Posted on 12/12/2008 10:00:44 AM PST by steve-b
If you're looking for chuckles this holiday season, bypass the miserably unfunny "Four Christmases" and go where the real comedy is -- "The Day the Earth Stood Still," a clumsy, moronic remake of Robert Wise's brilliant 1951 classic about an alien invader trying to save the human race from its own self-destructive impulses.
What did poor Wise do, incidentally, to deserve such treatment? His chilling horror masterpiece "The Haunting" was already put through the meat-grinder with an effects-heavy 1999 remake, and his thriller "The Andromeda Strain" was revisited with ill results in a SciFi Channel re-do earlier this year. What next -- a hip-hop reinterpretation of "The Sound of Music"? (Granted, Queen Latifah could totally tear up "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," but still…)
The new "Day" can't be bothered to include the thought-provoking dialogue of the original, choosing instead to bury the audience with special effects that are visually impressive but no substitute for an actual script. And what words do remain are so exquisitely awful that they provide some of the season's biggest laughs....
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
It is supposed to be about environmental destruction, a la “global warming”.
Don’t watch it!!
I guess I can pass on seeing Klaatu Theodore Logan...
But, the reviews I've read have been universally negative. So, I guess I'll skip it....
Is Al Gore the robot? Gore, klaatu barada nikkto!
There is a special place in hell for dictators, child molesters, and people who remake good movies.
I watched the original last night. Seemed like the same liberal junk as today. Only difference was it was saying we shouldn’t develop weapons that threaten other planets, there should be no war, etc...
I wouldn’t classify it as brilliant by any means.
No thanks.
Who plays Patricia Neal?
The previews for this movie and the TV spots were so stupid and awful...this is not a shock.
It was corny.
Exactly! Some movies cannot be improved.
Another movie I had to get the original for my teenagers to view before seeing the remake. “Flight of the Phoenix” and “The Four Feathers” to name a few.
The kids loved the originals and thought the remakes sucked.
I did not think the original was really all that brilliant. The “visitor” might as well have been from the Soviet Union with all his high talk about utopia and the end to violence and war. It will never happen (sort of like most of Obama’s tripe). I did like the robot. One cool dude.
BTW, the secret code “klatu nicto verada (sp?)” was used in that wild ride of a film “Army of Darkness”. I think it unlocked the witch or something like that.
I read that they left out the signature line “Klaatu barada nikto”.
Did they name the robot Gore instead of Gort? LOL
It’s just global warming propaganda. I can see that sh*t for free on NBC News every night, so who needs to spend $10.50 to see it in the theatre?
Thank you! I’ve been afraid to even publicly say that the original has somehow become enshrined in the public imagination for reasons I personally don’t understand.
If this remake is as bad as the remake of my personal favorite ... War of The Worlds ... there is no spot hot enough in hell for the re-makers
ping
the commercials make it PAINFULLY apparent this is a stinker.
It is obvously humans are eeeeevil and must be removed from the planet.
This is not the day the earth stood still, this is peta invades the earth.
-as was widely known at the time , it was a piece of anti-US propaganda--(the "good guy", Klattu of course to fix all the evils of the world lands in Washington, DC--center of the world's problems---
You’ve got some savvy kids!
and, yes, the original “Four Feathers” was a GREAT adventure film.
I saw it last night as well. A liberal propaganda flick if ever there was one.
Klatu reminds me of a cross between Jimmy Carter and Hans Blix. And yes, Algore=Gort.
Naive as execrement.
Howver, I DO like Patricia Neal. She played Dominique in one of my favorite movie classics, The Fountainhead.
She is still alive and active in pro-life causes.
God bless her!
The re-make of War of the Worlds with Tom Cruz was AWFUL.
Klaatu Theordore Logan, Neo-Esquire.
Bogus.
Most heinous!
Yeah, "We're going to destroy you because you are violent."
