Forbidden Planet Morbius's job

[Gov Kodos]

Why would a mission to a desert planet need a philologist? I can imagine an early survey found the Krell labs, but needed one to figure out the language. The mission with Morbius could have been classified to keep knowledge of the Krell technology secret. Everything on the planet happened so fast, Earth got no word and assumed everything was fine. Something like that would be fun for a prequel movie for me.

 

[Redfern]

Yeah, if the Beleraphon (sp?) was truly the first expedition to Altair 4, it does seem odd to have someone skilled at deciphering languages. Certainly the crew of C57D news of the Krell's existence with genuine surprise.

Of course, the real life reason is that the narrative needed a character who'd have some skill at understanding the alien language. But it does raise the "coincidence factor" to near "aww, come on!" levels.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Christopher]

...the Beleraphon (sp?)...

Bellerophon. A hero from Greek mythology, slayer of the Chimaera and rider of Pegasus (despite what Clash of the Titans claims).

was truly the first expedition to Altair 4, it does seem odd to have someone skilled at deciphering languages. Certainly the crew of C57D news of the Krell's existence with genuine surprise.

Well, when the C57D approached the planet, they scanned for signs of habitation and technology and didn't find any. This implies their sensor technology is not sophisticated enough to confirm or refute the presence of intelligent life without going there directly. Therefore, the organizers of the Bellerophon expedition wouldn't have known for certain whether they'd find signs of life or not. Even if their instruments were sensitive enough to detect, say, radio signals or atmospheric pollution or the lights of large cities from parsecs away, they couldn't be sure a planet didn't have preindustrial inhabitants or the ruins of a dead civilization.

And given that travel times between star systems are on the order of a year even with hyperdrive, you can't just pop in, take a quick look, and go back to equip yourself properly. You'd have to assemble a team that could cope with any contingency. So it makes sense to have a philologist aboard just in case you do find an alien language. And if they didn't, Morbius was probably cross-trained in another discipline or two so he'd still be useful.

 

[Gov Kodos]

A philologist to an uninhabited planet just in case? That sounds like the all purpose adventurer in D&D. The player who tries to say they have every damned thing under the sun with them. The C57D did detect an unknown energy source while in orbit, as I recall. A survey mission could have detected that and the Bellerophon mission was later sent to explore it. A philologist could have been assigned on the belief that such an energy source was likely from a civilization that was otherwise undetectable.

 

[Christopher]

A philologist to an uninhabited planet just in case?

You missed the point. They wouldn't know whether it was inhabited or not until they got there. And naturally every crewmember would be crosstrained, just as a matter of common sense (so you'd have a backup if your main expert in a given field were killed). It seems to me that Morbius must've had some skills in engineering as well as linguistics. Sure, he drew upon the Krell technology to build Robbie and his home, but just knowing how to read the equipment isn't the same as knowing how to use it practically -- even with a brain boost. I mean, there are a lot of smart people out there who couldn't fix a car engine if their lives depended on it.

 

[Gov Kodos]

A philologist to an uninhabited planet just in case?

You missed the point. They wouldn't know whether it was inhabited or not until they got there. And naturally every crewmember would be crosstrained, just as a matter of common sense (so you'd have a backup if your main expert in a given field were killed). It seems to me that Morbius must've had some skills in engineering as well as linguistics. Sure, he drew upon the Krell technology to build Robbie and his home, but just knowing how to read the equipment isn't the same as knowing how to use it practically -- even with a brain boost. I mean, there are a lot of smart people out there who couldn't fix a car engine if their lives depended on it.

I get the point, but why a philologist at all to a planet with no intelligent life known to exist there? What reason for the just in case which needs a philologist, and presumably someone else cross trained as one as I guess your scenario implies? That would seem to suggest intelligent life on just about every inhabitable world on the FP Universe in order to justify such a just in case need. Especially when the crew is so small, about 20 going by the number buried according to Morbius, and the C57D isn't much larger. That's a large proportion of the crew with a useless skill set should there be no intelligent life on the planet. Cookie's earthy complaint about 'no beer, no pool parlors, no women, nothing to do but throw rocks at tin cans and we've got to bring our own tin cans.' would suggest intelligent life isn't all that common so as to need linguistic experts just in case.

 

[Klaus]

If Morbius told you his REAL job, he'd have to send his secret id out to murder you...

 

[Gov Kodos]

If Morbius told you his REAL job, he'd have to send his secret id out to murder you...

Extinguishing burning Van Allan Belts on alien planets?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Whatever happened to the JMS reboot of this film, by the way?

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ It's dead, thankfully.

We don't really know anything about the universe of Forbidden Planet. Perhaps there is a high percentage of worlds with intelligent life of some kind or ruins of ancient civilizations. Or maybe they meant to hire a philatelist to set up the colony's postal system, but they spelled it wrong in the ad.

