The Day The Earth Stood Still - "Love the Gort You're With"

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

H: This movie seems to be the template for other movies where earth is visited by aliens - Independence Day(1996), War of the Worlds(2005), and especially Mars Attacks!(1996).

K: The Iron Giant(1999) is greatly influenced by this movie too. It's got the single mother, it's got the curious boy, it has the random guy that helps (the professor and the junk yard owner). This movie was made during the 1950s about the 1950s whereas "Iron Giant" chose to take place in the 1950s. The villain against the alien character in both movies is similar too, the insurance salesman and the FBI agent.

H: Plus both movies have robots.

K: The robot in this movie is even referred to as being made of iron - iron man, iron giant, something like that.

H: Also, both movies suggest the duality of space visitors - harmful and helpful - and they reveal the dangers of earth's armies, what's bad about earth culture.

K: Wasn't the iron giant made to destroy and the little boy turned him around? The robot in this was made to destroy only if aggression was shown. In this movie we have a choice whereas in "Iron Giant", we weren't given a choice initially.

H: In this movie the alien came to earth as a friend and we treated him like an enemy, whereas in "Mars Attacks!" we treated the aliens like friends (thanks a lot Jack Nicholson) but they were really enemies. Then we have the uncompromising and uncommunicative aliens in "Independence Day" and Alien (1979) and the almost non-entity type in "War of the Worlds".

K: Using "Mars Attacks!" and "The Day The Earth Stood Still", fear was a part of the 1950s so we responded to aliens as fearful people would. In the 1990s, do you think something changed for us to respond in a friendly way to the aliens?

H: The 1990s is one of those "end of history" kind of decades where we have the two world wars and the cold war behind us. Now we can just prosper. War of the Worlds (2005), the movie, was made post-9/11 and I guess you could make the argument that the faceless aliens in that movie represent the uncomprimising nature of global terrorsim. Maybe this is a stretch. What historically surrounded Orson Welles' radio broadcast?

K: If you look at how war movies are doing right now at the box office, no one's watching them ( In the Valley of Elah (2007), Rendition (2007), and The Kingdom (2007) are examples). We want to see America fighting aliens - the opening of Cloverfield (2008) was huge (let's ignore the quick drop-off).

H: Klaatu, the rational alien visitor, says two things that are interesting when juxtaposed with today's politcal events:

1. In the movie, people are "substitut(ing) fear for reason."
2. Violence is the only thing that earth people understand.

People have accused Bush and other war proponents of #1. Also, when people talk about Good Night and Good Luck (2005) (including George Clooney himself), they draw obvious parallels between the political climate of today and that of the 1950s.

#2 is something that war proponents use to justify the use of force against Muslim countries and it's basically a Crusader's bigoted attitude towards those people. I would almost accuse Klaatu of intergalactic bigotry (planetism), except that I agree with his assessment of our species. If you implicate all of humanity, it doesn't seem so wrong.

K: Don't you think Klaatu is visiting earth the same way Maatu is visiting Jupiter? Maybe Klaatu is having a harder time because earth is more aggressive and Jupiter understands the ideas that Maatu is selling. Klaatu's kind has an intergalactic perspective. He's pretty arrogant though. He already knows everything earth is attempting and has succeeded, so he should already know the answer as to what earth's response would be.

H: But he also shows humility when talking to the boy. I like the scene where the boy shows him how to use his flashlight.

K: Do you think it's humility or do think that he's surprised that earth people could be nice? He expected earth to be nice when he brought the president a present, but then we shot him.

H: Isn't this how Jesus must have felt? I think we could draw those kinds of parallels. Klaatu has the biblical duality of the understanding savior and the retributive God - except in this case God uses a robot to do his dirty work. I think what Klaatu does to prove to the world that he's serious (making all non-essential electrical stuff stop) is like Jesus turning water into wine or other various non-harmful miracles, except Klaatu's miracle isn't helpful. There's also the title of the film, which suggests when God stopped the earth to prove something to somebody. So, Klaatu represents Jesus, the robot represents the old testament God.

K: And the insurance salesman is Judas.

H: And the mom is Mary Magdelene and the boy is Moses being found in a basket. I think this movie has the whole plagues on Egypt thing going on too. With more time, Gort (the robot and also the name of a high school friend of mine) could have made it rain frogs. Do you want to talk about the ending of the film?

K: I expected Klaatu to leave Gort on earth after his explanation of the intergalactic police force. Are we supposed to assume that Klaatu will watch us until we do become aggressive?

H: Yeah, I felt like the end of the film was Captain Planet saying "The power is yours" or McGruff saying "Take a bite out of crime" or Smoky the Bear saying "Only you can prevent Gort from reducing your planet to a 'burned-out cinder'". Was he speaking to the audience?

K: Do you think Klaatu is gaining power over the crowd by instilling fear in them and therefore contradicting his earlier scoff at using fear instead of reason?

H: Klaatu needs to work on his message a little bit. How can he advocate giving up aggression by threatening aggression? I think if Klaatu were Gandhi instead of Jesus, it would be easier to take. Gandhi never supported violence as a means to achieving peace. Jesus did say that he did not come to bring peace but a sword (Mathew 10:45).

