Forbidden Planet (1956) is the movie for this Sunday’s “monsterdon” watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

  • Just start watching that movie this Sunday, May 25, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT which is 1am Monday UTC
  • and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
  • I usually open two web browser windows side-by-side on a computer. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.

How to watch the movie:

this landmark film is considered one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s,[4] a precursor of contemporary science fiction cinema.
…
Forbidden Planet’s effects team was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Special Effects at the 29th Academy Awards. Tony Magistrale describes it as one of the best examples of early techno-horror.[10] In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
…
At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 94% based on 51 reviews from critics, averaging 8.20/10.[25] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that everyone who worked on the film certainly “had a barrel of fun with it. And, if you’ve got an ounce of taste for crazy humor, you’ll have a barrel of fun, too.”[26] Variety wrote: “Imaginative gadgets galore, plus plenty of suspense and thrills, make the Nicholas Nayfack production a top offering in the space travel category.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet

  • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
    5·
    14 days ago

    This one is actually not too bad, plus it has young Leslie Nielsen!

    • Sergio@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      4·
      14 days ago

      Leslie Nielsen? Young? Surely you’re joking!

      I think one of the characters in it is called “Morbius” too.

      • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
        4·
        14 days ago

        Surely you’re joking!

        😬

        Seriously though, it’s kind of weird seeing him in a non-comedy role

        • egregious philbin@retro.social
          3·
          14 days ago

          @smeg @Sergio He was excellent as the captain in The Poseidon Adventure.

          I don’t think he’d have nearly been as good a comedic actor without the serious background, since so much of the comedy is based on subversion of drama tropes.

          • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
            4·
            14 days ago

            Also his comedy is so dead pan that he’s basically still doing the serious role!

  • klu9@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    11 days ago

    My 1st #Monsterdon and 1st watch party. Man, the posts were coming thick and fast (1-6 per scond!). I don’t think I could handle it with a movie I hadn’t already seen.

    Great fun, at least the posts I was able to read ;)

    • Sergio@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      3·
      11 days ago

      aw yeah especially if you post, you’re gonna miss a bunch of other posts. Luckily the movies are usually not the sort of thing that requires your full attention. but it’s inevitable to miss a lot of posts.

      btw if you want to “replay” the relevant posts check out: https://monsterdon-replay.gerlach.dev/ it will replay them in a browser window at the right time so you can watch the movie at the same time.

  • klu9@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    14 days ago

    Watched it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, great movie and great spooky all-electronic score (the first ever, apparently).

    Posted about it on c/RaygunGothic, also posted the watch party too.

    Watched it on Peertube free of adverts, if anyone wants a Fediverse option.

    • Sergio@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      2·
      13 days ago

      O yeah thanks about the note regarding the peertube link, I added it to the options. I gotta figure out how that works one of these days.

      • klu9@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        13 days ago

        Re how it works, as far as I can tell, a viewer doesn’t have to do anything special. Just go to the link and press play, just like YouTube. (You don’t even need to have an account or be logged in.)

        Also, you can download without any special tools or tricks: just click on the three-dot menu below the video and choose “Download”.

        The real difference (I think, I’m not an expert) is behind the scenes. Instead of the video data coming just from a single instance, it can also comes from other instances and even from other viewers (so if multiple people are viewing the same video at the same time, they are sharing the work of serving the file, like a Bittorrent P2P swarm).

        Videos are made available via HTTP to download, but playback favors a peer-to-peer playback using HLS and WebRTC P2P… Users connected to the platform act as relay points that send pieces of video to other users, lessening the bandwidth of each to the server and thus allowing smaller hardware to operate at a lower cost.