by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright Dec 2008
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" is a film made by the book... by the "2008 Correct Film Making" book.
The 1951 version of "Day the Earth Stood Still" predates my movie watching by only a few years, and I caught it once or twice in reruns. My impression at the time was it was OK, but nothing to compare to Forbidden Planet, my favorite of that time frame.
I wish the 2008 version ranked so highly.
In a nutshell, the big problem with this movie is that it looks like it was done by film makers. Every choice of how to show things, how to tell things, how to move the plot along, looks like a film maker had the deciding hand. By film maker, I mean someone who understands the technical aspects of what looks good and what sounds good, and what movie audiences of 2008 expect to see.
What got sacrificed? Oh... science, story, space, time, reality, believability... minor things if you're a film maker.
The one bright spot in the movie: Jennifer Connely. To my surprise, she's looking better than ever. That's saying a lot since I remember her from Labyrinth in 1986. She looked good in that, too.
Now to the dark side...
o I find the business of the mysterious motorcade of black SUV's surrounded by motorcycles and helicopters so ho-hum. Having one is especially puzzling when the event the scientist is getting taken to is so unexpected. The SUV Parade is so cleched these days, and it makes no sense in this circumstance.
An aside: what is missing from these aliens-come-to-Earth movies, that really, really needs to be there, is a sense of shock. A sense of... "What's happening? Say that again? That's so unexpected! ... What should we do?" Instead these movies show a wonderful choreography of SUV's, helicopters, tanks and such moving around with great precision and determination. Now that's serious unreality! But, even more important to film makers, it's hard to make reality -- hiding soldiers and cops -- look photogenic.
o Likewise, all the scenes of stuff flying around and motorcades zooming this-way-and-that is so "I've seen that before." It's worse than a casino scene in a James Bond movie.
o The description of the saucer coming to Earth is so... physics defying... is I guess the best way to put it. In science fiction movies, there's high technology, higher technology and the highest technology level of all... complete idiocy. Sadly, there was a lot of this highest level in this movie.
o The positioning of the people in Central Park when the saucer lands was so... cinematographic. Lots of people, all standing by themselves, not in groups.
o Likewise, the approach of the scientists and soldiers to the sphere was nonsense... except it looked good.
o Klaatu came out in his birthday suit? Literally!! Oh man! That's sure highest level technology as defined above. And adding sprinkles on top, he wanted to go to the UN that way? Why didn't the space ship wait a week so he could get properly born? (However, I do admit, the revelation that he was wearing a birthday suit was a cute surprise as I was watching.)
o The concept that the human race is going to destroy all life on Earth (as versus destroying all human life on Earth) is hokey and unreal. No matter what humans foul up, bacteria are going to be here for sure, and probably a lot more. The premise was crazy talk.
o The handling of Gort by the military made no sense, especially the scenes where he's in the silo and the examiners are looking at him through a glass window. Umm... any of you film makers heard of remote sensing? And the dissolving into nanotech bugs was sooo 2000's.
o The boy handing out so much lip bothered me a lot. The government agents of the first SUV motorcade not having thought of a place to take care of the kid bothered me, too. The only good news about the boy was, there was no dog as well.
o Klaatu was in touch with a sphere in New Jersey. Why did he have to get back to the Central Park one? If he did have to get back, why was he taking a car, not a sphere?
In sum, Day the Earth Stood Still joins that other pillar of silly science I have reviewed "The Day After Tomorrow". Both are quite forgettable, and show how bankrupt Hollywood science fiction is these days in terms of good science fiction story ideas, and how laughably they treat the few good ideas they are willing to consider. Hollywood really, really needs to take the next step, and move beyond thinking that good CGI makes or breaks a movie.
They need to move on to believing that it's all about story telling. They need to move on to... doing some of my stories.
-- The End --