Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is Not an Alien Invasion Film: A Re-Evaluation of the Filmic Evidence

Marginally inspired by the short story, Farewell to the Master by Bates (Citation1940), scripted by Edmund H. North, and directed by Robert Wise, The Day the Earth Stood Still (Citation1951) is a much-loved American science fiction (sf) classic shaped by producer, Julian Blaustein (Ceplair Citation2009). Its storyline posited a humanoid alien, Klaatu (Michael Rennie), visiting Earth in an impressive saucer-shaped spaceship, alongside Gort (Lock Martin), a faceless, voiceless, robotic policeman-companion, for official first-contact purposes. Klaatu is the extraterrestrial emissary of an interplanetary Federation of peaceful planets on a watershed mission of vital importance to the future of humanity. He landed his glowing spacecraft in broad daylight on a public baseball field near the White House and emerged non-threateningly from its ascetic interior. Standing on the saucer’s rim, and in clear English, he espoused his peace-and-good-will intention via enunciator-amplified voice (with a ‘greetings’ hand gesture), then slowly descended its retractable ramp and attempted to gift an intergalactic communications device to the American President as a Federation peace-offering...