Shocking News: Keanu Reeves Stars in Mediocre Sci-Fi Film

[Admiral Valdemar]

If you have the technology capable of reducing the human species to a grey goo through nanoswarms, couldn't you just terraform new worlds instead of worrying about preserving the supposedly few habitable ones that exist?

That doesn't solve the human problem, though. You don't leave a species that has shown no restraint in violence and destruction lying around with the potential to become space faring in the future and carry on such actions. In the original film, humanity was a threat to themselves, but the galactic overseers who sent Klaatu deemed the human race worthy of first contact in order to correct them of their present wrong course. If they were trigger happy with nukes against their own kin, then alien species wouldn't be seen as any safer.

Additionally, removing human infrastructure should be relatively simple compared to finding a unique Goldilocks planet near a suitable star, tweaking the atmosphere and crust elements and then transporting everything over there. Only samples were taken in this instance as a precaution should humans try and, say, nuke themselves to get rid of the Gort swarm.

[General Zod]

That doesn't solve the human problem, though. You don't leave a species that has shown no restraint in violence and destruction lying around with the potential to become space faring in the future and carry on such actions. In the original film, humanity was a threat to themselves, but the galactic overseers who sent Klaatu deemed the human race worthy of first contact in order to correct them of their present wrong course. If they were trigger happy with nukes against their own kin, then alien species wouldn't be seen as any safer.

Which is why the original film made sense compared to the new one, since the new one seems to place humanity's destruction of the environment as a bigger priority than their violent and warlike tendencies, for some bizarre reason. It just feels more contrived, in the way the aliens in Independence Day coming to earth to strip mine it felt contrived.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Which is why the original film made sense compared to the new one, since the new one seems to place humanity's destruction of the environment as a bigger priority than their violent and warlike tendencies, for some bizarre reason. It just feels more contrived, in the way the aliens in Independence Day coming to earth to strip mine it felt contrived.

You could argue that it's still that purpose Klaatu is on Earth for and Hong was sent to investigate. The species was happy to screw the planet over for a percentage, and also have the technology to carry out terrible harm to various factions within the species. Taken to its logical conclusion, the human race could be a future threat to Klaatu and his compatriots. The immediate threat was to the planet itself, however, so rather than put the issue on the back burner, they took proactive measures.

[Bilbo]

Which makes Klaatu and his alien buddies as fucking stupid as the Federation. Both seem to believe they own planets merely by virtue of traveling through the space surrounding the planets.

His logic was that, according to him, planets capable of supporting life were extremely rare. Enough so that every one was important to the group of civilizations they represented.

If habitable planets are rare then sentient species will be even rarer which makes the aliens even bigger morons. Also it makes the aliens and Klaatu the same as Anti-abortion extremists or eco-terrorists who kill and destroy then say they are fighting for a higher moral purpose to justify their action.

It doesnt work for the right wing pro-life terrorists and it doesnt work for Klaatu and company either.

[Gil Hamilton]

If habitable planets are rare then sentient species will be even rarer which makes the aliens even bigger morons. Also it makes the aliens and Klaatu the same as Anti-abortion extremists or eco-terrorists who kill and destroy then say they are fighting for a higher moral purpose to justify their action.

It doesnt work for the right wing pro-life terrorists and it doesnt work for Klaatu and company either.

It depends. Their reasons may not be so idealistic as an eco-terrorist. Klaatu stated he represented a group of civilizations and his job was to preserve the Earth from the human race destroying the planet beyond their ability to fix it. It sure sounded to me like Klaatu's folks came to the conclusion that humanity was never going to become good citizens of the galaxy and openly thought humanity was going to destroy itself, as most civilizations do (he tells John Cleese the Physicists that most civilizations don't survive to maturity). At that point, since they counted humanities days numbered and Earth being in the sweet spot for complex life to exist and flourish, they decided to take out the trash. I strongly suspect after they exterminated the human race, they were simply going to colonize the Earth for themselves with enough animals collected to have a sizable zoo of native Earth fauna.

That's the galling thing about this remake. The concepts in it weren't bad at all. The execution was just terrible and poorly thought out. It's like they had all the high concept stuff and ignored the fundamentals.

[Sidewinder]

It sure sounded to me like Klaatu's folks came to the conclusion that humanity was never going to become good citizens of the galaxy and openly thought humanity was going to destroy itself, as most civilizations do (he tells John Cleese the Physicists that most civilizations don't survive to maturity).

That makes LESS sense because if this were true, why did Klaatu's kind have to expend any effort in destroying humanity and its works? Why can't they just wait until humanity self-destructs? And considering Wikipedia's synopsis states that Klaatu's people evolved to survive the death of their sun, they can surely survive on an Earth that's become incapable of sustaining oxygen-breathing life forms.

