How can Hollywood remake the 1951 Cold War sci-fi flick The Day the Earth Stood Still now that the Cold War is over (and Hollywood lost)?
Instead of playing on the fear that the United States will destroy the world with its evil nukes, play on the fear that the United States will destroy the world with… global warming:
While humanity still engages in a staggering number of international conflicts, the environmental message is one that, not only encompasses wars, and fights, and terrorism, but one that goes beyond constrictions to become a millennial message of “what we are doing and who we are as a species,†[star Keanu] Reeves insisted.
Keanu admits they have reimagined his powerful robot companion, Gort, while retaining the alien Klaatu’s message to Gort: “Klaatu barada nikto.â€Â
Update: Welcome, Raw Story readers!
Klaatu’s message to Gore: “Utube barrio nicotine.â€Â
Klaatu! Barada! Necktie. Nickle? It’s an N word. Definitely an N word.
Shouldn’t that be “Klaatu barada nikto, duuuude“?
What we have to do is infantilize teh whole planet, Keanu. Will you help?
Count on me, dude.
…
What’s that mean?
More Klaatu-ey goodness.
Lay off of Keanu! He knows Kung Fu!
Blovitating Goron Plaquethane!
“You’ll feel differently once you see my picture in the papers!”
Wee dee dee bum, dee bum, dee bum
You can’t touch this
The idiocy of journalists has got us all used to skimming sentences without parsing them, but holy crap, look at this again, and really try to follow it:
I’m never going to get used to people talking like this, and I remember when they didn’t.
I’m officially old.
I’m with you, psycho. The first thing I noticed in that paragraph was it had way too many commas, and the commas were placed so as to interrupt the logical flow.
Whoever taught that writer English should be slapped.
And, of course, Keanu Reeves proves that he wasn’t acting stupid in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, he was just being himself.
Will Klaatu’s last name be “Anderson”?
“Gort! There is no spoon!”
I can smell the stink of the bomb this movie is going to be already, and it’s not even hitting the theaters for another seven months or so.
There has been talk about doing a remake of “Day The Earth Stood Still” since the 80’s, but nothing was ever done. For one thing, despite it’s being a “Cold War” film, it is well nigh timeless. It still holds up remarkably well, even today. Look at how many people still remember “Klaatu barada nikto”…:) Until now at least, Hollywood realized that doing a remake of DTESS would be like remaking, say, 2001: A Space Odyssey. It just would not work.
It was not exactly an “A list” movie, but Fox had seen how much money could be made with a decently made SF flick (see Paramount’s “Destination Moon”, for example), so they did not skimp much on the talent (starting with soon-to-be very famous director Robert Wise), writing, production values and so forth. Even though it got a little preachy in spots, the main thrust of the story was about Klaatu’s “stranger in a strange land” experiences and interactions with humans, and they pulled it off very well.
But based on Keanu Reeve’s quote above, clearly some Hollyweird limousine leftist remembered this movie and decided to do yet another attempt at browbeating all us nasty Americans, with our wars, nuclear weapons, carbon footprints and all the other usual lefty memes on how we are responsible for all the world’s ills and are going to be punished if we don’t bow down before the Great Socialist Gods and do things “Their Way”.
You’d think after all the politically-motivated bombs Hollywood has made in recent years, they would have gotten the message. Or at least remembered what Samuel Goldwyn said about movies like this; “If you want to send a message, call Western Union”.
If it’s hitting the theaters in seven months, the principal photography is long since done. If they’re smart, they will send this directly to dvd and the remainder bin at Wal-Mart. However, we know they’re not smart. They’re going to lose a bundle on this one.
My point was supposed to be that they’ve already spent a lot of money on this, and they should cut their losses.
When does he find out that “Klaatu burada nikto” actually means, “To Serve Mankind”, and is a cookbook?
Whoah!
Shortly after they see a Martian’s head explode because somebody’s playing a Slim Whitman tune.
Yeah, um. I am thinking that this will suck bad. Keanu should be playing the robot dude – as it would best suit his acting abilities (though he is amazingly hot).
