A Deep Analysis of The Day the Earth Stood Still

Originally Posted to firesofcreation.gaia.com on Jan 15th, 2009

By Eli Williamson-Jones

Warning! Contains spoilers! 

I was told by several people that this was a good movie counter to some of the bad reviews it's been receiving. I also was tipped off to some similarities it has with some of my screenplays; noticeably World W1n and the alien sphere in my story that comes to a rest over Central Park. The sphere in my story is a bit more mechanical on the outside and much larger while the sphere in The Day the Earth Stood Still is smaller and more organic. It almost looks like a planet with a swirling atmosphere of clouds on the surface. After watching this movie, I was also struck by some of the same themes explored in another film I wrote an exhaustive analysis of; Pan's Labyrinth. 

The Day the Earth Stood Still begins in 1928. We are taken to the Himalayas in India where an ice climber stumbles upon an alien sphere. He chops a hole in the outer ice layer and then blacks out. The ice climber played by Keanu Reeves finds himself passed out moments later while the sphere is nowhere to be seen. He looks at his hand to find a round scar which resembles a stigmata wound. This is where the alien sphere took a DNA sample to clone the human needed as its mouthpiece in the future. 

Now we fast foward to 2008 to Princeton, New Jersey where Helen Benson, a professor in astro-biology and microbiology, played by Jennifer Connelly, is teaching her class about strains of bacteria that may survive on Jupiter's moon, Callisto. Her class is dismissed and she is approached by what looks like a grad student who invites her to a faculty conference with a lecture about how the nature of the universe is like that of a beautiful woman. 

It is at this moment of the movie where we are given a clue as to where we will be headed philosophically. Building on this observation, let us take a look at the traditional perspective of the universe offered up to us by the ancient teachings of humanity's past, particularly in the West. In Christianity, Judaism and Islam, a male father figure God is the creator while its masculine force is often associated with the nature of the universe. Furthermore, we are taught in the sacred scriptures that a male, Adam was created first and thus by default seems the closest to God. Eve is created last from a piece of Adam's rib cage and is later corrupted by a serpent of Satan. It is because of her disobedience to God for eating fruit off the forbidden tree that leads her to offer it to Adam and thus cause the fall of all mankind.  

Throughout human history, women have traditionally been the oppressed gender with little rights and power to oppose the will of men. The improvement of women's status in society today is relatively a recent phenomena in the history of our species. And even still, the masculine power still dominates the proceedings of most governments in the world. This small detail in the movie offers a glimpse of the radical direction our story will take in the end. 

Helen turns down the offer for the lecture and instead goes home to her son Jacob played by Jaden Smith. We discover that Helen is his step mom through a marriage that ended in tragedy. Jacob's father had died a year before through circumstances that are a mystery. 

As Helen prepares dinner for Jacob, she receives an ominous call on the phone followed by a knock at the door. On the other side is a Federal agent calling her to leave everything and come with him immediately. Outside, police lights flash and Helen's worried neighbor watches on in fear. Jacob stays with the neighbor as Helen obediently agrees and is taken aboard a convoy of police vehicles to an undisclosed location. Along the route, she looks on in surprise as the entire highway has been closed down to make way for their motorcade. When pressed about the circumstances meriting her being placed in Federal custody, the agents in the vehicle can only say that it is a matter of national security.

Helen is loaded aboard a military helicopter with a ragtag group of civilians who find out they are all scientists. There is a nuclear physicist, an astronomer, a geologist, a civil engineer and Helen, an astro-biologist. The group of scientists realize that whatever is going on, "...it's not a game." After landing, the passengers are taken into a conference room as other scientists brief them on the nature of the crisis. They all discover that NASA has been tracking an object in space with a trajectory that will bring it to a crash with the Earth. Ground zero happens to be New York City. The military is planning the only thing they can do, which is launch a missile to intercept in hopes of stopping it. 

The scientists board a helicopter again and fly to Manhattan as they are briefed on the situation as updates come in. It turns out the military is unable to launch their missiles due to some freak malfunction. All the scientists can do is brace for impact. But when the clock runs down to zero and nothing happens, they turn to Helen's window to see a sphere slowing down and setting down in Central Park. The helicopter lands and the scientists exit, suited up in biohazard uniforms.  

