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Things I learned from watching THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

posted 14 years ago by Timescrew
50 replies | jump to latest

1. If you show up in Central Park looking like a tool, you're gonna get shot.

2. Its okay to let some stranger watch your kid and take him around town for awhile while there is a global panic and hunt for an escaped alien.

3. Aliens normally travel around with 5-6 cut and polished diamonds.

4. Newspaper hawkers are required by federal law to be just entering puberty with obnoxious nasally voices.

5. Young boys like screwballs.

6. The average 10 year old kid knows the address and exact directions to the city's most influential and intelligent scientist.

7. On other planets, breaking and entering is not a crime.

8. Passer-bys who witness an obvious breaking and entering are more offended by catching said trespassers scribbling on blackboards.

9. In times of global calamity, such as all electricity on the entire planet stopping, people will flock to their nearest national landmark to participate in the panic.

10. Its okay if a giant, all-powerful robot who was just about to disintegrate you and destroy the planet picks you up and carries you inside its spaceship.

11. A woman can spend 30 minutes in the elevator with a man they hardly know without any damage to her 1950's era reputation.

12. Its okay if we smoke in a hospital! Trust us, we're doctors.

13. .....

There is no flavor text!

[–] classicmovie 9 years ago

Great post! Hilarious!

[–] Jimbo_BSD 9 years ago

I like this thread. Having watched it for the first time in 30 years tonight, I realized that there are a lot of really silly things in this film. Things that would get a modern film killed online by people nitpicking the hell out of it. I guess once a movie reaches a certain age all of those things are irrelevant to the enjoyment of the film.

I still liked it. But you have to ignore a lot of ridiculous stuff to do so. Nostalgia is a powerful influence.

[–] Shuggy 9 years ago

96. After the giant robot has melted tanks with his eye-ray, post only two guards (as per #51) and make the only barrier to public access a single flimsy cord.

97. Nobody in D.C. takes any interest in a floodlit spacecraft after dark.

98. A boy may live in a boarding house
99. in his own room
100. and keep a model railway under his bed
101. with an annoying whistle.

102. Inflation is rampant on Klaatu's planet

103. We should (nay, must and will) give absolute power to robots who will kill us all at the first sign of aggression.

And yes, Jimbo_BSD, I too still love it.

All that is visible must grow beyond itself...
http://www.cafepress.co.uk/ahua/8761658

[–] irvberg2002 9 years ago

104. All-wise distant planet aliens know what any wise leftist in the U.S. knows - that the resistance to mass murderer Stalin was merely "your (i.e., our) petty squabbles" and "childish jealousies and suspicions." (Quoting Klaatu's statements to the President's (Harry Truman) representative at Walter Reed.)

[–] Shuggy 9 years ago

Klaatu was looking at a bigger picture than you. If anyone was filled with childish jealousies and suspicions it was Stalin.

"The resistance to mass murderer Stalin" included plenty of childish threats, sabre-rattling, incursions, subversions and takeovers all the US's own.

All that is visible must grow beyond itself...
http://www.cafepress.co.uk/ahua/8761658

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Shuggy 9 years ago

Unlike you, I don't generalise about everyone who disagrees with me (let alone try to vilify them with supporting the worst of my enemies), and I don't dispute the horrors of Stalinism at all. What's interesting is that in 1951 the Gulags were unknown to the west and to most of the USSR. Like the Holocaust, they only came to light much later.

TDTESS was a breath of fresh air in its day for standing above the mindless equation of cahmmies with alien monsters, and standing up to the fear-driven politics of the time. Its solution was fortunately as impracticable as it was dangerous in its own right.

All that is visible must grow beyond itself...
http://www.cafepress.co.uk/ahua/8761658

[–] irvberg2002 9 years ago

Typical moral equivalence to be expected from leftists, except they are not candid about their totalitarian sympathies.

[–] Shuggy 9 years ago

Typical wild generalisation of a rightist, like the glib assertion of "totalitarian sympathies". If we show no sign whatsoever of such "sympathies", easy, it's because we're "not candid" about them. Just like the absence of evidence for UFOs and alien abuctions: it's a coverup!

The DTESS's solution to earth's problems was totalitarian. That doesn't mean Klaatu's intergalactic long-term overview wasn't a breath of fresh air at the time. The evil of Stalin's regime doesn't mean the West's (US's) reaction was the correct one.

All that is visible must grow beyond itself...
http://www.cafepress.co.uk/ahua/8761658

[–] irvberg2002 9 years ago

Really? What was the right reaction?

[–] rship1 9 years ago

105. That Patricia Neal looks into her teacup after dinner like she's just received a text message in it

[–] The_TJT 9 years ago

106. Aliens look exactly like humans and have 50s hairstyle. Rock'n roll!
107. Best way to establish peaceful relations is having 200 guns aimed at the visitor.
108. Dead aliens are to be placed in prison cell.
109. Aliens can selectively halt electricity but can not transmit their message to all of the humankind at the same time.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] browntable759 8 years ago

I love this thread. It's hilarious. :D