Endlessly engrossing landmark science fiction about an alien, Klaatu, that comes to Earth with a warning. He is compelled to pose as an ordinary human and takes refuge with a sympathetic widow and her son. These quiet scenes where he interacts with her family and son are quite effective. Intelligent script’s dark outlook regarding human society, heavily influenced by the Cold War of the 1950s, is still relevant. Ambiguous ending could have been more powerful, however.
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Now let me see if I got this straight. Klaatu thinks that the guy that wrote the Gettsyburg address must’ve been REALLY wise since he did such a good job of justifying the war he was waging to keep the South from being independent. Klaatu’s robot pal, Gort, kills a bunch soldiers because, who knows? they might’ve wound up committing acts of agression otherwise. Klaatu tells the human race that they’d better stop resorting to war and agression or his planet is going to blow every last one of them to kingdom come. Then when Klaatu gets in his saucer and goes home, we’re left to think that the Professor and his friends feel pretty sorry to see the last of such a wonderful guy.
I’ve got the idea now and here’s the sequel. In spite of Klaatu’s warning, wars and revolutions break out in the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, all over the place. So the chief robot on Klaatu’s planet, who’s been programmed to destroy aggressors, has no choice but to vaporize the earth and everybody on it. A few days later Klaatu happens to strike up a friendship with some guy in funny clothes named Zuuga, and it turns out that Zuuga’s come to Klaatu’s planet to tell everybody there that they’d better stop destroying places like the earth, or HIS planet’s going to exterminate Klaatu’s. Then Zuuga gets in his space ship and goes home, and Klaatu feels pretty bad about having to say goodbye to such a good friend.
Then in the third part (we’ll call it “Kill for Peace: A New Beginning”), in spite of Zuuga’s warning, Klaatu’s planet goes ahead and … but I can tell from the look on your face you already know what’s coming.
That’s pretty funny. You should write a thesis entitled, “Contradictions in Classic American Films”. We’ve got “Bridge on the River Kwai” and now THIS film. LOL