 

[Christopher]

Or maybe they thought a "fillologist" was the guy who filled the fuel tanks.

 

[DWF]

Or maybe they thought a "fillologist" was the guy who filled the fuel tanks.

I thought that was Earl Holliman's job.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Whatever happened to the JMS reboot of this film, by the way?

^^ It's dead, thankfully.

Why thankfully? I would have liked to see it!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I get the point, but why a philologist at all to a planet with no intelligent life known to exist there?

Because it takes a long time and a great effort to get places in Forbidden Planet compared to Star Trek, and the implication of the twenty year gap before checking up on the Belleorphon party suggests that it was an even more arduous journey in Morbius's day. The humans in FP are very much conscious of the possibility of finding intelligent life (Adams and Ostrow discuss this directly in a scene cut from the final film), so it's reasonable that the UP would send a few specialists who would be important to a first contact along on a long-range scientific mission.

Note that the Bellerophon doesn't seem to have been a military craft like the C-57D - the only crew members specifically mentioned other than the captain were scientists, whereas the only apparent scientist on the C-57D may be Ostrow.

 

[Gov Kodos]

I get the point, but why a philologist at all to a planet with no intelligent life known to exist there?

Because it takes a long time and a great effort to get places in Forbidden Planet compared to Star Trek, and the implication of the twenty year gap before checking up on the Belleorphon party suggests that it was an even more arduous journey in Morbius's day. The humans in FP are very much conscious of the possibility of finding intelligent life (Adams and Ostrow discuss this directly in a scene cut from the final film), so it's reasonable that the UP would send a few specialists who would be important to a first contact along on a long-range scientific mission.

Note that the Bellerophon doesn't seem to have been a military craft like the C-57D - the only crew members specifically mentioned other than the captain were scientists, whereas the only apparent scientist on the C-57D may be Ostrow.

That sounds good, if intelligent life is commonly found on habitable planets. It would have been good to have that cut scene for me. Otherwise, the captain's curiosity at discovering Morbius's job seems to indicate having a philologist on such an expedition isn't really common. Or his perspective is just shaped by the military, and doesn't see the need for such an academic subject on an exploratory mission. I imagine robot probes would be useful in exploration in the FP Universe since travel time is long in interstellar flight. A robot probe could have detected the power signature of the Great Machine, just as the C57D did, and the crew was assembled on a belief in a high likelihood of intelligent life on Altair IV.

 

[Klaus]

There's no indication IIRC that this is the first time intelligent life [or its remnants] have been discovered... so preparing for it might well have been standard operating procedure.

 

[Gov Kodos]

There's no indication IIRC that this is the first time intelligent life [or its remnants] have been discovered... so preparing for it might well have been standard operating procedure.

Going by the ship's armaments, and the Doctor's allusion to life elsewhere in the galaxy when talking about the cast, and that philologists are sent on space expeditions, it would be fair to believe that intelligent alien life exists in the FP galaxy. There's nothing that suggests how common that life might be, though, to warrant sending a specialist in a field that really has no application for survival without being reasonably sure sufficiently sentient alien life is present.

 

[Christopher]

^Again, it stands to reason that anyone on an expedition like that would be cross-trained and be able to do more than one job.

What is odd, however, is bringing a philologist instead of a linguist. Linguistics is the study of languages, while philology is specifically the study of the historical development of languages, or the study of a language's history and literary traditions. Maybe that's not the best specialization for deciphering an alien language for the first time -- although a comparative philologist could be good at deciphering the relationships between different languages used by different nations on an alien world, and facilitating the translation of multiple tongues.

Maybe they couldn't manage to corral a proper linguist who fit their other requirements, and Morbius was the closest fit available. Indeed, perhaps that was partly because he had cross-training in other useful disciplines like engineering, as I suggested above.

 

[Gov Kodos]

^Again, it stands to reason that anyone on an expedition like that would be cross-trained and be able to do more than one job.

What is odd, however, is bringing a philologist instead of a linguist. Linguistics is the study of languages, while philology is specifically the study of the historical development of languages, or the study of a language's history and literary traditions. Maybe that's not the best specialization for deciphering an alien language for the first time -- although a comparative philologist could be good at deciphering the relationships between different languages used by different nations on an alien world, and facilitating the translation of multiple tongues.

Maybe they couldn't manage to corral a proper linguist who fit their other requirements, and Morbius was the closest fit available. Indeed, perhaps that was partly because he had cross-training in other useful disciplines like engineering, as I suggested above.

Maybe someone out of college, BA, maybe even MA, and also perhaps computer science for statistical analysis of xenolinguistics I can imagine being picked up. But a full on professor with a PhD and other alphabet collections? Why would such a person put their career in mothballs on a maybe of encountering an alien language to study. Like Hoshi Sato, unless the alien language is a guarantee, why go?

 

[Christopher]

Maybe he was escaping from some scandal back home.