The only way that a global warming movie is good is when you show people running shrieking from 500 foot tidal waves or freakish storms, as in The Day After Tommorrow. One can also score big by showing sad penguins and confused-looking bears floating on tiny ice cubes in the Arctic Ocean.
But Keanu? Maybe if he is floating naked on a tiny ice cube in the Arctic Ocean.
“There was…shrinkage“
#15. When does he find out that “Klaatu burada nikto†actually means, “To Serve Mankindâ€Â, and is a cookbook?
Domo arigatÃ…Â Mr. Roboto.
#19: “There was…shrinkage“
LMFAO!!!
Whoa.
he version I was just working on, instead of being man against man, it’s more about man against nature. My Klaatu says that if the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the earth survives. I’m a friend to the earth.â€Â
That is like, wow, so deep. Can I line-up for a ticket now?
Crap. Sean M beat me to the punchline.
Hey – d’ya think Keneau ever figured out that GORT was in charge?
Yeah, but like Doug upthread, I actually remember it being uttered–cough–by Ash as he grabs the Necronomicon, and not from The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Gort is being replaced by (organic) GORP, which is PROG backwards.
Ya know what would be a spectacular take on it? If the alien is warning us all about what we’re doing to the planet, and the hero figures out the whole thing’s a crock; the alien’s really just some actor in a rubber mask, hired by some politicians trying to push a radical reorganization of society on a frightened populace.
Never happen, of course.
Trailer
Klaatu: I am here to warn you dudes and dudettes about how you will die if your planet dies from toxins and CO2 and stuff.
Laurie David: Let me through! Hey, space dude! Just one minute. What’s the carbon footprint on that nice interstellar saucer you got there huh? HUH?
Klaatu: While your breasts are like, whoa and reminbd me of a pair of giant red suns, dudette, you are simply too homely to be a spokesperson.
Laurie David: What the …
ZZZZZZAAAAAAAPPPPPP!!!!
Laurie David: AAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!! (crisp)
Klaatu: Whoa! Quick fried to a crackly crunch! So, now that we’ve established that I will be the only self important pontificating celebrity here …
On the one hand, he’s banging Demi Moore. On the other hand, he’s her bitch.
What’s that? Ashton who? Oh. Nevermind.
Gore: “You idiot! Do you have any idea how much carbon you just released into the ecosystem by frying that thing!? No more, or I won’t have enough carbon offset credits to cover your tinfoil-covered ass!”
This site is so much better off without me.
I’m going to go lift some heavy stuff, then maybe pin something.
Blasphemer.
Fuck you. Mr. Goldstein. Get your ass back in here.
You have been gone for months and months and I still hit the refresh button like a smack-starved monkey.
Um. Jeff? If I let you play Klaatu, will you stay for a while? [please?]
Really. I can’t believe you would say that. It’s unconscionable. You have gifts.
I can’t remember which role was more critical to the plot, scientist #2 or Soldier #3 ?
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Changed my mind. Gonna eat chips and watch a Joyce Heiser movie, instead.
But in the scenes where she has her top on, I swear I’ll be thinking about leg scissors.
I’m waiting for remakes of some classic films to bring them in line with modern expectations.
In The Longest Day, brave men dressed in green to symbolize their standing up for the environment invade Europe to free it from petrochemical corporations and French nuclear plants.
In “Gone With the Wind,” basically evil-but-handsome Southern corporate raiders briefly fight off brave northern liberal regulators looking to free oil-blackened slate coal workers from the economically-imposed tyranny of the petrochemical economy. They ultimately succumb but because this is a Watermelon Flick (Green on the outside… red on the inside) they don’t actually get punished for it but are perpetually made to feel guilty about using oil, as a method of social control. Michael Moore co-stars as Tallowcup, portly domestic servant to star Cheryl David, who ultimately winds up holding on to her old petro-glory by wearing a surprisingly sexy dress made out of recycled Whole Foods cloth bags, while being forced to cut back on the use of toilet paper in order to save some southern pines.