As the scientists stand peacefully and watch the sphere, receptively waiting to find out what happens next, tanks and military weapons move in and surround them from behind. Soldiers and sharp shooters set up and aim their guns, ready to fire on command. It is through this contrast of nature between the scientists and military that we are able to see the dichotomy punctuating this film. It is a constant shift between natures of Yin and yang, masculine and feminine, academic and soldier, benevolent and destructive alien that the story revolves around. 

The light within the sphere grows more intense as the other scientists back up in uncertainty. Helen is the only one who remains standing and fearlessly awaits what comes next. An anthropomorphic form merges from behind the light and slowly steps towards her as Helen steps forward towards it. The alien form reaches out and she reciprocates. But before Helen could touch the hand of the alien, a shot rings out (from a trigger happy soldier?) as something that looks like blood splatters all over her mask. The alien figure slumps over and Helen reaches out to catch before it hits the ground. As it sits lifelessly in her arms, a new form exits the sphere. This one is monstrously large and takes on a pronounced masculine form with a sinister glowing red eye. Suddenly it activates a frequency that causes every soldier and scientist in the area to double over and collapse to the ground in agony as the military's electric lights blink out. Now the giant approaches Helen and puts a hand over the slumped over alien in what appears as a healing gesture. Its red eye shuts off and all the spotlights turn back on.

The actions in this scene speak volumes about the message this movie conveys. The scientists represent the Yin perspective while the military is a clear symbol of yang energy. The heroine of the story, Helen is the strong archetypal feminine figure who is dominated by her desire for peace and seeking connections through deepening relationships or establishing new ones. The misguided tragic characters in the story are military and government personnel exemplifying the archetypal masculine presence dominated by suspicious fears and the desire to control or destroy with brute force that which isn't understood.

It is always these two forces present within the human race whether through a literal breakdown between the male and female gender or even philosophical orientations towards the world that exemplify a more feminine or masculine perspective. We have seen this recently displayed in the events after September 11th, 2001. The more masculine oriented Republican administration lead the call for an invasion of Iraq under suspicion that their government might attack next. It was the more feminine oriented Democrats who called for restraint and sought to find a peaceful way out of another potential war. We see this formula at work in every society between the hawks waging wars and the doves seeking peace. It is often the case that the hawks get their way while all the doves can do is face the aftermath. And in recent news, it is the hawks in Israel who are leading war on Gaza while ignoring the doves within their own country and around the world crying out for an alternative to the violence. 

But this duality begs the question, is one side evil and the other side good? They are both capable of doing good and it is obvious that each are capable of doing evil. But does one veer closer to doing more evil than the other? There are some who would argue that men have more of a struggle than women in avoiding violence. Men still far outnumber women in prison populations and it is mostly men who engage in the dirty work of warfare. But even if one side is a little more evil than the other, can they be separated? In the ultimate scheme of things, yin gives rise to yang and yang gives rise to yin. Each side contains the seed of their opposite and each are ultimately inseparable from each other. 

We see this in the Great Seal of the United States with the contrast between yin and yang illustrated through the symbolic emblem for our nation; the Eagle. In it's right talons it holds the olive branch of peace and in the left, the arrows of war. The eagle faces the olive branches which expresses the ideal we often fail to live up to and that is putting the best foot of peace forward first before ever resorting to war. This describes the psychology of humanity as a whole and is reflected in the most popular mythology on the planet. With two billion adherents; a third of the human race, Christianity presents the story of how the Father of the universe sent fourth the lamb of God (feminine presence) who the world rejected and thus chose to instead incur the Father's wrath on Judgement Day. This equation is presented by some Christian missionaries as such; accept the gift of the more feminine son of God and be saved from the wrath of the masculine father.  

This paradigm is exactly the same one used by the aliens in the movie. By presenting the peaceful more feminine side first, they were giving humanity a chance to receive this gift which would lead to their salvation. But by choosing to reject it, they had set in motion to instead bear the brunt of wrath and judgement from the alien's masculine side. 

In the next scene, we follow doctors as they wheel the injured alien into their medical facility. Surgeons franticly try to figure out the alien's physiology so they can help reverse the mistake made by their people shooting at it. After extracting a bullet and making an incision to remove chunks of blubber like flesh from a placental bag encasing a pale human form played by Keanu Reeves, we are reminded of another scene of another movie; the Matrix, where Reeve's character, Neo, escapes a pod filled with pink amniotic goo. 

