The Irish Film Institute (IFI) is delighted to announce that international bestselling author George R.R. Martin will visit the IFI for a very special screening of Fred M Wilcox’s seminal 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet in 35mm on Saturday, August 17th at 20.00. This event is presented in association with Dublin 2019: An Irish WorldCon.

Following the screening, George R.R. Martin will be in conversation with Maura McHugh of Dublin 2019: An Irish WorldCon about Forbidden Planet and the influence such works have had on his own writing and career.

We regret that George R.R. Martin will NOT sign merchandise on the evening, nor will he be able take questions about the A Song of Ice and Fire novels or the Game of Thrones television series.

Screening in a splendid CinemaScope print, Forbidden Planet is one of the classic science fiction movies of the 1950s. A lavishly produced, completely studio-bound extravaganza, it features Leslie Nielsen in an early role, special effects that are still impressive, and the first musical score for a film created entirely electronically.

Nielsen plays Adams, the commander of a spaceship sent to the planet Altair-4 in the year 2000 AD to investigate the destruction of most of its inhabitants by some invisible, unstoppable monster. Adams and his crew find two human survivors, a saturnine philologist named Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his guileless daughter Altaira (Anne Francis). Living with them is Robby the Robot (for many the real star of the film), one of the legacies of the planet’s technologically sophisticated previous inhabitants. Soon after Adams and his crew turn up the monster responsible for the deaths raises its head again.