K: I think Klaatu would have been better off singing "Love the one you're with" (courtesy Stephen Stills). America alone can't stop what could be earth's discussion, according to Klaatu. It'll take the whole world. In this movie, America is the world's greatest superpower (as the newsreel extra on the DVD shows us) but not the galaxy's.

H: And in later films, America is the galaxy's superpower, because we beat the aliens in "Independence Day" on our birthday (not, notably Bastille Day) and we beat the "Mars Attacks!" aliens too. As a side note, all of these earth attacked movies by default have to show various people of the world looking confused/frightened in front of their corresponding national landmarks.

K: Klaatu says that he won't take away any freedoms, except the freedom to be irresponsible. He also says that his threat of aggression is to prevent larger aggressions by earth.

H: The aggression to end all aggressions. Sounds like a bumper sticker for the first world war.

K: Real people hearing Klaatu's speech would still say, "But you're taking away a freedom!". He's using reason and he's recognizing how peace is maintained. There is a sacrifice that we must make to keep peace. Other planets have been peaceful and the only reason they're worried is because earth is making rockets.

H: Why don't the other planets just build a missile defense system? They can use our plans. It's interesting that the peaceful planets relegated the dispensing of aggression to a mindless robot, Gort. Just because the robot is doing the violent enforcing and they programmed him to be unstoppable doesn't mean that they're not responsible for what he does.

Klaatu's argument sounds a lot like "Why don't we just nuke the middle east? That would keep us safe," substituting "earth" for "middle east".

K: So is Klaatu bringing any peace? He laughs that we fear him, but at the end he pretty much scares everybody. He doesn't even tell them that he's about to take off in his ship and they should probably get clear of it.

H: I want to compare the ending of this movie to that of The Great Dictator and not just because we watched that yesterday. Both movies end with a speech about the choice humankind has - break down divisions and get along or suffer the consequences (you'll kill each other off or Gort will kill you).

K: The big difference is "The Great Dictator" ended with blatant optimism. The force of evil at the time will at some point end and that's when the underdogs will rise. Gort will be around for ever. Gort represents the choice that madmen make to be aggressive.

H: So Hitler had secret code words we could say to turn him good and have him carry us into his space ship?

K: Do you think Gort would destroy earth if even one army started causing trouble?

H: Yes. Klaatu is a firm believer in collective punishment. It seems like he could be at least as nice as God and save some people on some sort of ark. He should at least save Billy and his hot mom.

Coming back to comparing both movies, they end with the speaker's love interest listening to the speech intently. It'll all be roses for the little tramp's girlfriend and they'll probably be together, where Klaatu left the mom in the lurch and her future is far from certain or rosy.

K: No, her future is good because she won't marry the jerk insurance salesman.

H: Yeah, but Gort could destroy the planet. I'm going to bring in Lilo and Stitch (2002) and mention that originally, the intergalactic protectors in that movie were going to just destroy earth when they found out Stitch, the evil alien, was on the loose there. They decided not to originally because the mosquito was an endangered species, but the aliens also learned to appreciate earth and its inhabitants for who they were. I don't see that appreciation for earth from Klaatu at all. He's pretty robotic when it comes to feelings.

K: He felt strongly about Lincoln's words at the Lincoln Memorial.

H: Yeah, but he likes ideas more than people. If his favorite earthling now only exists as stone, I think he's made of stone and I'm going to boycott his stupid meeting at the spaceship.

K: If I were at the meeting, I'd say "Um...we'll take peace please". I thought people would answer his question.

H: Do you think we're slowly choosing peace or we're slowly choosing destruction? I don't think Klaatu had to threaten us with Gort. He knows us and he could probably guess that we're our own worst enemies.

K: He doesn't know us because he wanted to hang out with people on the street. It's probably standard procedure that if planets start making rockets, you take a Gort over there and threaten them by saying "We brought this metal guy to kick your rump".

H: The fact that all planets look the same to Klaatu is insulting. Each planet should have its own day in court. I don't think the intergalactic police should have created Gort because he only has two modes - I'm sending you to hell or you can live on earth a little longer. I suppose he reflects the Calvinist notion of the elect and the damned. Also, Klaatu believes in what sounds like a Judeo-Christian God.

K: Don't you think Klaatu is just as afraid of Gort as we are? Is he trying to warn us rather than scare us? Obviously Klaatu has the power (through Gort) to stop the earth and also to take away weapons.

H: Why doesn't Gort take away our rockets and our nuclear scientists? I think some international arms control would do the job.

K: He's not taking away our freedom to think and develop weapons, he's taking away our freedom to act in a violent way.

H: You can't tell me that people use atomic weapons to hunt. We just don't need them, right? What about enforcing the ballistic treaties we already have?

K: What really hurts people: developing the rockets or using the rockets? Gort is black and white, there's nothing more to him. Look at his costume. That's who he is. There's no easier way to enforce peace except to nip violence in the bud.

H: Nip it with more violence. Shouldn't one Gort destroy another, or do Gorts have no home planet? That would be a sucky planet.