C-57D Revealed!
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- Many have been entranced by the peerless masterpiece Forbidden Planet & have tried to work out the deck plans for the C-57D, so this is my version.
There are ideas in the writers', directors' & production designers' minds, there are interior sets, exterior sets & hero miniatures, but there is also the real spacecraft as it would exist in the imaginary universe the film is aiming to depict. It is this real spacecraft that I seek to design, so I apply the following rules:
1 The inside must fit into the outside with room for unseen but vital areas such as engines, fuel tanks & ablutions.
2 The outside must look right, but if necessary it is allowed to be bigger than apparent in the movie. After all, it is only a movie.
4 It must look as if it was designed by an engineer, observing engineering principles of symmetry & relationship between form & function.
5 It must be possible to recreate all the best scenes from the film.
The original C-57D was designed by the two main production desgners on Forbidden Planet, Cedric Gibbons & Arthur Lonergan, with probable uncredited input from the original story writer Irving Block & the screen play writer Mentor Huebner. Judging by the similarities between the C-57D & the Jupiter 2 there must have also been some influence from the special effects man Robert Kinoshita who was to become the art director on Lost In Space 9 years later in 1965.
In the early 23rd century humans have not been travelling in deep space for very long, & huge all-singing-all-dancing mega-spaceships such as the Enterprise don't exist yet. In many ways the C-57D is more reminiscent of a cramped old 18th century sailing ship than the 20th century warships that were actually around when the film was made.
Deck plans have been published before (I bought a set years ago) but I think they cram too much extra stuff in. The main deck seen in the film seems to include nearly everything necessary for working, eating & sleeping (except for the galley, ablutions & officers' quarters that could be behind the screens) so it seems reasonable to me that the lower decks contain nothing but engineering, service & life-support equipment & cargo. The cargo areas must be pretty large to fit in enough provisions for 19 men for 3 years, a 500 foot long laser fence, all those field artillery pieces, huge tubs of plaster-of-Paris & that hulking great tractor. Only the slightest glimpse is caught of this deck in the movie, a single door at the top of the landing stairs.
The original plans for the actual film set have a five-fold symmetry but to me this is just the equivalent of the missing fourth wall in any other film-set (ditto the open ceiling above the captain's table). A flying saucer with three landing legs must have internal six-fold symmetry & hence six main interior walls & buttresses. That's how an engineer would do it - I know because I am one. This means that there are six bays inside the dome, the four open plan ones that we can see into & two that are screened off (of which we see the outside of only one in the movie). These 6 bays are
1 Radio room with captain's table & viewscreen.
2 Screened off ablutions for the 16 crewmen.
3 Bunk room for the 16 crewmen, including personal lockers & heavy duty loading hatch.
4 Decelleration stations for 19 men.
5 Mess table (seats 9) with galley concealed behind.
6 Screened off staterooms & ablutions for the 3 officers.
It is extremely cosy, 19 men (or 14 men, Anne Francis + 1 robot) living cheek by jowl in a 16 metre diameter area for 18 months at a time. Cleaner, but no more spacious than 19-man sailing ships in the 18th century.
The ship uses steps to get down to ground level upon landing, so I used staircases instead of lifts for access between the main & service decks. These are not shown in the film so I put them behind the wall at the back of the radio room (you only see FROM this direction in the movie) & next to the galley behind the mess room.
The original exterior set showed a disc about 50ft in diameter, but to fit everything in to the satisfaction of an engineer (me) this had to be increased to 155 ft, creating far more height between the disc & the ground when landed, but I still think it looks okay.
I'd rather have one of these than a Millenium Falcon. Less maintenance.
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Music is 4 tracks by Desmond Leslie, flying saucer expert, electronic music pioneer & first man ever to start a fist fight during a live BBC broadcast (he punched Bernard Levin for insulting the work of his partner, fellow electronic music pioneer and original Dr Who theme tune creator Miss Delia Derbyshire), taken from his album Music Of The Future, released in 1960.
Invention Of The Weapon.
Music Of The Voids Of Outerspace - Asteroid Belt.
Mercury, Fleet Messenger Of The Gods.
The War Horns Of Mars.
Forbidden Planet has to be the film that broke ground for all the rest to come after it!
It broke no ground for 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Top notch! Wouldn't it be great to modify a ship like that as a personal space-yacht, decked out for just yourself and maybe a couple pals and/or lovers? That'd be the life, cruising the interstellar spaceways in style!
Beautiful rendering.
One thing I've always wondered about is the Ion Cannons used to battle the Id monster. The Rectangular shield in the front seems to imply they are normally bolted to the hull and only unloaded when a short perimeter defense is needed. Given the weight penalty of carrying exclusive ground artillery in the cargo hold that would make sense. I notice structures resembling the ion cannons around the perimeter of the Radar Deck. Is that what I'm seeing? If so then the dome would function as does the armored turret of a Monitor Type ironclad, with the saucer shape presenting a minimum cross section sloping hull to deflect enemy fire.
Forbidden Planet influenced the look of many sci-fi pictures as did 2001, Star Wars, and Alien.
Very nice CAD rendition of the C-57D saucer! I also liked your takes on the "Earth Vs The Flying Saucers" and "The Invaders" ships!! Best!
Robby greatly enhanced the performance of C57D. Anyone think it's time for a sequel to FP?
It's a brilliant story but I have ABSOLUTELY NO FAITH IN HOLLYWOOD anymore. None at all. It'll just be a vapid, predictable, overly dark and moody CG jerk fest with far too young soap opera looking actors with zero depth. But I'm not bitter! :)
Preston Wagner Most of the crew would be women. Any men aboard would be incompetent and/or evil. The captain would be trans and black. No. It's best to leave the great movies great. They would completely destroy this classic with a sequel or remake.
