The thing I like most about this week was the fact that while they are all innovative the term "space opera" literally makes me realize that these are operas/westerns dropped into space. I grew up on films like star wars (pre JarJar Binks), the fifth element, flash gordon and more recently Guardians of the Galaxy. These films, comics, and novels while set in galaxies far far away, are really about the human experience, emotions, and relationships.
Watching The Forbidden Planet was very enjoyable to me, the whole aesthetic of the film is one that I enjoy as well as the "long arm of the law" impeding on an outlying homestead that lies outside the town (or outside the galaxy in this case). Ann Francis makes a wonderful naive young woman who encounters a group of foreign men, foreign ideas and grew up completely outside of human contact, human morality, and human customs.
The Time period is very much present in this film in a very wonderful way- the idea of what could be possible in the future with advancements in technology are still ones we hope for today- and ones emerging at this time.
Until you mentioned it, I had not even thought of Guardians of the Galaxy as a space opera. Now though, I have to say its my favorite one. A lot of space operas that I've seen, they usually focus on the stereotypical good guys against the bad. I think in Guardians, it was refreshing to see this rag tag group come together. It just took the normal plot and added a little more depth to the space opera.
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