Rather ironic considering the closing line of the original short story:
“You misunderstand. I am the master.”
Of course, there’s really only the most tenuous of connections between The Day the Earth Stood Still and “Farewell to the Master”. It’s really not so much based on the short story, as inspired by it.
Well, yeah… There are all kinds of problems with the execution of the general concept in the film, as this thread has shown. It’s just that AFAIK it was the first film to present the idea.
I was intersted in looking into the novel, and how it differed, but from Chronos’ latest remark, it’s more than just a matter of variation.
Earthlings would probably have made a better impression by not shooting Michael Rennie on sight. 
He was too tall. And kinda funny looking. In a general sort of way.
I always figured Klaatu is an ambassador to the Earth and Gort was his bodyguard. Also, the robots wouldn’t destroy any planet until it had been warned. While Gort is in sentry/bodyguard mode, he’s limited to his responses. Certain events can change his mode, like Klaatu being killed instead of only wounded. Klaatu also had to ‘give the word’ that we had been officially warned.
I thought it meant, “Don’t kill the woman. She is helping me.”
Then she faints, and Gort says, “Ah crap, I always have to carry the broads around!”
Great flic!
Two questions:
-when the low-tech doctors at Walter Reed Hospital are chewin the fat (and smoking their camels), do they ever offer the alien a smoke?
-that ointment that cures everything-do the docs have ita nalyzed?
Gort “neutralizes” the electrcity-and Washington shuts down-who needs ABombs when you can do that?
Incidentally-that clear plastic that they encase Gort in-was it made of GL-70?
Yes. He looks at them with a look of mild humor and says no.
Or am I remembering my own thoughts? Perhaps I need to screen it again!
You might find the comments at Michael Rennie - Biography - IMDb amusing as they pertain to smoking and related issues.
Yeah, you may never get a chance to fix a bad first impression!
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
(Insert “Seinfeld” theme.)
- Jack
Stuart Whitman said that both he and James Dean were among the extras in the movie–but don’t bother looking for them because they can’t be identified. Jonathan Harris also claimed to have been an extra on the set. That I’m a little skeptical of.
Do extras get paid when appearing (even if it’s a token payment like a free meal or something) or do they do it simply for the opportunity to be in the movie and be seen?
The only thing that I think would have improved the original would have been to have the movie use the ending in the story: Gort is actually in charge.
I knew a guy back in the AOL days that was an extra. He was a retired teacher and just did it for extra cash. He said he made a couple of hundred bucks a day and lunch.
He was one of the golfers off in the distance for Caddy Shack.
Wise started as an editor. He edited Citizen Kane, which looks good on a resume, but he also tends to receive much of the blame (perhaps unfairly) for butchering The Magnificent Ambersons, which doesn’t sit well with cineastes.
Wise’s best directing work came before TDTESS: Curse of the Cat People, The Body Snatcher, The Set-Up. Great films. The Set-Up is about as lean and hard and sharply edited as a movie can get. The other two are Val Lewton productions, one fantasy and one horror, and have the same great atmosphere all of Lewton’s films do. Born to Kill, Odds Against Tomorrow, and The Haunting * are also significant. Aside from The Haunting*, these are all unfortunately obscure now.
In the sixties Wise moved on to directing big Hollywood crap like* The Sound of Music *and I Want to Live!, and this is what lay-audiences know him for. He clashed with co-director/choreographer Jerome Robbins on the set of West Side Story and had Robbins fired; despite this, Robbins tends to get credit for the good parts. Opinions vary on The Sand Pebbles, Audrey Rose, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Most of these are epically long, overblown, far away from the tautness of The Set-Up. It’s like his feel for editing abandoned him.
He was… professional is what you can mostly say about him. Competent. His reputation isn’t stellar.
I was an extra in “Six-Pack”, the Kenny Rogers movie. I didn’t get paid shit.
Q
A damn fine film.
Used twice in Deep Space Nine, by the way. 
“hello, ship.” and the Maquis guy doing a Jake Holman holding off the bad guys while the good guys escape.
WUXTRY! WUXTRY!!
Chronos correct! Quasimodem wrong about “Spaceman” explaining why he took human form. Quasi forced to capitulate after having watched the film which arrived today from Britain!!! Klaatu never said that!!!
Wuxtry! Getcher News About this Upthread!!!
However, did any of you find it odd that if Klaatu comes from such a great race which promotes peace, that he would lie to a little boy that the reason he needed his flashlight was because the lights in his own room went out?
Anyway, kudos to Chronos! Raspberry to me!!!:)
Q
Don’t forget Cyborg.