The Day The Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 2008 science fiction film, a remake of the 1951 film of the same name. Directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, the film updates Cold War themes like nuclear warfare to the more contemporary issue of global warming. It was released on a rollout schedule beginning December 10, 2008, screening in both conventional theaters and IMAX screens by December 19.

Plot

A representative of an alien race that went through drastic evolution to survive its own climate change, Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) comes to Earth to assess whether humanity can prevent the environmental damage they have inflicted on their own planet. Klaatu himself already has a negative opinion of humans, and when detained by Regina Jackson, the United States Secretary of Defense, and barred from speaking to the United Nations, he decides they shall be exterminated so the planet – with its rare ability to sustain complex life – can survive. Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) and her stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith) finally convince Klaatu humans are worth saving.

Development

In 1994, 20th Century Fox and Erwin Stoff had produced the successful Keanu Reeves film Speed. Stoff was at an office at the studio when he saw a poster for The Day the Earth Stood Still, which made him ponder a remake with Reeves as Klaatu. By the time David Scarpa started writing his draft in 2005, Thomas Rothman was in charge of Fox and felt a responsibility to remake "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Scarpa felt everything about the original film was still relevant, but changed the allegory from nuclear war to environmental damage because "the specifics of how we now have the capability to destroy ourselves have changed". Scarpa noted the recent events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 informed his mindset when writing the screenplay. He noted "People don't want to be preached to about the environment. We tried to avoid having our alien looking out over the garbage in the lake and crying a silent tear," à la the 1970s Keep America Beautiful adverts. He scrapped Klaatu's speech at the conclusion of the story because "audiences today are unwilling to tolerate that".

Director Scott Derrickson admired the original film's director Robert Wise, whom he met as a film student. He generally dislikes remakes, but he enjoyed the script – which he decided was a retelling of the story and not a true remake. He also explained The Day the Earth Stood Still is a not a widely seen classic film, unlike The Wizard of Oz, which he would not bother remaking. Derrickson's benchmark was Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Klaatu was made more menacing than in the original, because the director felt he had to symbolize the more complex era of the 2000s. There was debate over whether to have Klaatu land in Washington, D.C. as with the original, but Derrickson chose New York City because he liked the geometry of Klaatu's sphere landing in Central Park. Derrickson did not also write in Gort's back-story, which was absent from the script he read, noting the accusations of fascism at the original film regarding Klaatu's warning that if Earth was not civil, Gort's powerful robotic race would destroy them all.

Astronomer Seth Shostak served as scientific consultant on "The Day the Earth Stood Still", reviewing the script several times for errors, and gave suggestions for making the scientists less dry. "Real scientists don't describe an object entering the solar system as 'notable for the fact that it was not moving in an asteroidal ellipse, but moving at nearly three times ten to the seventh meters per second'. More likely, they would say that there was 'a goddamned rock headed our way!'" He also noted the scientists should refer to one another by a first name basis.

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" Filming

Filming took place from December 12, 2007 to March 19, 2008 at Vancouver Film Studios. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was originally scheduled for release on May 9, 2008, but it was delayed to December 12, 2008 because filming commenced later than scheduled. The shoot was unaffected by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike; by then Scarpa had written forty drafts of the script. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was mostly shot on sets because it was winter in Vancouver.

As Fox had a mandate to become a carbon neutral company by 2011, The Day the Earth Stood Still's production had an environmentally friendly regimen. "Whether it was because of this movie thematically or it was an accident of time, there were certain things production-wise we've been doing and been asked to do and so on," said Erwin Stoff. To prevent the wasting of paper, concept art, location stills and costume tests were posted on a website created by the production for crew members to look up. Costumes were kept for future Fox productions or given to homeless shelters, rather than thrown away. Hybrid vehicles were used and crew members had to turn off their car engines if they sat in their vehicles for more than three minutes.

Derrickson was fascinated by color schemes. He chose blue-green and orange as the primary colors for The Day the Earth Stood Still. The missile silo the military convert for experiments on Gort emphasized gray and orange, which was inspired by an image of lava flowing through a gray field. Derrickson opted to shoot on traditional film, and rendered the colors in post-production to make them more subtle, for realism.

To film Barnhardt and Klaatu writing equations on a blackboard, general relativity sums were drawn by Marco Peloso from the University of Minnesota, and William Hiscock of Montana State University in light pencil. Keanu Reeves and John Cleese drew over these in chalk.

Effects

Weta Digital worked on the majority of the effects, with additional work by Cinesite and Flash Film Works. The machines of Klaatu's people have a biological basis rather than a mechanical one, as Derrickson theorized their level of advancement would be shown by their mastering of ecology. Derrickson deemed a modern audience would find the original's flying saucer amusingly dated. The director also noted many films had been influenced by The Day the Earth Stood Still, so they needed to bring new ideas to the remake.

They approached their spacecraft as interdimensional portals resembling orbs. The script had specified the inside of the orbs as a "white limbo-y thing", but visual effects consultant Jeff Okun explained this was deleted for being too "cheesy". Derrickson felt not showing the inside of the ship, unlike the original, would make the audience more curious. As well as computer-generated spheres – such as Klaatu's 300 foot ship, or a 3000 foot tall orb that rises from the sea – 700 pound spheres nine feet in diameter were sculpted by Custom Plastics, which built spheres for Disney theme parks. The spheres were split in two to make transportation easier. It was difficult placing lights inside them without making them melt. The visual effects team looked at molecules, water droplets and the surfaces of Jupiter and Saturn for the spheres' texture.

Derrickson emphasized a Trinity-like relationship between the sphere, Klaatu and Gort. Klaatu is initially depicted as a radiant focus of sentient light. He is then depicted as a seven-feet tall gray "walking womb" shape which finally takes on a completely human appearance. The filmmakers conceived the transistionary form because they pondered the idea of humans mistaking space suits for alien skin. Computer-generated imagery and practical effects achieved the transformation. The creation of the alien form was led by Todd Masters (Slither), who hired a sex toy maker to sculpt the skinsuit with thermal plastic and silicone.

Gort was described as nanotechnology in the script by the time the director signed on, although it did not specify his appearance. Derrickson explored many possibilities for depicting the character, but realized making a faithful homage to the original was best. Their 15th draft had depicted the robot as a four-legged "Totem" that stands upright after firing its weapon beam. Okun explained there were many more "horrific" or "amazing" concepts, but it made sense that the robot would assume a familiar human shape. He cited the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey as an inspiration for Gort's texture, noting "it's a simple shape, it has no emotion]it just simply is", which makes Gort more frightening because the audience cannot tell what he is thinking. The computer-generated robot was estimated by the animators to be 28 feet tall, whereas in the original he was played by the 7 feet tall Lock Martin. Gort's computer model was programmed to reflect light, and the filmmakers spent time on motion capture sessions to guide the performance. An actor wore weights on his hands and feet so the animators could bring a sense of weight and power to Gort. His destructive capabilities were based on locust swarms.

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