REMAKING THE DAY THE EARTH
STOOD STILL
 In The Day The Earth Stood Still, a contemporary reinvention of the 1951
science fiction classic, renowned scientist Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly)
finds herself face to face with an alien called Klaatu (Keanu Reeves), who
travels across the universe to warn of an impending global crisis . . .
When forces beyond Helen’s
control treat the extraterrestrial as a hostile and deny his request to address
the world’s leaders, she and her estranged stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith) quickly
discover the deadly ramifications of Klaatu’s claim that he is “a friend to the
Earth.”
Now Helen must find a way to
convince the entity who was sent to destroy us that mankind is worth saving –
but it may be too late.
The process has begun.
Mankind has long been
fascinated by the possibility of life beyond Earth. Science fiction literature
and films have served to not only entertain, but to address our questions, hopes
and fears about extraterrestrial life. Such speculation has captivated our
collective imagination and inspired the development of new technology to explore
the farthest reaches of our universe and the very real possibility that we are
not alone.
One of the most original and
innovative films of the genre is the 1951 sci-fi classic The
Day The Earth Stood Still, a truly groundbreaking movie that has influenced
generations of sci-fi enthusiasts, authors and filmmakers. Directed by legendary
filmmaker Robert Wise, the film tells the story of a benevolent, human-looking
alien called Klaatu, who lands his spaceship in Washington D.C. with the goal of
meeting with the leaders of Earth to warn that the violence that man is
committing against man actually threatens the survival of other civilizations in
the universe. With the help of Gort, his giant robotic bodyguard, Klaatu eludes
the authorities who attempt to capture him and immerses himself in human culture
to gain a better understanding of a species that seems committed to conflict and
destruction. He befriends a widow and her son, and through the prism of their
friendship he learns much about humanity – and ultimately challenges mankind to
be its best version of itself.
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"The premise for this remake is rooted not in man’s violence
against man, but in mankind’s destruction of the Earth’s environment." |
The film was revolutionary, not
only in its then-cutting edge conceptualization of aliens, spaceships and
robots, but in its audacious variation on a familiar allegory for the escalating
tensions of the early Cold War era. “The entire canon of science fiction in
America in the Fifties was constructed in such a way as to reinforce Western
fears of the Eastern Bloc,” notes producer Erwin Stoff. “The ‘other’ to be
feared was always a metaphor for Communism. What was remarkable about The Day the Earth Stood Still
was that it placed the onus of responsibility on everyone equally. The ‘other’
to fear was ourselves – the nature of man and the terrible violence that
humanity is capable of.”
Another aspect of the film that
sets it apart is the perspective from which it unfolds. “One of the really
unique things about the story is that it’s told from the alien’s point of view,”
Stoff observes. “We’ve seen a lot of movies about aliens, but rarely do we see
ourselves as the aliens.”
The idea of remaking The Day
the Earth Stood Still first struck Stoff, who has managed Reeves for over 20
years, in the wake of their success on the 1994 blockbuster Speed. During
a meeting with at Twentieth Century Fox studios, Stoff noticed a poster for the
classic film hanging on the wall. “I said, ‘Forget about the project I came here
to talk to you about. What we should do is develop The Day the Earth Stood
Still with Keanu playing Klaatu,’” he remembers. “It seemed like a great
idea, but for one reason or another, it didn’t happen. Then, as destiny would
have it, a draft showed up on my doorstep twelve years later.”
As re-conceived by screenwriter
David Scarpa and director Scott Derrickson, the premise for the 2008 version of
The Day The Earth Stood Still is rooted not in man’s violence against
man, but in mankind’s destruction of the Earth’s environment. “I’m a tremendous
fan of the original film,” Derrickson says. “It was so interesting and original
and progressive for its time – in the visual effects, in the way it commented on
the Cold War tensions of that era, in the idea of seeing humanity from an
outsider’s perspective. It’s a truly great film, but most modern audiences
haven’t seen it. I feel like people deserve to know this story, and this was a
fantastic opportunity to retell it in a way that addresses the issues and
conflicts that are affecting us now.”
 “There
is nothing the original film says about the nature of mankind that isn’t every
bit as timely and relevant to this generation of movie audiences,” Stoff
believes. “It’s the specifics of the way we now have the capability to destroy
ourselves that have changed. The evidence that we are doing potentially
irreparable harm to the environment is pretty irrefutable. The challenges that
we face today are no less daunting, and if we fail at them, no less lethal, than
the ones that we faced before the end of the Cold War.”
“In re-imagining this picture,
we had an opportunity to capture a real kind of angst that people are living
with today, a very present concern that the way we are living may have
disastrous consequences for the planet,” says Reeves. “I feel like this movie is
responding to those anxieties. It’s holding a mirror up to our relationship with
nature and asking us to look at our impact on the planet, for the survival of
our species and others.”
For Derrickson, the project is
the unforeseen culmination of a close encounter he enjoyed with Robert Wise as a
film student, when he made a short film that was accepted to a festival in
Indiana where the legendary director was being honored. At a private dinner with
Wise arranged by the festival’s program director, Derrickson asked the two-time
Oscar winner if he had any advice for him as a young filmmaker. “He told me that
if I was interested in genre films, then I should make my first film a horror
film, because a horror film will really show what you can do as a director,”
Derrickson says. “I kept that in mind, and it was one of the reasons why I made
[the successful horror film] The Exorcism of Emily Rose as my first film.
But I had no idea that I would be sitting here one day talking about
re-imagining his great film The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
“A lot of my enthusiasm for
getting involved with this project and wanting Keanu to be part of it was the
fact that I had seen The Exorcism of Emily Rose and was completely
knocked out by Scott as a director,” Stoff says. “There is a thriller element to
this film, a real sense of danger about Klaatu. You’re not sure what he’s going
to do next, or how far he’s going to take things. Scott is a masterful
storyteller in terms of creating that kind of tension and mystery and danger.”
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