I watched this movie last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I wa eagerly anticipating the next scene and was very invested in the film.
Then the ending just kind of happened. Then he left. I feel like there was supposed to be an extra hour in this film.
"The day you're born, you're already dead."
What ending would you have preferred? Helen and Bobby going back to Klaatu's planet with him, beccause they were clearly in love with each other?
Or, for Helen to marry the idiot who proposed? or, for Earth to have been blown up?
Helen and Bobby were in love with each other??
;).
The main problem I had with Klaatu's message is that he is trying to induce compliance through scare-tactics. This is a lesson without a moral, because as a result of it people will not be peaceful through mutual respect and understanding, but because they're scared an alien civilization will burn them to a cinder if they do otherwise. Furthermore, how can anyone have any sort of self-respect and dignity when they know that they are under the heel of a vastly superior entity waiting to be crushed, and can't do anything about it? There are really only two options for people in this situation: 1) People choose to believe Klaatu and sink into depression and despair or 2) People choose not to believe Klaatu (or conveniently ignore his statements) and carry on as before. I think it goes without saying that most people would choose 2) because there's nothing worse than 1) save for absolute non-existance. Thus, Klaatu's visit here was absolutely pointless, apart from maybe spawning yet another small apocalypse-cult.
shareI'm really kind of getting tired of these types of comments, but I'll try to explain this again. Klaatu was not threatening the people of the planet Earth with anything. He was merely telling them the way things were. The people who devised the system that was set up (perhaps hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, by people who might or might not have been of the race of people Klaatu belonged to), where these robots acting as policemen would annihilate worlds which insisted on exporting their violence into the wider space community, would have to be consulted and if you could come up with a better system of keeping peace, hey, maybe they would listen. But as Klaatu admitted, they realize it is not a PERFECT system, but it works! It keeps the peace. If when you were very young your Mum tells you that, if you touch the hot stove your little hand will get burned and you will cry in pain, do you then go and sulk in the corner, thinking "its not fair, I have the right to touch that burner without getting burned!"? Its just the way things are. A legal system is set up so that people can live together without conflict. Should we just get rid of the law, and so people can go around committing violence on other people they don't like, without consequences? So then we can all be free and maintain our dignity? Is that what you want? Traffic lights were put in place where roads intersect to act as a way for automobiles to get through the intersections without conflicts. Are you going to shake your fist at the traffic light because it is unfairly causing you to stop in your tracks when it decides to let other autos through on the connecting road? Are are you going to realize that it was put there for a reason, and if everyone obeys then things will run smoothly.
But you're probably right. People would just ignore him. Because after all, we just should have the right to do anything we want to hell with the consequences. That's whats happening with this global warming thing right now. The temperature of the atmosphere is rising, but the people are too stuck in their belief that they have the right to do whatever the hell they want. After all, we can't restrict our freedoms. So finally nature will have the last word, and the human race, along with a lot of other species, will finally no longer be able to inhabit this planet which they have so thoroughly trashed. But after all "how can anyone have any sort of self-respect and dignity when they know that they are under the heel of a vastly superior entity waiting to be crushed, and can't do anything about it?"
"how can anyone have any sort of self-respect and dignity when they know that they are under the heel of a vastly superior entity waiting to be crushed, and can't do anything about it?"
They can't, but that doesn't mean that all hope is lost. The change can come from within the individuals on their own terms when properly reasoned with, and then there will be no loss of self-respect and dignity. People can be made to realize this without being condescending (like Klaatu was) or insinuating that his police will turn the earth into a "burned-out cinder" if they dare move nuclear power with rockets into space, even if it's only the space surrounding earth. Klaatu didn't speak to the people of the earth like he cared about them, his attitude was more along the lines of "hey, you know I could have all of you destroyed if I wanted to, just sayin'!".
Really? "A legal system is set up so that people can live together without conflict"? To the contrary, legal systems serve the function of regulating conflict and use the threat of violence to do so. My neighbor does something to harm my property. I file a lawsuit to sue him for damages. The Court issues a judgment which requires that he pay me a sum of money in compensation. He disregards the Court's order. The Court holds him in contempt and sends someone armed with a gun to arrest him. Of course, he almost always pays because unless he's crazy he knows what will happen to him if he doesn't comply. As for the "global warming thing",try to educate yourself a little and you'll realize that it's nothing but a mixture of hoax and alarmism. We're in an interglacial epoch between a period in which much of what is now the U.S. was covered with massive glaciers and one in which we'll again be covered by such glaciers. In between, we've experienced warming and cooling periods such as that between 800 and 1100, when Greenland was farming territory, and a "little ice age" in the seventeenth-eighteenth century, when the Thames River became a huge ice skating rink, all of this without even a pretense of human causation. Whether we're on the cusp of either of such changes now is a matter of speculation and all we can really do is try to adapt to any changes as best we can.
