The Cold War
Klaatu and his big bad robot pal Gort arrive on earth for one specific reasons. They have message to mankind: live peacefully like the rest of the universe unless you want to see the whole planet blown to smithereens. Klaatu’s peaceful co-existence refers to other alien civilizations spread across the cosmos, but make no mistake: Klaatu is the movie’s representation of every other country but American and the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of Hiroshima, two superpowers emerged with the potential to unleash devastation like nothing ever seen before. Meanwhile, the rest of the planet was getting along not quite peacefully, but relative to the two superpowers pretty darn well. Klaatu’s message is implicit but clear. Why should everybody else have to pay the price because a handful of Americans and Russians couldn’t figure out how not to kill millions in the blink of an eye.
Not with a Button, but a Trigger
The film also slyly insinuates that as dangerous and threatening as nuclear bombs are, the war in which their detonation destroys civilization as we know it and turns mankind into the dinosaur will not start with a powerful leader metaphorically pressing the button launches the missiles. Instead, the next world war—the final doomsday confrontation between the most powerful nations on the planet—will start with some nervous anonymous soldier with an itchy finger pressing just a little hard against a trigger. Klaatu is shot twice in the film, at the beginning and the end. The first time he is merely wounded and survives. The second time unleashes the wrath of Gort that is stopped only barely before the extinction of mankind. The dual shootings seem to imply that at best, the world will get only a second chance to avoid obliteration resulting from the pulling of a single trigger. And that’s if we are unusually lucky.
Christian Allegory
Overlying the film’s timely political themes is a timeless spiritual theme in the form of an allegory. A prophet arrives from the heavens who takes on the human qualities of a Carpenter as he preaches a message of love and unity backed up with the always-present threat of annihilation should the covenant continue to be breached. Klaatu is the messenger of a possibly of everlasting peace. Gort is the allegorical representation of the wrath of God. When he escapes from the hospital after being shot the first time, Klaatu adopts the name Mr. Carpenter as he goes about preaching his message. When Klaatu is shot a second time, he dies, but is brought back to life but his resurrection is shot-lived and he soon disappears forever. The wrath of Gort is avoided only because one woman has faith in Klaatu to believe that the mysterious message he told her would stop Gort isn’t in reality a secret message that unleashes even more destructive power upon mankind.
