Review of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) by Morten S — 12 Aug 2014

Somehow this has a reputation as a classic. I found it to run slowly, playing out very few plot points, and with only a tip of the hat to any suspense or conflict.

Spaceship lands on Earth. The alien looks like a normal guy only smarter and more boring. He has an important message and insists that all the leaders of all countries get together to hear it (because if he held separate meetings it just would be too easy). Some people understand him; some see him as a threat. He escapes, makes friends with a kid and a lady, hangs out with them, gets caught, bad stuff happens, but things work out in time for him to make a speech.

Speech: you Earth people are violent bozos. We invented robots to stop that sort of stuff. If you don't make peace, my robots will cut all your testicles off.

Then he flies away.

For my money, this was just a big budgeted "Plan Nine From Outer Space", only with a soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann.

It is interesting to compare this to "Colossus: The Forbin Project" as a wise commentary on this movie. In Colussus, people on Earth effectively design the same system to insure that there will be no more violent conflict. The robot turns out to be a nasty son of a bitch pacifist-Fascist who subdues everyone forcibly. A much more compelling situation than this namby pamby stuff.