After the alien dries off and his skin acquires a tone like that of a living human, he slowly begins to reveal his ability to speak English and communicate with the scientists. Meanwhile, panic seizes the global markets as trading is halted. Manhattan is evacuated as are other cities all over the world. The small spheres have been landing everywhere on the planet while causing mass hysteria. The president and vice president of the US have gone into hiding as the Secretary of Defense becomes the administration's new eyes and ears. 

We find out that the military had one of its primary satellites disabled. It is inferred that it is of the aliens doing which is how they were able to shut down the missile defense and enter Earth airspace without any resistance. Regina Jackson; the Secretary of Defense laments, "They know everything about us and we know nothing about them." Although the Secretary of Defense is a woman played by Kathy Bates and evokes a Hillary Clinton type politician, we discover that even if yin nature still exists within her, it has been dominated and suppressed by the yang, presumably by way of a faceless male president who is in hiding but has chosen her to do his bidding. She reveals the administration's paranoia by presuming that the disabling of the nation's defenses revealed the alien's hostile intentions.  

Back at the medical facility, we learn that the alien's name is Klaatu which sounds a bit like Keanu. His nascent state is slowly being replaced by a more interactive and mobile form. He drinks water and speaks to scientists studying him. "This body will take some getting used to." After analysis of his DNA, one of the scientists compares this new discovery to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls and that they would be studying it for years. The Secretary of Defense shoots down this idea by declaring the DNA code classified and property of the US government. Once again we see the yang government suppressing the yin scientists. 

Helen immediately makes a close connection with the alien who seems to be calmed by her presence. Klaatu tells her that his body feels "unreal." "What were you before you were human?" "Different." "Different how?" "It would only frighten you." Klaatu's inability to explain what he was before he was human seems a bit like the difficulty for us to imagine what we were before taking life in our present human identity. This scene also echoes the dialogue from another movie about an alien played by Kevin Spacey; K-Pax.

Now the Secretary of Defense begins to question Klaatu. "Do you represent a civilization?" "A group of civilizations." "Where is this group?" "All around you." "What is your purpose?" "I will explain my purpose to a gathering of your world leaders." "Why don't you explain it to me instead?" "Do you speak for the entire human race?" "I speak for the president of us. Why have you come to our planet?" "Your planet?" "Yes, this is our planet." "No, it is not."

Klaatu's words seem to intimidate the Secretary of Defense and she decides to have him sedated and then interrogated. Again feeling a loss of any freedom in the matter, a scientist nearby expresses his opposition. "As a scientist, we can not consent to this." The Secretary of Defense ignores him; "History has lessons to teach us about first encounters between civilizations. As a rule, the less advanced are exterminated or enslaved. It happened between Pizarro and the Incas, Columbus and the Native Americans. The less advanced civilization now, is us."

It is interesting that the Secretary of Defense refers to the more demure civilizations as "less advanced," when in actuality, it was the civilizations dominated by greed and yang energy to exploit and rule over the weaker ones through force that became a hallmark of a less advanced civilization to those looking at  alternative views of history. 

Again the scientist protests the position of the Secretary of Defense. "This is the most important discovery of mankind." The Secretary of Defense again shoots down his hope. "This may be the last discovery of mankind. We need to know what they are planning and need to know now." The scientist then chooses to embrace a spirit of yin in defiance. "You want to drug and interrogate them. Sorry, we won't do that." The Secretary of Defense replies, "If you won't do it, we'll call someone who will." 

At this point, Helen decides to use deception to say she'll administer the drug but replace it with a harmless saline. She knew as well as her colleagues that even scientists abandon their ideals for the promise of money and power from the military in service of the government. It was Carl Sagan the scientist who brought attention to this reality in his series Cosmos. "According to some estimates, almost half the scientists and high technologists on Earth are employed full- or part-time on military matters."

