The Day The Earth Stood Still (remake)

[BaalChatzaf]

The Day the Earth Stood Still (the remake) is an environmentalist screed whose major premis is that the human race is a pox and a plague upon the the planet and the only way to save the earth is to eliminate humankind.

I detest the premis, but this does not logically preclude that the motion picture could be well made. It turns out it is NOT well made. Yes the Special Effects are much more impressive than the original made in 1951, but the story is developed full of holes and inconsistencies. The message of the original TDTESS with Michael Rennie and Patrician Neal is that the human race should not go into space with its guns blazing. The people of the Other Planets simply will not have that. If the human race is to become a space faring race it must learn the rules of self constraint and good behavior. That makes sense.

The remake is a Gaia loving screed. Kathy Bates who plays the secratary of defense says "This is our planet". Klaatu says "No it isn't". Our planet is not ours exclusively. The picture descends into cliche. It goes like this: The humans are pretty awaful but they have another side that is not so bad" yada yada ... You can figure it out from there.

In the original, Klaatu reveals that his people were like us, folks who resorted to war and force. But they solved the problem by building a race of Gorts to keep the piece. Gort was a roman a clef for objective, uncorruptable government. It could not be bribe, gamed or diverted from its programmed task of punishing the initiation of force.

Well, I saw the remake and I will not be seeing it again.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited December 13, 2008 by BaalChatzaf

[Chris Grieb]

Baal; Thanks! I can use the $20 to see High School Musicial 3.

[Backlighting]

"the human race is a pox and a plague upon the the planet and the only way to save the earth is to eliminate humankind"

Sounds like the mantra of the incoming Administration.

Edited December 13, 2008 by Las Vegas

[kiaer.ts]

Knowing this movie featured Kathy Bates and Keanu Reeves, knowing the original, and knowing what Hollywood has done with such films as The Manchurian Candidate, how could you have expected anything better?

The last film I went to see in the theater was Fellowship of the Ring, and though I love Tolkien, even that was torture.

The DVD player, Netxflix, the couch and the remote are four of Apollo's greatest gifts to man.

[BaalChatzaf]

Knowing this movie featured Kathy Bates and Keanu Reeves, knowing the original, and knowing what Hollywood has done with such films as The Manchurian Candidate, how could you have expected anything better?

The last film I went to see in the theater was Fellowship of the Ring, and though I love Tolkien, even that was torture.

The DVD player, Netxflix, the couch and the remote are four of Apollo's greatest gifts to man.

I really did not expect anything better. But in order to pan the motion picture I had to watch it.

Your remark on the motion picture version of LOTR is right on point. I predicted that any movie less than 42 hours long could not do justice to -Lord of the Rings-. I was right. For the same reason I predict than a motion picture of t.v. mini-series version of -Atlas Shrugged- would be an abomination.

The remake of -The Manchurian Candidate- was not as bad as it could have been. But it was nowhere as good as the orignal which was as good a movie (of its kind) as could be made. Merryl Streep made an excellent Mother From Hell. She was well cast. Also Liev Schreiber was an excellent choice for Raymond.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Darrell Hougen]

I am surprised at the reactions to LOTR. I thought it was one of the best movie series ever and that each of the individual movies were among the best movies ever. We watched it in the theater and then watched it at home about 10 times. Actually, I didn't watch it home that many times, because I normally don't have that kind of time, but my kids did and I would sit down and watch scenes with them (sometimes several scenes).

I'm a slow reader and I thought that Tolkien's books dragged a bit. Much of the books dwell on descriptions of scenery, for example. The movies, on the other hand, had beautiful scenery without requiring pages of description. Yes, the movies left out entire sub plots like the meeting with Tom Bombadil, but I thought the movies did a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the books without seeming to go on forever.

By way of comparison, I also really liked the Bourne Identity and its sequels, but I read the book after seeing the movie and discovered that the movie was nothing like the book. The plot, characters and action were almost unrecognizable. So, by comparison, I thought LOTR was pretty faithful to the books.

