Hola all. Massawyrm here.
Some great films are simply timeless. Other films we love moreso because they are a product of their time. So when someone sets out to remake a good or great film, it is always my hope that they choose to remake the latter rather than the former. And often times, the very best remakes are films that are adapted from one time into another. Not just updated. Adapted. I've written many times about my profound disappointment with the knee-jerk reaction of the film loving community every time a new remake is announced. Do I feel 4 out of 5 are probably unnecessary? Sure. But let me tell you, nothing says ORIGINAL THOUGHT like typing the phrase "Why can't Hollywood come up with anything original?"
I can only imagine what would have happened had the internet existed in the early 80's when a young director best known for making a slasher film dared to remake Howard Hawks. The absolute gall, right? We might not have The Thing. Or what kind of tizzy would fire up in the blogosphere if we caught wind that someone had the balls to remake a brilliant Akira Kurosawa film – just a year after he had made it? As a western for Chrissakes! We might not have The Magnificent Seven. So when I heard that The Day The Earth Stood Still was being remade at first I paused, but I looked into it a bit. TDTESS is a vintage classic, a 50's era classic upon which a thousand other close encounter of the 3rd kind movies have been based, inspired or blatantly ripped off from. Sadly, to many modern film geeks, it is best known as being the answer to the trivia question "Where did Sam Raimi get the phrase Klaatu Berada Nikto?"
And more people claim to have seen it than has actually have. Because it has so permeated the culture that they feel they don’t have to.
TDTESS is one of those great films of its era that is very representative of its era. It was born of the very dawn of a world ready and capable to blow itself up. People were scared shitless, and in a time of rampant fundamentalist conservatism when we saw red everywhere we looked, Robert Wise made a brilliant entry into his long career and did the unthinkable. He made a film that criticized America’s arrogant, warlike mentality in hopes of waking people up. He made sure never to criticize the specifics – but only to highlight the human condition in hopes that kneejerk, reactionary politics in a nuclear world could be brought to an end. But it's not the 50's anymore. The cold war is over and an entire generation has been born, lived and retired under the threat of total annihilation. Now we have new problems.
But the arrogance remains. The knee jerk, reactionary politics and cavalier (read cowboy) foreign policy remains. And now a new film maker has set out to highlight that human condition again, telling the same story with some different angles. If there's one thing that's had me excited about this film being made right, it was that it was put in the hands of Exorcism of Emily Rose director Scott Derickson. Here's a guy that took a film that was on the surface horror, but at its heart a discussion about faith verson reason and religion versus law, and really delivered. It was a film that sent you into the lobby arguing with friends or going out for coffee. And that's EXACTLY what the original The Day The Earth Stood Still was made to do.
If there's any remake this film reminded me of it is Kaufman's 1979 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A true remake of the original, Kaufman took all the vital elements and included them. But the product of the paranoid, distrusting 70's, he made a film that matched it on all counts and in many minds exceeded the original without invalidating it. And that's what Derrickson does here. There are many things in this story that are fundamentally different. This isn't a film about an Alien wandering around posing as a human to see what this Earth-thing is all about. While he came here with the same purpose and is met by the same obstinate national security measures, the result of what-comes-next is both wildly different and remarkably similar. He does many of the same things, and comes to many of the same conclusions, only this time for different reasons.
And then end? Well let's just say there's no admonishing speech before Klaatu flies away off into the stars. This is a darker film. A brooding film. But most importantly, it is still very much a film about ideas. The flashy sci-fi shots are just the gimmicks that get you in the seat, but the film is entirely about positing arguments and highlighting our failure as a species despite all of our advancements and enlightenment. But it is also about the capacity for us to love and our ability to change once we, as a person or as a people, have hit rock bottom. And ultimately that is what I find superior in this film rather than the original. The first time Klaatu came to us on film he ended up telling us we need to change – but the choice was ours. It was in our hands. This time he's here to tell us we have no other choice but to change.
The film is a profound, moody argument that is incredibly respectful of the original and even leaves a few things to the original to keep it its own picture. But many of the changes are often more of additions or deeper, original sci-fi ideas of their own. GORT is awesome in this. He remains the classic robot we know and love with his properties, look and intent preserved, but gets a few new cool toys that are just pretty damned inventive. Klaatu's mission is a bit different this time around and the tools at his disposal are a lot more complicated. And this time around the theme of science and rationality over self defense are even more deeply explored.
Everyone is solid in this. Keanu is always at his best when he gets to play characters somehow uncomfortable in his own skin or surprised and awed by his surroundings – so playing the alien ambassador from another world is kind of up his alley. His Klaatu highlights the differences between this version and the original, notably the lack of wonder at the small things that the initial Klaatu expressed interest in. He’s been watching the Earth for some time, he knows about our eccentricities. Watching a baseball game with a 10-year-old isn’t exactly going to sway him. A simple housewife’s love and kindness isn’t enough to show him why such a destructive race should be saved.
Jennifer Connelly and Jaden Smith (son of Will and Jada) are both great as Klaatu’s contacts and foils – and Kathy Bates is her usual, intimidating self as the government official hellbent on keeping the information on the contact/invasion uniquely in American hands. But the best spot of casting was the small part played by John Cleese as Professor Barnhardt, who nails the hell out of the classic blackboard scene, making it a much more amusing, powerful and poignant scene.
The film is great, a wonderfully moody piece of speculative fiction that not only invites you to think about it, but often forces you to come to your own conclusions. This isn’t a film taking up its own political cause, it’s a film addressing the chief opponent to us finding solutions to our own problems - our arrogant nature. And sadly it’s a film that isn’t going to receive the reception that it deserves. People are walking into this with massive chips on their shoulders, looking to hate it. They WANT to be able to call it an unnecessary remake. But it isn’t. It’s a very thoughtful, well intentioned one that knows the original and sets out to truly make a BETTER film, not just a NEWER one.
I for one think they succeeded.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
