Quote :

"lol at people complaining about preachiness in this movie (written over 50 years ago)"

Quote :

"Also, it was written quite a long time ago."

I admit that I haven't seen the new version and that it's been several years since I've seen the original, but...

Saying the movie was written 50 years ago seems a stretch. From what I've seen, heard, and read, the new version is not a faithful remake, but simply based on the original. Similar to how I Am Legend followed Omega Man and The Last Man On Earth. Yeah, they're similar, but not really the same movie.

[Edited on December 13, 2008 at 10:11 AM. Reason : ]

12/13/2008 10:07:18 AM

^ The point is that people are complaining about the preachiness like it's the liberal media trying to force their agenda, where the "preachiness" in the story far predates the proverbial liberal media/al gore/whatever.

12/13/2008 11:59:49 AM

^ Bullshit. The preachiness of 50 years ago was against war, which was and would still be a valid complaint. Afterall, we are still somewhat war-like, and if we were on the verge of interstellar travel (as was suggested in the first movie) then I too would send Humankind an ultimatum to give up war or perish.

Meanwhile, the preachiness of the current movie has nothing to do with war, but is about us rendering the planet incapable of supporting life, which is simply untrue. And what damage we do cause could easily be fixed with the requisite technology (cold fusion, genetic engineering, etc).

As such, while it would be extreme to wipe out manking in the name of preventing war in the first movie, it would be retarted to wipe out the planet for the reasons of the second movie.

12/14/2008 5:54:58 PM

also, lol at people trying to be smarter than fake aliens.

12/14/2008 7:16:27 PM

^^ Yes I totally agree. Thats the same point I made on the previous page. Lecturing people on not engaging in Nuclear warfare is much different than lecturing people on saving the planet. A planet that is no where near the point of needing saving.

12/14/2008 7:23:32 PM

Quote :

"Meanwhile, the preachiness of the current movie has nothing to do with war,"

uh, it certainly does have to do with war. did you watch the film? it is not just about green environment stuff.

12/14/2008 7:51:18 PM

I will admit that they never exactly suggested which way we were killing the planet. I suspect they wished to leave it up to the imagination of the viewer how mankind was killing the planet. However, they specifically stated "present day" and the present day World does not face imminent nuclear war, which is the only credible way for human warfare to kill the planet. Thus it would have been fine to set the movie pre-1990 or many years into the future and then show the two superpowers not getting along.

In the original movie it was not human on human warfare the aliens were worried about. They feared we would spread our violence into space unless we renounced it now. Extreme, but understandable. Killing the Earth because humans might one-day kill the Earth, that is looney-toons. If that is their goal then just show up and take a sample of all life on the planet and then just wait.

I would like to recognize Hoffmaster's contribution at this point.

12/14/2008 8:26:52 PM

Take the scene in the train station with the mugging, or watching the news about the rioting, or look at the Secretary's of Defense internal conflict with attacking; violence is a major theme, more specifically the idea of violence causing more violence. It is all part of a greater theme of us being selfish, towards the planet as well as others. I'll agree that it is a little different than the original (at least from what I can remember) but it is not as different as you suggest.

12/14/2008 9:17:27 PM

^no

The movie spelled it out blatantly. The Aliens were protecting the earth from humans. At one point the Jennifer Connelly begs Klaatu "We can change, we can change" implying that humans could become environmentally friendly to the earth if Klaatu would let them live.

This was about the time I almost walked out of the theater.

12/14/2008 10:26:52 PM

I didn't say that the environment wasn't one of the themes, just that it wasn't the only one and was part of a broader theme that paralleled the original.

Also, LoneShark talked about an imminent threat of nuclear war, but that wasn't even the case yet in 1951. Eisenhower was the first to really push nuclear weapons as part of the cold war, and that wasn't till a few years after this film.

This film was no more preachy than the original; and while a little different to reflect contemporary social themes, the broader themes contained in the film closely parallel those in the original.

