The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 2008 American science fiction film serving as a remake of the 1951 film of the same name, which, in turn, was based on the 1940 short story "Farewell to the Master". Directed by Scott Derrickson from a screenplay by David Scarpa, it stars Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, an alien sent to try to change human behavior in an effort to save Earth from environmental degradation; this version replaces the Cold War–era theme of potential nuclear warfare with the contemporary issue of negative human impact on the environment. It co-stars Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith, John Cleese, Jon Hamm, and Kathy Bates.
The Day the Earth Stood Still was originally scheduled for release on May 9, 2008, but was released on a roll-out schedule beginning December 12, 2008, screening in both conventional and IMAX theaters. The film was met with mixed reviews from critics but was a box office success, grossing $233.1 million worldwide against its $80 million production budget.
Plot
In 1928, a solitary mountaineer exploring the Karakoram mountains in India encounters a glowing sphere. He loses consciousness and when he wakes, the sphere is gone and there is a scar on his hand.
In the present day, a rapidly moving object detected beyond Jupiter's orbit is predicted to collide with Earth, destroying all life. The U.S. government assembles a group of scientists including Helen Benson and her friend Michael Granier to develop a survival plan. The object slows down and descends in Manhattan, revealing itself to be a large spherical spaceship. Helen and the scientists respond to the scene with military forces. An alien emerges and Helen moves forward to greet it, but amidst the confusion, the alien is shot. A gigantic humanoid robot appears and emits a high-pitched disabling signal. The wounded alien voices the command "Klaatu barada nikto" to shut down the robot's defensive response.
The scientists take the alien to a laboratory and discover its skin is a bioengineered space suit composed of placenta-like material covering a human-like being. After the bullet is extracted, the being ages into Klaatu, resembling the mountaineer from 1928. Klaatu informs Secretary of Defense Regina Jackson that a group of planetary civilizations sent him to Earth to discuss saving the planet from ecocide. When Jackson sends him for interrogation, Klaatu escapes and reconnects with Helen and her stepson, Jacob, telling them he must finish his mission to "save the Earth".
The emergence of smaller spheres around the world causes widespread public panic. Military drone attacks on the main sphere are thwarted by the robot and the military adopts a weapons-free approach, cautiously enclosing the robot now nicknamed "GORT" (Genetically Organized Robotic Technology). The robot is transported to the Mount Weather underground facility in Virginia.
Klaatu meets with another alien, Mr. Wu, who has lived on Earth for years and describes humans as destructive, stubborn, and unwilling to change, matching Klaatu's perceptions. Mr. Wu adds that he intends to remain on Earth, as he has grown to love the people. Klaatu orders the smaller spheres to collect animal specimens for preservation and later reintroduction to the Earth and tells Helen he intends to save the planet from destruction by humans.
Hoping to change Klaatu's perceptions of humanity, Helen takes him to Nobel Prize recipient Professor Barnhardt. They discuss how Klaatu's race went through drastic, collaborative evolution to prevent the demise of their planet. Barnhardt pleads that Earth is at the same precipice, and humanity should be given a chance to understand that it, too, must change. While the adults are talking, Jacob calls the authorities to come and arrest Klaatu.
While the military is examining GORT, the robot transforms into a swarm of winged insect-like nano-machines that self-replicate as they consume every man-made object in their path. The swarm devours the entire facility and emerges above ground to continue feeding.
The military captures Helen while Klaatu and Jacob escape on foot. As they travel, Klaatu learns more about humanity through Jacob. When Jacob contacts Helen and arranges to meet at his father's grave, the Secretary sends her to try to change Klaatu's mind. At the grave, Jacob is heartbroken that Klaatu cannot resurrect his long-dead father. As Helen and Jacob reunite, Klaatu's cumulative observations of humans convince him to stop the swarm.
Granier drives them to the Central Park sphere, but the swarm has reached massive proportions. Klaatu trudges through the swarm to the sphere, touching it moments before his own body is consumed. The sphere deactivates the swarm, saving humanity, but also shutting down all electronics on Earth as the giant sphere leaves the Earth.
