The Day the Earth Stood Still

"Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you."

"Klaatu barada nikto!"

92 min. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.; Distributed by: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.; Directed by: Robert Wise; Produced by: Julian Blaustein; Screenplay by:Ernest Lehman; Edited by: William Reynolds; Director of Photography: Leo Tover; Music by: Bernard Herrmann; Production Design by: Lyle Wheeler & Addison Hehr; Sound by: Arthur L. Kirbach & Harry M. Leonard; Costumes by: Travilla; Make-up by: Ben Nye.

Michael Rennie (Klaatu), Patricia Neal (Helen Benson), Hugh Marlowe (Tom Stevens), Sam Jaffe (Professor Barnhardt), Billy Gray (Bobby Benson), Frances Bavier (Mrs. Barley), Lock Martin (Gort), Drew Pearson (Himself), Carleton Young (Colonel), Frank Conroy (Harley), Fay Roope (Major General), Edith Evanson (Mrs. Crockett), Robert Osterloh (Major White), Tyler McVey (Brady), James Seay (Government Man), John Brown (Mr. Barley), Marjorie Crossland (Hilda), Glenn Hardy (Interviewer), House Peters, Jr. (M.P. Captain), Rush Williams (M.P. Sergeant), Olan Soule (Mr. Kurll), Gil Herman (Government Agent), Gabriel Heater, H. V. Kaltenborn and Elmer Davis (Commentators).

The robot Gort was played by the only man in Hollywood who could fit the suit: Lock Martin, the 7'7" tall doorman at Grauman's Chinese Theater.

The Gort costume was 8'2" tall. There were actually two Gort suits, one that laced in the front and one that laced in the back. These suits were worn depending on the angle of the shoot.

Additionally, there was a fibreglass Gort that stood over 9' tall and was used in static shots where the height of the robot needed to be accentuated.

You may think that this is just a movie, but OH NO.

Let me tell you about the day the Earth stood still. Gather 'round now, I'll dim the lights and start a fire.

I went to a computer show today. Lots of new and used stuff, most of it pretty cool. I went with two friends, just browsing. They were unsuccessful in their search for a 21" monitor, so they bailed. I stayed to get a better look at the vendors and their wares.

And lo, I come to a memory booth. My primary computer at home is a home built Pentium III 500 cranking on 128 Megs of RAM. I had been planning to upgrade it to 256, but memory prices had not previously lent themselves to this plan.

Until today. This day. The day the Earth stood still.

I buy myself a Micron 128MB PC100 DIMM for around $50. Good to go, I peruse the floor one last time, and head home - good fortune in hand. I arrive at my apartment, eager to install my new silicon toy.

I snap the DIMM into the second slot on my motherboard, plug the computer in, and boot it up. I smile as the memory test hits 256. Excellent!

The box boots, and I ponder what to test. I play a few Quicktime movies, no difference really. I grab my 'American Beauty' DVD off the shelf, and pop it in. I start up the DVD player software, and...

The computer locks up.

I suspect the memory, but rather than jumping to an immediate decision, I reboot the box and decide to give it another try. Again, the DVD software locks up the machine.

The Earth begins to slow.

I shut down the computer, remove the new DIMM, and fire it back up. I start the DVD software, and it immediately starts playing the movie. Interesting. I shut down the computer, remove my old DIMM, install the new DIMM, and boot it back up. I start the DVD software, and the movie begins playing.

Curious.

Again, I load the computer back up with both my original DIMM, as well as the new one. I boot it up and start the DVD software, just to see it lock up the machine once more.

The Earth slows further.

Very strange. Both chips are PC100 128MB DIMM modules. They should work with one another. I shut down the system, leave the new chip in, and boot it back up. The system turns on, however nothing is displayed on the screen. I attempt to turn the system off, but the power button is not responding. I pull the plug, and it finally powers down. I plug it back in, and press the power button to turn it back on and...

Nothing.

I start pressing the power button repeatedly, but the computer refuses to power up. I check the connections on all cables, and everything seems fine. I try a few more times to power on the system, to no avail.

The Earth stops moving.

I arrive at the first stages of grief as I realize my computer has quite possibly died on me. I pull the plug on the power supply for ten minutes or so, in case it went into overload, and tried again - and again, my computer greeted me with a cold silence.

I figured this was a good time to head back to the dealer who sold me the memory, and inform him that my computer was now a boat anchor. I bring back the chip, and tell him what happened. He tells me that it's absolutely impossible that memory can destroy a system. (Unlikely, perhaps. Not impossible.) I tell him that I'll go back and see if I can get my computer back up, and he agrees to let me return the chip if it's of no use to me.