For gaming enthusiasts, I also enjoy playing War of the Ring.

Darrell

[kiaer.ts]

I really did not expect anything better. But in order to pan the motion picture I had to watch it.

That sounds like Obama saying we have to wait for Iran to bomb Israel before we can defend her.

As for Lord of the Rings, when the films were faithful to the books they were okay, [i liked the Balrog & the battle with it in Two Towers, The design of the Ents, if not the screenwriting, the Oliphant, & the Mouth of Sauron, which exaggerated, but well] but far too much was omitted. There is no need for 42 hours, at one minute per page 15 hours would easily be enough. I can see toning down Tom Bombadil, but taking out the Old Forest, and the Barrow Downs was a mistake. There was no justification for the manufactured subplot with Aragorn going over the cliff in the warg attack. And the "comic touches" were simply treason to the spirit of the work. Jackson was a hack and a liar - to wit, his lies about not having seen Bakshi's animated film, from which he plagiarized freely. Also, what was the point of filming in New Zealand and the using such godawful sets for Lorien and Fangorn? They should have filmed in Poland, it would have been much truer to Tolkien's vison, and probably even cheaper. Ah, but I digress.

I doubt I'll ever go see another film in a theater. One can buy/rent the DVD for much, much less, cuddle with a loved one, and use the pause button. The last movie I saw in the theater that I was glad I saw in the theater was Crouching Tiger. But that was long before anyone had widescreen home TV's.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ted,

It must be the artist in me who loses himself in his art when he performs, but when I see a movie I really like (and even one I don't), I can't think of a better place to see it except in a theater.

I don't want a pause button at that moment. Not even a loved one to cuddle. I want to lose myself in the movie. A gigantic proscenium screen, darkened hall and great sound all do the trick for me.

The only time I don't like seeing a movie in a theater is when the audience is misbehaved or there is some other irritating distraction like a blown speaker. Then I start thinking fondly about grenades and machine guns...

Michael

[galtgulch]

Ted,

It must be the artist in me who loses himself in his art when he performs, but when I see a movie I really like (and even one I don't), I can't think of a better place to see it except in a theater.

I don't want a pause button at that moment. Not even a loved one to cuddle. I want to lose myself in the movie. A gigantic proscenium screen, darkened hall and great sound all do the trick for me.

The only time I don't like seeing a movie in a theater is when the audience is misbehaved or there is some other irritating distraction like a blown speaker. Then I start thinking fondly about grenades and machine guns...

Michael

My wife was watching the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still with Michael Rennie and the same actress who plays Dominique in The Fountainhead just the other night on Cable. Michael Rennie gives a little speech at the end suggesting that if earthlings don't give up the initiation of force and extend its use into the galaxy that Gort the Robot will destroy the Earth.

The movie was quite slow moving up to that moment. Similar message to that of Rand.

galt

[kiaer.ts]

I don't want a pause button at that moment. Not even a loved one to cuddle. I want to lose myself in the movie. A gigantic proscenium screen, darkened hall and great sound all do the trick for me.

You don't live in New York City. And you must be about 4'2" if you are both comfortable in theater chairs, and your feet don't reach the sticky floor or the back of the seat in front of you. As for guns, that would be nothing new. I did see Elizabeth in a comfortable theater, and could imagine enjoying one. But a good home system has everything you mentioned, including the surround sound (which is usually way too loud in theaters) and the wide screen. I enjoyed seeing We The Living in Baltimore. The theater was empty except for elderly Italians who had seen it during the war. That was nice. But your fantasy viewing is unlikely to be my future reality. My last 20 experiences tell me it's just not worth it.

[kiaer.ts]

Ted,

It must be the artist in me who loses himself in his art when he performs, but when I see a movie I really like (and even one I don't), I can't think of a better place to see it except in a theater.

I don't want a pause button at that moment. Not even a loved one to cuddle. I want to lose myself in the movie. A gigantic proscenium screen, darkened hall and great sound all do the trick for me.

