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

[Admiral Valdemar]

How could it effect the circuit? Make metal suddenly not have a conduction band? Besides, how could they do that without being instantly lethal to human beings that rely on our own electrical circuitry?

Besides, "effector" is just Iain Bank's code for "magic".

How is it any less plausible than the idea of remotely altering electrochemistry in a battery? This is Clarke's first law, you don't expect comprehension of such feats from beings able to decelerate from relativistic speeds on a dime or evolve a new replica organism in an alien environment overnight.

[Patrick Degan]

So... the remake of a bona-fide SF classic turned out to be nothing but Hollywood trash. Pretty much as expected.

[Bilbo]

Despite having not seen the movie, I can imagine a couple of counters to this idea. First, the instant Klaatu and Gort are out of the picture, people will start to drag their feet on installing this stuff. Without the immediate threat of destruction, the world will start to relax and think they've got all the time in the world. Also, considering that we have a devil of a time upgrading our infrastructure with tech we have today, I doubt we'd do any better with tech aliens gave us. Second, I imagine that, when faced with this suggestion, Klaatu and those he represents would retort that Earth has the technology to do what they demand already, and failed to implement it, so they don't get any more time. They'd probably also argue that it's not their job to solve a problem we should have recognized and addressed by now.

In this version, Klaatu says as much. He's not there to fix humanity's problems, he's there as a final last minute assessment before they push the button and attempt to salvage the planet*.

*Salvage the planet in a highly retarded fashion, of course.

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.

[Gil Hamilton]

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.
Spoiler

The plan was that first they send down an agent to observe humanity. It's unknown if there were multiple agents, but Klaatu only received a status report from the one and based his decision on that. They did this seventy years in the past, who took the form of the one and only James Hong, who despite cursing his bad luck for getting stuck on Earth, ended up going native, got married, had kids, and settled into being human.

At this point, they watched and waiting for humanity to get its shit together, while doing absolutely nothing despite their considerable power to actually do anything about humanities fucking up the planet. So, they decided on Plan B.

Seventy or so years later, Klaatu and his Glowing Space Ship Orb landed in Manhattan while smaller glowy orbs started landing all over the planet. In the process, they hijacked a US defense satellite and haxxored the US strategic defense system to take all the United States missiles offline. It wasn't explained why they decided to do this. At this point, Klaatu was supposed to get off the boat, go to the UN, and inform Earth of the situation. The situation being that the Earth needs to preserved at all cost and that the planet was now officially under new management to assure that this happens.

Unfortunately, like in the original version of the movie, Klaatu gets shot by a nervous soldier as he gets out of the ship and they rush him off to the hospital after his giant robot comes out and incapacitates all the soldiers that have surrounded the ship and shuts down their equipment. The plan gets further fubaar when the secretary of defense shows up and basically informs Klaatu that he's now the prisoner of the US government.

After Klaatu busts out using magic alien powers, he gets Jennifer Connelly and her brat ass son to drive him to meet up with James Hong to get his assessment report on the human race and comes to the conclusion that the human race is irredeemable. Thus Part 2 of Plan B is set into motion. All the glowy orbs around the planet start collecting two of each species and leave, then Klaatu kicks of the Nano Plague Apocalypse to grind up human civilization to a fine snortable powder and then start rehabilitating the planet Earth.

[Havok]

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.

That's not stupid, that is life. Especially if you have the power to subjugate or wipe out every living being on the planet and they can literally do nothing except say "Shit."

[TheLostVikings]

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.

That's not stupid, that is life. Especially if you have the power to subjugate or wipe out every living being on the planet and they can literally do nothing except say "Shit."

Also see: European colonization of most of the world.

[open_sketchbook]

Exactly. Sad fact is that might does make right.

[CDiehl]

Exactly. Sad fact is that might does make right.

It's not so much "might makes right" as "might makes right not matter one goddamn bit".

[Gil Hamilton]

Exactly. Sad fact is that might does make right.

Actually, the movie almost had the message that you shouldn't go with "might makes right", because it just assures your destruction when you find out you actually are a small fish in a very large pond. For the US governments part, the philosophy that they had power and thus could do anything they wanted doomed humanity to extinction, because they refused to cooperate and kept shooting at the aliens every step of the way. Klaatu's point was if they tried to cooperate with each other and not destroy everything, they could have survived. Klaatu only ends up calling off Nano Plague Apocalyse because he decides that now that humanity clearly feels their own mortality, they are now ready to actually make a positive change in their existence (kind decided to change mankind's entry in the Hitchhiker's Guide from "Worthless" to "Mostly Worthless").

