REVIEW: The Day the Earth Stood Still

This poorly considered remake starring Keanu Reeves should be re-titled "How to Fuck up a Classic". Sorry, but it's true. How bad is it? Well, try this on for size: The reviews are so nearly universally bad that it scores lower than Attack of the Killer Tomatoes on RottenTomatoes.com.


So, we can take it as a non-debatable "given" that TDTESS sucks. The bigger question is why? Well, I think it's pretty damned clear. Nobody involved in the remake had the slightest understanding about what made the original a classic. They didn't understand the plot; they didn't understand the message; they didn't understand the characterization. They completely failed to grasp the slightest concept that made the original memorable.

Let's start with the characters. In the original Michael Rennie's Klaatu was thoroughly human, despite the fact that he was from outer space. He was warm, engaging; he had a sense of humor. We could easily identify with him, and through his eyes we could see ourselves in a new light, with all of our inconsistencies, petty fears, and superstitions exposed. (There are other themes revolving around Klaatu's use of the name "Carpenter", his resurrection, and the saving of humanity, which give the classic enough levels of profound meaning to keep a college philosophy class busy for weeks.) Keanu Reeves' Klaatu could have been played as ably by a cigar-store Indian. He has no depth, no subtlety, no humanity. Reeve tried so hard to be otherworldly that he and his opinions of us lost relevence. Who cares what a frackin' robot thinks?

In the original, Mrs. Benson and her son are simply ordinary people that Klaatu encounters as he's studying humanity. Why is this important? Because Mrs. Benson is not some scientist who is so thoroughly non-representative that even an alien would discount her presense, much less her claims for humanity. She and Bobby are humanity... a mother and child: caring, sensitive, inquisitive people by whom Klaatu can measure our species. How fortunate we are that he meets thm first! What a shame that the remake re-casts her as an "important" -- and therefore irrelevant -- personage.

The original's Professor Barnhardt is not awed or cowed by the presense of Klaatu. He doesn't beg for humanity. He looks Klaatu in the face as a fellow being equal in spirit, if technologically backward. In every case, the new production screws up the characterization. Hell, if I were Klaatu and were faced with this new lot of whiners, I doubt I could find a reason to save them.

And that brings us to the message. In the original, Klaatu's people couldn't give a rat's fart whether or not humanity survives on our own world. But at the time of the original movie nuclear weaponry was new and we held high hopes for our eventual colonization of space. It is the thought that we might take our violence off of this planet that gives Klaatu's people pause. They are acting to forestall a danger to themselves. Klaatu himself is a good person, and is merely delivering the message in an effective way that will get our attention while not violating his own code of non-violence. He is thoroughly genuine. And this is a message that is still appropriate in a world dominated by terrorism and anti-terrorism, nascent nuclear states and rogue nuclear powers... a world which only recently announced a renewed push to establish a base on the Moon and a human foothold on Mars.

By contrast, the new Klaatu is a hypocritical bastard that would calmly commit genocide to save "the planet". News flash to all pseudo-intellectual Al Gore wannabes that made or (God forbid!) like this movie: if we all die off, "the planet" continues. If we screw up the biosphere as much as we possibly can, then life on this ball will continue. This planet has already experienced repeated global ecocide (notably, the Permian Extinction wiped out 90-95% of all life 251 million years ago). Guess what? Life continued. There is no impact upon Klaatu's people, not even a philosophical one, even if we completely and totally screw up. As such, Klaatu's whole mission is pointless in the remake. Why should Klaatu prefer our existing species of Blue Spruce to the plant species that would succeed them when we kill ourselves off? Why should he prefer ANY species to the only intelligent one on the planet? The only possible answers to this do not do the aliens credit.

Take this exchange from the remake: the Secretary of Defense asks Klaatu, "Why have you come to our planet?" Klaatu responds, "YOUR planet?"