The Secretary of Defense tells the alien that he will be transported to another facility for better care, but Klaatu is able to detect lies. "No you're not." "Excuse me?" "I'm leaving." "I can't allow that." "It is not up to you. I have done nothing wrong." "You invaded our airspace. Your automaton attacked our troops." "It acted to defend me. It activates in the presence of violence." What Klaatu describes here perfectly is the human psychology. When any individual, tribe, community, state, or nation puts their best foot forward and hands an olive branch of peace to the foreigners on the other side who in turn reject this benevolent gesture and use it as an object of their violence, it will naturally activate a violent counter response that ultimately leads to war.

This also brings up a point about how conflicts sometimes get started by actions of defense that are perceived as preemptive or hostile acts. Did the aliens disable the earth defense system in an act of aggression or did they perceive the earth defense system as a hostile attack that needed to be neutralized for the sake of self protection?

After Helen puts in the needle and injects the fake sedative, she whispers to Klaatu, "Run." Helen is then removed from the room and Klaatu is placed in a wheelchair and taken to the interrogation room. A device that looks like a lie detector is attached to his temples. The interrogator begins to ask Klaatu questions. "Are you currently in the seated position?" "Yes." "Are you human?" "My body is." "Do you feel pain?" "My body does." "Are you aware of an impending attack on Earth." "You should let me go." "I'll repeat the question." Now Klaatu takes action and somehow uses electricity to shock his adversary into a frame of mind where the interrogator now becomes the interrogated. 

Klaatu asks him for instructions on the way out and to take off his suit. Then he is able to send out another high pitched frequency that disables all the security guards on the premise as well as to disrupt the building's power supply. He leaves the building uninhibited. When the Secretary of Defense discovers he has escaped, she declares him a dangerous convict and uses every resource at her disposal to track him down. 

Klaatu travels to a train station and observes the news programming broadcasted on flat screens mounted on the station's walls. The news program discusses the reaction to events from the national and international religious communities, which it states have been "varied." "Some have responded with hope and optimism but most religious groups consider recent events apocalyptic. Many see the arrival of the sphere in Central Park as a sign of a new era of evil marking the end of the world, the Tribulation and battle of Armageddon." 

This broadcast reveals a very telling detail about humanity. In the report, "some have responded with hope and optimism." "But most..." responded with fears of worst case scenarios. This perfectly describes the reaction in Central Park to the sphere by most of the observers present. Helen was the exception and represents that smaller percentage of humanity who responds to events with "hope and optimism."

At this point, Klaatu goes into the bathroom and sees blood on his shirt. Then he collapses to the floor. The next scene is Dr. Benson being called to the train station by Klaatu. Helen and Jacob pick him up as they drive away in the car. He asks her for what appears to be a tissue sample taken from his amniotic skin removed earlier in the movie. She is holding the sample in a plastic vial in her pocket which Klaatu takes, swipes  the inside with his finger and wipes over what is most likely the stitched bullet wound. It instantly heals. Now Helen questions what she is doing for Klaatu. "I took a huge risk at the hospital. Did I make a mistake? Are you a friend to us?" Klaatu replies, "I'm a friend to the earth."

The next scene shows what the military is doing about the Manhattan sphere. They launch drone jets into the city, target the sphere and launch their missiles. The giant alien sentry powers up its red eye laser and vaporizes the missiles before they strike. More lasers shoot out and guide the drones into a crash landing with military tanks on the ground for a fiery explosion.

Back in the car, Helen drives with Klaatu and Jacob to an unknown destination. Now Jacob speaks out about the alien situation. "Why are people running? They should stay and fight." Helen - "They didn't come to hurt us." Jacob - "We should kill them anyway just to make sure." Helen - "Don't say that." Jacob - "That's what dad would have done." Helen - "I think he would have looked for a different way." Jacob - "He would have fought." "I think I knew him pretty well." Jacob - "I knew him too, longer than you."

The argument that Jacob and Helen have reflect the difference between the yin and yang perspective. Jacob sides with the military psychology of shooting first and asking the questions later while Helen seeks to transcend the vicious cycle of violence by finding "a different way." Both sides project their ideal on the dead husband/father, believing he would choose their perspective if he were still alive. 

This debate sounds a little bit like what some religious practitioners may argue amongst themselves concerning what the prophets might do or not do if they hadn't left Earth on a chariot to heaven. At some anti-war rallies I've attended, some signs read, "Who would Jesus bomb?" The more liberal Christians connect Christ to healing and peace. At the opposite end, those claiming to be conservative Christians (some who are political leaders in America) believed they had the seal of approval from God to invade Iraq. They connect their savior to leaving the lamb persona of the New Testament behind for the lion and war-like personality prophesied for his return in Revelation.