[Admiral Valdemar]

None of what transpired would have happened had Klaatu got his wish to be taken to their leaders. Instead, the US invokes totally retarded Cold War style secrecy laws as if they somehow have the upper hand in any kind of shooting or intel war, which inevitably leads their arrogance to drive them to ruin were it not for Klaatu being convinced of his asset on Earth's belief that not all humans are total wastes of space.

[Ender]

I have to wonder - IF for some reason you absolutely had to remake a bona fide classic like this... why not just reuse the original script? Change WW2 to Iraq, bam, you are done.

[Stark]

That wouldn't be 'putting your unique stamp' on it or 'engaging a new vision' or 'speaking to the modern world' or increasing the 'relevance'.

Because clumsy environmentalism = relevance. It doesn't even make sense compared to the first movie; there, everyone thought they were super cool because they had giant nukes, and then someone showed up and said nope our nukes are bigger, do what we say. In this one, the poor trees... cute bunnies... omg smog... something something. Where's the parallel?

[Bilbo]

Exactly. Sad fact is that might does make right.

It's not so much "might makes right" as "might makes right not matter one goddamn bit".

The downside being that when you act that way you are opening up someone else even tougher than you coming along and fucking you up the ass and when you cry they just point at your own history and laugh.

[Bilbo]

Exactly. Sad fact is that might does make right.

Actually, the movie almost had the message that you shouldn't go with "might makes right", because it just assures your destruction when you find out you actually are a small fish in a very large pond. For the US governments part, the philosophy that they had power and thus could do anything they wanted doomed humanity to extinction, because they refused to cooperate and kept shooting at the aliens every step of the way. Klaatu's point was if they tried to cooperate with each other and not destroy everything, they could have survived. Klaatu only ends up calling off Nano Plague Apocalyse because he decides that now that humanity clearly feels their own mortality, they are now ready to actually make a positive change in their existence (kind decided to change mankind's entry in the Hitchhiker's Guide from "Worthless" to "Mostly Worthless").

Rad and article and thought one of the big points was that Klaatu WANTED to find a reason to destroy humanity. So saying that they could have done better if they were nice guys might not be accurate. Maybe the only way humanity lives is by Klaatu deciding to kill everyone they getting to watch certain people.

If the US government had done everything perfect Klaatu might have smiled, shaken their hands, gotten back on his ship, and then nuked humanity anyway as he took off which would really be the end as he wouldnt be around to get his mind changed.

[Gil Hamilton]

Rad and article and thought one of the big points was that Klaatu WANTED to find a reason to destroy humanity. So saying that they could have done better if they were nice guys might not be accurate. Maybe the only way humanity lives is by Klaatu deciding to kill everyone they getting to watch certain people.

If the US government had done everything perfect Klaatu might have smiled, shaken their hands, gotten back on his ship, and then nuked humanity anyway as he took off which would really be the end as he wouldnt be around to get his mind changed.

My impression is that Klaatu was fairly disgusted by what he saw of humanity, but didn't find the whole affair personal. More like taking out the trash. With individual humans, he didn't want to actually hurt anyone. He only really killed when it was necessary to get them out of the way and took the trouble to resurrect one that was in a whole piece afterwards.

There were clearly some things that shook him, like James Hong opting to die a human being with his family rather than evacuating the Earth or discussing with John Cleese WHY a civilization matures to the point it doesn't destroy itself. He just didn't think humans could be changed.

[The Yosemite Bear]

So... the remake of a bona-fide SF classic turned out to be nothing but Hollywood trash. Pretty much as expected.

yeah, I really have been hating the last 10 years of remakes.

[Bilbo]

Rad and article and thought one of the big points was that Klaatu WANTED to find a reason to destroy humanity. So saying that they could have done better if they were nice guys might not be accurate. Maybe the only way humanity lives is by Klaatu deciding to kill everyone they getting to watch certain people.

If the US government had done everything perfect Klaatu might have smiled, shaken their hands, gotten back on his ship, and then nuked humanity anyway as he took off which would really be the end as he wouldnt be around to get his mind changed.

My impression is that Klaatu was fairly disgusted by what he saw of humanity, but didn't find the whole affair personal. More like taking out the trash. With individual humans, he didn't want to actually hurt anyone. He only really killed when it was necessary to get them out of the way and took the trouble to resurrect one that was in a whole piece afterwards.

There were clearly some things that shook him, like James Hong opting to die a human being with his family rather than evacuating the Earth or discussing with John Cleese WHY a civilization matures to the point it doesn't destroy itself. He just didn't think humans could be changed.

