Gort is beautiful.

That chrome shine and faceless visage, that fluid and human movement, that cold white dome. He's sometimes menacing, sometimes distant, sometimes unnerving, but he's always beautiful to behold. This absurd belief that these beings need to look "realistic" is what leads us to this unending parade of bad animation and CGI, these lifeless, soulless creations that suck all of the creativity and grace out of our aliens, robots, and monsters. You demand perfection, and you get ill-gotten computers trying to replicate human artistry. Fuck that.

Gort is fucking beautiful.

Yeah, it's a man in a suit. Yeah, you can tell especially when he walks. It just makes it better. It's jarring to see those legs bend like…

A message movie that works. The message being - that our first response to the unknown is fear and prejudice, not reason or understanding.

To the visiting spaceman Klaatu played by the great stony faced Michael Rennie - his mission is to warn us of this potentially dangerous emotional flaw before it results in the destruction of all people, then Earth.

It's simplistically told. Scenes are free of script fat: making their points quickly, serving the overall narrative efficiently before deftly moving on to the next. It's a masterclass of focused storytelling.

What's surprising to me on this re-watch though, is that the only element that really dates the movie (other than Gort's flexible 'metal' pants) is Bernard Herrmann's score.…

Action! - Robert the Wise

Probably because I grew up watching it actually in theaters, but the remake still leaves a lasting impression on me over this. That being said, in terms of which is better, there’s a great case to call this the winner.

And after this rewatch, I guess I have to agree. It holds up really well and while its message is a little too overt, it never detracts from the story. Rennie makes for a great protagonist; he delivers on the robotic monotony all while allowing the emotion, the frustration, the caring and the charm to come through when time requires it. The rest of the cast delivers as well. The writing and dynamic between everyone…

An early alien science-fiction classic famous for how it merged its pulpier genre elements that weren't taken very seriously at the time with an effective, anxious Cold War messiah parable based somewhat in reality. Works as well as it does simply because of how Wise takes his experience at RKO with noir, horror, and war films and manages to combine all three into an atmosphere of atomic anxiety and militarized warmongering as the very tall, friendly Jesus alien is locked up, hunted like an animal, and eventually shot to death for the crime of trying to talk with us. The standout sequences are when it gets to flex on the sheer visual awe of this situation/these creatures here to deliver…

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a landmark science fiction film of the period, which uses the heightened Cold War anxiety of the time to question humanity's ethical standing and offers a plea for reason over violence, and offers a message which is still relevant today. The story begins after a huge saucer appears with Klaatu inside and his robot companion, who threaten to destroy Earth if they cannot learn to live peacefully and without the use of nuclear weapons. The strongest aspect is Robert Wise's approach, which, instead of relying on fear, instead relies on dialogue and ethics to get its point across. Michael Rennie's portrayal of Klaatu is calm and collected and really plays against the perception…

Klaatu is an alien who lands in front of the White House aboard a huge spaceship to warn the human race that it will be exterminated if the various world powers do not decide, once and for all, to live in peace. The inhabitants of the Earth are in fact so aggressive that they constitute a threat to the entire universe. The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of the few science fiction films of the 1950s that managed to rise from the mediocrity of a trend that referred, with many clichés, to the fear of flying saucers and extraterrestrials. Directed by a solid director like Robert Wise and supported by an excellent technical sector, the film is not…

Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!
-Helen

Robert Wise might have been criticized during his career for never challenging the studios and perhaps being a bit too much of a "team player" but as Hollywood directors go you'd be hard-pressed to find another studio director that could dabble in ALL genres while turning out not only successful films, but films that have stood the test of time.

Here Wise and screenwriter Edmund H. North turnout not just a memorable movie, but a landmark film in science-fiction. In an age of goofy-ass flying saucer films The Day the Earth Stood Still stands out because despite it's simplistic nature actually works on different levels. On purpose no less. That's actually something a lot of…