Klaatu for a day (the Earth stood still)

[vanir]

I really liked the remake. Whilst I'm fairly certain the USA would not react to extra terrestrial contact in the manner depicted, I do feel it is strictly representative of the way it (and many governments) deals in its foreign policy.

 

Anybody else have any thoughts on the movie or what it artistically represents?

 

What do you think would happen in the first contact scenario?

 

Do you believe in the likelihood of extra terrestrial sapience, and/or any capability of intergalactic travel?

[Totenkopf]

Well, haven't seen the movie yet. However, can we be certain that "first contact" hasn't already happened? The universe is a big place and there's much we don't understand. It's possible it's happened already, but most people just haven't been told. Also possible nothing has happened yet either. Maybe we'll be the "Johnny Appleseed" of the galaxy (unlikely, but who really knows.....yet?).

[vanir]

Now there's an interesting spin. I do think it highly unlikely first contact could be made without the awareness of the independent (ie. apolitical) scientific community however. Not impossible, but it would take some conspiracy on the part of the aliens as well prior to initial contact.

Is this wild hypothesis reasonable? Perhaps I should think. Were I an advanced alien representative certainly my first concern would be environmental impact, that is, causing panic among the visited population. Assuming an advanced civilisation could only have evolved with measures of compassion, why wouldn't they handle it like on Star Trek? Seek the government leaders, restrict public awareness at the onset so as not to destabilise government and cause panic.

 

I think the main argument against is the lack of any prevalent insight among governments, who appear plainly little changed from the dominant apes running around in the mountains of Africa. Corrupt, greedy, selfish and xenophobic to the very last, there is no example among modern governments of any development beyond base desires and the establishment of individual aristocracy. Only propaganda through media technology and by example (Nazi Germany shined the strongest torch of this that all others subsequently adopted).

 

Then there is no remarkable technological evolution. Whilst seen as a whole the development of modern technology can be observed at a quickened pace in recent times however this can still easily be tied directly to industrial and scientific development, retroactively mapped quite logically and requires no extra terrestrial input. Enough engineering research for example can display quite clearly the logical result of jet power from developing piston aero engines for high altitude operation, virtually all technological "leaps" are very similar in character, in truth made up of a series of simple, small steps no matter the impact upon our way of life.

 

Whilst the astronomical sciences community definitively supports the logical progression of sapient life on other worlds, to the question of interstellar travel and more specifically Earth visitation some of the most respected minds have levelled fairly conclusive maxims such as, "Then where are they?"

And the observation that no alien influence is strictly required in any part of human species or technological evolution. There is not a single development which cannot be clearly mapped.

 

This does leave us, in terms of evidence only with supernatural or extra-terrestrial claims by individuals, where psychological and perceptual explanations are equally valid and infinitely more likely.

 

But is it possible? Yes.

[Boba Rhett]

Are... are you kidding? The remake was horrible. Gut wrenching, even. It quite literally blew my ****ing mind how bad it was.

 

Favorite quite from the movie: "It seems to be some sort of silicone-based hybrid. We're calling it GORT: Genetically-Organized Robotic Technology."

 

Yes, that's right. Their hyper advanced robots are composed of fake boobs and sex toys.

 

(Not really, the movie was just that bad, as to not catch a flub like that. They actually meant to say silicon but they can't even be bothered to be accurate in their rip offs of the sixty billion other sci-fi movie that spout this. Also worth noting that they flubbed it in not a throw away line but the very important sentence in which they reveal their name for the robot.)

 

My blood is boiling just from reminiscing over that steaming pile. Gah.

 

Oh. Oh! They also didn't say "Klaatu barada nikto." in this movie (well, they did but it was backwards.) God. Epic fail.

 

This movies sucks. Hard.

 

 

Also, in a first contact scenario I believe it's pretty obvious that we must offer the alien beings Reese's Pieces. Barring that (they may not have mouths) We should at least wave or something. You know, make them feel wanted.

[Totenkopf]

Now there's an interesting spin. I do think it highly unlikely first contact could be made without the awareness of the independent (ie. apolitical) scientific community however. Not impossible, but it would take some conspiracy on the part of the aliens as well prior to initial contact.

 

Thinking more the general public. Most Americans had no clue about the Manhattan Project, so some level of govt secrecty is attainable. If such a conspiracy were real, I'd imagine that there were govt scientists and engineers involved in anything involving aliens.

