On the Remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still

Director Scott Derrickson, who did the Exorcism of Emily Rose, will soon begin to film a remake of the classic SF film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Upon learning of this news, there is one question that comes to mind. Why?

Well, of course we know why. Hollywood is so bereft of original ideas for films that it seems compelled to recycle old ones. These attempts at film recycling rarely go well, as illustrated by the attempt to remake and update another old, Cold War classic, The Manchurian Candidate. Despite the efforts of such fine actors as Denzel Washington, the new version, with its substitution of an evil corporation for the Red Chinese, fell flat. It lacked both the heart and the satirical bite of the original.

For those who are unfamiliar with the original The Day the Earth Stood still, it was one of those rare, intelligent science fiction films that occasionally cropped up in the 1950s (Destination Moon and Forbidden Planet being two others) amidst the usual film fare of bug eyed aliens and screaming, female victims. It was directed by Robert Wise (who later directed the somewhat less successful Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and starred Michael Rennie as an alien named Klaatu and Patricia Neal as Helen Benson, an Earth woman who helps him in his quest to bring peace to our planet, one way or the other.

The film begins when Klaatu lands his flying saucer in the middle of early 1950s Washington DC and is immediately surrounded by the Army. He is accompanied by an all power, potentially all destructive robot named Gort. Klaatu wants to meet with representatives of every nation on Earth, by which he means every nation and not just those who were members of the UN in 1951. His message is rather simple. Stop making war upon one another and above all do not bring your war like ways beyond your planet, or Gort will kill you all. Simple, direct, and to the point.