Well, YES. Our planet, you bug-f*cker. Who do you think it belongs to? Us, or some gussied up space-monkey who shows up to demand that we live our lives in accordance with his alien design? As you can see, the new Klaatu's motives don't pass the sniff test. He's not authentic. He's not genuine. He's not believable in any fashion. He's not a savior, he's a usurper. (To the Liberals out there: he's George Bush in Iraq.) In the original, Klaatu warns us of the consequenses of our own actions: he's there to give us fair warning. In the remake he "saves" us from a trumped-up "danger" of his own making. That's not salvation! Should a gunman be credited with "saving your life" if he decides not to administer a killing shot after he's wounded you? It's a stupid concept at its very core, yet it's the same stupid concept that Reeves & Co. think script-worthy.

There's more. I could go on about the top-heavy special effects (the original had few because they weren't needed to drive the story). I could point out that dozens of giant spheres and gargantuan robots that noisily and sloppily destroy the world (hypocritically causing great ecological stress) aren't nearly as impressive as one saucer that can do the same job quietly and efficiently. And what's the point of Dr. Wu? I could point out more, but by now you get the point. In trying to be "different", largely due to the academic ineptitude of the filmakers, the remake turns all of the original's themes on their heads. The result isn't a new and fresh update of a classic; it's an anti-classic that deserves its 22 on the Tomatometer.

We see this all the time from Hollywood. For instance, we saw it with Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds. It scores 73% on the Tomatometer, whereas the 1955 version with Gene Barry scores a more respectable 85%, the same as the 1951 version of TDTESS. Neither film is terribly true to the book, but the 1955 version at least has the excuse that the special effects describe weren't really achievable in its day. Tom Cruise doesn't even have that excuse, and his movie scores 12% lower. If you want to see WOTW achieve a better rating? Set it in Victorian England. Follow the damned book. Give us some real Tripods, and sink the bloody Thunder Child with a Heat Ray. Leave the kids and the comic relief at home. Hollywood says it would never work. I say how could you possibly know? In the last hundred years you've never tried it. Sadly, WOTW has been done wrong so many times that even a genuine masterpiece of a film would seem cliched.

All is not lost for The Day the Earth Stood Still, though. The best possible use for this abyssmal, disastrous turkey of a movie is to use it as a launching pad for a kick-ass sequel. Here's a premise: The Day the Stars Trembled. For years, in fear of our lives, we've been bicycling to work and conscientiously composting our banana peels under the watchful eye of the the GORT on each corner. Publicly we're all smiles and say "Yes, massah!" to our alien robot overlords... I mean "protectors". In the meantime there's been a massive underground movement to study, adapt, and improve upon the alien technologies. Now it's been 200 years and it's time to take our planet back. In the course of exposition, all of the eco-plot flaws of the original are exposed, and our heroes, having subdued and captured one of the aliens during the planet-wide melee, puts it to him directly: "What are you REALLY afraid of?" To which the alien answers, "Of all the animal species in all the known Galaxy, human beings are the only ones who bare their fangs when they're happy."

A Class Act

Today we awake with a new President-elect, Barack Obama.

Although I was and am a McCain supporter, I'm almost glad that he lost this election, if for no other reason than to show the Democrats how it's done.

Although there was arguably cause for bitterness, given many thousands of questionable voter registrations by groups such as ACORN, voter intimidation at the polls, etc. McCain chose not to whine and cry about his defeat as did the last two Democrat contenders. He did not drag it through the courts to the detriment of our country as did Gore and Kerry, but conceded with grace and dignity. He truly does put "Country First". John McCain truly is a class act.

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Before I take McCain's advice and get behind the new President, I'd like to make some observations.