I used to like "The Abyss" as well, until I saw the director's cut about us being evil and bad, so the aliens were going to wipe us out until they witnessed one person willing to sacrifice himself for others... Didn't these aliens understand the history they were witnessing? Going to war to end tyranny, oppression, slavery, and the Holocaust was a bad thing?
The aliens never fought amongst themselves, got along perfectly with each other, never argued with neighbors? Yeah, right.
I agree. I watched it last night and thought the same thing.
I can only imagine what they have done in the remake to make it even more a leftist wetdream. Yeah, no thanks.
Oh, I don't know...Tim Robbins gets killed with a shovel. That was pretty good. :)
“I did not think the original was really all that brilliant.”
Agree.
The best sci-fi films of the 1950’s were “Forbidden Planet” and “Invasion of The Body Snatchers”, both released in 1956. The 1978 remake of Body Snatchers was one of the few excellent remakes in movie history. Let’s hope the same can be said of the planned 2010 release of the new “Forbidden Planet”!
That reminds me... what the heck ever happened to Alex Winter?
They changed John Carpenter’s name to Klaatu. Having a “John Carpenter”, who comes to earth to save mankind so close to the Christmas season would offend some people.
This is the Johnny Mnemonic of 2008.
given some time even “ishtar” will be declared a classic because some movie reviewer is a friend of somebody who can still make a dollar off that turkey.
The first movie = Americans who want to defend themselves against communism are BAD
The second movie = Americans who drive SUVs are killing the environment and are BAD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Winter
In 2007, Winter returned to acting after a nearly 14-year absence to do a guest spot on the crime series Bones. Currently, he has a recurring role as the voice of 'King Mole Man' on the Adult Swim show Saul of the Molemen, which was created by long-time friend Tom Stern, and has directed the live-action adaptation of the hit Cartoon Network series Ben 10, which aired in November of 2007 and garnered the highest ratings in Cartoon Network history. He has reportedly been tapped to write the Howard Stern-produced remake of "Rock 'N' Roll High School".
I believe that it's Jennifer Conolley (sp?)
She was just on the David Letterman show, and I was really shocked. This was without a doubt one of the world's most beautiful women just a few years ago. Today she looks emaciated.
Mark
Johnny Mnemonic is shakespear compared to this politcally correct unwatchable tripe.
Yeah ... I saw the new one with my kids last week. It was laughably awful. It got to the point where I was trying to predict which disaster would happen next.
That phase also makes an appearance in the hero’s office cubicle in the movie “Tron”.
And of course, the Navy SEAL was the crazy, evil one and the he was defeated by the bleeding heart, liberal chick (along with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio)!!
It would be easy to mistake the original for just some liberal tripe, but there are some deeper meanings.
For example, there is a strong argument that Klaatu was a Jesus, second coming, allegory, and while still benevolent and full of grace, he is making it clear that heaven has lost patience with man’s utter viciousness and destructiveness. Not a perfect allegory, by far, but a different take from the obvious.
Ironically, in retrospect, Klaatu makes a good allegory for, of all things, “Uncle Sam”, and the American outlook on the world. That is, Klaatu represents the peaceful worlds, and is sent to our Earth to warn us not to even think about using our nuclear weapons against them, and for Earth to get its house in order, or else.
How different is that from how the US looks at Pakistan, a nuclear armed chaos full of violent and unpredictable groups? Klaatu is like a US ambassador sent there, with the US military along for the ride, to tell Pakistan to cut it out. If they don’t listen to the ambassador, Gort, the US military, is going to kick their rear end.
Nothing liberal about that at all. Gort clearly demonstrated to the Iraqis the value of not being an international threat. Good for Gort.
As far as the Keanu remake goes, it sucks lizard eggs.
IIRC, his craziness was caused by too much time exposed to high pressures, or something like that. I didn't see it as a political statement- the other SEALS were fine, it was just the one guy who was off his nut due to circumstances outside of his control.
I’ll defer to you — mostly because my toungue was placed squarely in my cheek....
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