Cinefantastique Online

Poster from the original FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956)

The MTV Movie Blog has an interview with J. Michael Straczynski (BABYLON 5), who drops hints -without revealing specifics – about his approach to the upcoming FORBIDDEN PLANET remake:

“I told [producer] Joel [Silver] this is how you do ‘Forbidden Planet’ without pissing on the original [...],” said Straczynski. “When I told [the idea] to him, his eyes lit up. It’s not a remake. It’s not a re-imagining. It’s not exactly a prequel. You’ll have to see it. It’s something that no one has thought of when it comes to this storyline.”

So, it’s not exactly a prequel? Presumably it contains elements of a prequel; otherwise, why mention the conept? Could Straczynski be planning to tell the story of the first, fatal mission to Altair IV, the one that takes place before the events of the original film?

Or perhaps Straczynski is planning to go back even further, back to the time before the Krell race self-immolated in their own scientific excess? He promises to offer a scientifically plausible vision of the aliens, who are known in the old film only by the work they left behind.

“[When coming] up with the Krell backstory and who they are, I sat down with some of the nation’s best minds in astrophysics and planetary geology and A.I. and asked them — based on what we know now — what will a million years from now look like? The goal is to put things in there you’ve never seen before.”

Straczynski promises a film that will be as origianl as the 1956 film was in its day – a new millennium equivalent that will wow modern audiences, not a retro piece of nostalgia.

“At the time it was made it was cutting edge,” Straczynski explained. “[...] People that went to see that film saw things they had never seen before. What we have to do now is have this one be as innovative now as the original was then. It doesn’t mean we should look backwards.”