[Edited on December 14, 2008 at 11:50 PM. Reason : i mean shit if you really get into it both of the movies are just the story of christ]

12/14/2008 11:31:37 PM

I think you are confused with what we are arguing. Here are the respective themes from the two movies:

(1951) Human beings are prone to violence and may one day wage war upon other space-faring civilizations, so aliens come to deliver an ultimatum to abandon war in all forms or face extinction. No mention is made of environmental concerns.

(2008) Human beings being irresponsible are killing our rare planet, so aliens come to deliver an ultimatum to change or face extinction. No mention is made of mankinds potential military threat to other space-faring civilizations.

Ok, as you say, nuclear war as a method of killing planet Earth was not available in 1951 and rediculously unlikely in 2008. Ok, the theme for 2008 makes no sense for either year, as our only potential means of killing planet Earth is with nuclear weapons, which is unlikely in 2008 and impossible in 1951.

Meanwhile, the theme for 1951 makes sense in both time periods. It is only a matter of time until we master technology sufficiently to both wage war upon other space-faring civilizations and defend ourselves against Gort. As such, the aliens arriving now is logical: we are technologically civilized yet still prone to violence, and primitive enough to be helpless against Gort.

The theme from 1951 is timeless. It works no matter what era you set it in. Meanwhile, the theme from 2008 only works in a few possible scenarios: under the current threat of nuclear war such as 1970 to 1989, or a dystopic future when mankind actually becomes a threat to planetary survival.

12/15/2008 12:03:52 AM

I really think you are missing the theme about the escalation of violence in the 2008 film. Its easy to miss with the very explicit theme about killing the earth, but it is certainly there. It is not explicitly the same as the first film, but the same general theme.

I also think you are mixing up the idea of plot and theme. You are really being too concrete in your comparisons. I think I posted a good description before, read it again and understand that plot and theme are very different things.

[Edited on December 15, 2008 at 12:12 AM. Reason : .]

12/15/2008 12:10:56 AM

LETS REPLACE WAR W/ THE ENVIROMENT CAUSE YOU KNOW, THAT WHOLE 'GREEN' THING IS TRENDY RIGHT NOW


fail

[Edited on December 15, 2008 at 12:24 AM. Reason : this one sucks]

12/15/2008 12:24:24 AM

Fine, everywhere I said 'theme' substitute 'plot', but I trust people could understand what I was attempting to convey.

Yes, our violent nature was portrayed in the film. So what? The architect of our extermination, Klaatu, never mentioned it best I can recall. Perhaps you could paraphrase what you remember him saying about us being a threat to the peace of far away planets, not just this one.

12/15/2008 1:49:18 AM

I thought it was decent. Never seen the original though.

12/15/2008 8:29:11 AM

I already gave a few good examples illustrating the theme of violence causing more violence: klatu watching the mugging, all the violence on the news, the secretary of defenses conflict over attacking, fucking gort


ill even go one further though; klatu is jesus

12/15/2008 1:19:18 PM

Oh yes, there was a theme of violence, just no plot of violence. Klatu watched humans gun each other down, but when it came time to explain to others why he was exterminating every living organism on the planet, all he talked about was us killing the planet. Not that we might kill the planet, such as a future nuclear war, or that we might kill other earths with interplanetary war, but that "The Earth is dying", present tense.

12/15/2008 1:41:33 PM

it is all part of being selfish

12/15/2008 3:06:50 PM

The ending seemed oddly familiar for another movie of his

12/15/2008 3:23:05 PM

I wonder if the movie would have come to its conclusion faster if she had slept with him. Afterall, his body was human.

12/15/2008 3:47:55 PM

WHO LEFT THE FRIDGE OPEN?

12/15/2008 4:10:12 PM

The movie was awful, plain and simple. The plot, the acting, the dialogue...all of it sucked.

12/18/2008 1:50:27 PM

Quote :

"They feared we would spread our violence into space unless we renounced it now. Extreme, but understandable. Killing the Earth because humans might one-day kill the Earth, that is looney-toons."