The only time I don't like seeing a movie in a theater is when the audience is misbehaved or there is some other irritating distraction like a blown speaker. Then I start thinking fondly about grenades and machine guns...

Michael

My wife was watching the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still with Michael Rennie and the same actress who plays Dominique in The Fountainhead just the other night on Cable. Michael Rennie gives a little speech at the end suggesting that if earthlings don't give up the initiation of force and extend its use into the galaxy that Gort the Robot will destroy the Earth.

The movie was quite slow moving up to that moment. Similar message to that of Rand.

galt

That "same actress" was Patricia Neal. (She's alive and well, and living in the East 70's, and wears the ring Cooper gave her on a necklace.) And that you didn't get the implied moral equivalence between the U.S. and its enemies in the original doesn't surprise me. But you could, if you wanted to, and you worked really, really hard at it, interpret the movie the way you did.

[syrakusos]

My wife was watching the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still with Michael Rennie and the same actress who plays Dominique in The Fountainhead just the other night on Cable. Michael Rennie gives a little speech at the end suggesting that if earthlings don't give up the initiation of force and extend its use into the galaxy that Gort the Robot will destroy the Earth.

The movie was quite slow moving up to that moment. Similar message to that of Rand.

galt

I first saw the movie (on TV) about 1960. I was 10 and my brother was 7 and it was fascinating. Of course, there were no videogames. We read books. Perhaps that is why the movie seemed "slow moving" to you. Old television from that era -- Burns and Allen, in particular -- are glacially slow in their presentation, taking long moments and frequent repetition to build to a point. On the other hand, Hollywood had been delivering stories via motion picture for 50 years, so it is a bit of a challenge to identify the inertia. As it happens, I watched the original The Day the Earth Stood Still a few years ago and I was impressed with the writing and acting.

We understood the message because in our home, it didn't matter who started it, if we were caught fighting, we both got whacked -- which sort of defeats the purpose of the lesson, I guess. Anyway, we debated the implications several times over the years with our friends who knew the movie. If the Russians attacked and we did nothing, would the aliens rescue us or kill us?

Are you aware of the Alternate Universe in the Star Trek series based on "Mirror Mirror"?

[Brant Gaede]

I like the original but prefer Forbidden Planet. The Day the Earth Stood Still has at its heart not the silly message but the relationship between the alien and the little boy. In a strange way it is kind of like one of those boy and his dog stories with the alien being the dog. The threat of destruction does provide the dramatic tension needed to hold the whole thing together. I don't like either of The War of the Worlds movies. I want the bad guys blasted to smithereens not just dropping dead because of bacteria infections while the remnants of humanity cower in a church. Independence Day is too stupid to talk about.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

I like the original but prefer Forbidden Planet. The Day the Earth Stood Still has at its heart not the silly message but the relationship between the alien and the little boy. In a strange way it is kind of like one of those boy and his dog stories with the alien being the dog. The threat of destruction does provide the dramatic tension needed to hold the whole thing together. I don't like either of The War of the Worlds movies. I want the bad guys blasted to smithereens not just dropping dead because of bacteria infections while the remnants of humanity cower in a church. Independence Day is too stupid to talk about.

--Brant

The message of TDTESS (the original) was in the last two minutes, a lecture on limited government and the control of initiated force. Little Bobby served the function of getting Klaatu and Dr. Bernhardt connectedwhich finally lead to a gathering of leading intellectuals, movers and shakers (at the end) which is what Klaatu wanted in the first place. Bobby also lead to Klaatu's detection and first death. Helen was a placeholder and surrogate for decent humans who intended no harm and who are honest, not like that conniving creature, Helen's boyfriend, who she dumps when she finds out what he really is. Helen also saved the world.