Now Jacob turns to the alien, still thinking he is just a male friend to his step mom. "What do you think, should people run or should we stay and fight?" "Neither." "What should we do then?" "There's nothing you can do." 

Helen stops the car at a McDonalds where Klaatu has arranged a mysterious meeting. Jacob gets out to use the bathroom. "Where's the boy's father?" "He's dead." "How did he die?" It is here that we discover that Helen's husband served in the military. "So, the boy wishes his soldier father was alive to rescue the world from the aliens." "He wasn't even that kind of soldier. He was an engineer. He went over there to build, not to fight." Even though Helen's husband was a military man, his line of work ran counter to what the military is best known for and that is its ability to destroy.  

Klaatu meets with a Chinese man in McDonalds who I was unable to figure out how he fit in the story. I only gathered that he was an alien like Klaatu. Maybe he was sent earlier and started to assimilate with the culture. This is part of their conversation. Klaatu - "If you stay you'll die." Chinese Man - "This is my home now." Klaatu - "You yourself called them a destructive race." Chinese Man - "That's true but still, there is another side. You see, I love them. It's a very strange thing. I can't find a way to explain it. For many years I cursed my luck for being sent here. Human life is difficult. With this life coming to an end. I consider myself lucky to have lived it." 

Meanwhile, in central park, the military has figured out a way to enclose the giant alien sentry standing guard over the sphere. They put him in a giant cage and transport him to an undisclosed location. 

Klaatu is on the road once again with Helen and Jacob. They drive to a rural area and stop the car in a forest. Helen goes outside the car as Jacob remains. She sees Klaatu near a lake where a sphere comes up out of the water. As it appears, insects and animals move towards and enter inside. 

Now we see a sphere in the desert where snakes and other reptiles enter. Another sphere appears in the rain forest and another rises over the waters of an ocean somewhere. Now we see these spheres and countless more rising up all over the world and leaving Earth. There is a mass exodus of every sphere except for the giant one in central park. 

Klaatu emerges from the fog and asks Helen to take him back to the city. Seeing the spheres and realizing that Klaatu is an alien, Jacob voices resistance but gets in the car at the request of his step mom and the alien. Helen now seems to have doubts of her own. "I need to know what's happening." "This planet is dying. The human race is killing it." "So you've come to help us?" "No I didn't." "You said you came to save us." "I came to save the Earth." "You came to save the Earth from us." "I can't risk the survival of this planet for the sake of one species." "What are you saying?" "If this Earth dies, you die. If you die, the Earth survives." 

Klaatu goes on; "There are only a handful of planets in the cosmos that are capable of supporting complex life. This one can't be allowed to perish." Helen is beside herself, "You can't do this. We can change. We can still turn things around." "We've watched, we've waited and hoped that you would change. It's reached the tipping point." "Please." "We have to act. We'll undo the damage you've done and give the Earth a chance to begin again." "Don't do this. Please. We can change." "The decision is made. The process has begun." 

A police man unexpectedly shows up but Klaatu continues with Helen. "It won't make any difference. Even if they arrest me and kill me, the process will continue." The police tries to make the arrest and warns Klaatu to put his hands on the car. Klaatu complies and sends the vehicle back in full reverse, killing the police man. Now Klaatu moves over the body and takes out the same bottle with the tissue sample he used to heal his wounds. He takes a swipe of the inside and wipes it in the officer's mouth. Channeling energy from the police car, Klaatu resurrects the police man to the amazement of Helen and Jacob. 

Helen - "I don't understand. You're going to kill us all but you saved him?" Klaatu - "He was an obstacle. I meant him no harm." Helen - "You could stop this couldn't you, if you wanted to." Klaatu - "I tried to reason with you and speak to your leaders." Helen - "Those aren't our leaders. If you want to speak to one of our leaders, I'll take you to one." Helen, Jacob and Klaatu get back in the car. 

Helen echoes a truth expressed by many people around the world who feel they don't have a voice, especially those with an orientation towards yin which lead them to march in cities all over America and the world protesting the Iraq invasion. Many of these people do not view George Bush as a leader or their president because of his allegiance to war and refusal to listen or comply to their cries for "a different way"; one of peace. 

