Scott Derrickson sure has a fair bit on his plate, from Paradise Lost to Devil’s Knot. Now, reports IESB.net, he may also be attached to a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951; my comments).
The original movie, which came out at the dawn of the Cold War, concerns an alien and a robot who come to Earth to impose peace on us … or else. While the film is often hailed for its supposedly pacifist message, the movie itself is actually more complicated than that. It does portray violence in a bad light when it is triggered by irrational human emotions such as panic or fear, but it also portrays violence as necessary and justifiable if it is done in cold blood by Klaatu and/or the robots to which he and his people have surrendered their freedom.
Klaatu, like other movie aliens, also happens to be something of a Christ-figure — he even walks incognito among ordinary humans under the name “Carpenter” — but director Robert Wise, who died two years ago, claimed he had no idea about the Christ-figure elements until someone pointed them out to him afterwards. It would be interesting to see what Derrickson, who has been quite open about his own Christianity, would do with that material.
You also can’t help wondering how the new film might be tweaked to address our current political situation. Suffice to say that the global political situation is more fractured and divided nowadays than it was in the 1950s, so any alien who arrives today and says “Take me to your leader” may have a harder time getting his message across. Plus, some of the players in the current conflict just might be so apocalyptically minded that they may not care so much if an alien were to threaten the Earth with incineration.
On a related note, check out this fan-made video for ‘(It’s the Eighties, So Where’s Our) Rocket Packs‘ by Daniel Amos, and note the references in the lyrics to The Day the Earth Stood Still:
Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly.
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