The aliens feared that our violence would spread into space... so they threaten Earth with violence on a much larger scale to deter it. That's looney-toons as well. Pretty obvious that the aliens already have a sound concept of violence and killing as they were threatening Earth with the same.


At the very least the aliens in the original weren't entirely honest. An underlying message of the original was "we kill you before you could one day (possibly) kill us"... which in my mind undid the message they were trying to convey. Maybe their threat was some sort of reinforcement of the message... had the aliens not been portrayed as an innocent entity. It's like the movie wanted to portray the aliens as holding on to a higher standard but they were just the same as people on Earth at their roots. Neutralize a threat before it materializes. Violence.

If they were going for the enlightened aliens angle the "threat" should have been that the people of Earth will destroy themselves.

12/19/2008 7:54:57 AM

saw it tonight at the IMAX theater.

possibly the worst movie ever made by man

12/20/2008 3:27:46 AM

^^ jbtilley, I went back and watched the original before my post and I disagree with you. In the original the alien came here to give a speech and leave. That speech was not an ultimatum that you must renounce violence or we (space-men) will kill you. It was intended to warn humans about the existance of the Gort robots and their uncaring mission to destroy all inter-planetary agressors, be they human or alien. So, no, the aliens are not just as violent as us; they have no inter-planetary violence. It is the autonomous Gort robots which are the sole entities entitled to violence in the universe, and they use it as a form of punishment.

Quote :

" There must be security for all -- or no one is secure... This does not mean giving up any freedom except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves -- and hired policemen to enforce them. We of the other planets have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets -- and for the complete elimination of aggression. A sort of United Nations on the Planetary level... The test of any such higher authority, of course, is the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots--(indicating Gort) Their function is to patrol the planets -- in space ships like this one -- and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression we have given them absolute power over us. At the first sign of violence they act automatically against the aggressor. And the penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. The result is that we live in peace, without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war -- free to pursue more profitable enterprises. (after a pause) We do not pretend to have achieved perfection -- but we do have a system -- and it works. (with straightforward candor) I came here to give you the facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet -- but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. "

12/20/2008 4:24:21 AM

Klaatu barada nikto

12/20/2008 7:24:04 AM

^^Ok. Haven't seen the original in a looooong time.

12/20/2008 4:17:57 PM

i liked the interaction between the characters and the character development in the original
i thought the new one was kinda hokey... i would have rather had them flesh out the characters more and make the reasoning for his decision to spare us more substantial than all the "action" they tried to cram into the movie with the whole disintegrating robot deal. i felt like they just tried to cram all this stuff into a short time and add more special effects/action and lost the soul of the original

12/23/2008 2:25:17 AM

^Kinda like Lost in Space, or the Transformers movie, The Time Machine, or King Kong, Planet of the Apes, The Stepford Wives, Ultraviolet, or War of the Worlds?

12/23/2008 11:34:48 AM

^^^ the thing i could never believe in the new war of the worlds is tom cruise killing tim Robbins

12/23/2008 3:03:19 PM

Quote :

"who are you supposed to be, the freakin' tin man? - i'm gort, the robot from the day the earth stood still. *takes a drag* well you look like a freakin' tin man."

this i like...

12/23/2008 4:43:43 PM

Quote :

"And what damage we do cause could easily be fixed with the requisite technology"

...lol

Quote :

"It's like the movie wanted to portray the aliens as holding on to a higher standard but they were just the same as people on Earth at their roots. Neutralize a threat before it materializes. Violence."

I can't tell if this was still referring to the original or the new one, but I thought this concept was explained in the new one fairly well through the dialogue with John Cleese. He asks Klaatu what happened to his civilization and Klaatu answers something along the lines of "our sun was dying so we had to evolve"... to which Cleese responds "only on the precipice of destruction do people seek the necessary change". It seemed like the aliens had overlooked this aspect of their own salvation and Klaatu realized it in time to spare the humans. The aliens were the same as the humans in that their existence was threatened, but failed to recognize the similarities between their own plight and that of the earth.