And considering Klaatu was able to shutdown the technology we have, his people shouldn't fear us humans going to other planets and polluting them to the point they're incapable of sustaining biological life; they can simply blockade Earth and prevent human-built spaceships from leaving Earth's orbit.

[Gil Hamilton]

That makes LESS sense because if this were true, why did Klaatu's kind have to expend any effort in destroying humanity and its works? Why can't they just wait until humanity self-destructs? And considering Wikipedia's synopsis states that Klaatu's people evolved to survive the death of their sun, they can surely survive on an Earth that's become incapable of sustaining oxygen-breathing life forms.

That's not true going by the movie. Klaatu says that his people matured because their sun was dying, not died. Probably still is dying, since that takes a while.

And waiting for humanity to kill itself would have left the Earth in shambles from their prospective and possibly beyond rehabilitation. They were moving now because they thought that humanity wasn't going to change and they'd better get in while the Earth salvageable.

And considering Klaatu was able to shutdown the technology we have, his people shouldn't fear us humans going to other planets and polluting them to the point they're incapable of sustaining biological life; they can simply blockade Earth and prevent human-built spaceships from leaving Earth's orbit.

No, they shouldn't. They weren't afraid of that at all. They didn't even expect humanity to survive to reach other planets. This isn't like the original movie where the other planets were afraid of a nuclear armed humanity leaving the planet and starting wars. They didn't care much about humanity at all, but rather their concern lay solely with preserving what, as Valdemar put it, a Goldilocks planet with everything in place to naturally support complex life. That was the whole point. They had already found humanity wanting and Jennifer Connelly's character spent most of the movie desperately trying to convince Klaatu that there was something in them worth preserving.

You know, it would have been nice if they had gotten Iain Banks to adapt "The Day The Earth Stood Still" into a Culture movie. If it weren't for how weakly executed it was, a lot of the elements were there.

[Sidewinder]

That makes LESS sense because if this were true, why did Klaatu's kind have to expend any effort in destroying humanity and its works? Why can't they just wait until humanity self-destructs? And considering Wikipedia's synopsis states that Klaatu's people evolved to survive the death of their sun, they can surely survive on an Earth that's become incapable of sustaining oxygen-breathing life forms.

That's not true going by the movie. Klaatu says that his people matured because their sun was dying, not died. Probably still is dying, since that takes a while.

And waiting for humanity to kill itself would have left the Earth in shambles from their prospective and possibly beyond rehabilitation. They were moving now because they thought that humanity wasn't going to change and they'd better get in while the Earth salvageable.

Wait, does this mean Klaatu's people want to exterminate humanity so they can claim Earth for themselves? Just as the Nazis wanted to exterminate Slavs so they could claim the Western half of Russia for their own "Lebensraum"?

[Gil Hamilton]

Wait, does this mean Klaatu's people want to exterminate humanity so they can claim Earth for themselves? Just as the Nazis wanted to exterminate Slavs so they could claim the Western half of Russia for their own "Lebensraum"?

My impression was that Klaatu's people did entirely have altruistic environmental motives. However, given that Klaatu ends up calling off Nano Plague Apocalypse at the end of the movie and merely settles with magically disabling all of Earth's technology seems to be a fair indication that they extermination of humanity wasn't really their big option. You won't find many Nazis helping dying Slavs after they've stopped pointing a gun at them, after all. It's more that they thought humanity's own self-destruction was utterly inevitable and that humanity didn't have a better nature to appeal to after watching us through most of the 20th century. Not to meantion that when they tried to appeal to our better nature anyway by trying to address the UN, their ambassador was shot immediately after getting off his ship, taken prisoner in his hospital bed by the US government, shipped off to be interrogated under force and drugs (the drugs weren't actually delivered, but the defense department didn't know that), and then hunted with attempted lethal after he escaped. That would tend to give the aliens with their tentacles on the glowy orb a bad impression, particularly if you combine it with the various attempts the military made to attack GORT, who just standing their motionless in a field and they were told directly by Klaatu that it only reacts defensively to violence.

So it isn't like Lebensraum at all, really. More like speeding up what they considered to be an inevitable conclusion so that they could salvage the Earth, which is supposed to be very very rare an occurrence as planets go, for people who'd take care of it better.

[Junghalli]

No, they shouldn't. They weren't afraid of that at all. They didn't even expect humanity to survive to reach other planets. This isn't like the original movie where the other planets were afraid of a nuclear armed humanity leaving the planet and starting wars. They didn't care much about humanity at all, but rather their concern lay solely with preserving what, as Valdemar put it, a Goldilocks planet with everything in place to naturally support complex life.