Thanks. I have not seen the movie and that was something I read.

Confused though, he didnt want to kill anyone and he resurrected someone but he launched a weapon that basically killed everything it touched?

[Sidewinder]

I decided not to see the remake because the "aliens plan to save this planet by eliminating the humans who're destroying their own homeworld" is FUCKING RETARDED because why should the aliens give a damn? The galaxy is HUGE. You're telling me aliens with the resources and the technology to travel light-years from their homeworld to ours, have no option but to save this planet instead of using those obviously vast resources to terraform a planet closer to THEIR homeworld so it'll be habitable? Building some kind of self-sustaining space station or worldship? Hell, building a ringworld will probably expend less resources than genetically or otherwise altering one species to survive in another's habitat, travelling light-years from one star system to that habitat, while carrying a sizable cargo (the nanomachines might self-replicate, but the command and control systems for those machines must be complex as hell to prevent a gray goo disaster from hitting Klaatu's OWN HOMEWORLD) and then rebuilding this habitat to support the life of another species? And why the wholesale destruction of man's works? Can Klaatu's species live without shelter from the elements ('Battlefield Earth' has the Psychlos building walkways between remaining skyscrapers, which suggests those human structures remain in use)? Factories to build technological artifacts, like Gort and their starship?

[Admiral Valdemar]

That wouldn't be 'putting your unique stamp' on it or 'engaging a new vision' or 'speaking to the modern world' or increasing the 'relevance'.

Because clumsy environmentalism = relevance. It doesn't even make sense compared to the first movie; there, everyone thought they were super cool because they had giant nukes, and then someone showed up and said nope our nukes are bigger, do what we say. In this one, the poor trees... cute bunnies... omg smog... something something. Where's the parallel?

The parallel is that humanity is still on a path to potentially destroy the planet, but this time by total raping of the environment, rather than nuclear war which has a nasty side effect of buggering all involved.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I decided not to see the remake because the "aliens plan to save this planet by eliminating the humans who're destroying their own homeworld" is FUCKING RETARDED because why should the aliens give a damn? The galaxy is HUGE. You're telling me aliens with the resources and the technology to travel light-years from their homeworld to ours, have no option but to save this planet instead of using those obviously vast resources to terraform a planet closer to THEIR homeworld so it'll be habitable? Building some kind of self-sustaining space station or worldship? Hell, building a ringworld will probably expend less resources than genetically or otherwise altering one species to survive in another's habitat, travelling light-years from one star system to that habitat, while carrying a sizable cargo (the nanomachines might self-replicate, but the command and control systems for those machines must be complex as hell to prevent a gray goo disaster from hitting Klaatu's OWN HOMEWORLD) and then rebuilding this habitat to support the life of another species? And why the wholesale destruction of man's works? Can Klaatu's species live without shelter from the elements ('Battlefield Earth' has the Psychlos building walkways between remaining skyscrapers, which suggests those human structures remain in use)? Factories to build technological artifacts, like Gort and their starship?

I suggest at least reading the synopsis before ranting about things you've got out of context entirely.

[Sidewinder]

I suggest at least reading the synopsis before ranting about things you've got out of context entirely.

I apologize for assuming Klaatu's homeworld remained habitable; that detail wasn't in the synopsis I read as part of a film review. That still doesn't change the legitimacy of the question, "Why should an alien species give a damn about Earth?" or the stupidity of the film's answer (according to the synopsis on Wikipedia, Klaatu's species went through drastic evolution to survive its sun dying out, so they really have NO REASON to give a damn about Earth's environment).

[speaker-to-trolls]

^Klaatus species were environmentalists, they cared about Earths biosphere essentially because it represents a part of the biodiversity of the galaxy as a whole. As I understand it they were interested in saving the Earths biosphere for the same reason we are interested in saving the animals which live in the Amazon or Indonesia.

[General Zod]

^Klaatus species were environmentalists, they cared about Earths biosphere essentially because it represents a part of the biodiversity of the galaxy as a whole. As I understand it they were interested in saving the Earths biosphere for the same reason we are interested in saving the animals which live in the Amazon or Indonesia.

After reading summaries on wikipedia, I have to say the original movie's plotline made far more sense.

[Admiral Valdemar]

After reading summaries on wikipedia, I have to say the original movie's plotline made far more sense.

What is less sensible than protecting biodiversity on a valuable habitable planet?

[General Zod]

After reading summaries on wikipedia, I have to say the original movie's plotline made far more sense.

What is less sensible than protecting biodiversity on a valuable habitable planet?

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?