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The alien messiah is a staple of science fiction, and few have been as messianic as Klaatu, who came to Earth to deliver a message of peace and a warning of possible apocalyptic doom in the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). The clues are all there: he walks incognito among regular people under the name "Carpenter," he is ignored by the governments of this world and ultimately killed by its soldiers, he is brought back to life inside his tomb-like spaceship with the help of a guardian robot (who dispenses with the human troops stationed nearby), and then he emerges to spread one last message to the entire world before he ascends back into the heavens. And yet, director Robert Wise claimed he was unaware of the Christological parallels until other people began to point them out to him.
No such ignorance lies behind the new version, which is directed by Scott Derrickson, one of the few openly Christian writer-directors working in Hollywood. But the new film comes at a time when ideas about gods, aliens, and human beings have become a little more, well, complicated. Derrickson himself is no stranger to complicated thinking; his previous film, The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), was carefully designed to stimulate discussion on the nature of faith and doubt without tilting its scales entirely to one side or the other. However, his new film, which the studio had been developing for some time before he came on board, is caught between the demands of a major-studio tentpole and the inclinations of its makers, just as it is caught between the need to bring the material up to date and the pressure, from fans and others, to recycle familiar elements from the original film even when they don't seem to fit the new movie's internal logic.
The basic elements go back to a 1940 short story by Harry Bates called "Farewell to the Master." In that story, an alien named Klaatu—"godlike" in appearance, we're told—steps from a ship that has appeared out of nowhere in the middle of Washington, D.C. This mysterious visitor is promptly shot and killed by a man who thinks the alien is a "devil." The people of Earth are terrified that Klaatu's people might seek retribution if they hear of the deed, so they create a memorial to the alien, to show their respect for him; and since Klaatu was accompanied by a giant robot, who now stands motionless outside the ship, they construct a building around the robot and the ship as well. Some years later, however, a photojournalist discovers that the robot has, in fact, been busy when no one is looking—conducting experiments in a bid to bring Klaatu back to life. The story ends with a twist, in which we learn that the robot is not Klaatu's servant but, rather, his master.
The 1951 film keeps some of these details even as it tells an entirely different story. This time, the saintly Klaatu—portrayed by Michael Rennie, who would go on to play the apostle Peter in The Robe (1953) and Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)—is shot not by a "mentally unbalanced" fanatic but by a soldier, who pulls his trigger in fear when Klaatu approaches him bearing a strange object. (In this version of the story, Klaatu survives the initial shooting; his death and resurrection take place much later.) The object, it turns out, was not a weapon but a gift that would have helped the American president to study life on other planets. The robot, here named Gort, turns out to be part of an interstellar police force that has been put in place to ensure that no planet can pose any sort of threat to the other planets. And so the film underscores its basic themes: that reason and good will should take the place of fear, jealousy, and other dangerous emotions; and that humanity can better itself if it follows the example set by Klaatu and his people.
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