That actually makes it sound worse to me. I can sort of understand and sort of respect how they might want to nip what to them looks like a nasty, dangerous intelligence in the bud before they can get the technology to hurt anyone but each other. Somebody who'd kill off an entire sapient species just to preserve a biosphere just strikes me as totally evil. It'd be like us sending soldiers to massacre Third World villagers because they're chopping down too many trees for firewood.

Especially since if they can make the uber swarm of doom that totally wipes out all traces of human civilization they should be able to send out little probes to collect DNA samples from all the endangered species and recreate them once humanity "inevitably" self-destructs. It's not like anything we're likely to do is actually going to get remotely close to damaging the Earth's ability to sustain complex life.

[Zac Naloen]

Their concern was humanity self destructing and taking the viable biosphere of the earth with them.

They were preserving what in the films universe is extremely rare. They were taking out humanity in order to save all the other life on the planet.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That actually makes it sound worse to me. I can sort of understand and sort of respect how they might want to nip what to them looks like a nasty, dangerous intelligence in the bud before they can get the technology to hurt anyone but each other. Somebody who'd kill off an entire sapient species just to preserve a biosphere just strikes me as totally evil. It'd be like us sending soldiers to massacre Third World villagers because they're chopping down too many trees for firewood.

Your analogy is flawed. Only if those same villagers had the ability to wage warfare on any real scale and lay ravage to a planetary biosphere would you justify more severe action. It is certainly not a position to be taken lightly, however, when there is seemingly no way to return from the brink, the only alternatives are imprisonment or other imposed restraint on the species, or extermination.

Especially since if they can make the uber swarm of doom that totally wipes out all traces of human civilization they should be able to send out little probes to collect DNA samples from all the endangered species and recreate them once humanity "inevitably" self-destructs. It's not like anything we're likely to do is actually going to get remotely close to damaging the Earth's ability to sustain complex life.

That means allowing the gross suffering and destruction to take place anyway, the very act Klaatu and his associates were trying to prevent. Additionally, as we are living well beyond sustainable limits on this planet thanks to unchecked materialism, and are the driving force for the sixth great mass extinction, I contest your assertion that humanity is no real problem for Earth. Indeed, the species goes beyond the level of threat.

Were it a better produced film, the story may still have been panned by many, just as Wall-E was thanks to its anti-greed and growth message with a heavy environmental aspect thrown in. This, obviously, runs counter to the ideals of the majority of people, especially those in power. A message condemning nuclear Apocalypse is accepted by all but the hardest people in the war hawk camp. Telling people they need to embrace nature, and shun capitalism will upset many who rely on this kind of life to make a living.

[Bilbo]

It comes down to Klaatu and company being arrogant assholes who are running around curb-stomping anyone they encounter who do not already live by their own hippy code before they become technologically advanced enough to defend themself.

So the happy ending is Klaatu waves his hand and somehow stops electron flow across the entire planet? So now billions will starve to death as modern infastructure no longe exists to transport food.

[Bilbo]

(he tells John Cleese the Physicists that most civilizations don't survive to maturity).

But is this because they destroy themself or because Klaatu comes along and destroys them. Sounds to me like they took the storyline and turned it into a Intergalactic eco-beserker story.

Also for all we know Klaatu is lying. He does not represent some Intergalactic government or society but is in fact a member of the eco-terrorist group that does this to less advanced societie anytime they find them to "save the planets".

[Admiral Valdemar]

It comes down to Klaatu and company being arrogant assholes who are running around curb-stomping anyone they encounter who do not already live by their own hippy code before they become technologically advanced enough to defend themself.

There is no question where your political ideology lies.

So the happy ending is Klaatu waves his hand and somehow stops electron flow across the entire planet? So now billions will starve to death as modern infastructure no longe exists to transport food.

You would prefer humanity was scoured from the surface of the planet by Gort's micromachine swarm? Or are you proposing the species carry on regardless and risk total ecological and societal collapse? I am curious what your alternatives entail.

But is this because they destroy themself or because Klaatu comes along and destroys them. Sounds to me like they took the storyline and turned it into a Intergalactic eco-beserker story.

Don't be obtuse. What do you have to substantiate this idea? Klaatu's own actions run contrary to your proposal, since humanity circa 2008 is no threat to his kind, making such pleasantries as trying to open up discourse between human world leaders pointless. If his goal was eradication, you need to explain his and Hong's actions for the seven decades up until the point Gort is activated.

Also for all we know Klaatu is lying. He does not represent some Intergalactic government or society but is in fact a member of the eco-terrorist group that does this to less advanced societie anytime they find them to "save the planets".