Through footage found on the internet showing an octopus inside a sphere, the Secretary of Defense and her advisors finally realize what all the alien ships are for. "If the spheres are all arks, what comes next?" "The flood." Now we see the giant alien sentry being lowered into an underground military facility. 

Helen next drives Klaatu to her Nobel Peace Prize winning friend Karl who is played by John Cleese. We discover that he won his prize for work in biological altruism. Once Karl meets Klaatu and understands who he really is, he replies, "I have so many questions to ask you." Karl has classical music playing over a house stereo system which Klaatu takes an interest to. Helen - "It's Bach." Klaatu - "It's beautiful." Karl - "So we're not so different after all." Karl is referencing the alien and human species ability to reach consensus in identifying the good, the true and the beautiful.

We find ourselves back at the underground military facility where the top brass try to dissect the alien sentry in order to find a weakness and unlock its hidden secrets. They are trying to drill through it's outer surface with a diamond tip drill which breaks in the attempt. They continue the futile exercise by replacing the drill bit in a sealed off laboratory/containment room. As one of the top military generals moves from one end of control room to the other, the alien sentry's red eye follows him from behind a protective wall of glass. 

Now we see chaotic events unfolding all over the world; food and resource shortages in Asia and South America with rioting in China. Jacob is presumably  watching all this on TV and then sees a station with an image of the escaped convict, Klaatu. The anchor woman is asking her audience to call a number if they have seen any sign of him. 

In the other room, Karl and Helen continue to engage Klaatu. Karl - "There must be some technology to solve our problem." "Klaatu - "Your problem is not technology. The problem is you. You lack the will to change." Karl - "Then help us change." Klaatu - "I can't change your nature. You treat the world as you treat each other." Karl - "But every civilization reaches a crisis point eventually." Klaatu - "Most of them don't make it." Karl - "Your's did, how? Klaatu - "Our sun was dying, we had to evolve in order to survive." Karl - "So it was only when you're world was threatened with destruction that you became what you are now." Klaatu - "Yes." Karl - "Well, that's where we are. You say we are on the brink of destruction and you're right, but it's only at the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice that we evolve. This is our moment. Don't take it from us. We're close to an answer."

The conversation is interrupted by the sound of helicopter blades in the sky. Klaatu exits and takes off through the forest. Before following, Helen turns to Karl. "What do I do?" "Change his mind, not with reason but with yourself." Helen finds Jacob and they take off after Klaatu.

As the helicopters descend from overhead, we discover it was Jacob who called the number on the TV screen and alerted authorities. He jumps into a clearing and signals the helicopters to land. Helen is shocked. She jumps in front of Jacob but is taken up into one of the helicopters by a soldier on a zip line. Helen's helicopter takes off with her inside but the other two stick around. One of them targets Klaatu with lasers but he is able to redirect their energy and disrupt the helicopters power. They both spin out of control and crash into eachother. Jacob is ironically left alone with Klaatu. 

At first he tries to run away and crosses a small bridge. Klaatu crosses the bridge too, making Jacob think he is trying to catch him. He tries to get out of the way as his foot nears the edge and part of the bridge's ledge breaks off. Klaatu reaches out and saves Jacob from going over and dropping into swiftly moving rapids. "Thanks." Now Jacob realizes that Klaatu isn't evil like he had feared. 

Back at the underground military facility, the broken diamond drill is taken off and replaced with a new one. We get a view of the old diamond drill and see that its surface is slowly corroding away. An extreme close up shows dozens of nano-robot winged insects, too small for the naked eye. They are swarming over the diamond drill tearing up bits of the surface and using the energy to replicate exponentially. One nanite turns into two, two into four, four into eight, etc. A man in a biohazard suit replacing the drill notices tiny holes burrowing into his shoulder. He frantically calls for the door seal to be unlocked so he can escape. The military personnel ignore him while he screams in terror as tiny nanites swarm all over his suit and body. He collapses to the ground and slowly disintegrates. 

