Film Friday: The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008)

This film is the greatest film of all time. You must see this film. Indeed, they should force school children to watch it. Forget the original, the new The Day The Earth Stood Still, staring Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, imparts just the kinds of values we need in this horrible, capitalist world.

** spoiler alert **

The Day The Earth Stood Still begins when the fascist pigs grab Demi Moore... er, Jennifer Connelly. Connelly plays a scientist, but the good kind. She doesn’t make weapons or work for the military industrial complex or for evil corporations, she works at a nice northeastern university. And her students love her! Oh she’s wonderful. She’s a liberal who speaks her mind. She speaks truth to power, she drives a Prius (actually it’s a Honda but it looks like a Prius), and she’s raising a little African-American child (his father died in one of George Bush’s wars).

What? Oh no no, he wasn’t that kind of soldier, Dr. Jennifer never would have married that kind of soldier. He was an engineer. He went “over there to build” stuff. And while they don’t specifically tell us what he was building, I’m sure it was schools, not roads or power plants or oil refiners or other environmentally unfriendly structures.

Anyway, the kid. . . I don’t recall his name, but it doesn’t matter. He’s so gosh darn cute! He’s like a young Obama! The moment I saw him, I said, man I hope he saves us all. But, as I said, before we get to little Obama, the film begins with the fascists. After the fascists grab Dr. Jennifer, we learn that a spaceship is headed straight for New York City. In addition to Dr. Jennifer, the fascists have grabbed a rainbow coalition of scientists. I think the fascists are trying to kill this rainbow coalition because they're taking them to New York City and we're told the spacecraft is moving so fast it will wipe out New York City. So when the evil military claims it wants these scientists to “observe” the million megaton-explosion from the air. . . a few hundred feet above the city, I can only assume this is a complex attempt to kill these scientist. Isn't that just like the military?

Anyway, the ship turns out to be a huge glowing marble. From the marble comes a creature. And just as Dr. Jennifer walks up to it to speak to it, an evil soldier shoots the creature. Long story short, it turns out to be Al Gore. OMG he plays this role perfectly -- he wanders around like a wooden robot saying amazing things so prophetic I honestly had a hard time understanding them. I felt I learned so much watching him in this film. Al Gore wants to speak to our leaders at the United Nations, but Hillary Clinton won’t let him. She's the Secretary of Defense and she's rotten. She's no Dick Cheney, but she's no Obama either.

Dr. Jennifer helps Al Gore escape and they ride around the country in her Prius. Al Gore meets some old Chinese dude who turns out to be one of Al Gore’s people. He says we’re an evil race and we can’t change, so while he loves us, we need to be exterminated. Al Gore agrees. Al Gore then goes to a swamp in New Jersey where he finds a glowing bubble that isn’t radioactive waste. When he touches it, some of the animals on the planet get transported into space. Al Gore then explains that the world has reached a tipping point and evil humans are on the verge of permanently destroying the planet. So he’s come to wipe us out to protect the Earth, because it’s one of the few planets in the universe that can sustain life.

Meanwhile, there’s this evil general or colonel. I’m not sure which. He’s got a moustache which reminds me of the old West, or that guy from the Village People, and I think he keeps yelling “yee haw!” and “kill it” but that could be my imagination. He tries several times to blow up Al Gore’s marble in New York because that's exactly what the military would do -- try to destroy an alien race for no reason whatsoever! I hate them so much.

In the process of trying to destroy a robot that came with Al Gore, the military unleashes a killer storm of metallic insects from inside the robot that eat everything. Al Gore explains to Dr. Jennifer (after a quick visit with Dr. John Cleese), that there is nothing he can do. And then the miracle happens. The fascists capture Dr. Jennifer, leaving Al Gore with little Obama. Little Obama explains that while he originally wanted to kill Al Gore when he first saw him, because he thought Al Gore was a danger, he no longer wants to kill Al Gore now that he realizes that Al Gore means us no harm and has no choice but to kill us.

Weeeeeellll, this little admission was all it took for Al Gore to see the error of his ways. He now decides not to destroy the human race. At first, I felt let down by this. But then Al Gore promised there would be a price! Long story short, Al Gore stops the insects and saves us all. But to do so, he wipes out all of mankind’s evil mechanical creations. No more cars, no more machines, no loud ambulances or fire trucks, no more trains or ships delivering "goods" and "food" to evil consumers. I don’t know what happened to the airplanes, but I guess they all landed ok.

In the end, you can’t help but feel hopeful for the future! This was an environmentalist dream come true, a super race come to save the planet from us and show us a better way! Dare I say, it almost felt enviro-pornographic! Oh, it was beautiful.

Wait a minute. . .

While it is true there would be no Starbucks anymore, there also wouldn’t be any food staples. Hmm. Mass starvation is no big deal, I guess. After all, they’re only humans. But those hungry humans are going to eat every animal they can find. And without all of the machinery to help them, they’re going to need a lot more farmland to survive. Shoot. That means they’re going to cut down the forests. . . at least those that are left after they cut down all the trees for firewood. Wow, that’s a lot of carbon that’s going to be released. I’ll bet they won’t even worry about the delta smelt! And what about nationalized health care? There really won’t be any health care. Even things like antibiotics will only be available to the lucky few who know the right kind of doctor that they can barter with.

That sucks.

You know what? Now that I think about it, this film sucked too. Wooden acting (if you can call it acting), a pathetic plot that made little sense, constant blasting of the same liberal bullsh*t message, indifferent sets, effects and costuming, contradictions galore, and it will bore you to tears.

Up yours Al Gore.