I went back home, and eyed my dying friend. I decide to check every connection on the board, so I start with the ATX connector. I pull it off the board, and - WOW - that sure came off quite easily. I plug the ATX connector back on to the board, and wonder if the problem was really that simple. Absolutely not. I've been working with computers for years. Hell, I built this very system myself! That can't be the problem.

That was the problem.

The Earth shudders.

Mind you, that's not why the new memory chip failed, but at least my computer was alive and well once more. Delighted that I had ressurected the box, I powered it down and pulled my memory chip. I brought both chips to the memory vendor at the show, and told him that they most definitely were not compatible with one another.

He tested them both, and they both tested good. I knew my module was good, as it has been serving me flawlessly for about two years. He suggested a situation that I had never assumed to be an issue. Apparently, if you have one DIMM with chips on both sides, and one with chips on one side, it can cause problems in very rare instances. My original DIMM had chips on both sides, and the new one had chips on one side. Hmmm, a possible solution?

So I swapped the DIMM for another with chips on both sides of the module, and brought it home, hoping that's what the problem was. I went to the computer, installed the new chip, and fired it up. The memory counted to 256 once again, and the computer booted fine. One final time, I started the DVD software, silently praying to the computer gods. This had to work. There was nothing left to do but wave a dead chicken, and I didn't have one handy.

Behold. The DVD began playing. Woah. Could it be true? I start running lots of applications. I run Quicktime movies, while playing mp3s, while 2 instances of mIRC are running, along with Internet Explorer, AIM, ICQ, and distributed.net. I open several windows, start some more Quicktime movies while I play my DVD, and everything runs smoothly.

The Earth jerks, and resumes its previous movement.

I called the memory guy to let him know that everything seems to be okay, and I thank him. I do realize that my computer is fine, but when I thought it had died, it drained me. I thought that buying that DIMM was the stupidest thing I had ever done, and my computer paid the price. The relief I felt when it came back to life was wonderful. Today didn't suck so bad in the end after all.

I then logged into Everything2, and I began writing about The Day the Earth Stood Still.

This statement will be contested by the many admirers of Star Wars (and I know that Wise directed Star Trek: The Motion Picture), and other more recent movies, who will claim old black and white cannot possibly speak to the modern movie audience. And to this, I might not disagree.

Jaded by the ever-sophisticating technology of computer graphics, the North American audience, at least, has been weaned on the implicit notion that action, and flash of imagery is the real substance of drama.

Michael Rennie as a thoughtful visitor from somewhere else, not quite a police officer, brings a serious message that has yet to be heeded by the most powerful nation on earth--in fact, about to be disregarded by the imminent adoption of the NMD.

It is in the quiet ensemble acting--the trusting boy (Billy Gray as Bobby Benson), the woman growing to trust (Patricia Neal as Helen Benson), and even the scientist (the ever slightly strange Sam Jaffee)--that the real drama is played out; all pivoting around Klaatu.

This is the true reality of acting that the British have not yet forgotten--as evidenced by the many re-makes of their movies and television programs for the American sensibility. Even The X-Files, before the movie, before the conspiracy got out of hand and became foreground, knew:

The more explicit the image, the less room for thought, and imagination.

The Day the Earth Stood Still asks very real questions about the existence and use of atomic weapons at the beginning of the atomic age. It gets our attention with only a bit of cinematic trickery--what most in today's audience would consider weak movie-making. All that Klaatu did was follow the scientist's request: do something spectacular, but hurt no one; a very interesting challenge as Klaatu himself put it. (And not something that is cinematically spectacular, that art not technologically advanced, but the acting, the writing, the imagining was.)

In a way the director, Robert Wise, has anticipated my remarks: when Klaatu goes to the saucer landing site with Bobby, he is interviewed by the TV reporter there; but when he starts talking reasonably, intelligently about the effects of fear, and how it gets in the way, the reporter moves on.

We are people. We relate to other people. the most effective actors are people. The expressions on the faces of the actors in the early X-Files are the only way to convey the feeling of horrors only dimly glimpsed.

Why would we want these images plainly put?

What would move us to imagine, if all is before us? What poverty is this?

What would make the earth stand still for us?

The kicker, the grand revalation in italics that all 1940's SF was legally required to have, was (get ready, now. Are you sitting down?)

The robot was in charge. In the galactic culture of which they were ambassadors, humans took second place to their creations. Imagine if the filmmakers had tackled this aspect head-on, without the Frankenstein twist that seems to still follow us around.