“The Day the Earth Stood Still” and Other Perfect Science Fiction Films
All of them from the 1950s, all of them powerful messages
It is a riveting film. Taken beyond the pulp fiction posters and melodramatic trailers, not only is the message a warning against the apocalypse, but it describes our world today so exactly — as if indeed we are held in its thrall.
The most famous words in the film are “Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!” Gort is the colossus robot built to stop our aggression. These are the only words that will stop the robot from destroying Earth if his leader Klaatu is harmed by us.
As a movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still became the origin of science fiction tropes we take for granted now — the alien visitors, the frightened population, world leaders seeking self-interest, the military armed to the teeth and ready to destroy the alien menace as a first response.
It is also the first movie to use the theremin, that haunting instrument with its eerie, ethereal sound generated by moving hands and fingers in apparent empty space. The music became the signature sound for science fiction films and appears even today.
Created in 1951, some say as a clear response to the Cold War, yet the movie goes much further, and deeper, than that. The hero Klaatu is a…
