Part of my Laws of Robotics Project

Klaatu: I'm worried about Gort. I'm afraid of what he might do if anything should happen to me.
Helen: Gort? But he's a robot. Without you, what could he do?
Klaatu: There's no limit to what he could do. He could destroy the Earth.

The Day the Earth Stood Still deals in a tension that arises from the impossibility of putting seemingly simple plans into action. The story is a humble but powerful one, centring on Klaatu, an alien who has journeyed to earth in a UFO alongside his robot companion Gort. He intends to warn the world not to interfere with other planets in the solar system, and to live as peacefully…

Brilliant noir from Robert Wise. After making a name for himself shooting some of the finest B-noirs, including Lawrence Tierney in Born to Kill, he managed to blend those tropes with a pulpy science fiction story and created one of the great genre films of American cinema.

The two go hand in hand perfectly, an outsider on the run from goons, an unexpected friendship with somebody from outside of the racket, fear and paranoia, they're all key to film noir. The often stunning cinematography also lives up to Wise's noir heritage, especially the shots on board the spaceship and the night-for-night exteriors.

I'm quite surprised that a movie that paints America and Americans in such a negative yet honest light,…

The 1950s saw the sobering realities of the Cold War. The threat of nuclear catastrophe was ever-present as both the United States and the Soviet Union increased their weapons stockpiles and their antagonism. Amidst this uncertainty, science fiction and horror movies responded with trenchant, paranoid visions. In the field of science fiction, Cold War concerns surfaced in a number of works about alien invasion, beginning with the classic Howard Hawks / Christian Nyby version of The Thing and followed almost immediately with another bona-fide genre classic, Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still. These films and the many that followed them have been since subject to much analysis and appreciation as a body of work with distinct historical, social…

I decided to start my December Nuttiness project with an absolute genre classic, and it also gave me the excuse to show my kids a 'grown up' film that they could watch and (hopefully) love.

TDTESS does come across today as having a heavy handed message, if you have a jaded mind view of world events, which pretty much most people will have, even if they don't realise it. But if you are able to see it through innocent eyes as I did this morning, it's a fantastic powerhouse of a film.

Imagine the world back in America 1951, it's only a few years after the end of World War II and the Ruskies are going to try and take…

"You must remember these words, Klaatu Barrada Nikto"

Probably the most iconic words uttered in the movie and the staple of many a school playground in my day. This 1950 film is a tense sci-fi concerning the fate of the world and stands as an allegory to mankinds self destructive tendencies.

With its anti-war stance this First Contact movie stands convention on its head by showing a peaceful alien willing to share his gifts being casuallly gunned down by the first group of humans he meets. The true monsters in this film are mankind not the alien Klaatu or his robot guardian Gort.

This film neatly ties in to the consciousness of the 1950's the paranoia and distrust that had…