 

Is this wild hypothesis reasonable? Perhaps I should think. Were I an advanced alien representative certainly my first concern would be environmental impact, that is, causing panic among the visited population. Assuming an advanced civilisation could only have evolved with measures of compassion, why wouldn't they handle it like on Star Trek? Seek the government leaders, restrict public awareness at the onset so as not to destabilise government and cause panic.

 

Perhaps, if they were altruistic. Perhaps said aliens might have more in common with the ETs of They Live or even V (by which I mean they have agendas that don't necessarily favor mankind's welfare).

 

I think the main argument against is the lack of any prevalent insight among governments, who appear plainly little changed from the dominant apes running around in the mountains of Africa. Corrupt, greedy, selfish and xenophobic to the very last, there is no example among modern governments of any development beyond base desires and the establishment of individual aristocracy. Only propaganda through media technology and by example (Nazi Germany shined the strongest torch of this that all others subsequently adopted).

 

Perhaps ETs are no better than us, just more technologically advanced.

 

 

Then there is no remarkable technological evolution. Whilst seen as a whole the development of modern technology can be observed at a quickened pace in recent times however this can still easily be tied directly to industrial and scientific development, retroactively mapped quite logically and requires no extra terrestrial input. Enough engineering research for example can display quite clearly the logical result of jet power from developing piston aero engines for high altitude operation, virtually all technological "leaps" are very similar in character, in truth made up of a series of simple, small steps no matter the impact upon our way of life.

Whilst the astronomical sciences community definitively supports the logical progression of sapient life on other worlds, to the question of interstellar travel and more specifically Earth visitation some of the most respected minds have levelled fairly conclusive maxims such as, "Then where are they?"

And the observation that no alien influence is strictly required in any part of human species or technological evolution. There is not a single development which cannot be clearly mapped.

This does leave us, in terms of evidence only with supernatural or extra-terrestrial claims by individuals, where psychological and perceptual explanations are equally valid and infinitely more likely.

But is it possible? Yes.

 

All valid points.

 

Oh. Oh! They also didn't say "Klaatu barada nikto." in this movie (well, they did but it was backwards. God." Epic fail. This movies sucks. Hard.

 

Blasphemy. Too bad so many "remakes" suck @ss.

[Tommycat]

Totenkopf: One thing to remember about the Manhattan project was the era it occurred in. It was a much tighter controlled media.

 

Of course one theory is that we have made contact, and they released all the details about it to nutjobs so that it would lose credibility, and anyone who claims to have knowledge would appear to be nuts as well. Kinda like hiding information in a flood of information.

[Q]

This movies sucks. Hard.

That's what I expected.

 

You just can't mess with classics like that. The original is probably one of the best scifi flicks ever made.

[RedHawke]

This movies sucks. Hard.

Figures, just like War of the Worlds eh?

 

Also, in a first contact scenario I believe it's pretty obvious that we must offer the alien beings Reese's Pieces. Barring that (they may not have mouths) We should at least wave or something. You know, make them feel wanted.

*Redhawke does the hand signals from Close Encounters of the Third Kind*

[Totenkopf]

Totenkopf: One thing to remember about the Manhattan project was the era it occurred in. It was a much tighter controlled media.

 

True, but whose to say that a first contact situation couldn't have arisen around the time of the Cold War. Govts would likely know each others' secrets, but not necessarily the public at large. Btw, I'm not convinced either way that "little green men" actually exist.

[vanir]

The embarkation and sheer funding of Project Blue Book would suggest at the very least that First Contact had not been made by the United States before 1969.

There is even an interesting if rather mundane reasoning behind the Project directly related to the Cold War (it involved the development of mass produced Mach 3 warplanes, which the Soviets appeared to be doing but the US discovered was both prohibitively expensive and industrially unrealistic to ever be achieved, hence the Blackbird-interceptor and Valkyrie Programs were cancelled, it was not at all due to missile defence systems development as popularised which did not in fact effectively develop until the late 90's...as one would expect much about the Cold War even published today was pure propaganda and the vast majority of genuine US military capability against a contemporary enemy then and now is also).

 

The simple fact is between 1968 and 1976 some defence chiefs in the US honestly believed at least in the possibility that the Soviet Union was in direct contact with extra terrestrial intelligence. This wild hypothesis, whilst never taken entirely too seriously did nevertheless help form some of the documentary framework that conspiracy theorists work with unwittingly. Albeit they want to see a specific result, and the means to do this do actually exist. We've gotten somewhat more sober about these things I think, since the 90's and the military itself definitely sobered up in 1976 with Belyenko's defection and subsequent insight to the industrial technologies of the Soviet Union.

