J/P=?

As for Keanu… he’s a good actor when he doesn’t actually have to act. Like Bill and Ted for instance. Great movie… no acting needed.

I loved the whole “burned out cinder” thing. OK, so a few world leaders misbehave at some point in the future, so these aliens will MURDER SIX BILLION PEOPLE and EXTERMINATE AN ENTIRE MULTIBILLION YEAR OLD BIOSPHERE! People, pets, cows, ants, penguins… everything snuffed. Wow. Space Nazis!

If I were president in that world, I’d immediately order the construction of vast, secret underground spaceship construction yards in order to defend the homeworld.

And the scene where Christ^H^H^H^H^H^H Klaatu gets shot is so contrived.

OK, I’m facing a whole platoon of nervous, scared, relatively primitive and WELL ARMED beings. I’m going to walk up to them, say absolutely nothing, point a tube at them, and then make odd looking projections suddenly snap out. Yeah. That’s an excellent first contact protocol!

Crop circles and anal probes are the height of genius in comparison.

He should have been impressed he only got shot once by some green recruit in the back. In the real world we’d have to strain the remains for fingerprints.

Maybe I *will* write that remake and get it done as a graphic novel or something. Or I could do a web photo comic with still from the film and other sources. That might be fun until the cease and desist letter arrived. I could claim parody fair use, though.

>>> I had to do that with “War of the Worlds”
>>> a couple years ago.

Another movie that made me feel lonel, although in this case because I actually liked it. And it had more things from the book than the older movie, although I like that one, too. I mean, they did the walking tripods! Complete with tentacles, cages full of captured humans and the big spooky foghorn sound. Right out of the book. How cool was that?

Logan’s Run is in planning.. it’s supposed to be more like the book(s) than the Michael York/Jenny Agutter movie.

J/P=?

Klaatu released 2 brilliant albums in the 1970′s, then it all started going pear-shaped.
If they use the carpenters’ version of “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” as the theme song, I’m leaving.

But all this… all this pales in comparison to the real, true threat to America, nay, the world, which you have just revealed.

Up until now, I had hope for the future.

That hope is now gone.

and

Quiet Desperation says: “If it were me, I’d would totally write a remake where humanity kicks Klaatu and his fascist bully robot off the planet. I hated that movie.”

This dichotomy of opinion is more common than you might think. That’s why I gave some extensive space to examining it in the TDtESS chapter in “The Saucer Fleet” (due out next spring from Apogee Books). It’s the first chapter of the book, of course, and now I have to decide if I want to rewrite the last section of the chapter to talk about this remake. I had to do that with “War of the Worlds” a couple years ago.

Also, if you really parse Klaatu’s “offer” to humanity, you’ll see that both sides are the same thing: either you join them and subject yourself to robotic tyranny, (i.e. they will incinerate the Earth if we violate our agreement and get out of line), or we don’t join them, and get incinerated anyway with a preemptive strike if we get out of line. There’s an extended quote by writer Bob Stephens in the chapter who discusses this far more elegantly than I could. I’d almost agree with QD on this point.

- Jack

This bugs me, but I knew it would happen eventually. Remaking this film combines studio heads’ two favorite things, making a ton of money and pissing off a lot of people.

And hell yes it could be worse. It could be Disney making it and one of the goobs from High School Musical could be cast as Klaatu.

My biggest complaint is now In conversations in which I mention this movie as one of the top ten sci-fi films of all time, I will have to clarify I mean the original version. I’d be more angry but I’d feel like a hypocrite since I just heard a remake of The Wizard of OZ may be happening, and I’m glad about that.

Oh well, they could borrow the US title for “Stranger From Venus”, the 1954 British remake (complete with Patricia Neal) of the “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, and call this production “Immediate Disaster”!

It’s like Cosmic, Man!

Somebody needs to take ahold of Hollywood by its collective throat and politely kick some sense into them. The idea isn’t to take a good movie and remake it as crap. The idea (assuming you can’t come up with a good original script) is to take a crap movie and remake it as a *good* one.

Point aside1: whoever did the image cut/paste put Keanu’s head on Gort’s body, not Klaatu… is that a comment on Gort, or Keanu. Or just ignorance?

Point aside 2: TDTESS is the best SF movie for a number of reasons.
1) it’s – if not the first, then one of the first movies to portray aliens as little different from ourselves. No big bulgy brains. No huge boggly eyes. No tentacles.. just a guy with a robot and a space-going Hum-vee

2) It’s possibly the first movie where the aliens weren’t interested in invading, or perhaps in a new taste sensation.

3) the entire movie is self-consistent (something few movies manage)

4) it was (I’m just going to say “the first” because I’m lazy and tired of quallifiying) the first movie to even *suggest* we could all live in peace (whether you agree with the sentiment or not)

5) it was the first movie wherein the aliens didn’t kill every human in sight (including many who needed killing – he did land in DC, after all – congress is right there)

All in all, there are very few SF movies in the neighborhood (quality).

I agree, by the way – any movie can be improved by the simple addition of Bruce Campbell

and I disagree with Paul about Owen Wilson. While I’d not consider him Cary Grant or John Wayne, he’s certainly better than he’s shown in Shanghai (whatever) or Around the World in 80 Days. I was very impressed by his performance in “Behind Enemy Lines”, for instance.

and while I like Vin Diesel, can you see HIM as Klaatu?

“Klaatu Barada… NICKEL!”

Trapped in time. Surrounded by Evil. Low on gas…

Wailing and gnashing of teeth to commence in three, two, one…

“There must be security for all, or no one is secure. This does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. So be cool to each other, and party on dudes!”

The main message of the movie needs to remain intact. Even in the 50′s this movie didn’t have an over-the-top sfx budget, and if they keep the fx simple, and focus on the story, they can make a good remake of this movie.

As for Keanu, he’s been kinda hit-and-miss. He was good in most of the movies mentioned above, but every now and then he just doesn’t seem to pull it off. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t.

I fail to see how a remake will improve it but will wait and see,,,

GAry 7

YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. YOU WILL BECOME ONE WITH SCIENTOLOGY. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.