Back then, sequels were rare. However, "Forbidden Planet" practically cried out for a sequel. Can you imagine what Adams would have faced upon his return? He failed to rescue any survivor but one. He lost four men. AND he lost an entire earth type planet filled with incredible artifacts and knowledge from an advanced civilization. All he had to show was a robot and what few artifacts and records that could be hurriedly gathered. It was even his hand (albeit by deceit) that destroyed the planet and poisoned the whole Altair system! Out of this chaos, the idea would eventually emerge that the Krell civilization must have left other traces outside their home planet during their healthier era of space exploration. Oh, I have some ideas! But, as has been pointed out, the big problem is that Hollywood (like the Krell!) has gone decadent and couldn't handle a clean, cerebral adventure film of this order.
And where do the ion cannons, shield generators, shield components, tractor, bedrooms, showers, toilets, food, exercise equipment, and common areas go please?
I really enjoy this version. Thanks!
Forbidden planet is one of my all time favourite Sci fi films and the earth flying saucer one of the most mysterious movie ships, awesome film sir👍👍👌
This ship also appears in an episode of The Twilight Zone.
I have a copy of Johnson's plans but I didn't use them. I had a jpeg of the studio plans and I captured frames off my DVD.
So where is the hatch that the monster from the ID entered through?
Well done!!!!
These are outstanding
Ah yes, now I remember Robby was already on the planet at the home of the doctor. But if they wanted to take him back to Earth I am certain they would have found a place to stow him.
Robbie did return with the ship at the end of the movie
Any chance for the Seaview and Flying Sub?
19 deceleration pads, the crew is 19?
As usual,lugodoc,you`ve done a beautiful job. Your work is amazing and reflects the amount of time,effort and speculation you spend on your videos. Thannks bro!
Very nicely done.
Very nice! Big fan of the movie.
That is seriously cool!
Really, really nice. I don't suppose there is *any* chance you'd share the models?
My best buddy (I've known him for 50 years) is an absolute fanatic about FP, and I've modeled the outside of the Cruiser to create some videos for him (to show you how much, his UA-cam image is of the Cruiser). I would LOVE to have the interior (or any portion thereof) to create some stuff with him inside (using After Effects).
I promise I'd put full credits for you (actually, these would most likely be private videos anyway -- just him and me).
EXCELLENT art-work!! The lower deck (service deck) was full o stuff: WHERE's the tractor and the two big blaster cannons aka Colt-Vickers quad fission cannons.
I didn't see ANY room for those three big items.
1:50. There is the Tractor in the loading area - next to the main hold.
Were is the beer fridge
Are you telling me that the captain has to sleep in the bunks with the rest of the rabble? Surely you jest.
He doesn't jest - and don't call him Shirley.
Just don't call Captain Adams "Shirley".
Beautiful, but no NCO quarters?.Chief Quinn and Steve Bosun sleep in the bunk room?
The original studio set had 5 sections around the central open area containing the astrogator. I reckoned this was the equivalent of the missing "4th wall" in a normal set and that the "real" C57-D would have 6 sections. 4 of these are open, the radio shack, mess, decel stations & bunk room. I made the closed section between the bunks and the radio shack a washroom for the 16 ratings billeted in the bunk room, and the closed section between the radio shack and the mess became 3 state rooms for the 3 officers with their own ablutions (making 19 in total, the number stated in the script). This is in the model and can be glimpsed in the video, I just didn't show a close up because I couldn't make it very interesting ;-)
I'm glad someone finally showed the officers quarters. Although having been an enlisted in U.S. Navy I'm glad they showed where the enlisted berthing was. The interior of the ship is much like a modern submarine with space at a premium and everyone living in close quarters.
Where is Robby's bunk? I missed it somehow.
C 57 D...Hollywood.got it's money's worth out of.that ship. A few Twilight zone episodes . The uniforms were used in.the.movie Queen of outer space in 1959 .Robbie the robot shown up in Twilight zone , Lost in space .Like I said they got their money's. Worth.
He doesn't need one.
the ship is really way too small to have everything they needed for a trip thru space for a year with a crew of 23 young men I think the Commander Adams said in the movie...all the equipment, supplies and just the internal workings of the ship would require way more space
To say nothing of their being on a rescue mission, with the expectation of ferrying back the crew of the Bellerephon!
Consider the long submarine patrols of World War II. C57D was a dream in comparison. As for ferrying survivors, they'd probably have to "hot bunk" it, as submarines said. In the novel, the Omega Lamps were only used for secondary deccelerations. For the big one, they'd strap in tight and hang on! Therefore, the poor castaways would have to tough it out! I'd suppose that the tractor and perimeter blaster arrays would be stowed outside the pressure hull in the rim section of the ship. Just consider how many of these small vessels you could build with the same effort it would take to make one hulking tub like Enterprise!
@@dudleymq I've thought of that possibility myself also, but in conjunction with the excellent episode of The Twilight Zone: "On Thursday We Leave For Home"! Since the same ship is used in that teleplay, with ostensibly the same crew number and gear, how are all those rescued colonists (40+) going to fit in for the one year trip back to Earth?!
Has anybody calculated how fast the ship travelled?
@@DenverHornsbyJr Easy, just divide the distance to Altair by "378 days", as stated in the film.
In reality the ship could not even get to urannus
So no shower and no bathroom 🚽!
wouldn't the outer wall actually be the floor? spinning the interior to make gravity would mean you'd have to lay on your back and pee up to the wall when urinating in the latrine, or something like that. but of course in the forbidden planet universe, and most other saturday matinee sci fi, there must be some advanced magic-like artificial gravity thing-a-ma-jig... nice graphics however.
Commander Adams explicitly says that he's turning off artificial gravity as it approaches Altair 4 in the film.
How do you get up to the radar deck?