Helen is taken before the Secretary of Defense once again.  Secretary of Defense - "He's come here to exterminate us hasn't he?" Helen - "You can't stop him. The only chance we have is if he changes his mind. You have to let me talk to him." Secretary of Defense - "What makes you think he'll listen to you?" Helen - "I don't know that he will. But I think he trusts me and I don't think he wants to do this." 

Back at the underground military facility, the giant alien sentry begins dissolving into trillions of nanites that eat away at the walls imprisoning them in the sealed off laboratory. The military personnel in the viewing room can do nothing but wait and watch as the nanites eat through the glass and swarm inside. Outside the facility, tanks and guns open fire as swarms of nanites exit the main entrance. The weapons have no effect on something so microscopic as a nono robot. The nanites move in and disintegrate everything in site. 

The Secretary of Defense is briefed on the nanite mass and  the inability of the military to stop it. She decides to let Helen leave. Meanwhile, Klaatu takes Jacob into a building to find a phone and call his step mom. They arrange to meet. Jacob and Klaatu then catch a ride with a couple in a truck. 

They stop as Jacob takes Klaatu to a grave yard and leads him to his father's tomb. "You can do this, just like you did with the trooper." "There are some things I can't do." "But you have powers." "I'm sorry." "Please. Please." "Jacob. Nothing ever truly dies. The universe wastes nothing. Everything is simply transformed." "Just leave me alone." Klaatu walks away as Jacob falls to the ground in front of the tomb stone sobbing. Helen shows up and holds her son in her arms.  

"Its not fair." "No, it isn't fair." "He left me alone." "Honey, you're not alone and he didn't leave you. And I see him in you all the time." Klaatu sees Helen and Jacob hugging from a distance and he approaches to stop in front of them. "There's another side to you. I feel it now."   We see a swarm of nanites in the sky sweeping towards Manhattan. "Is that how it ends?" "Yes." "You can't stop them?" "I don't know." 

Klaatu's uncertainty of being able to stop the swarm expresses the conflict and disconnect between yin and yang, God the Father and the Son, the hawk and the dove. Before the Iraq invasion, millions of people around the world called on the U.S. military and George Bush to call off the buildup. But in this case and countless others like it throughout humanity's past, the hawks ignored the doves and continued on their aggressive course. 

The nanite swarm were now passing down judgement on humanity with a sentence of total destruction. There are many Christians and Muslims in the world today who believe God will be passing down a similar sentence on humanity in the near future. In the Christian paradigm, the Son of God was rejected by the rulers of his day as they sought his execution just as was the case with Klaatu. By destroying the Son, humanity was sealing their own fate. 

But the same mission that sent Christ to Earth to save the "other side" of humanity (yin perspective within their nature?) that was deemed worthy of salvation, is the same mission that sent Klaatu. There is a clear lack of a Biblical account of Christ being able to assuage the anger of the Father in the Last Judgement. Yin orientation moves to the side of yang and in Revelation, it is the Son who the father chooses as a future instrument of his wrath at the end of the world. In the same way, Klaatu had become an instrument of the yang side of the alien, paving the way for the plan to be set in motion for humanity's destruction. It was now unknown whether Klaatu could change this plan before it was too late.  Helen continues to plead with the alien. "But we can change. You know that now. Please, just give us a chance." "I'll try."  

Just as Klaatu is the Yin side of the alien in service to the yang, the female Secretary of Defense begins to see the promise of peace. She unfortunately still can not break free from the yang side represented by the president. "Of course Mr. President. I understand the situation. (pause) But with all due respect sir, any further military action will only make things worse. (pause) I believe we still may be able to open a dialogue. (pause) Yes Mr. President, as you wish sir." We find out later that the hawk again dismisses the call of restraint from the dove perspective, this time surprisingly requested by the Secretary of Defense who seems to be from the beginning of the movie, a dove converted to a hawk.

Now we see a scene of the nanite swarm flying over the Meadowlands as they disintegrate Giant stadium. Did the filmmakers know something about how their season would end?  ;-)     

Klaatu, Helen and Jacob are driven by another scientist into Manhattan where they run through a military check point. The soldiers take pursuit but then let them go through the Secretary of Defense's orders. 

Helen, Klaatu, Jacob and the scientist make it to central Manhattan as their SUV pulls into central park towards the sphere. It appears the entire city is abandoned. Suddenly explosions rock the park and knock the car upside down as it rolls over and hits a tree. Military aircraft scream over head, dropping their deadly ordinances on the sphere as ordered by the president. But as the dust settles we can see that the missiles and bombs have done nothing and the sphere remains intact. 

