challenge to go but looking back, not nearly as big as the challenge I would face a few months later as I stood in Gatwick, looking at planes taking off at some ridiculous angle, about to leave the country where I was born, brought up, and everyone and everything I knew behind. There was one moment where I nearly turned around and went back home. It was a close thing. I was scared that I didn’t know what I was doing (going to a different country to marry a girl I had only seen twice), scared that the plane I was going to sit in wouldn’t actually get off the ground, scared they might show a crappy inflight movie. I was pretty scared of nearly everything I could think of, and probably some things I couldn’t.

But the alternative was to let down this wonderful woman who for some crazy reason, wanted to spend the rest of her natural, and probably un-natural life with me.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks before our 8th wedding anniversary. I seem to have forgotten what it is like to go anywhere. I find excuses for not even going to Niagara Falls (just two hours down the road). I seek reasons why I don’t have to go far. I have forgotten who it was that made me want to travel in the first place and who it is who should be my reason to travel now. Now I have a family, and I can’t think of any reason not to travel with them other than my own laziness, which to be honest, isn’t an excuse.

Time to start digging out the maps…….