12/25/2008 5:06:00 PM

Movie was... semi-interesting.

I gotta say I think Keanu Reeves sucks at acting, but thats why he was the perfect choice for this role... the emotionless alien.

The remake seems to be hated on by all the old-peeps that saw the original, which is the case with most remakes.

Atleast the main chick was hot.

I KNOW KUNG FU

1/2/2009 12:59:25 AM

Quote :

"I gotta say I think Keanu Reeves sucks at acting, but thats why he was the perfect choice for this role... the emotionless alien."

I think many would agree with this

1/2/2009 1:50:30 AM

Quote :

"Killing the Earth because humans might one-day kill the Earth, that is looney-toons"

SPOILERS*****

This is what I thought too, but after futher review you can see that it wasn't their intention. Remember when the self-defense robot (gort or whatever) deconstructed into all those micro lucust things. If you notice throughout those scenes, especially in the park at the end, they avoided plants and all other biology. Meaning they're only going after humans and what humans constructed. And lets face it: Alien life intelligent enough to make billions of robotic micro locust melt from a robot is intelligent enough to program them to destroy certain things. You can also say that the whole green thing is true in this movie, but it's based primarily on cultivating species, alien farming if you will. Who's to say that the aliens in this movie just wanted to pick a weed out of one of their gardens so they could start over a new batch. The klaatu guy even talked about how they were only a limited number of planets that could harbor life. They were tired of waiting on humans and thats the whole message of the movie, not that the earth is in some terrible impending doom.

I've never seen the original, but yeah war would definitely play into that scenerio too. Espcially if your talking about a race such as our own. And it sucks that this movie had to be such a downer, but it DID give it's props to humans. I mean, what about the alien that disguised as the china man. Didn't he say he would die with the humans regardless because he said he grew to love them. Didn't the movie end without the destruction of the human race. You dont need to get all politically offended by this movie.

SPOLIERS*****

[Edited on January 2, 2009 at 8:49 AM. Reason : spoiler tags]

1/2/2009 8:42:09 AM

At some point Jennifer Connelly says to Klaatu, "you came to see our leaders?? [referring to Wash D.C.] THOSE are NOT our leaders! If you want to talk to our leaders, I'll take you to one!"

Then they go see Cleese's character who's a Nobel prize winner in some science or another.

To me, this seems preachy. (although I somewhat agree with it)

1/3/2009 6:52:13 PM

I couldn't make it past the first 10 minutes. It was one long cliche.

A swat team comes to someone's home...

Ma'am, come with us.
What have I done.
I can't tell you here. I'll tell you on the ride to wherever we are going. COME WITH US.
Ok. So, where are we going. I can't tell you. I don't even know.

They get to the secret base where they have kidnapped an assortment of scientists. There's some form or fashion of a 'this is why we've assembled you here' speech. Of course the world is going to blow up. Of course the asteroid is going to collide with NYC. They always do. The planet is what, 70% ocean but the asteroid always gravitates to NYC.

Cut to shots of people that are crying for their kids b/c they know they're about to die. Pan over to the oblivious kids.

It's about as far as I got. I've seen this movie a hundred times.

EDIT: Granted there is little other way to open a movie like this.

[Edited on January 3, 2009 at 7:05 PM. Reason : -]

1/3/2009 7:01:48 PM

The ONLY thing that made it possible to watch for me was Kathy Bates. She, like Robert Duvall, can take a nothing role and make something out of it. Love watching her performances.

1/3/2009 7:16:46 PM

I hate how modern films take a good story line, and then ruin it with some hoaky, feel good ending (see I am Legend).

1/3/2009 7:40:02 PM

^^you're kidding, right?

her character was AWFUL

1/3/2009 10:29:29 PM

^ Yeah. Hilarious post, wasn't it?

Anyway, yes, but as bad a character as it was, I still enjoyed her performance of it for some reason - but again, only marginally.

Bad movie.

1/3/2009 11:28:07 PM