Kreutznaer, are you thinking of a different movie than Forbidden Planet?
- In FP the monster is not catlike. More of a misshapen humanoid, gorilla, demon?
- In BD it is never stated that the race is killed by it's own creation.
- In BD, the monster feeds on phosphorous. (It calls it 'id' but is later revealed to be simply phosphorous).
- In FP the monster kills because it's creator/manipulator secretly desires it to kill the newly arrived spacemen. In BD the monster kills because of hunger and it's own desire to kill everything. In FP the monster does not, initially, want to harm the daugher, Altaira.
- In FP, the monster does not manipulate energy, but is itself composed purely of energy.
Not really that similar to Black Destroyer. I mean other than it is a space opera.
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Askur
10 years ago
I think the head looks more like a lion or another big cat than anything else (the fact that it is bipedal is not easy to see when you look at its front. I didn't realize it before I saw some artwork from the movie).
In my memory it is actually stated that the race is extinct because of what they created. I don't have the book here and now, so I can't look it up. Either way, the surviving monsters were created by a race that had been extinct for a long time.
I know it's phosphorous, I even mention the differences in the main post, but it's a weird coincidence that ID is referred to in both stories.
The reason for the killing is irrelevant. Both monsters have their own reasons, but it doesn't make much sense for the crew. In both stories the crew is attacked by a monster inside the ship.
In both stories the monsters use energy to destroy solid walls. One is able to manipulate energy while the other use its own energy. The similarities are bigger than the differences.
I never said it was almost identical to Black Destroyer, but the similarities are so clear that I find it likely that they have been inspired by the story.
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CathodeRayTubesRock
10 years ago
Black destroyer is readable online here:
http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___5.htm
Hmmm, you are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I do not see that many similarities between Black Destroyer and Forbidden Planet. One monster is a being that is alive with it's own consciousness and the other is created from the mind by means of machines.
Everything uses energy but the BD 'cat' is rather unique in that it can manipulate the frequency of the atoms composing some matter and the frequency of certain(most) energy. The FP monster simply uses energy supplied to it by the Krill machines. You see a catlike head on the Id monster which I never saw. I saw a biped with a 3-toed footprint, not exactly catlike. To me it always seemed like "Gossamer" from bugs bunny. Which, since it was a Disney animator, might really have been an influence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_%28Looney_Tunes%29#/media/File:Gossamer_restored.jpg
You state that the "similarities are bigger than the differences". This is an unquantifiable statement. I suppose FP is more similar to BD than it is with "Gone with the Wind" but the story of people being killed by space monsters composes what, 80%, of sci-fi movies about space.
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Askur
10 years ago
Both are products of advanced technology from a long lost race. They are both able to use energy in a way that is not possible for humans, like forcing themselves through metal walls. They way they use energy is a little different, but the outcome is the same.
And I was referring to the part when they tries to break through walls as similarities bigger than the differences, not the movie as a whole. All this is already explained in the main post.
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CathodeRayTubesRock
10 years ago
You write "Both are products of advanced technology from a long lost race."
That is not true. I suggest you read Black Destroyer again sometime. Coeurl, the cat-like creature, is not a product of the crumbled ancient civilization. In fact, he was opposed and afraid of that civilization.
This is very clear from the following passage in Black Destroyer (Coeurl is remembering):
"Other memories came suddenly. Of dim days when the city that spread below was the living, breathing heart of an age of glory that dissolved in a single century before flaming guns whose wielders knew only that for the survivors there would be an ever--narrowing supply of id.
It was the remembrance of those guns that held him there, cringing in a wave of terror that blurred his reason. He saw himself smashed by balls of metal and burned by searing flame."
You wrote "They are both able to use technology in a way...". The creature in Forbidden Planet does not use technology at all. That creature is a creation of Morbius.
Anyway, enjoyed discussing SciFi with you. I will bid you adieu on this particular discussion. Cheers!
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magolding
10 years ago
In at least one version of "Black Destoyer", either short story or part of the novel, Coeurl is speculated to have been created by the science of the aliens of the planet, and it is believed that the coeurls destroyed their creators. In the other version Coeurl was a descendant of the civilized aliens.
The Klingon wedding ritual says that the first Klingons destroyed the gods who created them. I speculate that the Klingons were created as weapons or warriors by some other species and later destroyed their creators. I also speculate whether the M-113 salt vampire in "The Man Trap" was one of the intelligent beings of his planet or one of the biological weapons created by their science who ultimately destroyed their creators. Or perhaps the salt vampires where brought to the planet by enemies of the natives.
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