The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) 1/1 @ 10 PM ET

Frak Party Archives Classic Movies Frak Archive
#281

Well, that’s just it; they thot they did. Instead of nuclear destruction, in the new movie Klaatu comes to warn about ecological devastation. Basically just substituting the big scary menace of the '50s with that of today. And modern movies depend too much on focus groups instead of just making a movie. They couldn’t very well make a movie where the powerful alien threat is that machines stop working, even though that’s what the title means. Arguably, I’d say that would be a lot scarier to modern audiences than it was in the '50s!

It’s a cookbook! :eek:

#282

And yet, Nosferatu is downright scary. They don’t know what they’re missing.

#283

Figures. That’s the new thing. Not that I disagree with… crap, now that entire line of conversation is a spoiler. Well, I don’t disagree with the idea of being good to our spherical home thing, but the entire thing has become a social fad and is politicized up the wazoo. Politicians use it to get what they want. Watch it, an asteroid heads toward the Earth, and we’ll have election campaigns based on whether we should blow it up like in that Michael Bay thing, or pretend it doesn’t even exist.

Love Nosferatu!

#284

The whole threat of annihilation thing rubs me wrong, I guess.

#285

Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s a fairly small plot point, ultimately, and it was alluded to in the trailers, so it’s hardly a secret.

My thinking, though, is that it doesn’t make sense for aliens to even get involved. Ecological calamities happen all the time. The dominant species usually dies out, and a new one comes along afterward. Try as we might, our damage to this planet’s ecosystem isn’t going to wipe out all life. It’s just going to shake up the order of things a bit.

Well, I don’t disagree with the idea of being good to our spherical home thing, but the entire thing has become a social fad and is politicized up the wazoo.

The wazoo, of course, being the proper place for politics. :smiley:

Politicians use it to get what they want. Watch it, an asteroid heads toward the Earth, and we’ll have election campaigns based on whether we should blow it up like in that Michael Bay thing, or pretend it doesn’t even exist.

Don’t be silly. They’d argue about what to do until it was too late to do anything at all. The end.

Love Nosferatu!

Good man. :slight_smile:

#286

If you want children to behave, they have to learn that punishment is a possibility. I can’t imagine that advanced aliens wouldn’t think of us in such terms, assuming they think in any way like we do. The history of our own planet is littered with case after case of similar events.

ETA: Also consider that Klaatu wasn’t familiar with how our governments functioned in any great detail. His conception of democracy might be much more literal than how it’s usually practiced.

#287

You got to it before me, of course.

#288

I get that feeling too. I have serious doubts that this planet hasn’t had to adapt to the ways of its inhabitants before. Not that we should continue to pretend it’s our limitless resource machine as well as bottomless waste basket. In all things, I think we have to find a balance, but far too often there are only views on the extreme polarities, and for that I blame the bandwagon-mobile.

#289

Indeed. The real problem, IMO, with the whole “Green” movement is that it purports to wanting to save the ecosystem itself, when what they really mean is preserving the ecosystem as it has existed during most of recorded human history. The ecosystem will be fine, of course, either way. It’s just that altering it too much increases the likelihood that we and the plants and animals to which we’ve grown accustomed won’t be around to enjoy it. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t even be here if an ecological disaster hadn’t wiped out the dinosaurs.

#290

Thank you, by the way, for assisting me in friendly thought-provoking conversation. It’s a rare thing for me.:smiley:

#291

Not around here it isn’t. :slight_smile:

#292

One of the problems I have is that we as a species have a tendency to think we know what we’re talking about, only to end up screwing the pooch even worse by trying to fix things.

There’s more than a whiff of “change” in the air. I think it’ll be hard-learned, and I don’t think current leaders even have a clue.

#293

Well, it’s been a helluva shat-load of frakkin fun, but I’ve some pressing business I promised myself I would attend to before this precious off time is through. :smiley: Nite.

#294

Exactly. Which is why the aliens have to tell us what to do. :smiley:

Good night. Nice chatting with you.

#295

To you as well, sir. :slight_smile:

#296

As a very wise friend of mine once told me, people keep doing something untilt hey can’t. The warning signs are irrelevant.

#297

Me too. I also love Chaplin’s ‘The Kid’, ‘City Lights’, and ‘Modern Times’.

That should be a GWC PSA.