First, this election is proof that remnants of racism are alive and well in the United States of America. But the source is unexpected. There is no doubt whatsoever that Obama was elected with unprecedented support from the white community, and no one would argue that these constituents voted for Obama simply because he is black. At least we all hope that didn't happen, and that the issues took precedence. There is also no doubt whatsoever that he was elected by many black voters because he is black, just as some white voters voted against him because he is black. I think that's a shame for two reasons.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Obama is every bit as white as he is black. If there's anyone on Earth who can claim to transcend race -- to claim humanity over race -- it is he, and yet he chose to pass up that opportunity. That's a shame.

Also, As Dr. King said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Those people who voted because of color, either primarily or incidentally, are not yet ready for that day. And that's a shame. But it's not a terrible shame, because the novelty of this event provides some measure of excuse. The next time a candidate runs and mention is made of his race, we should say, "so what?" And we should look back on past candidates like Jesse Jackson and Alan Keyes (a favorite of mine) with 20/20 hindsight and be able to admit that they did not lose "because they were black", but because they weren't very good candidates to start with. And we should look with some satisfaction that voting patterns were not significantly different with regard to this candidate: rural areas generally voted Republican and urbanites generally voted Democrat, just as they always have. That Obama's support cut across demographics brings us one step closer to that dream.

Second, I still have reservations about Obama's judgement. He is, if nothing else, a poor judge of character, and reckless in his associations, whether we're talking about William Ayers, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, or the misguided ACORN that has promoted fraud in the name of community activism. Nevertheless, these are reservations based on his associations of other people of questionable character, and it does not necessarily follow that Obama is of questionable character himself. The plain fact is that we know very little of Obama's character because we have never seen him when he is not campaigning. He has no track record, so at this time we have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Third, I have reservations about Obama's promises. His purported "tax cut" is nothing of the kind. It is money given to people who pay no income taxes at all. After the fact, his campaign explained that we're talking about a rebate of payroll taxes. Folks, what this means is that he is dipping into Social Security taxes, plain and simple. And we know that this is fiscally reckless, and if he'd been man enough to own up to it in the campaign. Though he calls it a "tax cut", the only way to make it work without bankrupting Social Security is to replenish the money out of the general fund, and that amounts to EXACTLY what the Republicans alleged... that it's a simple re-distribution of funds. It's pandering. It's a bribe.

But bribes work, in the short term. I saw an interview with an Obama supporter who claimed she was excited by an Obama presidency because, "I won't have to worry about my house payment or my car payment no more." And she's not alone: here's another one who says almost the same thing (this one was saved for posterity on YouTube). These people think they elected Santa Claus. I can imagine no one on this planet who will be more disillusioned and pissed off this time next year. What happens to the love when these voters are scorned?

The sort of promises that lead to these reactions are nothing new. It's called pandering. And it rarely works out in the long term. The last president that offered "a chicken in every pot" was Herbert Hoover. And we know how that worked out. But once again, Obama has no track record, so we are all destined to a future of surprises, whether our expectations are met or not.

In his victory speech, Obama tries to manage these expectations, saying that change may not happen in the first year or the first term. It's a far cry from a campaign in which the mere mention of his candidacy slowed the rising of the oceans and hastened the healing of the planet. Nevertheless, he will have to deliver something, or there will be no second term.

Finally, I have reservations about what will happen in terms of foreign policy. I strongly suspect that Obama will discover what Carter and Clinton did... that talk is cheap, and much of our foreign policy is dictated by the circumstances we find ourselves in. Does anyone really believe that George Bush invited or wanted the attacks of 9/11? That he wants to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan any longer than necessary? If so, they are fools. No president wishes such a thing upon himself or his country. We all agree that we should bring the war to a close... the only disagreement is on how that should be done, and how we should define "necessary." I don't believe that Barack Obama will intentionally screw up our foreign policy, nor do I believe he will be the unmitigated disaster that was Jimmy Carter. He will do his best, and partly this is because he now has to fill the rather large set of shoes he created for himself.

