Posted on 12/02/2008 8:56:52 AM PST by NYer
The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of the 1951 black and white movie classic of the same title, will be released December 12. I can’t wait to see it.
A emissary from the galactic federation is coming to warn Earth about its bad environmental habits. We’re trashing up the neighborhood and our alien neighbors don’t like it. At least, that’s my hunch on the warning this alien emissary brings. Could be something else; the trailers I’ve watched aren’t very explicit. But since green is in and everybody and his sister is warning us already, I don’t see why aliens from the galactic federation shouldn’t feel free to stick their oar in the water too.
In any case, I think it is less likely that the 2008 emissary will bring the same warning he brought in 1951. That time it was about war, violence, and atomic weaponry. He was against all three, should you wonder. Earth’s neighbors in the Milky Way Galaxy were shocked by way we Earthlings settle disputes and positively panicked that we had acquired atomic weapons for use as tools of argument. Combine atomic weapons with space travel and, really, there go galactic property values!
The 1951 visitor from out there—Klaatu—was sent to bump us off. A day trip to the Lincoln Memorial, though, convinces Klaatu that Earth is sometimes capable of producing great persons of sensitivity and feeling (group sigh, everyone). Shortly after reaching this conviction, U.S. soldiers shoot and kill Klaatu. But he is resurrected by his faithful robot companion, Gort.
You’d think this life-death-life experience would confirm Klaatu’s original intention of wiping us out, but Klaatu high-mindedly sticks with his plan for a warning. Instead of a little galactic pest control, Klaatu decides to give Earth a wake-up call. A world-wide blackout where nothing moves, he thinks, might get our attention. It does, and in his farewell speech to some gathered world scientists—a kind of Sermon on the Spaceship Ramp—Klaatu warns that if his warning goes unheeded, Earth will be destroyed. “The decision rests with you.” Then he turns on his heel, puts his spaceship in drive and goes up, up, and up. This is a near biblical ascension and, of course, that’s exactly how the filmmakers want you to see it.
This is the way a lot of “alien as messiah” films go, and the 1951 version had more than its share of religious stuff. There was Klaatu’s reference to “the Almighty Spirit,” plus that climatic Lazarus-like resurrection. There was, however, nothing miraculous to be found. It was due to a medical science far beyond our capacity to understand. In these alien–savior films, everything is beyond our capacity to understand.
In the 1982 E.T., we have both a resurrection (cheers were said to be heard in theatres) and an ascension, awe-struck humans looking upward at their departing friend.
You want more sci-fi religion? There’s Jeff Bridges as the Starman in 1984. He impregnates an Earth woman and promises that her Child will be a Teacher. That’s my capitalization of the two words, but you won’t miss the capital letters dripping from the Starman’s accent. There was even a short-lived television series based on the product of that union. Starman, by the way, resurrects a deer killed by a red-neck hunter—so, take that you awful NRA people! Were the film being made today, I think an Alaskan moose shot by a pony-tailed governor would likely get the role. While there is no resurrection in Starman, except for the deer, the ascension scene is not to be missed—another picture of slack-jawed humans gazing wonderingly upward.
We want to believe there’s Somebody Out There, somebody wiser, stronger, smarter, kinder than ourselves. Surely, in this vast, incomprehensible cosmos there must be other beings selflessly prepared to snatch us out of our troubles. You can hope so. A lot of science fiction is depending on it.
I think a more interesting storyline—but not nearly as exciting—would be the ultimate discovery that we are home alone in the universe. Get familiar with something called the “Rare Earth hypothesis,” and you might be convinced of it. As a hypothesis, Rare Earth has stirred up great opposition from scientists bent on believing that we must have galactic neighbors. It’s almost a matter of faith, because to think that this Earth might be the only earth is just too, well, peculiar.
Ancient theologians had something similar. They talked about the scandal of particularity, the theological speculation that God uses particular times, particular places, and particular people to show himself, and that he uses them in such a way as to create deep perplexity if not outright shock.
Today we’d use the word peculiar to summarize a strange sort of God who leaves but hints of his existence within creation, and who may even be said to hide himself behind his work. It is possible, simply from science, to deny the existence of any deity at all. It is also the case that not a few scientists come to faith exactly by examining the intricate discoveries made by science. But if there is a god who is the God, he plays hide-and-seek behind, within, and throughout his creation. Strange behavior for God—downright peculiar.