 

For a US conspiracy about Alien contact the only reasonable possibility is during the extremely limited timespan the CIA had virtually autonomous power, from around 1953 to 1965. It is possible, though very limited in scope that a conspiracy regarding alien contact could have been kept from the public, and government, and military chiefs during this time. Nobody even had any idea they were running around all over Soviet airspace at Mach 3 around 1963 taking photographs of aerospace development institutes.

 

But again the problem is their demonstrated technology is still mundane, and their tremendous budget seems to have been spent trying to discover if the Soviets were talking to aliens, not to cover up that they were. Almost the entire CIA budget between 1953 and 1965 was spent on a fleet of about 15 titanium aircraft and pay offs to ex-Nazis (given amnesty) for the Cold War European intelligence network. Oh and the Blackbirds required a full NASA support infrastructure for each mission, which makes them about as expensive as a space launch...for one flight, on top of the development and flyaway costs (figures are in the thousands of billions of US dollars, it's more than the defence budget).

 

You'd be forgiven for thinking they were talking to aliens, for costing so much money. You'd be forgiven for thinking they went and built a mountain made of diamonds just for ****s and giggles.

 

Economically speaking, if the US government were talking to aliens at this time, they were stupid ones. It has been plainly observed for several decades US involvement in Middle Eastern oilfield control has been a necessary economic agenda, which has never had anything to do with Israel, terrorists or the Russians. It's why pretty much every country in the Black Sea Region can be currently described as "anti-American" including other NATO members (Turkey for example).

[Jae Onasi]

It's kind of hard to assume we're alone in the universe from sheer numbers of galaxies, stars, and planets out there.

 

Silicon-based life-forms stretches my suspension of disbelief anyway (silicone notwithstanding). I've had too much biochem and organic chem to buy into it anymore.

[vanir]

I tend to blank out technological and scientific descriptions for "blockbuster Hollywood" movies anyway, without fail dumbed down to such a degree that even a tabloid current affairs journalist would say, "Now that's just stupid."

The popular American sci-fi genre description of Einstein-Rosenberg bridges is another great example of assuming the largest target market is offended by anything approaching intelligence or accuracy. I can only assume this is so even the dumbest redneck feels suddenly intelligent by watching and learning even less than he knew before entering the theatre.

 

However in general theme the only unrealistic part I found smacking me about is Klaatu rescinding his decision and worse, for the reasons given.

Firstly this suggests all intelligent recourse had not been previously undertaken. Secondly that Klaatu is from a race as evil as ours. I mean is the entire universe Hell with just one or another demonlord running any particular show? Who the hell finds an emotional display of whimsy as justification for the sheer unrepentent evil that is human nature?

 

Informed of the final decision I'd have been too busy thanking him to try to convince him otherwise. Just be relatively painless I'd say, you know, that'd be benevolent.

 

The conclusion of the movie is that human beings must be governed by superior force at all times. It means we are destined to destroy not only ourselves, but our entire planet eventually. As we die we'll be "really" sorry. And that doesn't mean anything important and is defiitely no description of benevolence.

 

For Klaatu to have rescinded his decision where it was made in full view of all reasonable attempts to alternative solution, would have required a display of fundamental political change.

In the movie the postscript is given that all artificial power sources became "magically" unworkable following the alien departure. This would not be enough (it'd just start the mediaeval wars all over again).

 

We have never changed, and we never would. We are evil in any kind of significant numbers. Life was meant for the next hominid species, never intended for us. The only course any alien intelligence could take with mankind I believe, is keeping us somewhat confined to our planet and waiting until our species finally produces the next. Then free it from "scientific study" and protect it from our murderous tendencies. If the Earth lasts that long.

 

There was another ill conceived assertion made in the movie. That Earth was a very rare combination of elements and thus was more valuable than any one species upon it. All science points to perfectly similar conditions being common and unremarkable throughout the universe, Earths are most likely a dime a dozen although it is highly likely the development of life is a little more rare (though may be easily introduced).

 

I don't think aliens would care two hoots about us. In fact I think they'd simply find us so barbaric and unevolved as to warrant no contact at all, unless it was to govern which would require a strict necessity such as the evolution of a more advanced species among us (ie. the continuation of hominid evolution).

[Fredi]

Don't know, plenty of stories that Aliens have already done contact with our government on secrecy, and the government has been keeping it on secret. I do believe that if a contact like the one on the movie would happen it would be chaos, some will bring religion sh*** and others will just go crazy.

[Alpharaider47]

I thought that the movie was interesting. I think Neo returned to the matrix through the giant ball thingy at the end lol.