Monsters From the Id

Forbidden Planet, the sci-fi classic released in 1956, ushered in a new age of space movies that set the stage for "Star Wars," "Star Trek" and countless others that followed. The film, starring Leslie Neilsen, Anne Francis, Walter Pigeon and Robby the Robot, and based on Shakepeare's "The Tempest," set new standards for special effects, music and use of animation. The pre-CGI special effects hold up even today, 70 years later.

If you haven't seen it, the story revolves around a rescue mission to a distant planet, Altair IV, where a rouge scientist (Pigeon) and his daughter (Francis) research a long extinct alien race known as the Krell.  They left behind technological wonders, and an enduring mystery:  After surviving a million years, they vanished in a single night.

Employing one of their machines that boost brain power, one of Commander Nielsen's men finds the answer. The Krell's ultimate achivement was a "Great Machine" that could change a person's thoughts into physical reality. But despite all their knowledge, the Krell "forgot one thing-- monsters from the id."  In Freudian terms, the id represents the most primitve part of our minds, where our most basic urges and desires operate without reason or morality. Unwittenly, the Krell had unleashed the demons that lived in their own subconscious minds.

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While our own technology hasn't reached a point where we can materialize anything we can think of, there are some parallels to what befell the Krell. 

Whether they come from the id or not, humanity's own demons are on full display via social media. Thanks to technology, every person is now empowered to espouse any prejudice or hateful rethoric without fear of repercussion or accountability. Despite all its power to connect, enlighten and educate, has the Internet unwittenly unleased our own "monsters from the id"?

If so, the real question becomes can we control what the Krell could not.