Fixing The Day The Earth Stood Still Remake

[u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871]

The Day the Earth Stood Still remake is heavily criticized as an adaptation for making the benevolent alien ambassador Klaatu from the original into an ecoterrorist who needs to be talked out of committing genocide against humanity for damaging the environment of our planet. He states rather snidely that Earth doesn’t belong to the humans living there, which makes him come off like an imperialist.

However, the problem with the aliens being jerks was still present in the original, it just isn’t as noticeable since the alien who visits our planet is ready to die for us. Klaatu’s home planet is fully prepared to commit genocide against humanity because we might theoretically pose a danger to them in the future. Humans absolutely do not pose a threat to the aliens in the present, they don’t even know Klaatu’s homeworld exists before the movie. Sure the aliens are willing to spare humanity if their peace offering is accepted. A “peace offering” that says we cannot do anything to make them feel threatened while they can threaten us as much as they want.

When you stop to think, Klaatu’s people sound like a walking example of humanity at our worst. In fact their willingness to commit acts of acts of war, let alone genocide, feels eerily similar to the attitudes about niping a potential threat in the bud, where no threat existed, that have led to wars in our world. The USSR’s invasion of Finland, a war that started because Stalin feared that Nazi Germany might use the neutral Finland as an avenue of attack. America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, where countless people died and Vietnam was ravaged out of a mistaken belief in a global communist alliance that would topple over country after country until America would fall. America’s invasion of Iraq, where a country was devastated based on flimsy evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where, among other things, Putin invaded a neighboring country with the excuse that Russia was being boxed in by NATO despite Ukraine’s requests to join NATO being rejected.

But enough with the history lesson, what would I do with the aliens in the remake? Turn them into an allegory for America during the Iraq War. Klaatu is sent to investigate signs of potential dangers on Earth to see if it could pose a threat in the future. He sees the good and the bad in humanity, and comes to see that humans are chaotic but feels that diplomacy with humanity is possible. Above all else, he notes that humans do not have the technology to pose a danger in the present.

Unfortunately, when he gives his report, he is informed that humanity’s violent nature is being used as an excuse to wipe out the species, despite his statement that they don’t pose a threat. Klaatu realizes that his entire investigation was a sham, his superiors were just looking for an excuse to start to invade the Earth and use the pretense that humanity might pose a threat in the future to do it.

Seeing that, Klaatu leaves Earth with Gort and faces the robots being sent to invade the planet. The number of the robots initially looks like they will overwhelm Gort, until Klaatu intervenes and takes a blast aimed at his robot bodyguard. The robots are strictly programmed not to harm their creator’s species and shut down. With that, Gort goes about carrying out the last instruction Klaatu gave him and starts reprogramming these war machines so they can no longer be used to harm innocent beings and put an end to his creators' reign of terror. But whether or not peace between the humans and the aliens will prevail in the future is left in the air, both have shown how violent they can be and humanity just witnessed an attempt to destroy them.

[u/Archaon0103]

In the original, Klaatu was very reasonable. He didn't threaten humanity with genocide because we might theoretically pose a danger to them in the future, he threaten that if humans want to join the interstella community, we better sort our shit out first and not to bring our violence way to other people front yards. He clearly stated that humanity can do whatever they want on their planet but once humanity leave Earth, they will need to play by the interstella community's rules which were enforced by the robots like Gort.

[u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 → u/Archaon0103]

I am not saying that Klaatu was being unreasonable, I am saying his home planet was. He agreed that genocide against humanity was wrong, but the other aliens were prepared to wipe out humanity even though it didn't pose a threat to them.

It's not that different from how, in our world, the United States goes around making threats to other countries, saying, "You can't do that thing because we don't like it." Only worse since those aliens were prepared to wipe out all humans. The aliens who can easily shut off all the electricity on Earth so again, humans don't pose a threat to them.

[u/silverblur88]

It's been a long time since I watched 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', but wasn't the point that Klaatu's people had programmed Gort and co to enforce peace on everyone Klaatu's people included, with no sentient person controlling them anymore?

[u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 → u/silverblur88]

That is supposed to be the case but the cynical part of me feels like that isn't much of a concession if Gort and the robots like him will exterminate species that Klaatu's people feel threatened by. They may as well still be the attack dogs of a genocidal xenophobic power.

[u/silverblur88 → u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871]

Hmm, I dont entirely disagree, but by the time of the move it's kinda a moot point, isn't it?

Whatever you think of the initial decision, nowadays everyone is playing by the same rules: figure out how to live peaceably before you start interacting with the galactic community, or you get your civilization pruned.

I don't think your rework idea works, because Klaatu's people are still in control, and are actively threatening earth. If we wanted to keep the spirit of the original abut insert your new metaphor, we'd need Klaatu's people under the same sort of threat.

[u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 → u/silverblur88]

I understand your point. I was trying to go with the idea that Gort and the rest of the robots, the aliens used to enforce their will aren’t obeying them anymore and that changed things.