Keanu Reeves has just agreed to participate in Hollywood’s latest raping of a classic. Variety says he’s been hired by 20th Century Fox to star in their remake of the venerable, 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still.
In the original, a humanoid alien named Klaatu lands on Earth with his giant robot to warn us that we must learn to live in peace, or be destroyed by our outer-space neighbors as a danger to the galaxy. The 51 version was directed by the great Robert Wise, and has since become regarded as one of the great science fiction works of this century (and not just because it has a cool giant robot).
In Keanu’s version, he’ll play Klaatu, the part originated by Michael Rennie. Now instead of using words to warn us of impending doom, he’ll probably do a lot of crazy kung fu. Maybe karate chop the president in the head or something, as a way of convincing him to give up aggression. It sounds pretty horrible really, even if he doesn’t do any Matrix moves. Keanu is occasionally a decent actor, but come on, this is The Day the Earth Stood Still. Fuck off Neo.
Not that it matters who they cast in this monstrosity since there’s absolutely no reason to remake The Day the Earth Stood Still. It’s been done, and done wonderfully. The fact that we can now render Gort in stunning CGI doesn’t justify doing the same damn thing all over again. Though it’s science fiction, the film was never about whiz-bang special effects. This isnt’ like doing another War of the Worlds, where FX played a major role in the original. Alright, there you can maybe make a case for it being worth doing over just to see how much better those tripods can look. Day the Earth Stood Still however is not an action movie. It’s a though provoking drama which has already been done perfectly and leaves no room for improvement. It doesn’t need redone. Re-release the original in Technicolor or something if you have to. Put out a version where Gort is replaced by a Muppet if you absolutely have to re-cash in on this project. Anything is better than this.
