Good start, but then it gets ruined

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Tobor the Great, 1954.*Spoiler/plot- A brilliant scientist develops a remarkable robot and his grandson becomes a friend to it.*Special Stars- Charles Drake, Karin Booth, Billy Chapin, Taylor Holmes, Steven Geray, Henry Kulky.*Theme- Innocent youth can conquer all problems.*Trivia/location/goofs- One of the first and most popular robot films and developed into a genre for the 1950's on TV and film.*Emotion- This is a charming piece of 1950 naively fun involving robots, scientists, space flight, international spys, friendship, and precocious kids.*Based On- 1950's robot and space flight sensibilities.

This movie was rubbish. There was very little plot and almost no point. I am prejudice in one way, and that is boring rubbish should not be released. Anyway, this movie seemed little more that a scientific spiel about the new age of atomic energy and rockets, a press conference where a robot was displayed and a pointless action sequence at the end which I slept through. All I remember is the kid crying out "I love you Tobor!" which is pathetic.There are some interesting themes raised in the movie, but the movie itself destroyed them. The major one is the entrance to the atomic age -- an age of new discovery. We now have the power to go into space and to survive there, but one of the serious situations that are raised is how should we test it out. The debate is over sending men into space and whether that is morale or not. Thus a scientist creates a robot to go into space to check it out.What we have is the headlong rush into a new era where all of the new technology that the war gave us, atomic energy and rocketry, is being put to use. We create the jet fighter and the nuclear powered submarine. But space is still unconquered (and it still is) so we are questioning how we should go about conquering it. The movie puts forward the idea that a robot could do the job, but it is science fiction and the technology put forward by it did not exist at the time. Now we have the technology, and have had it for some time, to send probes deep into space, now all we need is to find water on the moon and that planet becomes ours as well.

To the genre buffs - I'm watching a movie called "The Invisible Boy" that was included as an extra on the Blu-ray of "Forbidden Planet" that I bought recently. I knew in the past about the "Tobor the Great" movie (Robot spelled backwards) that used the "Robby" robot prop because I saw it on WGN-Chicago as a kid. And I know that a "Robby" variant was used in the original "Lost in Space" TV series, which is detailed in the "Forbidden Planet" extras disk that I'm watching. But its been roughly 40 years since I saw the "Tobor" film, and there is no mention of it in the extras on the Blu-ray that I'm watching. My WIKI/IMDb search mentions the "Tobor" movie and gives a plot synopsis that is vaguely similar to the movie I'm watching, but the character names have changed. Is this a case of studio manipulation, or are the movies distinct? BTW, the Blu-Ray version of "Forbidden Planet" is beautifully done, as Ridley/Lucas/Spielberg/Cameron point out in the extras. I have a std. DVD and this is worth the upgrade. I wish that I'd seen it as a kid in a theater rather than just TV. The included extras are excellent, and you can understand how monumental this film was as an MGM classic that really was an inspiration for S.Kub's 2001. I've shown this film to XGens & Melms who aren't into SF and even they were blown away by effects that were done in the '50s. If you're into SF & haven't seen this the Blu-Ray is the best choice. I'd give it 10 if I'd gotten an answer to the above question.

Watch this one with child-like eyes and you'll have a great time. Tobor ('robot' spelled backwards) is the invention of an elderly scientific genius who develops a robot to serve as the pilot for dangerous space flights in place of human astronauts. The inventor's grandson (Billy Chapin) befriends the robot during the development of its complex brain and artificial personality. Commie spies kidnap the inventor and the boy, attempting to get their hands on the valuable robot.Tobor is incapable of speech, which gives the robot an interesting quality of mystery and strangeness. But he does have the ability to sense human thoughts and emotions. In other words, he can tell when someone is up to no good!In the climax, Tobor has to break out of his own lab to rescue the boy from the evil commies who kidnapped the youth to gain control of the robot. Although Tobor is less agile that a human being, he moves around much better than Robby or Gort -- which comes in handy when Tobor has to lift the back end of the bad guy's car and prevent them from escaping!Tobor's physical design is pretty impressive. Although it doesn't have the aesthetic appeal of Robby or Gort, he is solidly constructed and a pleasure to watch in action. The movie includes a scene in which the inventor opens up Tobor's chest to show his interior to a group of reporters at a press conferences when Tobor is presented to the public. Obviously the reason for the scene is show the audience that this is no mere suit with a man inside. It's a real robot!It's a nice little touch in a movie designed to inspire younger viewers . . . and to entertain older ones.'Tobor the Great' is a terrific kid's-fantasy-come-true story. Admitttedly, the direction by Lee Sholem is decidedly unskilled, and young Chapin is a mediocre actor at best (he's no Michel Ray of 'The Space Children', I'm sorry to say), but Charles Drake ('It Came from Outer Space') holds his own as the boy's father. William Shallert ('The Monolith Monsters' and several other 1950s classics) plays one of the reporters in the scene mentioned earlier.A prerecorded tape was available a few years ago, but you'll have trouble finding it now. If a DVD comes out, it's worth the money if you have a soft spot in your heart for the sincere and unique efforts the 1950s sci-fi films.