The Day the Earth Stood Still is really no different from other 1950’s science fiction films about aliens coming to earth such as It Conquered the World and It Came from Outer Space. And yet the film managed to resonate with contemporary audiences in such a way that it became the standout companion piece to Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Where that film is darkly paranoid and expresses a pessimism about mankind’s future, The Day the Earth Stood Still presents a positive and uplifting message. Where the body snatchers are the devil in disguise, Klaatu is...well, let's get to that a little later. Together, the two films mark the beginning of the mainstreaming of a genre that had been the sole domain of B-movies and low budget film making. The question is why The Day the Earth Stood Still broke from the pack in a way that none of the dozens of other movies about flying saucers and UFOs and men from beyond the stars failed to do.
The answer may be somewhat surprising. While The Day the Earth Stood Still remains a bona fide classic, the failure of a 21st century remake to catch fire despite bigger stars and bigger special effects is revealing. The film captured the imagination of the movie-going public in an era when three of the top grossing films of the decade were Biblical epics. Faith, church and religion was just simply more important to more Americans in the 1950’s and Hollywood understood this better than most. Which explains why it is considered a classic today while The Space Children wound up being ripped to pieces on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Both films feature essentially the same plot and one can fairly argue that The Space Children is certainly not much worse even if it isn’t considerably better. But plot isn’t everything, especially within the world of genre films. What does The Day the Earth Stood Still possess that is missing from The Space Children and all the other variations on its theme which populated 1950’s movie theaters?
While The Space Children valiantly tries with a quote from the Bible, it is not an allegory of Christ. Which, make no mistake, is exactly what The Day the Earth Stood Still is without any question. Even the very title alludes to the story of the crucifixion in the gospels.
To make it clear: Klaatu arrives from outer space backed with the muscle of an all-powerful judge, jury and execution. Gort has the power to devastate the entire human race if he doesn’t adhere to the strict rules of behavior laid out by Klaatu. Despite this, what is Klaatu’s fate? To die and then to be resurrected. And Gort, ready to carry out his charge to destroy all mankind, is subdued by words handed to humans by the messenger of a world that promises peace forever if mankind will just stop being aggressively warlike toward each other.
Sound familiar? Perhaps not. But rest assured that it was a story familiar to all those moviegoers who would later be lining up in record numbers to see movies like The Robe, Ben-Hur, David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah and the second biggest box office hit to date: The Ten Commandments.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is certainly not a perfect allegory of the arrival of Christ with a new covenant from God, but to make it so would have reduced its power. This is a film that demonstrates the great power of hiding your message in place where nobody expects to find it. While most of the Biblical epics purporting to teach lessons of morality were really just convenient excuses to show sex and violence and flesh that would otherwise never had made it past the censors, it is a science fiction film about flying saucers that is arguably the most Christian film of the entire decade.
