The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

"Holy mackerel!”

This is the second time I've seen this film; twenty years ago it blew me away and I'd still say it's superb and a uniquely thoughtful '50s flying saucer movie with a lot to say. But perhaps this time my eyebrow as a little more raised. I still love the film, but I can see its flaws.

It's still a very serious moral fable, with flaws that I'll get to later, which comes across as thoughtful and is superbly directed, with oe of the most effective flying saucers in all of cinema. But the characterisation... well, Klaatu is a bit of an arrogant dick (I'll get to that later too) but otherwise we have a bunch of characters who are essentially just ciphers, along with the most "gee whiz" kid in the history of cinema. And, well, let's just look at the plot, shall we?

Klaatu is from 250-odd miles away, so within the Solar System, if a little further than the suggested Mars or Venus, both plausibly inhabited by what was known in 1951. That being the case, you can sort of see how the fact that Earth has nukes and is starting to explore space travel might be seen as a threat. But expecting humanity to entirely expunge all aggression or face genocide? I mean, come on. I'm as big a wishy-washy liberal as they come but aggression will never be removed from human nature, nor is it necessarily always a negative or violent thing. And in threatening to destroy us Klaatu is not exactly occupying the moral high ground. That would be collective punishment, as blatant a war crime as there could possibly be.

Oh yes, and then he is killed by violent humans and resurrected by Gort in an obvious Christ parallel, something that has to be done thoughtfully to avoid being pretentious and, while I'm certainly not religious, I have to observe that nowhere in the Gospels, or so I believe, does Christ threaten to destroy the human race if they refuse to follow his teachings.

That aside, though, I genuinely enjoyed the film, honest! it's extremely well made, watchable, and while its message doesn't quite work it is at least about something. It also gave us the names for no fewer than three denizens of Jabba the Hutt's sail barge...