The rumor had said JMS' new script was a "continuation" of the 1956 original, in which Altair 6 somehow doesn't blow up after all. Writes Babylon 5 creator JMS:

That report is totally incorrect. It's not going to be retro, and it's not going to be a continuation. When Altair 4 blows up, it blows up. I have, however, found a way to honro (sic) the original movie without in any way besmirching it in order to do this iteration. Once folks find out what we're actually going to do, I think they'll be most pleased. Forbidden Planet remains one of my favorite films of all time, and I wouldn't even think about doing this project if I didn't think there was a way to do it that would not in any way diminish the original...which is why this is the the first development in years to actually get to the script stage. Everybody involved is very excited by the approach.

Sounds as though it's more a remake than a continuation, although all this talk of a new approach also makes me wonder if JMS is playing into the new fad for remakes that are also quasi-sequels, sort of the way the recent Hulk movie half-acknowledged, half-supplanted the original. Or the way the Tin Man miniseries hinted that its Dorothy had had a great-grandmother who also visited Oz. The big question, though, is will we have a retro Robby the Robot? It's probably not up to JMS, since it's a design decision, and it probably depends how well Earth Stood Still, with its retro-looking Gort, does. Of course, if Earth Stood Still does really badly, this may be the last we hear of a new Forbidden Planet anyway. [JMS News]

Ain't It Cool News is reporting that the new movie, to be written by Babylon 5's Straczynski and produced by Joel Silver, will be a "companion piece" to, and "more of a continuation" of, the 1956 movie, including an appearance by Lost In Space star Robby himself, and complete with that authentic mid-20th Century futurist look:

As for the look of the film, it will apparently be an "enormous, giant, retro sci-fi movie"; in other words, they're going to implement the design of the original rather than attempt something modern. As Harry said, nothing "sleek or chromy" like Fox would do.

Between this, Star Trek's flashback to the '60s and the announcement of a new Buck Rogers movie, it's beginning to look as if the future is all about nostalgia for the Hollywood studios. Whoever is sitting on those Barbarella rights, it's time to get that movie into production as quickly as possible to cash in.

We've Got New Details On That Joel Silver/J. Michael Straczynski "Remake" Of FORBIDDEN PLANET! [Ain't It Cool]

The Hollywood Reporter says that Straczynski - currently hot again in Hollywood thanks to his script for Clint Eastwood's The Changeling, after semi-retreating into comic book work like Amazing Spider-Man and Thor -is scripting the project for Joel Silver's Silver Pictures. This isn't the first attempt to remake the 1956 classic, however; Forbidden Planet has been passed around from studio to studio and director to director for years, having been a potential project for The Chronicles of Riddick's director David Twohy and James Cameron, amongst others. No word, yet, on who would direct this version.

'Changeling' scribe on 'Forbidden Planet' [Hollywood Reporter]

Robby the Robot, star of 1955 special effects blockbuster Forbidden Planet and later a main "charater" on the TV show Lost in Space, was the creation of legendary production designer Robert Kinoshita. Apparently one of his biggest inspirations for the globular humanoid bot was washing machine tubs. Kinoshita had worked on those before his career in the movies. The comparison sounds strange to us today, until you look back and see what washing machines looked like in the 1940s, when Kinoshita worked on them. This picture shows the odd similarities, with the bulbous roundness and strange silver knobs sticking out.

The HAL 9000 computer which famously refused to open the pod bay door in the 1969 movie 2001 was inspired by surveillance cameras which filmmaker Stanley Kubrick saw around London as CCTVs were being put in place. Author Arthur C. Clarke, who worked with Kubrick adapting his novel for the screen, confirms that HAL was inspired by "television cameras in cities" in an interview.

Here is a rather odd reverse-inspiration. The exoskeleton that Ripley used to fight big mama alien in Aliens is frequently mentioned by the designers for exoskeletons that might be used by soldiers or disabled people. Here you can see Ripley's cool device, and the exoskeleton for soldiers it inspired.

Since the special effects designers for Machine City in Matrix: Revolutions were located in San Francisco, it's probably no surprise that they based it in part on the San Francisco skyline. Effects designer Craig Hayes said in an interview that one of the first things he and his crew did was go out on the San Francisco Bay, about 8 miles from San Francisco, to see how the city would look from a distance. That gave them a sense of how to build Machine City from Neo's point of view as he zoomed into it.

Here you can see the hot fudge sundae that became the T-1000. Director and effects maven James Cameron said that when he was first conceiving of the liquid metal Terminator, he thought a lot in terms of texture. How should it ooze? How should the reflections look? In an interview, he admitted:

I wanted the effect of the T-1000 to look like a spoon going into hot fudge; it dimples down, then flows up over and closes. That's the look I wanted. You have to work with the viscosity in order to get that look just right.

When Steven Spielberg set out to make futuristic computers for Minority Report, he didn't mess around. He went straight to a research group at MIT, called the Tangible Media Group, which thinks up next-generation interfaces. The group told him that gesture-commands would be the wave of the future, and even showed him a bunch of prototypes — some of which are now in use, several years later. You can see an early gesture-controlled prototype here, on the left. And there's Tom Cruise doing his Minority Report gesture thing on the right.

And finally, there are the eXistenZ "metaflesh game pods," created by David Cronenberg for his dizzying movie about virtual reality games that plug right into your spinal column via a creepily biological bio-port installed (oh so Cronenberg style) right above your butt. Cronenberg has said a lot about how current technology is heading towards a merging with biology. So it's no surprise that his game pods look exactly like biological rehashings of late-1990s Playstation controllers that he would have seen every day while making this movie.

Picture of Port of Oakland by John L. Polos. Picture of fudge by Ms. Info. Picture of San Francisco skyline by Mike. Image spiffing by Stephanie Fox. Additional reporting by Nivair H. Gabriel.

Famous names: Bill Mumy, Angela Cartwright, Jonathan Harris, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Irwin Allen

Crunchy goodness: 1

Spinoffs/Sequels/Copycats: A 1998 movie, which substituted wacky breastplates for the original's campy charm.

Most painfully dated moment: The cheesy-ass robot running around shouting "Danger! Danger!", and Dr. Smith's overblown alliterative putdowns of the robot, such as "Bulbous bumpkin" and "Silly sausage." (Really. For a complete list, go to http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art3316.asp.)

Bang for your buck: The show spent $600,000 on its pilot film and $400,000 per episode, making it the most expensive science fiction show until Space:1999 (and much more expensive than Star Trek.) Costly effects included a two-foot spaceship model flying over a model landscape, and an alien costume made of palm bark. At least the robot, reused from Forbidden Planet, came cheap.

Lost In Space - The Classic Series