In anticipation of the Keanu Reeves remake that's coming out soon, I rented The Day the Earth Stood Still from Netflix. I had seen this film as a child (which was long ago) and thought it was okay. I didn't really pick up on the political message then, but it was shocking to me to see it now.
There's been a general attitude towards this film that it promotes peace and unity among us earthlings through the visit of a Christ-like character named Klaatu. He is Christ-like in that he is not of this world, he dies and comes back to life, he has a message of peace for us, and he has the seeming supernatural power to make the Earth stand still.
This last attribute is a bit of an exaggeration, since he only makes mechanical devices stand still. I don't have much of a problem with this overstatement, since hyperbole is a standard way of speaking in Hollywood (e.g. Alec Baldwin said he would leave the country when Bush was elected). Also, he doesn't really have the power--his robot Gort apparently does the deed from their spaceship.
The second to last attribute is a bit un-Christ-like, since his message of peace is this: If you take your atomic warfare into outerspace, our robots will wipe your planet from the universe. You may not remember him using these words exactly. He says that the otherworlders have decided to live in peace and harmony by agreeing to give up aggression and war. They built a race of robots who would enforce this by whatever means necessary. Now, they don't care what we earth people do on our own planet, "but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration." No forgiveness, no helping us to avoid the horrid fate, no tips on how they got together and worked things out. Just the threat of force--live by our rules or die. I haven't found anything like that attitude in the Gospels. It seems a lot more like fascism.
What little information is given about their extraterrestrial society makes it sound like a social contract of the Lockean flavor. People get together to secure their rights to property and peace and give the enforcement of those rights to a governing body (in this case, the race of robots). Their borders (which, I suppose, would be contact with other planets that haven't become interplanetary players) are also secured by the robots.
All in all, watching the movie again was a bit of a disappointment, philosophically speaking. I think the "pro-peace" reputation is undeserved; though certainly it's anti-nukes message is loud and clear. I wonder what they will do with those themes in the new version.
Dorian Gray Corner 2: How to avoid being gauche
12 years ago