So those are my reservations. To overcome those reservations, and with no supermajority in Congress, Obama will have to "reach across the aisle", and that means that we need to reach back. We don't want failure anymore than he does. Especially given his near total lack of experience, and our experience with similarly naive presidents in the past, this is a case where we need to get behind the President and offer him our full support... and I don't mean "support" in the sense of cheerleading.

Will wonders never cease?

The pundits and talking heads pretty much agree that there was nothing "game changing" about the second Presidential debate. I'm not so sure about that.

If you've been reading this blog, you'll remember that when McCain suspended his campaign, I offered a solution to the banking crisis. What I said was that we should make every possible effort to renegotiate the loans rather than foreclose. These are bad risks, but they're not losses... not yet, anyway, unless we foreclose and take the loss. I mentioned then,

Of course, my plan would never make it to the table because it actually makes sense and it would actually work. Let's see what sort of "second best" solution they come up with.

Well, it looks like something very much like my plan has indeed been offered... by John McCain. It is, in fact, the only memorable thing about the second debate. While Obama was fumbling around with his head in the past trying to assign blame to anything but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (where it properly belongs), McCain has moved past the "blame game" to suggest a solution: that the Federal government should buy these loans to renegotiate them, either to sell them off or hold them until paid.

This idea differs from mine in that the government would buy the loans outright rather than direct lenders to renegotiate them. I happen to like my version better because it places no burden on the taxpayers (who after all are not responsible for this mess); however, it's quite likely that my version will have some negative impact on the economy in the near-term due to the lessened ability of these lenders to make additional loans (for lack of capital). I happen to think that's OK; that other lenders will appear, and that companies you haven't heard of yet, but which are in better shape financially, will step up and fill the gap. Again, that's OK, because those companies currently on top really don't deserve to stay there. Adversity is the mother of opportunity. And if necessity is the mother of invention, opportunity is its father. I do not guess or hope that the financial void will be filled; I know it. It is as inevitable as the change of seasons.

The McCain plan would keep the top players where they are and would put an onus on the taxpayer. This would provide greater short-term stability in the market. And the onus is temporary, as the money will be recouped; probably most of it within ten years. I don't much like the idea of privatizing most of this industry, but it would actually work, and is indeed "second best" to the plan I would prefer. Renegotiating the loans and keeping those homeowners in their houses are the most important aspects of any workable solution. The rest of it is negotiable, and I think this is a good compromise.

I expect to hear a lot of complaints from Libertarians and the far Right as well as from Democrats who are pissed because they didn't think of it first.

Where Obama's money came from

You've probably received an email questioning where Barack Obama got the money for a 'round the world trip while he was in college, for his house, etc. The implication is that there is some sort of conspiracy among nefarious evil-doers to enrich Obama. This post is directed specifically at those people who buy into those implications.

There's no mystery here. Here's a link to the Snopes page listing both the contents of the email and Snopes' analysis: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/money.asp

The short answer is, he took out student loans. Then followed a long, drawn-out process of repaying student loans on professor's and lawyer's salary (not exactly a paltry sum), then huge income from best-selling book to finally pay off those loans.

The only one that's not fully explained so far is the trip in '81, but if you're staying with friends and relatives, even that one is do-able. Nothing nefarious is required.

Imagine that you're a candidate. You have a volunteer organization to raise and collect campaign donations, and these people are hired by yet more volunteers. The plain fact is that you don't even know the people who are working on your behalf. You accept funds on the Internet, by phone, by check.

How are you, personally, supposed to know that any of these donors are who they say they are? The best you can really do is return money if irregularities crop up.

I think it highly unlikely that, even if he knew all these illegal donors personally, Obama would have solicited campaign donations from them. First of all, at this point he doesn't need the money: he has enough donations from legitimate Democrat donors. Second, this sort of connection harms his campaign more than the money helps. If he were a real evil genius he'd have told these people to shut up and lie low. The "fault" of these donations lies with the donors, not the candidate. If you make it the candidate's fault, then you can't defend McCain when similar things happen without his knowledge.