From a cinematic p.o.v. TDTESS (the original) had some really lovely nuggets. For example, the series of short scenes following Klaatu's escape until we say him in civilian garb standing in front of the boarding house where he will stay for a while. Not a word was spoken. The line was carried purely in the action, a series of scenes around fifteen seconds long. Now that in first rate movie craft. Also the set of scenes where the earth does stand still. Car's stalled. Boats at rest in the water. Trains stopped dead. Power stations off line. But it is noted that airplanes and hospitals were spared the stoppage indicating the Klaatu wanted to get attention to his message (which, as I said) was delivered at the end. The motion picture had a beginning, a middle and an end, with no unnecessary scenes. The voices of (then) well know radio and t.v. commentators (Drew Pearson Gabriel Heater, H.P. Kaltenborn, Elmer Davis) lended some verisimilitude to

the story line. I used to listen to these guys when I was a kid.

Except for CGI and up to day Special Effects, the remake lacked almost all of these virtues.

Please have a look at the movie script for the original at

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Day-the-Earth...Still,-The.html

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited December 13, 2008 by BaalChatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Ted,

It must be the artist in me who loses himself in his art when he performs, but when I see a movie I really like (and even one I don't), I can't think of a better place to see it except in a theater.

I don't want a pause button at that moment. Not even a loved one to cuddle. I want to lose myself in the movie. A gigantic proscenium screen, darkened hall and great sound all do the trick for me.

The only time I don't like seeing a movie in a theater is when the audience is misbehaved or there is some other irritating distraction like a blown speaker. Then I start thinking fondly about grenades and machine guns...

Michael

My wife was watching the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still with Michael Rennie and the same actress who plays Dominique in The Fountainhead just the other night on Cable. Michael Rennie gives a little speech at the end suggesting that if earthlings don't give up the initiation of force and extend its use into the galaxy that Gort the Robot will destroy the Earth.

The movie was quite slow moving up to that moment. Similar message to that of Rand.

galt

That "same actress" was Patricia Neal. (She's alive and well, and living in the East 70's, and wears the ring Cooper gave her on a necklace.) And that you didn't get the implied moral equivalence between the U.S. and its enemies in the original doesn't surprise me. But you could, if you wanted to, and you worked really, really hard at it, interpret the movie the way you did.

Not so. Klaatu was interested in keeping these violent earthlings from bringing nuclear weapons into space. He did not give fuck all about the internal affairs of earth, but only those hazards which earth folk in armed space-craft could bring to -his- people. It wasn't moral equivalence. It was moral indifference. Klaatu did not give a hoot about the internal affairs of the nations of our planet. Why should he. As long as they were internal, what hazard did they present to his people?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited December 13, 2008 by BaalChatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

By way of comparison, I also really liked the Bourne Identity and its sequels, but I read the book after seeing the movie and discovered that the movie was nothing like the book. The plot, characters and action were almost unrecognizable. So, by comparison, I thought LOTR was pretty faithful to the books.

Darrell

The movie butchered Tolkien's novel. It was a Franken-LOTR made of body parts from the original and sewed together in a rather ugly fashion.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Chris Grieb]

Does anyone know how the remake is doing in term of box office?

[kiaer.ts]

Bob wrote: "Not so. Klaatu was interested in keeping these violent earthlings from bringing nuclear weapons into space. He did not give fuck all about the internal affairs of earth, but only those hazards which earth folk in armed space-craft could bring to -his- people. It wasn't moral equivalence. It was moral indifference. Klaatu did not give a hoot about the internal affairs of the nations of our planet. Why should he. As long as they were internal, what hazard did they present to his people?"

Okay, so then in analogy, we could look at a US warship landing in an African country where the Muslims are massacring various Christian and animist tribes. Some Christians have weapons with which they can defend themselves from the Jihadists. But we just land and say, look, we don't really like anyone using weapons, and we don't want you Christians using your boats and guns to defend yourselves, because we have a problem with guns.

Now, of course, we are the Christians in that scenario. We haven't initiated violence against the Jihadis (communists) but the "civilized" space people have landed in our territory, with the implication that we are the bad guys, evinced by the paranoid behavior of all the old white men. And a little boy, who knows nothing of the communist aggression in Korea or elsewhere is the enlightened one?

