100 Years Of Trump In the Time Of The General's Labyrinth Of Cholera Foretold

Robbie the Robot is a Symbol  of a robot who can make bourbon

Should you get a chance, watch Forbidden Planet and the TOS Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" back-to-back.

Clearly, Trek episode writer Samuel Peeples watched Forbidden Planet and intentionally or not recreated a lot of it in the Trek episode. But the two have radically different takes on god-like power and the human condition.

In Forbidden Planet, Morbius is innocent -- he didn't know that the Krell iPhone player would create a murderous Creature from the Id while he was listening to Krell iTunes. And when he's finally convinced of this evil from inside, he throws himself at the monster to save Captain Detective Frank Drebin and his own daughter and, in dying heroically, saves them.

Cool contact lenses Brah !

Gary Mitchell, though, is clearly a dick from the get-go. He's sexist, he treats Spock like shit, he gropes a female yeoman when they're entering the galactic barrier, and he later reveals that he held Kirk in contempt before they met and manipulated Kirk into dating his first great love (Carol Marcus?). He even seems to resent taking a poison dart for Kirk on the planet of the Giant Dart-Throwing Rats.

Gary Mitchell is clearly Kirk's frathouse buddy whom Kirk feels great friendship for. But in actuality, Mitchell was always a prick. Kirk wants to believe that the galactic barrier changed Mitchell's personality, and Spock enables this by being nice and saying things like "That is not Gary Mitchell." 

What do you mean it's supposed to be 'T'?

But Spock, whom Mitchell is nothing but a dick to, is clearly being respectful of Kirk's misguided affection for his old frathouse kegger buddy. Gary Mitchell, Kirk's supposed best buddy, DOESN'T EVEN KNOW KIRK'S MIDDLE INITIAL !!!!!! Either that, or the 'R.' on that gravestone stands for 'Retard' and Mitchell was just about to explain this joke when Sally Kellerman hit him with some Force lightning, motherfucker!

Why is there a pink barrier around the Milky Way ?

To shorten this up, "Where No Man Has Come Before" predicted (and warned against) the Trump Presidency: it told a story about a guy who was always a dick who got away with it because some people thought he was funny and he wasn't ever going to sit in the captain's chair. 

But then Gary Mitchell wins the 2016 election and only a Jewish Canadian Iowan, a Jewish American Vulcan-Human, and special guest star Sally Kellerman can stop him. Note also that the woman given superpowers (Kellerman), while initially attracted to the Dark Side by Gary, soon sides with the good guys. Power doesn't corrupt her -- it ultimately lets her see the Evil of Gary "The God" Mitchell and fight against it. Absolute power corrupts only the corruptible!

Just like Trump in real life!

God's President

Gabriel Over the White House: written by Carey Wilson and Bertram Bloch, based on the novel Rinehard by T.F. Tweed; directed by Gregory La Cava; starring Walter Huston (President Jud Hammond), Karen Morley (Pendola 'Pendie' Molloy), Franchot Tone (Hartley 'Beek' Beekman), C. Henry Gordon (Nick Diamond) and David Landau (John Bronson) (1933): 

Made by William Randolph Heart's production company in 1932, this movie was held back by its Hollywood distributor until March 1933 because the studio head, Louis B. Mayer, was a staunch Republican who didn't want this movie released during Herbert Hoover's presidency. It's certainly one of the oddest movies of the 1930's, a paean to fascism and socialism in the service of the Greater Good.

Walter Huston plays Jud Hammond, a corrupt President who does whatever big money and the leaders of his (unnamed) political party tell him to do. But then he gets in a car accident and, instead of dying, emerges from his coma as Super-President!

After firing everyone in his Cabinet except his personal secretary "Beek" Beekman and his former lover Pendula (!) Molloy, Hammond leaps into action to save America from despair, starvation, civil unrest, and organized crime. He declares martial law, making himself the de facto emperor of America, and then puts all the unemployed men to work in his new peacetime army of the unemployed. Soon, the President has opened up all manner of cans of whoop-ass on the forces of evil in this world.

Does the newly energized President have enemies? Sure. But he's also got help. Angelic help. Though we never see the archangel Gabriel, the movie makes it pretty clear that the President has divine help in his campaign to save America and, indeed, the world. Apparently, God is a socialist with fascist tendencies. Who knew?

Huston. always a fine actor (father of John Huston, grandfather of Anjelica) makes a convincing President here under the circumstances -- indeed his acting is finer and subtler than the film itself. Huston makes Hammond slightly off-kilter while he's possessed by Gabriel (or getting advice from him, or whatever's going on) -- he really does seem to be receiving direction from outside his body, direction only he can hear. The rest of the cast is liveable, with a young Franchot Tone solid as idealistic secretary Beekman. All this in less than 90 minutes!!! Recommended.