The Day The Earth Stood Still - Keanu Reeves

BlackTree TV Personality Danai P Mairaire sits down with actor Keanu Reeves to discuss The Day The Earth Stood Still and are we ALONE in this universe??



PERFECT CASTING This contemporary remake of the science-fiction classic knew what it was doing when it cast Keanu Reeves, the movies greatest stone face since Buster Keaton, as a perplexed alien whose first words on Earth are, This body will take some getting used to. When you want distant and disconnected, Reeves is your man.
Keanu meets Klaatu. It could be a match made in heaven, or at least in a galaxy far, far away. Which is just what The Day the Earth Stood Still wants us to think. This contemporary remake of the science-fiction classic knew what it was doing when it cast Keanu Reeves, the movies greatest stone face since Buster Keaton, as a perplexed alien whose first words on Earth are, This body will take some getting used to. When you want distant and disconnected, Reeves is your man.

The 1951 original offered the more genial Michael Rennie as the intergalactic visitor, a being arrived on Earth accompanied by giant robot companion Gort. Rennies alien was a courtly individual with the charm of vintage James Bond, but Klaatus temperament is not the only thing that has been changed in this enjoyable updating.

For one thing, Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), the widow who is Klaatus main human contact, has been elevated from mom to mom and astrobiologist. And imperturbable robot Gort has gone from a clunky 8 feet to a lithe and bulked-up 28 feet tall. Take it easy on those steroids, big guy!

The biggest change of all is the reason Klaatu and Gort are on Earth in the first place. No, its not to take advantage of our weakened economic condition; it is, as it was the first time around, to warn us to mend our ways as a planet or face the consequences.

Coming as it did during the Cold War era, the 1951 Day was deeply concerned about the arms race, with Klaatu warning anyone who would listen that if the big powers threatened to extend nuclear arms to outer space, Earth will be burnt to a cinder. Ouch.

Though nuclear weapons are hardly a settled issue even today, screenwriter David Scarpa and director Scott Derrickson have moved on to trendier issues. What Klaatu is irked at this time around is the way our bad ecological habits are killing the planet. You treat the world, he says, not without reason, as you treat each other. Ouch again.

Aside from Klaatu and Gort, the Day team claims to have retained the originals snappy catchphrase, Klaatu barada nikto, but its so hard to hear that viewers will be forgiven if they miss it. Also still around is the charming blackboard scene, in which Klaatu solves an equation for Professor Barnhardt (John Cleese), a man smart enough to have won the nonexistent but indisputably high-minded Nobel Prize for biological altruism.

Day has also retained the B-picture feeling of the original, down to the US Armys bellicose decision to fire on both Klaatu and Gort as soon as they set foot on American soil, a decision that has the same ruinous consequences today as it did in 1951. Doesnt anyone in the Pentagon go to the movies?

A BlackTree Media Production

Produced by Danai P. Mairaire

Personality Danai



http://www.blacktree.tv

Category:

Film & Animation

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[macmjf]

He is wonderful... so lovely... I can NOT understand why some people care so much to pick with him...

Give him some space people, he is a good person!!!

=)

[EvilutionStudios2009]

hollywood got the perfect man to play Klaatu.

Keanu Reeves rules

[baskovich]

omg i tho. i was the only one, people you are right............that kid spoiled the movie.

[Lionheart1188]

Gd movie, little fucken kid ruin the movie but then again maybe the director wanted to prove a point on how screwed up humanity is, and how Whiny kids can get --_--

[dylankrolick]

He has Asperger's Syndrome. thats why hes so emotionless

[sb55mv]

How fucking irritating was the off spring of Will Smith?

Holy shit, I wanted to beat him sensless, the whining little shit. I honestly think he spoiled the film, just as the movie son of Tom Cruise did in War of the worlds

He needed a good kicking too.

Do the directors not realise that Pissing the paying members of the public off has no impact in revenues?

Seriousley, get some better actors.

[TheTyrantDragon]

Keanu Reeves is perfect for playing an emotionless alien. He's already emotionless.

[deostroll]

I am looking for the scene where Klaatu and the professor talk, and Klaatu is sort of convinced that the ways human species can change...because I missed that scene. If anyone finds it please send me a message...thankyou.

[kandiamo]

@macmjf "Give him some space people, he is a good person."

Reads like you're giving him some space people as a treat for being a good person :D

[Nanotech92]

He he, the black kids dad wud have shot Kenau anyway and nicked his money

[tjhydd]

That black kid made this movie a whole lot worse than it should've been

[CFRatao]

The movie was interesting until the ending. It was the ending that was confusing, and everything else before then, I understood. Good thing I caught it during break time in the employee lounge the other day. :D