shareVery good conversation, these posters are already out, only putting emphasis on these shared viewpoints. Yes although there are two ways to this, humans still need to evolve enough to change the course on their own without the fear, but with natural passion and excitement. What ETs can do to prevent the damage humanity is causing is only to interefere covertly without most of our knowledge (and I know that's how they've actually been doing it in real life for decades), so I believe the change has to come without the outside threat, at least not a direct threat from ETs, but a threat to our lives from natural occurances in cosmos or on Earth, that is a better impulse towards change, humans tend to make an enemy out of other intelligence, not so out of natural disasters, as we believe we can be in control, and prevent that.
shareI think it ended just fine with the question posed to planet earth: continue on our dangerous path to global conflict and risk total annihilation or reform our ways and live in peace. The choice is ours. That was the point of the movie and dramatically made at the end.
sharekbarada: I agree w/ you. I think it's dammmmmm close to the most perfect sci/fi of it's kind for the time, too. I've only seen it about 25 million times. <and borderline ashamed that i can recite lines of dialogue, too.>
shareI think it was too abrupt and there should have been some sort of discussion with the president and maybe another scene of him with the girl, where they talk over dinner or something. They talk to each other at her work. Then the elevator, then the car chase. Then the ending happens.
It just feels like there should have been something else happening in the ending.
"The day you're born, you're already dead."
In my opinion, what made the movie great was that it DIDN'T go overboard in explaining the message, because the same thing would have then most likely happened that happens on these internet message boards. People start to pick the explanations apart and focus on any particular detail they think they can to call wrong or describe how it could have been said or done "better".
And I'm only using your suggestions of a discussion with the president and having dinner with the girl as examples TannerDVader, so don't take this as being directed soley at your opinion of the ending.
Having a discussion with the president was addressed in the movie when it was said that the message was meant for ALL the inhabitants of Earth, not just one country, leader, person, etc. And a talk over dinner with the girl would have implied that she was a love interest, when in my opinion her role in the movie was to serve only as an example of someone who was objective enough to understand the importance of Klaatu's mission, without all their personal biases, self-interests, and preconceived notions getting in the way and making things more difficult that they need to be.
What sucks about the ending is the threat: "Bow down to us or die"? That is how a higher civilization behaves?
No more sitting at the back of the marriage bus http://www.cafepress.com/wero/6180221]
by Shuggy - What sucks about the ending is the threat: "Bow down to us or die"? That is how a higher civilization behaves?
+1
KIAI ... please.
What sucks about the ending is the threat: "Bow down to us or die"? That is how a higher civilization behaves?
All during the cold war period there was a system at work known as MAD. "Mutually assured destruction" was the policy followed by both the USSR and the USA leaders to prevent the use of nuclear weapons.
The threat was not so much "bow down to us or die" but really, "You have to respect the entire Solar System." And the way Earthlings were behaving in post-war times, he was right. Keep in mind, the original story was written in 1940, and fleshed out for the 1951 film.
Klaatu was on a missionary as an interplanetary diplomat to get us to act in accordance with better behavior. We were sucking at that -- the cold war; 2 atomic bombs; concentration / extermination camps; he was right.
You ruin your credibility by saying the original short story had that message in mind. In fact, the story and the screenplay have almost nothing in common. Definitely not this failed attempt at profoundness. "Farewell to the Master" was true to its name. It was nothing more than a story about mistaken identity. The Earth was not at risk. There was no mention of world peace. You might want to read that story.
shareI watched it recently and thought the ending was anticlimactic. I was expecting a resolution, watching Earth get destroyed or all leaders agreeing to work together.
It's a good ending anyway, because we can relate to this choice of destruction or peace, now as they could in the 50's.
I would have liked it if the little kid had been there to say goodbye to Klaatu, somehow
Astridmoon: We don't know what the world leaders ended up doing. We only see him leaving. For all we know, they did make an effort. (test ban treaty for one, in real life) and some other, perhaps superficial... but still.)
What we do know is, Klaatu extended himself and said, "Look gang -- don't seek to destroy each other... because other planets have the power to knock your socks off..."
What we do know is, Klaatu extended himself and said, "Look gang -- don't seek to destroy each other... because other planets have the power to knock your socks off..."
That's a false choice. It doesn't have to be black or white, life or death. They've proven they can counter anything we might be able to throw at them. Or do you think there was only one ship and they wouldn't be able to keep us earthbound if we decided to fight? Do you think PotUS would have to order a nuclear strike on the Amazon if an aboriginal tribe armed with spears and blowguns declared war on the US?
Another analogy would be dogs. They have hurt and even killed humans. We can easily hunt them to extinction with our firearms, as we've done to wolves in many areas, or the passenger pigeon, which once numbered in the billions in the US. But we haven't exterminated dogs. Why? Because we're not as simpleminded as this movie.
I think it was a perfect ending. No frills, just saying what needs to be said, and getting the hell out of Dodge. After all he had been through, what else was there to do?
They've got cars big as bars, they've got rivers of gold
Klaatu's ultimatum (and that's what it was--I'm looking at the original movie poster on my wall right now and the word "ultimatum" is prominent) was indeed a threat. If you don't comply, you will be annihilated. That fits the definition of a threat perfectly. No contrary explanation, no matter how lengthy, can spin that fact away.
shareIf you don't comply, you will be annihilated. That fits the definition of a threat perfectly.