Cast Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, an alien messenger in human form. Reeves dislikes remakes, but was impressed by the script, which he deemed a reimagining. He enjoyed the original film as a child and became fonder of it as an adult when he understood how relevant it was. Reeves acknowledged his Klaatu is "inverted" from the original, starting "sinister and tough", but becoming "more human", whereas the original was "more human than human" before revealing his "big stick" in his ending speech. He compared the remake's Klaatu to the wrathful God who floods the world in the Old Testament, but is gentle and forgiving by the time of the New Testament. He spent many weeks revising the script, trying to make Klaatu's transition from alien in human form to one who appreciates their emotions and beliefs subtle and nuanced. Derrickson, the director, said that although Reeves would not use actions "that are highly unusual or highly quirky," he nevertheless "keeps you aware of the fact that this being you're walking through this movie with is not a human being". At Reeves' insistence, the line "Klaatu barada nikto" was added to the script after initially being omitted. The line was recorded many times, and it was decided to combine two recordings: one where Reeves said it normally and a reversed version where he said the line backward, creating an "alien" effect. Alt URL Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson, an astrobiologist at Princeton University, who is recruited by the government to study Klaatu. Connelly was Derrickson's first choice for the part. She is a fan of the original film and felt Patricia Neal's original portrayal of Helen was "fabulous," but trusted the filmmakers with their reinterpretation of the story and of Helen, who was a secretary in the original. Connelly emphasized that Helen is amazed when she meets Klaatu, as she never believed she would encounter a sentient alien like him after speculating on extraterrestrial life for so long. Connelly was dedicated to understanding her scientific jargon, with Seth Shostak stating she did "everything short of writing a NASA grant application." Jaden Smith as Jacob Benson, Helen's eight-year old stepson. Jacob replaces the character of Bobby (Billy Gray) in the original, and his relationship with Helen was written as a microcosm of how Klaatu comes to see humanity—the alien sees their cold and distant relationship as normal human behavior, and their reconciliation forces him to change his mind. Smith said he found Jacob difficult to play because he felt the character "opposite" to his personality. Smith had met Reeves before on the set of the Matrix sequels, which featured his mother, Jada Pinkett-Smith. John Cleese as Professor Karl Barnhardt, a Nobel Prize–winning physicist, who specializes in the evolutionary basis of altruism. Helen takes Klaatu to him to further change his mind. The role was the most difficult to cast, and eventually the filmmakers decided to approach Cleese, noting "Who would you rather make the argument [to Klaatu] for mankind than John Cleese?" Stoff, a producer, had met Cleese a few times beforehand and had noted his intellect. The actor was surprised the filmmakers were interested in him, and decided playing a dramatic role would be easier than to play a comedic one at his age. He was often reminded to speed up his dialogue so that Reeves would not appear in synchronicity with normal human speech patterns. Cleese said he is not interested in extraterrestrial life because he often philosophizes about the purpose of life and why humans are distracted by trivial matters. Cleese spoke about portraying abilities outside his own experience in the scene in which Klaatu corrects a complex mathematical formula Barnhardt has written on a blackboard: "The trouble is, I had to be able to write the equation, because Barnhardt has been working on it for 60 years. I learned to carefully copy things down that mean nothing to me at all. In A Fish Called Wanda, I spoke a lot of Russian without having any idea what it means." The crew enjoyed working with Cleese and were sad when he finished filming his part. Jon Hamm as Michael Granier, a NASA official, who recruits Helen into his scientific team investigating Klaatu. Granier is fascinated by Klaatu, but is torn between his official obligation to detain the alien and protect his country. Hamm acknowledged science fiction was a niche genre when the original film was made, and that it used science fiction to make topical issues more approachable. He had the same feelings for this remake. Originally, his character was French and named Michel. Although he is interested in math and science, Hamm found his technical dialogue difficult and had to film his lines repeatedly. Kathy Bates as Regina Jackson, the United States Secretary of Defense. Bates had only two weeks to film her scenes, so she often requested Derrickson act out her lines so she could directly understand his aims for her dialogue. Kyle Chandler as John Driscoll Robert Knepper as Colonel Addelman James Hong as Mr. Wu, an alien living in the United States John Rothman as Dr. Myron Brandon T. Jackson as Target Tech
Production Development In 1994, 20th Century Fox and Erwin Stoff had produced the successful Keanu Reeves film Speed (1994). Stoff was at an office at the studio when he saw a poster for the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, which made him ponder a remake with Reeves as Klaatu. By the time David Scarpa started writing a draft of the script in 2005, Thomas Rothman was in charge of Fox and felt a responsibility to remake the film. Scarpa felt everything about the original film was still relevant, but changed the allegory from nuclear war to environmental damage because "the specifics of [how] we now have the capability to destroy ourselves have changed." Scarpa noted the recent events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 informed his mindset when writing the screenplay. He scrapped Klaatu's speech at the conclusion of the story because "audiences today are [un]willing to tolerate that. People don't want to be preached to about the environment. We tried to avoid having our alien looking out over the garbage in the lake and crying a silent tear [from the 1970s Keep America Beautiful ads]."