"Klaatu barada nikto!"
Gort is a silver
android featured in the movie
The Day the Earth Stood Still. Gort was made by a race of aliens roughly 5,000 years more advanced than Earth (circa 1950). Gort's master is
Klaatu. Gort is 8' 8" tall and has some sort of silver
liquid polymetal skin that appears to be impregnable to most explosives and
kinetic energy rounds.
Gort's primary functions seems to be that of metallic
bodyguard, intergalactic peacekeeper, and weapon of mass(terful) destruction. When a panicked
doughboy drops a round into Klaatu, Gort quickly disintegrated all nearby weapons with a head-mounted laser recessed behind a sliding face plate. When Klaatu is captured and killed, Gort proceeds to exact revenge by leveling
Washington, D.C. Gort can only be stopped by uttering the classic line "
Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!"
It's speculated that
Gort! Klaatu barada nikto! means "Gort! Klaatu orders you to stop" or "Gort! Klaatu is in
danger".
The phrase
Klaatu barada nicto has been used in several other movies in a sort of
easter egg fashion. In the movie
Tron, Tron's creator
Alan Bradley has a poster on his wall with this phrase. Director
Sam Reimi used it in
Army of Darkness (it's the phrase that must be uttered to stop evil stuff). It also appeared in an episode of the cartoon
Hercules.
George Lucas has made a couple references to Gort's safe word in his
Star Wars films. In the original movie, there are three characters in the cantina named
Klatu,
Barada, and
Nikto.
The Day the Earth Stood Still was based on a
Harry Bates short story called "
Farewell to the Master" (first appearing in
Astounding Stories, October 1940). The Gort robot itself was based on the story's robot named
GNUT. GNUT had a much more human appearance, resembling a green metallic man with
bulging muscles and a
loin cloth. GNUT became Gort in the screen adaptation because "Gort" was thought easier to pronounce.
Gort was played by 7' 7" tall actor Lock Martin. Like many "giants", Martin did not live long. He died at the age of 43 in 1959. For a time, he was the tallest actors in the
Screen Actors Guild.