Theatrical poster
Directed by	Scott Derrickson
Produced by	Erwin Stoff Paul Harris Boardman
Written by	David Scarpa
Starring	Keanu Reeves Jennifer Connelly Jaden Smith
Music by	Tyler Bates
Cinematography	David Tattersall
Editing by	Wayne Wahrmann
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	December 12, 2008
Running time	104 min.[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$80–100 million[

Official Web site:

http://www.dtessmovie.com/

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 will be released in conventional theaters and IMAX screens on December 12, 2008.

Contents [hide] 1 Premise 2 Cast 3 Production 3.1 Development 3.2 Filming 3.3 Effects 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Premise

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 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. It is up to Dr. Helen
Benson (Jennifer Connelly) and her stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith) to convince Klaatu humans are worth saving, but it may already be too late.^[4]

[edit] Cast

• Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, an alien messenger in human form. Reeves dislikes remakes, but was impressed by the script, which he deemed a reimagining.
  He enjoyed the original film as a child and became fonder of it as an
  adult when he understood how relevant it was, but liked this
  interpretation because it lacked the contradictory message of Klaatu
  "laying down the law […] almost as though the alien had the bigger stick".^[5] At Reeves' insistence, the classic line "Klaatu barada nikto" was kept from the original, though in an "inverted" context.^[6]
  He spent many weeks advising the script, trying to make Klaatu's
  transistion from alien in human form to one who appreciates their
  emotions and beliefs subtle and nuanced.^[4]
  Derrickson said although Reeves would not use actions "that are highly
  unusual or highly quirky", he nevertheless "keeps you aware of the fact
  that this being you're walking through this movie with is not a human
  being".^[7]

• Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson, a famed astrobiologist at Princeton University who is recruited by the government to study Klaatu. Connelly was Derrickson's first choice for the part.^[7] She is a fan of the original film and felt Patricia Neal's
  original portrayal of Helen was "fabulous", but trusted the filmmakers
  with their reinterpretation of the story and Helen, who was a secretary
  in the original.^[6]
  Connelly emphasized Helen is amazed when she meets Klaatu, as she never
  believed she would encounter a sentient alien like him after
  speculating on extraterrestrial life for so long.^[4]

• Jaden Smith as Jacob,
  Helen's rebellious eight-year old stepson. His conflict with his
  stepmother was worsened by the death of his father, and initially
  dislikes Klaatu, believing he is a potential stepfather. Jacob replaces
  the character of Bobby (Billy Gray)
  from the original, and his relationship with Helen was written as a
  microcosm of how Klaatu comes to see humanity – the aliens sees their
  cold and distant relationship as proof positive of normal human
  behavior, and their reconciliation forces him to change his mind. Smith
  said he found Jacob difficult to play because he felt the character an
  "opposite" of his personality. Smith had met Reeves before on the set
  of The Matrix sequels with his mother Jada Pinkett-Smith.^[4]

• John Cleese cameos as Professor Barnhardt, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who specializes in the evolutionary basis of altruism.
  Helen takes Klaatu to him to further change his mind. The role was the
  most difficult to cast, and eventually the filmmakers decided to
  approach Cleese, noting "Who would you rather make the argument [to
  Klaatu] for mankind than John Cleese?"^[8] Stoff had met Cleese a few times beforehand and had noted his intellect.^[4]
  The actor was surprised the filmmakers were interested in him, and
  decided playing a dramatic role would be easier than to play a manic,
  comedic one at his age. He was often reminded to speed up his dialogue
  so Reeves would not appear in sync with normal human speech patterns.^[5]
  Cleese said he is not interested in extraterrestrial life because he
  often philosophizes about the purpose of life and why humans are
  distracted by trivial matters.^[4] Cleese had experience writing equations he did not understand, as he had spoken Russian in A Fish Called Wanda without knowing its meaning.^[4] The crew enjoyed working with Cleese and were sad when he finished his part.^[8]

• Jon Hamm as Dr. Michael Granier,
  a NASA official who recruits Helen into his scientific team
  investigating Klaatu. Granier is fascinated by Klaatu, but is torn
  between his official obligation to detain the alien and protect his
  country.^[4] Hamm acknowledged science fiction was a niche genre
  when the original film was made, and that it used science fiction to
  make topical issues more approachable. Hamm had the same feelings for
  this remake.^[8] Originally, Hamm's character was French and named Michel.^[9]
  Although he is interested in maths and science, Hamm found his
  technical dialogue difficult and had to film his lines repeatedly.^[4]

• Kathy Bates as Regina Jackson, the United States Secretary of Defense.
  Bates had only two weeks to film her scenes, so she often requested
  Derrickson act out her lines so she would directly understand his aims
  for her dialogue, rather than interpret vague directions.^[4]

• Kyle Chandler in an unspecified role.^[5]

[edit] Production

[edit] 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.^[8] By the time David Scarpa started writing his draft in 2005,^[10] Thomas Rothman was in charge of Fox and felt a responsibility to remake the film.^[8]
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".^[4]

Scarpa noted the recent events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 informed his mindset when writing the screenplay.^[10]
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 [un]willing to tolerate that".^[11]

Director Scott Derrickson admired the original film's director Robert Wise, whom he met as a film student.^[4] He generally dislikes remakes, but he enjoyed the script – which he decided was a retelling of the story and not a true remake.^[5] 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.^[10] 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.^[12] Astronomer Seth Shostak served as scientific consultant.^[4]

[edit] Filming

Filming took place from December 12, 2007 to March 19, 2008 at Vancouver Film Studios.^[12][13]
The film was originally scheduled for release on May 9, 2008, but it
was delayed to December 12, 2008 because filming commenced later than
scheduled.^[14] The shoot was unaffected by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike;^[8] by then Scarpa had written forty drafts of the script.^[10] The film was mostly shot on sets because it was winter in Vancouver.^[4]

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.^[8]
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.^[4]

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.^[4]

[edit] 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.^[4] Derrickson deemed a modern audience would find the original's flying saucer amusingly dated.^[12] 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.^[8]
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".^[12]

Derrickson felt not showing the inside of the ship, unlike the original, would make the audience more curious.^[4]
As well as computer-generated spheres – such as Klaatu's 300 feet ship,
or a 3000 feet 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.^[4]

Derrickson emphasized a Trinity-like relationship between the sphere, Klaatu and Gort.^[8]
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.^[4] 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.^[12]

For the film's version of Gort,
Derrickson explored many possibilities for depicting the character, but
realized making a faithful homage to the original was best.^[7] Their 15th draft^[10] had depicted the robot as a four-legged "Totem" that stands upright after firing its weapon beam.^[15]
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",^[5]
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.^[4] 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.^[4] His destructive capabilities were based on locust swarms.^[10]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official site
• The Day the Earth Stood Still at the Internet Movie Database
• The Day the Earth Stood Still at Allmovie

[hide] v • d • e The Day the Earth Stood Still Versions "Farewell to the Master" (1940 short story) · 1951 film · 2008 film Universe Klaatu · Gort · "Klaatu barada nikto"