Then, in “Brian’s Song,” a rising young football star with lots of attractively multicultural and gay friends (see, e.g. Things White People Like) catches roughly five forms of cancer from global warming and the heavy presence of toxins such as carbon dioxide (in the air) and dihydrogen monoxide (in the Gatorade) at training camp. He tries to save the earth from the humans but dies, overcome by humans’ intrinsic eeeee-vil as much as by the cancer, which have made him disfigured and scarred by movie’s end, pretty much like all conservatives’ souls. Lance Armstrong makes a cameo as “grinning skinny guy who is banging the Olson twins.”
You fucking tease.
Klaatu: Dude, you need to pay attention…
ZZZZZAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP!!!!!!
Gore: AAAAAAAEEEEEEIIIIIII!!!!!!!!
(crowd reacts) You’ve killed him! You killed the Gore. The Goracle is dead!!
(crowd sings and dances like off broadway)
ding, dong, the Gore is dead, the shiney space guy fried his head.
Ding, dong, The Goracle is dead!
No more flooded states, the polar bears will just do great
We’ll plant grapes along the glacier’s wake!
(continues until end of movie or mass suicide)
like a smack-starved monkey…
Jeff, for the love of PAVLOV! Puuullllleeeaassse!
I don’t know barada nikto from the New York Knicks, but I am hoping Keanu re-utters quite possibly the greatest line in cinematic history: “I am an EFFF-BEEE-EYE Agent!”
Dude. Whoa! (Matrix version, not Bill & Ted’s version)
I have no idea who Joyce Heiser and really I’m in no mood to google. Oh. Now you’re being deliberately insulting I see. You should just ask your self how it is one is supposed to appreciate the moon without tea at mid-autumn? That’s Chinese for things go better with Coke. You are teh Coke a lot I think. Or the tea. Whichever. But if I were teh Coke I would be very selfless and giving of myself, I’m almost sure.
Jim in KC:
Saw DTESS long before Army of Darkness, it’s just that you so rarely get a chance to burnish your Bruce Campbell credentials in polite company.
…And maybe I’m a Chinese jet pilot.
“Klaatu barada nikto.†translates loosely as “To Serve Man”
… at least according to Babel Fish..
Speaking of TRANSLATES.. Have you seen Lost in Translation?
You gotta love a movie that starts with a full minute stare at Scarlett Johansson’s shear panty clad ass…
Kudos to Jim in KC and Doug, for the Bruce Campbell mention! Hollywood has never given that guy his due.
“Fuck you. Mr. Goldstein. Get your ass back in here.”
I second that emphatically, Pablo. Of course I’m approximately 1,800 miles away when I say “fuck you, Mr. Goldstein”. That fucker’s becoming a badass now. The intellectual shit I could deal with, but now he’s becoming a real bad ass. A double whammy for statist assholes everywhere.
I think I might have seen a few minutes of TDTESS on MST3K once. But Bruce Campbell? The man’s a genius.
Shop smart. Shop S Mart.
Klaatu barada nikto translates as “Klaatu has gone and got his ass shot dead, so head on over to the local stripey hole, spring his corpse from the local yokels and stick him in the Revivifier on high for 2 minutes.”
It’s a very compact language.
Barada is the present participle tense of “assume.” Nikto means “approximately 23°C.” Thus Klaatu barada nikto means “Klaatu has assumed room temperature.”
Jim in KC:
Have you seen Burn Notice on USA? BC plays a has-been FBI officer helping out a brother-in-arms.
It’s a good show, and USA is running a full season 1 recap starting mid-April (before season 2 hits in June, I think). Well worth checking out.
I can’t watch Burn Notice cause Sharon Gless gives me anxiety.
I might have to set my PC to record those episodes when they’re re-aired, Doug. I thought the premise of the show made it sound a bit silly, but of course the fact that Campbell was in it made me watch it. It actually turned out to be pretty fun to watch, in my opinion. Long break from last season to June, though.