What IS disturbing Obama's relationship with William Ayers, known unrepentant terrorist. Obama can't convincingly pretend that he didn't know about this guy. Obama was a professor. He was a lawyer; well educated, knowledgable and highly interested in political affairs. And yet he's perfectly willing (despite all his claims to exerience) to imply that he was naive and stupid enough to sit in Ayers' kitchen and plan his political career. So depending on whether you choose to believe Obama's story, either his judgment is completely suspect, he's a conspirator, or he actually IS naive and ignorant. Any of these conclusions validates the Republicans' opinion of him. None of these conclusions recommends him for President.

UPDATE (2008-10-09): As it turns out, the link between Obama and Ayers is much stronger than initially thought. Read about it in American Thinker. Better yet, read about it in the Wall Street Journal. Obama's campaign wants to distance themselves from Ayers, stating that "any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost 40 years ago is ridiculous." The problem for Obama is, nobody's trying to do that. They're examining the public record and connecting him with events of which he himself was an active participant. And these events are troubling: personally, I would characterize it as no less than an attempt to subvert the educational system and indoctrinate children. As Stanley Kurtz rightly observes, that is a story "even if Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago."

What's also disturbing is the quality of supporter that Obama attracts. It's understandable that people in the Middle East support him. The guy's name is Arabic, after all, and Libya's Qadafi thinks he's a "good Muslim" on that basis alone. But he's gathering support from terrorists, hostile governments, and a wide lunatic fringe. There's a reason for that. I think it's pretty clear that they know he's naive; they can see with their own eyes from the Ayers connection that he's sympathetic to terrorists (and there's no denying that he's been sympathetic to at least one); and they think he's a pushover. Hostile governments have no reason whatsoever to support a US candidate unless they are convinced in their minds and hearts he is bad for this country. I happen to agree with them... a Barack Obama presidency would be a disaster, and a gift to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

But these are largely questions about other peoples' support of Obama, which he can't fully control. Beyond these connections, what disturbs me the most is the things that he can directly control. The fact is that for all his talk of "change", Obama has few if any votes or actions that support his talk. In the debate and in all his stump speeches he looks back for blame for the economic situation and Iraq (consistently mis-assigning blame). For months he's been running against George Bush, NOT John McCain. He picked a left-wing career Capitol insider as his running mate. He hasn't even made it to the PRESENT, much less looked to the future. His campaign slogans are quite simply untrue. They're not supported at all by his actions.

By contrast McCain looks to solutions. He has been pushing his ideas for years, and only now have the times caught up with him. He chose a running mate with an eye to the future, and he picked her from far outside the Capitol Beltway. He walks his talk.

McCain Suspends Campaign; Puts Country First.

John McCain has announced that he's suspending his campaign (including his television ads) to go back to Washington and work on the financial bailout. He had already spoken with Senator Obama and invited him to join McCain.

I agree. We have three senators campaigning who should be rolling up their sleeves and doing their day jobs. McCain's statement indicates that the bailout will not pass "in its present form." I'm sure it won't.

I have a suggestion or two... first of all, I like the idea that while in the government's "care" that no CEO should make more than the highest-paid government worker. However, this makes for some difficulty in finding talent, so I'd suggest that these top execs should be able to reap substantial bonuses upon successfully repaying the government.

Keep in mind, too, that this "$700 billion" is not necessarily $700 billion. It's security against risky loans. Some or most of it may never be used. So I would include in the legislation some provisions that make it very difficult for lenders to foreclose, and to encourage lenders to renegotiate the loans. Here's why...

Many of these loans were adjustable rate mortgages that were (barely) affordable at the deeply cut introductory rates. Of course, they're risky because the loan should never have been given unless the borrower could pay it back at the higher rate. So re-lower the rate. Tank their credit rating for all I care, but if they're currently in a mortgage, do everything possible to keep them in the house and keep them making payments... any payments. 90% of a loaf is better than none, and this scheme would not torch the economy.

