Quote Originally Posted by Yuella View Post
Forbidden Planet itself was inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest
Yes and no. There's character analogues and setting analogues, but the plots are radically different. A lot of reviewers at the time Forbidden Planet came out likened it to The Tempest, as a method of praise, and the filmmakers gladly accepted such a comparison, because of Shakespeare's notoriety.

So that rippled onwards to people writing essay after essay comparing and contrasting the two, when in actuality their similarities only go so far as their shared tropes.

I mean, far be it from me to undo 64 years of literary interpretation by a multitude of scholars in a single forum post, but that's just my take on it. I think people often attribute stories that share tropes with Shakespeare's work to being inspired or direct ripping-offs of said Bard of Avon's work, but in actuality they're just re-tellings of older myths, much like Shakespeare's work itself.

Of course, if we do follow the consensus that Forbidden Planet is a modern twist on The Tempest, it does wrap everything up in a nice little bow with the zone name where Amaurot lies. Which would make Emet-selch Prospero and Azem Ferdinand. Coincedentally, Ferdinand means, "brave traveler." Heh. XIV's writers done good, huh?