The Day the Earth Stood Still
Or so it seems. Whereas both of them suffer horribly from overload of testosterone, I see an incredible beauty in Western stories now that I have seen some of John Ford’s beginnings. My background with Western is very weird though – most of it comes from reading Disney parodies (these Donald Duck in the Wild West stories in the Lustiges Taschenbuch), but I barely have seen any actual Western films.
With science-fiction it’s pretty much the other way around: I have seen a few of the classics very early and perhaps my first genre-crush in terms of books was, in fact, dystopian science-fiction. But most science-fiction is actually not very good, and there is a big difference between those that are thoughtful mind games and others which are only supposed to tell a story – unfortunately often in a very shitty way. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” probably had the silliest message I have ever seen in science-fiction, and while it beautifully appeals the every human’s most superficial wish – peace on this world – I don’t think this film has any valuable contribution to that. Even though the aforementioned wish is universal, the way the message was carried out and the context of WWII which just ended are enough for me to find this film to be awfully dated. (The bad special effects don’t help either, but normally I find those to be rather cate.)
Ultimately it is a good story, and most of all, I have actually enjoyed the alien’s friendship with the little boy, as random as it might sound. I know that this film is something of a cult and many people have grown up with it, but as for myself, I hope it is going to be a relic from the past like certain 80’s films as well.