Now swarms of nanites move in and begin eating away the SUV's windshield. The scientist lies dead in the driver's seat as Helen, Jacob and Klaatu step outside. The three escape the swarm and head underneath a Central Park bridge. Now Helen and Jacob begin bleeding as nanites move into their bodies. Jacob collapses in Helen's arms. "What's happening to him?" Jacob appears lifeless. "They're inside him. He's dying." "Help him." Helen now wipes blood from her face. "Help him. Please."

Now Klaatu confirms his role as a Christ figure. He reaches out and holds Helen and Jacob's hands in his. Nanites exit their skin and enter Klaatu's hands. This imagery evokes the mission of Christ who took on the sins of humanity to pay the price for them. Jacob comes back to consciousness and Helen's bleeding stops. 

"Your professor was right. At the precipice you change." Klaatu exits underneath the bridge and walks into the nanite swarm towards the sphere. His coat begins filling up with holes. He almost collapses but with a last bit of strength he reaches up and touches the sphere. Now his body disintegrates as a burst shoots out from the sphere and neutralizes all the nanites. Klaatu's sacrifice has saved humanity. The nanoscale bugs fall lifelessly to the ground.  

Power all over what's left of the city goes out and seems to be turning off all over the planet. We see scenes of Japan, the Middle East and London. Everybody stops and looks up into the sky. We hear the cheerful song of birds. Now we move to more cities; Sydney, a car factory, and a ship port. The Secretary of Defense looks out a window at an air base. We hear more birds singing. Now the Secretary of Defense looks down and sees her watch has stopped. The sphere has created some kind of magnetic interference with all electricity. The Earth has come to a stand still. Helen and Jacob approach the Manhattan sphere. Around them, all the building are still disintegrated.

"It's leaving." The sphere rises into the air. Jacob looks up at Helen. "No, he's leaving." This is an interesting line and it connects with dialogue in the beginning of the story when Helen is invited to the faculty conference lecture on the nature of the universe being like that of a beautiful woman. 

When Helen tells Jacob "It's leaving" she refers to the alien as a singular entity. Jacob replies, "No, he's leaving" meaning that the masculine alien presence ravishing their world had been neutralized. The same could be said about the masculine presence that has haunted humanity for thousands of years by spreading a never ending succession of wars and violence that threaten to destroy the planet. But now there was potential ahead for a new humanity, transformed at the "precipice" where yin would no longer be suppressed and dominated by yang.

Perhaps the nature of our universe really is more like that of a beautiful woman than a wrathful patriarchal deity. Even after thousands of years of countless evils committed by humanity, the universe continues to sustain us. The sun still continues to shine down on the good and the evil while giving us and our planet the nourishment and resources we need to continue on into the future. Will it be possible that we change ourselves before reaching the precipice? Even if humanity is judged by another being outside our solar system, could we blame this on the universe? Wouldn't these beings be similar to us as free agents making their own choices on whether to see only the evil and not the good within us?

Helen pats Jacob on the head. The credits roll and we are left with our characters standing in the remnants of a half destroyed city whose planet has found renewed hope for its future. 

This is not the last time in 2008 or 2009 that we will see New York City destroyed at the movies. If the upcoming film Watchmen follows the graphic novel by Alan Moore, we see New York City devastated as a means of awakening and saving humanity from destroying itself. 

As noted by many observers of film history, New York is one of the cities most often chosen for destruction in our movies. It has practically been destroyed on the big screen by every conceivable means for nearly a century. We can only hope that seeing it obliterated, burned and disintegrated on the big screen enough times can satisfy yang's lust for violence and yin's hope that humanity can change on the brink of the "precipice" before it ever happens in real life.

The 2008 movie, The Day the Earth Stood still is based on the screenplay by Edmand North who wrote the 1951 version. David Scarpa authored the 2008 version. A friend of mine sent a short clip from the black and white movie that seems quite a bit different than the new version. In one particular scene, we get ominous visions of big brother and a New World Order ready to seize control of the planet through violent force.

Here is a link of another review of TDTESS that touches some of the same themes as mine.