What we need is a completely new way of thinking about how we handle risk. Tossing people out in the streets is not an option when there is no mortgage insurance to pick up the loss. At the moment there isn't, because the risks were off-loaded to companies that didn't set aside enough capital to follow through with their obligations. Rather than you thinking, "we taxpayers can't afford to let BankX fail," BankX needs to be thinking that they can't afford to foreclose on you. In the meantime, they would be heavily discouraged from making more risky loans. This approach would maintain home ownership, rescue the economy, and be generally superior than a simple bailout.

Of course, my plan would never make it to the table because it actually makes sense and it would actually work. Let's see what sort of "second best" solution they come up with.

Nearly an hour after McCain's announcement we're still waiting for Obama's response. And the University of Mississippi still thinks the debates are going ahead on schedule. Wishful thinkers. As it stands, Obama is in a political "no-win" scenario. Either he goes to Washington and follows McCain's unquestioned leadership, or he doesn't go, in which case he's all talk and no action. Either way it's a bold, magnificent move on McCain's part. It's magnificent from a political perspective, and it's even more magnificent given that "political" is exactly what this move is not intended to be... it's just something that needs to be done, and once again John McCain is unhesitatingly willing to walk the talk.

Update: Obama found a podium an hour and a half later. Obama states that he initiated the call with a mind toward issuing a joint statement, laying out the broad principles of an acceptable agreement. (BTW, I agree that the principles he lists are reasonable. They're also readily addressed by my own proposal.)

When asked about his plans, Obama said, "What I'm planning to do right now is to debate on Friday. That's what I'm preparing to do." When pushed for a statement regarding action he would take to do something about the bailout, he said, "I've done what I set out to do." That is, he issued a statement.

Alrightey, then. All talk and no action it is, then.

In the lull between the two candidates' statements, one thing really stood out. On MSNBC there was an interview with Sen. Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas. She thinks that the debates should go forward so that people can see how their future leader would deal with problems. I think that's exactly what we're seeing: John McCain will roll up his sleeves and do something about the problems; Obama will just talk about them.

If what Senator Lincoln wants to get out of this debate is an understanding of leadership styles, then the debates are unnecessary, as John McCain has already won.

Hillary Clinton needs a dictionary

The Associated Press reports, "Clinton Cancels Rally Appearance After Learning Palin Invited". Well, there's no surprise there. What is a surprise is the revelation in this story that Hillary Clinton doesn't know what the word "partisan" means. From the story:

“Her attendance was news to us, and this was never billed to us as a partisan political event,” said Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines. “Sen. Clinton will therefore not be attending.”

Obviously this is not a partisan political event. That's the reason that representatives of both parties were asked to attend. It's a rally, sponsored by American Jewish voters, against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both parties ostensibly agree on this issue, but in the case of Hillary Clinton it's turned out to be nothing more than lip service, as she has pointedly chosen not to join this protest after having first agreed. Most pundits suggest that Hillary Clinton is insulting Governor Palin. She is not. Hillary Clinton is spitting in the eyes of each and every Jewish voter in America.

Maybe she's just clueless. Maybe she just doesn't play well with others. Or you can put on your tinfoil hat and suppose that this is a clever and subtle way of subverting Obama's chances by driving tens of thousands of Jewish voters to the Republican party. After all, an Obama presidency would mean that Hillary will never have a shot at the White House; but if he loses she can try again in four years.

It doesn't matter. For Jewish voters, these kind of one-sided party games mean exactly this: it is the Republicans who give a damn about issues concerning Jews and Israel. It is the Republicans that understand when it is time to set aside partisan politics and join a common cause. It is the Republicans who have an open policy of working together, even with people who who disagree on other substantive issues. It is the Republicans who are willing to reach across the aisle to work on common goals.

Democrat politicians support none of that, and Hillary just proved it.

Never Forget