Please. The story is morally bankrupt. It's like landing in Sarajevo and telling the muslims that we don't want any international violence, while the ethnic cleansing Serbs mop them up, purley internally.

The original film was praised, praised! for its moral relativism.

[BaalChatzaf]

Please. The story is morally bankrupt. It's like landing in Sarajevo and telling the muslims that we don't want any international violence, while the ethnic cleansing Serbs mop them up, purley internally.

The original film was praised, praised! for its moral relativism.

Praised for the wrong thing. It was pure Hobbesean philosophy. Hobbes proposed a state which was the equivalent of Gort (or Gnut). Klaatu told the earthlings not to come into space until they signed up for their own Gort to make sure that no force would be initiated -in space- or against the worlds of the association. What the earthlings did to themselves at home was of no concern to the people of the other worlds.

By the way, the Gort class robots were the masters. Once initiated they had irrevocable authority to act against any party they broke the peace.

I like the Hobbsean solution. Too bad that we have no method of implementing it. Human governments are prone to corruption, negligence and misfeasance. A God (or Gort) in a Box would solve problems of international conflict very nicely. Follow the rules or else.

I thought Klaatu (Michael Rennie) made the case for limited government which existed to keep order, very nicely.

Gort! Occlote brosko! Barringa!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

"the human race is a pox and a plague upon the the planet and the only way to save the earth is to eliminate humankind"

Sounds like the mantra of the incoming Administration.

When and where have the Obama Insiders said anything like that? I am sure there are Tree Huggers and Gaia Phreaks who aligned with Barak The Good, but they are not at the center of Robbin Obama's program. Obama has come to divide and conquer, then unite and rule. He does not intend to kill the geese whose golden eggs he plans to steal. He might do it, but that is not his intention. Like any good fascist, Obama wants the country to produce wealth that he can appropriate and distribute to his cronies and acolytes. As a matter of historical fact, in Germany, Der Fuhrer managed to increase real productivity for a while, then squandered and ruined it with a war that destroyed his country.

Fascist and Socialist vermin want to transform a free society into a hive filled with willing worker bees and ants, all busy working for The Collective Good.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

... The threat of destruction does provide the dramatic tension needed to hold the whole thing together. --Brant

The message of TDTESS (the original) was in the last two minutes, a lecture on ...

... Not a word was spoken. The line was carried purely in the action ... Ba'al Chatzaf

What you find in art is what you bring to it.

Ba'al had some cogent insights about the cinematography. That is the level that makes the most sense when discussing a movie. When two (or twelve) people from the same philosophical school cannot agree on what a film "means" then the problem lies not with the director or the screenwriters or the actors or the key grip. Some Objectivists see the philosophy as commandments in stone and therefore cannot understand or tolerate differences of opinion. The inability to achieve accord has little to do with the perceptions and syllogisms of the ideology and, as with art, has more to do with what the practicioners bring to it.

If you want to find or make one or more tools for understanding and interacting with the world, Objectivism offers that. If you want to denounce everyone else around you for being immoral, you can do that, too. Personally, I am a centerist: I do a little of both in equal measures of (im)moderation. The "Inverse Heisenberg Problem" here is that we do not interact with each other in private: I cannot see you at home rationally living out your own life according to your own highest virtues. I only read your stupid, idiotic blatherings online. Maybe we need Gort Keyboards: insult someone and your computer blows up.

For all of that that, Mon-Thurs is two-fer time for Blockbuster, so we'll watch TDESS original again and see how it looks.

[syrakusos]

Forbidden Planet.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

The War of the Worlds

Independence Day

The sense of wonder is essential to science fiction and that feeling is rooted in human achievement. Even as the consequences of our worst choices, science fiction is focused on what we do, rather than on what happens to us. As science fiction causal links must exist between actions and outcomes, even with a surprise ending as in War of the Worlds -- which was the case when Wells wrote it (germ theory being new to his generation), but by now everyone knows how it ends.

