The Day The Earth Stood Still!

Movies don't get much better than The Day the Earth Stood Still. I thought for a moment I should qualify that statement with "Science Fiction movie", but I resist. This one is just that good. Unlike much of the sci-fi that followed this 1951 masterpiece, this movie is an "A" picture and was treated as such by the studio that made it. The cast is first rate and that of course includes Michael Rennie in his first significant role as the alien "Klaatu". Based on the Harry Bates short story "Farewell to the Master" this movie offers up a conundrum to its audience -- what if a flying saucer landed in the middle of Washington DC and a perfectly normal looking human walked off it. No little green men in this one. But as the movie demonstrates our response might not be any different as Klaatu is shot within minutes. 

That doesn't go down too well with Gort, the eight-foot tall robot who came to Earth with him and who we learn has the power and arguably the authority to destroy the Earth. Gort is a great creation, played in parts by a mannequin and a man named Lock Martin who was a fragile giant in real life. Patricia Neal is on board as a woman who is sympathetic to the alien and her son played by Billy Gray wants to be friends with him right away. This movie does a grand job of capturing the fear which drives and informs modern society, which always seems ready to fight and respond to some menace, even if there is not much menace. Sam Jaffe plays a scientist meant to be Einstein, who is eager to listen to the alien who can teach the Earth great things, mostly how to not kill ourselves off. 

The story is famous for its Christ allusions and they real. Klaatu goes by the name of "Carpenter" when he seeks to hide in plain sight among us. He descends from the heavens and ascends in the same manner. He is killed and brought back to life, all in an attempt to save mankind from its darker aspects. But these references don't hamper the film, but only add luster. 

They remade The Day the Earth Stood Still with Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, and he does a dandy job. This one has amazing special effects, but for my money they can never top the 1951 classic which made us all look up with wonder. 

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Star Trek - The Motion Picture!

Star Trek The Motion Picture is my favorite Star Trek movie. I know that's controversial in a tiny way since most fans of the franchise consider this first big screen adaptation of Gene Roddenberry's television sci-fi show to be a misfire. That despite a big budget (thanks to the success of the Star Wars franchise) and the presence of big-league director Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Andromeda Strain). Gene Roddenberry is in charge for the most part, the movie growing out of his failed plans to relaunch the series on television. Movies were changing and science fiction spectacles costing lots of money were a reasonably safe bet. 

The original cast was brought back, the fans would have accepted nothing else. A recasting of the roles would have been a disaster and only decades and the deaths of many of the originals made it possible decades later with phalanx of films. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Deforest Kelly, George Takai, Nichelle Nichols, Majel Barrett, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan were all back for this new sleek rendition of the franchise. Two new actors join the crew --  Persis Khambata and Stephen Collins. 

One reason I'm so enamored with this movie is that looks and feels like what a big screen Star Trek movie ought to be, a deluxe version of the episodes. The story of V'Ger, an unimaginable enormous and dangerous probe from the depths of space reminds a veteran Star Trek fan of "The Changeling", an episode from the second season of the show. Toss in some evocative early sequences featuring those pesky Klingons (actually speaking Klingon for the first time), a devastating transporter accident, some generational conflict, and a whisper of unusual but inviting space sex and you have a heady brew for any Trek fan I would have thought. 

I for one will never forget the thrill as Kirk is treated to a evocative and nigh erotic encounter with the Enterprise. We follow the beloved star craft over every single curve of her fresh new metallic skin, finally getting to see some of the secrets long hidden by stingy TV budgets and the limits of film technology. The ship is thoroughly reimagined, and this time filled with more aliens than just a single Vulcan. (The cartoon show from Filmation had pointed the way on this point.) 

We are treated to stunning views of a future Earth as well Vulcan itself, a landscape filled with cyclopean statues. The movie does first and foremost what any such sci-fi flicker must do, it transports us to another time and place and introduces us to people we are interested in doing things which matter. Admittedly watching the director's cut means the show is a leisurely one, but then after so many years denied fresh Star Trek stories, no one ought to complain. But they do. 

Some suggest the movie is a bit sterile and lacks the thrumming of heated human emotions. But this is a movie which follows three traditions. It's a big-screen science fiction flick in the order set into motion by the success of Star Wars. It's a big budget blow up of a beloved science fiction television show. But it also is a movie which seems to me clearly to follow the tradition of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey which sought to make space and man's place in it epic. The slow but relentless penetration of the alien cloud and the probe that projected it forms a fantastic metaphor for man's quest for dispelling mystery and seeking both knowledge and understanding. The crisis is not resolved until both have been achieved. This movie has high aspirations and the money and talent to deliver. I think it does. 

I am going to review and rate all of the original Star Trek movies featuring the original cast. I rate this first effort number one. Gene Roddenberry wanted Star Trek to be about big ideas and none of the movies aspires to this goal as well as this first one he had a direct hand in. He'd be pushed away from the later movies. None of the sequels succeed, in my eye, to equal it in scale and scope and its ability to convince me that I am in another time and place. In this writer's eye, they never did it better. 

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