And if he did, what is your point? That he is hostile and requires we take violent action against such an invader? Futile, and also taken as the default route by the US military who subsequently encounter their own outside context problem. Since Klaatu wanted to start peaceful negotiations first, it is you and your kind who has become the aggressor, rather like egging on the Soviets to dare launch a nuclear strike at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. It is stupid and pompous and achieves nothing.

It is clear that Earth is destined for a fall if business as usual carries on. Klaatu was warning of this future and more than likely happy to help if we agreed. You don't give an immature species such advanced technology without strings, so them just giving us the means and leaving is out. The options were there, we just felt we had to prove Klaatu doubly right in his initial assessment. Poor performance indeed.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Well like the bible they failed basic genetic biodiversity too.

[Gil Hamilton]

But is this because they destroy themself or because Klaatu comes along and destroys them. Sounds to me like they took the storyline and turned it into a Intergalactic eco-beserker story.

Also for all we know Klaatu is lying. He does not represent some Intergalactic government or society but is in fact a member of the eco-terrorist group that does this to less advanced societie anytime they find them to "save the planets".

Ahh, no, that doesn't fit with their actions at all.

The conversion implies that it is because most civilization hits a point in their development where they are fully capable of destroying themselves and their planet's environment/biosphere, and most end up doing that because the technology necessary to make a Goldilocks planet no longer habitable for complex life doesn't require social responsibility. It is too easy to consume and consume and it to be too late by the time you realize there is a problem, with no solution exists that doesn't involve abandoning their way of life (like, you know, us. Even today there are major economic models that actually assume, as a base assumption, infinite resources). Cleese's character points out the obvious; that Klaatu's people obviously survived and made it to stable, sustainable state. At this point, Klaatu explained that their star was dying and thus their planet was rapidly becoming uninhabitable, so they banded together against this external threat and survived long enough that they didn't need their planet anymore. Then came the conclusion, that in order for most civilization to actually mature beyond consumption, they have to be on the verge of losing all before all the apathy and consumption is shaken off and people start actively working together. Cleese then points out that the very actions that Klaatu is in the process of setting into motion ARE humanities darkest hour and the mere fact that all of human power and society has come to mean precisely dick in the fact of the galactic civilizations is the catalyst that gets through the barrier to maturity as a species.

Yeah, probably alot of people DID die in the aftermath of Klaatu turning off technological society. Cars crashed, planes fell from the sky, people with pacemakers and lifesupport gone. However, that's where the movie ends. It says nothing about the galactic civilizations actually abandoning Earth. It's pretty clear that they aren't going it, since Klaatu clearly changed the status report on humans from "worthless" to "mostly worthless". What's over is humanities leadership of the planet Earth, but that was a foregone conclusion when Klaatu's spaceship went from a tenth of lightspeed to landing in central park in the course of 30 seconds.

[Covenant]

I wish one of these remakes of the original would keep the original twist ending. It distorts the message when the robots are just big dumb lumbering policemen instead of actually the intelligent overlords of the collected worlds.

[Bilbo]

There is no question where your political ideology lies.

My opposition to eco-terrorism and violent pro-life terrorists demonstrates my ideology? All it says is that I oppose violent extremists on both sides of the political spectrum.

[Bilbo]

What's over is humanities leadership of the planet Earth, but that was a foregone conclusion when Klaatu's spaceship went from a tenth of lightspeed to landing in central park in the course of 30 seconds.

Would not that be the same arrogance demostrated by European colonies when they came to North and South America and found primitive locals? "We are more advanced technologically and spiritually so we can do what we want and put ourselves in charge."

[Batman]

Um-that's exactly what happened you know. And that was with a technological discrepancy of only a few centuries. Do you have any idea how far ahead of us a deceleration capacity of 100,000gs (an EFFORTLESS one apparently) puts those guys?

[Bilbo]

Um-that's exactly what happened you know. And that was with a technological discrepancy of only a few centuries. Do you have any idea how far ahead of us a deceleration capacity of 100,000gs (an EFFORTLESS one apparently) puts those guys?

Actually Europeans were about 3500-4000 years more advanced than the natives of North America if not more.

I was more commenting on the arrogance than the tech disparity though.

[Batman]

It's not arrogance when you can actually pull it off.

[Bilbo]

It's not arrogance when you can actually pull it off.

So the European colonists who pushed aside the natives were not arrogant?

[Batman]

It's not arrogance when you can actually pull it off.

So the European colonists who pushed aside the natives were not arrogant?

Wouldn't know, never met the guys (okay, chances are I DID at some point in my long and chequered career but that's beside the point).
They were however NOT arrogant in assuming they COULD eventually push aside the natives, because that is exactly what happened.
And they had a hell of a lot LESS of a tech advantage than the movie Aliens did.
When you outgun your opponent to the point where it would require an act of God for them not to lose assuming you'll win is not arrogance.