Based on YouTube outtakes, I rented several disks of the new Battlestar Galactica. I agree that the babes are hot, and I sympathized with the President for being thrust into a situation which she rose to meet by steps. (The President's sub-plot is itself a heck of a storyline. She finds out that she has terminal cancer, maybe a few months to live at most -- and then the Cylons destroy the 12 Worlds, leaving her -- 42nd in line as the Minister of Education -- the President of the survivors. It's a hard row to hoe.) For all of that, I watched maybe six episodes over two or three seasons. There were a lot of internal problems with the writing. The creators seemed to be floundering for something interesting to present. And there were technical problems. (The Galactica survived the Cylon viruses because her computers were never networked. So, do people run between decks with floppy disks?)

We recently watched the Star Trek series in reverse order from Undiscovered Country to Wrath of Khan. They all had technical problems (plot as well as machinery), but all presented the same positive sense of life and wonder at discovery and challenge, so they were at least tolerable. I would not watch them again anytime soon, however. The writers just failed to make any headway over 1965 and in fact, have been sucked into the blackhole of their own fandom. (In politics, it is "the Washington echo chamber.")

My brother gave me a disk set of the original series of The Outer Limits. Again, no surprise, altruist-collectivist mumbo-jumbo shoved into the middle of some surprising and fascinating premises with great acting by David McCallum, Robert Duval, Robert Culp and others. But, again, if you watch it twice, you realize that the writers did not think through the consequences of their technical premises. John Campbell would never have published them.

I like cyberpunk and collect first hardcover editions and first magazine publications. None of the movies is worth panning. New Rose Hotel and Johnny Mnemonic simply failed. The Matrix was stellar, but the two sequels were just less than achievements. On the other hand, Tron took a lot of criticism from "real" computerists when it came out, but I think it stands up well on many levels, the technical premises, and the human drama especially, though some details were inconsistent or underdeveloped.

Edited December 14, 2008 by Michael E. Marotta

[Chris Grieb]

According to the IMDB DTESS did 31m. I noted that the next four pictures lower than it did 32M.

[Matus1976]

Okay, so then in analogy, we could look at a US warship landing in an African country where the Muslims are massacring various Christian and animist tribes. Some Christians have weapons with which they can defend themselves from the Jihadists. But we just land and say, look, we don't really like anyone using weapons, and we don't want you Christians using your boats and guns to defend yourselves, because we have a problem with guns.

Exactly, this is the problem with the 'world peace' nuts, they don't particular care WHY people are fighting, only that they are, and they should stop. They don't care about Justice, or self defense, it's all irrelevant. This I believe is a remnant of the christian 'virtue' of meekness, passivity, and suffering, which still resides even in these allegedly free spirited hippies. You won't see muslim's coming across a battle and saying 'ah, please stop fighting!' they'll say, 'whose right, and let me join in!'

[Matus1976]

The last film I went to see in the theater was Fellowship of the Ring, and though I love Tolkien, even that was torture.

Your remark on the motion picture version of LOTR is right on point. I predicted that any movie less than 42 hours long could not do justice to -Lord of the Rings-. I was right. For the same reason I predict than a motion picture of t.v. mini-series version of -Atlas Shrugged- would be an abomination

I am surprised at the reactions to LOTR. I thought it was one of the best movie series ever and that each of the individual movies were among the best movies ever.

I agree whole heartedly, the LOTR series is probably the best series of movies yet made, certainly some of the best movies (story, acting, cinematography, directing, score, theme, philosophy, etc) by every salient measurement is a great accomplishment, except, perhaps in 'staying perfectly true to the book'

Baal and Ted's reactions are what my friend Johnny calls "Nerd Rage"

I re-watch the series once or twice a year. Have you seen the extended versions? Even better...

I thought the movies did a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the books without seeming to go on forever.

Exactly! Tolkien was a linguist and a luddite, his point of writing the LOTR series was to come up with some inspiring English lore, attack modernization and technology (that is what he was quoted as saying the goblins and armies of mordor represented) and make up his own languages. The movies took that crap out and left the good story.