But if God—as Jews, Christians, and Muslims say—does act for the whole cosmos, that leaves open an interesting possibility. Maybe, if the aliens ever do land on Earth, their first words won’t be “Take us to your leader,” but “Where can we worship?”
References
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Starman (1984)
Starring Obama as the Saviour/Spaceman and Hillary as the Robot. The little kid can be played by Kucinich.
I never am ceased to be amazed how some pastors will stretch analogies to make a point.
I wonder what his take is on the old Twilight Zone twist where we misunderstood the alien and disarmed, only to find out the aliens wanted us to be a warrior planet and build space weapons. :->
Al Gore would be a natural for the robot.
Good pick, Al Gore replacing Hillary as the Robot. But would he be too stiff for the role?
How about “IT’S A COOKBOOK!”
;^)
The Day the Earth Stood Still Remake is About Global Warming
“The first one was borne out of the cold war and nuclear détente. Klaatu came and was saying cease and desist with your violence. If you can’t do it yourselves we’re going to do it. That was the film of that day,” Reeves explained. “The version I was just working on, instead of being man against man, it’s more about man against nature. My Klaatu says that if the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the earth survives. I’m a friend to the earth.”
While humanity still engages in a staggering number of international conflicts, the environmental message is one that, not only encompasses wars, and fights, and terrorism, but one that goes beyond constrictions to become a millennial message of “what we are doing and who we are as a species,” Reeves insisted. “We’re trying to reach beyond the idea of [just] environmentalism.”
I think it will be revealed that Obama was really born on another planet and that is why the birth certificate issue has been covered up.
Further, He has been sent as an emmissary to save planet Earth.
All Hail the Savior, All Hail Obama.
They burnt Giovanni Bruno at the stake for suggesting that there were possibly alien planets circling distant stars, and that God would have to send an alien-Christ for their salvation.
But I have long thought that UFO worship (they control everything, are all knowing and all powerful) was a new ‘technological’ mythology to replace the notion that, for example, thunder was Thor cracking his hammer off a giant’s skull.
Then here on FR I have read posters who claim to believe in both the God of the Bible and that aliens control everything. WOW! Weird.
I thought that episode was from the old New Twilight Zone in color and not from the original BW series that I remember.
Hey, maybe we can just outlaw alien movies!
I think these damn busybody intergalactic aliens should just mind their own damn business.......
>Then here on FR I have read posters who claim to believe in both the God of the Bible and that aliens control everything. WOW! Weird.
Cognitive dissonance anyone?
Wow ... all my favorite movies!! Remakes of films rarely approach the caliber of the original films. Michael Rennie will always be Klaatu.
Since they are warning about polluters, they are landing in Shanghai or New Delhi, right?
Getting lectured by Keanu about global warming?
Pass...
Aliens control everything, no government serves but by the will of God; Thus ‘it is God's will that we be secretly ruled by aliens’. Or SOMETHING!!! Sheesh. It makes the mind boggle.
Still the best! Thanks for the tip on its release.
Michael Rennie was ill the day the earth stood still
But he told us where we stand
And Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear
Claude Raines was the invisible man
Then something went wrong for Fay Wray and King Kong
They got caught in a celluloid jam
Then at a deadly pace it came from outer space
And this is how the message ran:
Science Fiction - Double Feature
Dr. X will build a creature
See androids fighting Brad and Janet
Ann Francis stars in Forbidden Planet
Oh-oh at the late night, double feature, picture show.
I knew Leo G. Carroll was over a barrel
When Tarantula took to the hills
And I really got hot when I saw Janet Scott
Fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills
Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes
And passing them used lots of skills
But when worlds collide, said George Pal to his bride
I’m gonna give you some terrible thrills, like a:
Science Fiction - Double Feature
Dr. X will build a creature
See androids fighting Brad and Janet
Ann Francis stars in Forbidden Planet
Oh-oh at the late night, double feature, picture show.
I wanna go, oh-oh, to the late night double feature picture show.
By RKO, oh-oh, at the late night double feature picture show.
In the back row at the late night double feature picture show.
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