I’m long past being worried about the remake job being done on The Day the Earth Stood Still, I’m officially sinking into utter despair. Bad enough that a classic like this is being redone at all, but the fact that they’re turning it into an environmentalism message movie just makes me want to projectile vomit. Now, the thing looks even worse.
AICN has posted a review of the remake’s script, and the review is not good. In fact I can’t imagine it being much worse. Go over there for the full review, but here’s a few choice, utterly depressing snippets from it:
Scientist Dr. Helen Benson (portrayed by Jennifer Connolly) has a whiny son, Jacob. He’s not as interesting as Bobby Benson in the original, and I’m real tired of the dysfunctional family theme. Jacob plays too many “violent” video games, Helen scolds him for it. She might as well put a dress on this kid and get it over with. Yet, they live in a violent world – we discover that Jacob’s father was killed in Iraq.
So it’s not just an environmentalism movie, it’s another tired diatribe against violent videogames and another tired indictment of the Iraq war as well. Great. Shoot me.
Of course he gets shot, and we do get a robot to come out of the ship. But its nothing like “Gort” – nor is it as fierce as “Gort.”
Its called the “Totem”. It walks around on all fours, does its destructo-ray stuff, and stands upright like a totem pole when its finished.
What the hell? Why did they need to change the robot’s name? Totem? Really? So we have a Native American robot fighting for the environment. I wonder if the movie ends with him crying a single tear.
Turns out that…because of Global Warming (and the destruction of our own planet with industrial waste and pollution)….the other galaxies deemed that we are not fit to survive. The glass spheres they sent down were to collect land and sea animal specimens to take back to their planet for study.
Ah there’s the obligatory global warming crap. Global warming? Seriously? That’s the best reason these aliens could come up with to hate us? Not genocide or terrorism, but carbon emissions? So it doesn’t bother them that we’re violent and we love killing each other, as long as our cows don’t fart too much?
Maybe the title song from “Godzilla Vs. the Smog Monster” would be more appropriate.
And you can bet they’ll be no Theramin music either. Maybe a few tunes by Dogstar, though.
Gone are the interaction between Bobby and Klaatu at the Lincoln Memorial, the Arlington Cemetery, and the visit to the space ship.
Gone is the scene with Bobby discovering Gort taking out the two guards – and finding out that Carpenter is an alien.
Gone is the Hugh Marlowe character.
Professor Barnhardt is in it, but his role his limited. Plus, he gets killed. Why? He was the voice of reason. This makes no sense.
Yes, there is a scene where everything in the world stops for an hour and chaos erupts, but it was done in the original much better…and with style.
I have no hopes for this as a film. It can’t hold a candle to the timeless original. Call it something else, but don’t call it “Day the Earth Stood Still.”
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