📽️ Forbidden Planet (replace “ship” with “planet”)
📽️ Event Horizon
📽️ #1899
📽️ (And maybe #Lost? As backstory plot?)...

...all contain:

✔️ Hubris of science themes
✔️ Arrogant scientist character
✔️ Ship is lost
✔️ Ship is found
✔️ A rescue crew explores ship looking for answers
✔️ The rescuers slowly go mad
✔️ Specters from the subconscious drive the plot
✔️ There are themes of trying to destroy the ship
✔️ There are themes of trying to leave vs. staying
✔️ Mysterious monster/beast/ghost

I actually went back and rewatched Event Horizon AND Forbidden Planet to confirm. I had a lot more in the old thread to say about some of the symbols, how The Last Unicorn shared some of those symbols but less on the nose, my thoughts on rewatching the other films, etc etc. I do hope someday to track it all down and copy/paste it here again, but that's going to take a manual timestamp sort and a spreadsheet.

2/

Anyway, so far based on my memory and 2 refreshed Seasons of #Lost, it has:

✔️ Hubris of science themes (backstory)
✔️ Arrogant scientist character: (or organization, backstory)
✔️ Ship is lost (plane is lost)
✔️ Ship is found (lots of lost people finding lost people)
✔️ A rescue crew explores ship looking for answers (survivors of plane crash looking for answers)
❌ The rescuers slowly go mad
✔️ Specters from the subconscious drive the plot (lots of hallucinations)
✔️ There are themes of trying to destroy the ship (there's the button!)
✔️ There are themes of trying to leave vs. staying (first season tackled characters who didn't want to leave)

I'll keep watching and see what falls out!

#1899 #ForbiddenPlanet #motif #HauntedShip

3/3+ (stopping for now)

I found another story that fits the Haunted Ship motif:

The Terror series on Netflix. It’s about two explorer ships in the 1840s that were lost. It doesn’t tick all the boxes neatly, but it’s got lost ships, hubris, debates about going or staying, and a terrible beast (I talked more about the beast themes from Forbidden Planet in my missing thread). Less psychological so far, but there’s time.

#ForbiddenPlanet #motif #HauntedShip

I also wanted to rewatch Sunshine to see if it fit the haunted ship motif, but I started watching it with my son and he got bored (🙄) so I’ll have to try again later.

#ForbiddenPlanet #motif #HauntedShip

If you have ideas of movies or shows that might fit all or many of these tropes, let me know! Lost ship, psychological/sanity themes, a beast or ghost, hubris, etc.

(It was uncanny how many Forbidden Planet themes The Last Unicorn hit, just minus the ship, so sidetracks like that are ok too as long as it’s fun to watch. Motifs are squishy.)

#ForbiddenPlanet #motif #HauntedShip

Oh snap! In book form there’s also Paul Russo’s Ship of Fools, which I freaking loved. Creepy haunted space ship. Rendezvous with Ranma almost counts. I feel like Frank Herbert’s The Jesus Incident treads these waters as well, though I hadn’t identified this trope yet so I don’t remember clearly.

And there was an anime haunted space ship one, it was a short included in a 4-part film, I think called Memories.

#ForbiddenPlanet #motif #HauntedShip

And since I have a playlist for everything:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3yYLwWJ0NhqD6fbKOKNPKq?si=hC2ITzZ1RB-YmBDFl7oAvQ&pi=u-UcM3d8IgSYa7

#ForbiddenPlanet #motif #HauntedShip

Oh hells, Bioshock checks some of the boxes, too.

#ForbiddenPlanet #motif #HauntedShip

Just random tangential thoughts about how both the Forbidden Planet and Last Unicorn beasts are red bulls, a Taurus theme, wondering if these could have connected psychological symbols to the Greek labyrinth myth (which I don't know much about but there's a Taurus-based monster in that, and some of these other stories I've referenced have a "maze of the mind"), and just for fun wondering if any symbolic connections can be made to House of Leaves, which makes quite a big deal of the Greek story. 🤔

I don't know what I'm doing with these ideas, just jotting down the connections. I don't have a thesis at all about which part of the human condition these stories are reflecting and what they say. But it seems like it will be obvious someday. Just waiting for something to "click." (The Sea represents the unconscious, hello.)

Also still planning to search my archives to restore the lost thread, which had more details when these viewings were fresh.

#ForbiddenPlanet #motif #HauntedShip

I mean, Forbidden Planet was pretty obvious what it was trying to say about the Ego and the Id. I'm looking for a bigger picture, something I can describe in a couple of sentences, that connects all of these stories. The Deep Truth.

#ForbiddenPlanet #motif #HauntedShip