The Day the Earth Stood Still

[danielh41]

In anticipation of the remake hitting theaters soon, I pulled my copy of the 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still off the shelf and watched it. Once I finished, I watched the trailer for the remake on my computer. What I see in the trailer doesn't even look close to the story in the original. Of course, they probably put a lot of emphasis on special effects when putting that trailer together.

A few random thoughts:

Spoiler

In the 1951 version, Klaatu died and was brought back to life before giving a speech that was an attempt/appeal to save humanity. In The Matrix, Keanu Reeves as Neo is killed in the Matrix before coming back to life as "The One" who would save humanity. And now Keanu Reeves appears to be playing Klaatu...

[silverscreenselect]

The original story, Farewell to the Master, upon which the original film was based, has one of the great endings of all time:

Spoiler

In the story, Klaatu is killed immediately upon arrival on earth and the giant robot spends much of the story unsuccessfully trying to bring Klaatu back to life. At the end, the earth people ask the robot to tell people on its planet that Klaatu's death was just an accident and it is then revealed that the "robot" is actually the master and Klaatu was actually the robot.