APOCALYPSE NOW SPOILER EXCELLENT ALERT! Keanu plays Klaatu ro*pul”sive\, a. Tending, or more propulsive when I came onboard.” having power, to propel; driv- – David Scarpa (screenwriter, The Day The in a remake of sci-fi ing on; urging. Examples: Earth Stood Still). classic The Day The “[The] propulsive move- And there you have it: after thumbing ment of the verse.” through their copy of Webster’s Revised Earth Stood Still. Can – Samuel Taylor Coleridge Unabridged Dictionary, 20th Century Fox Neo save the world, (Brit. poet-philosopher); had found their official, speak-and-repeat “This film is a propulsive mantra for the studio’s remake of the again? And can he save drama.” – Scott Derrickson ’50s sci-fi classic. Propulsive is not an (American director, The Day adjective you’ve likely heard attributed to a $100m blockbuster The Earth Stood Still); “[20th a massive Hollywood tentpole, but it’s got from fanboy wrath? Century Fox head] Tom Rothman told me an enigmatic ring to it and is undoubtedly he wanted to make a propulsive remake.” – being trotted out to convince all those Keanu Reeves (Neo). One more, in case it pesky reboot sceptics that The Day The WORDS MATT MUELLER hasn’t sunk in: “They wanted to make it Earth Stood Still ’08 has shed the shackles TFM148.feat_earth 68 8/10/08 3:52:6 pm ADVENTURE...OR BOGUS JOURNEY? of its predecessor to become an urgent, which Gort is called Gnut, there’s no busty the story for these times. That alone made modern event flick. temptress for Klaatu to bond with and it a reasonable film to remake.” Brimming with Cold War anxiety and the much-celebrated phrase “Klaatu barada “It’s a movie that’s very much of its uncanny relevance, Robert Wise’s 1951 nikto” was non-existent). time,” argues Jennifer Connelly, cast as the original is considered sacrosanct in sci-fi “It’s surprising how many people have scientist who gives Klaatu his invaluable circles. So why mess with it? not seen the original, even cinephiles. It’s lessons in human behaviour. “It’s 57 years “I asked myself the same question,” not like The Wizard Of Oz, a movie that later so hopefully this version can speak to admits Reeves, bringing his A-list sheen to everybody has seen,” argues Derrickson. “I’m who we are now and how we live with each the role of alien emissary Klaatu. Never like most people in that I don’t have an other and what we do to the Earth.” mind that the original film was draped in overall feeling of blessing for the idea of What still resonates from Wise’s wise B-movie chintz and rife with rusty, talky remaking films, especially classics. But my and beloved anti-war parable is the eerie storytelling. And never mind that Wise feelings go on a case by case basis and when mirror it holds up to humanity (“There had taken his own liberties in adapting they approached me, I felt like I could see must be security for all, or no one is secure,” Farewell To The Master, the short story by a really worthy remake that was faithful to admonishes Klaatu). Which is why Fox has Harry Bates that Earth was based on (in the spirit of the original and that updated been making a concerted attempt to >> TFM148.feat_earth 69 8/10/08 3:52:15 pm APOCALYPSE NOW reinvent it for a new generation since the he became humankind’s liberator, in The Day DC and have Tom Cruise or Keanu Reeves late ’70s, when they hired Ray Bradbury The Earth Stood Still he’s a disapproving walk out – people are gonna start cracking to pen a draft. It took the studio another galaxial headmaster, come to Earth to warn up,” contends Scarpa, who says he “cooked 30 years, however, to find the right creative us environmentally destructive earthlings up” the lie detector scene highlighted in the team to drag Earth into the 21st Century. that we’d better get our house in order or the trailer to convince Keanu to commit. What Somewhat surprisingly, that would be universe’s other civilisations aren’t just going walks out of the ship is an alien “much like Derrickson – a 39-year-old director with to put us over their knee and give us a aliens we’ve all seen in movies,” says Scarpa. several genre scripts (including Universal’s spanking – they’re going to wipe us off the But when the alien is shot – adhering to planned remake of The Birds) and one face of our own planet. “Basically if you don’t the original film – it incubates into human iffy directing credit (The Exorcism Of Emily change your ways,” explains Reeves of Klaatu’s form, cracking open to reveal Keanu. Rose) to his name – and writer David Scarpa, interplanetary mission, “you won’t have to Once on board and at his own suggestion, whose contribution to cinema is confined kill yourselves – I’ll take care of it for you.” Reeves hunkered down in a “nasty little” to The Last Castle script. conference room with both Derrickson and “Fox were so tapped out when they KLAATU RELOADED Scarpa for weeks, poring over the script line approached me that they didn’t have any The idea to capitalise on Reeves’ arguably by line. “I didn’t know what to expect getting preconceptions about how to approach it,” alien-like countenance came from the into that,” confesses the director, “but he avows Scarpa, who got the offer while actor’s own manager (since the age of 16), turned out to be an insightful storyteller and, In action: Hurricane Katrina was busy levelling New Erwin Stoff, who’s also a producer on the to my delight, he was completely unconcerned Scott Orleans. “I’m sitting there on the phone film. Fox had originally planned to mimic with accentuating his role. It was focused on Derrickson on set of with my agent and I’m looking at this the original by casting a female star as the storytelling, which took on a linear The Day God’s-eye view of New Orleans on the front Helen and finding a relative unknown to muscularity. He brought real clarity to The Earth page of the LA Times and I’m thinking, portray Klaatu (respectively, Patricia Neal Klaatu’s mission and thought processes.” Stood Still. ‘This might resonate today, and British stage thesp Michael Rennie Among various renovations, Connelly this idea that we’ve gotten to in 1951). Unsurprisingly, Reeves took some has been updated from a dating single a place where we’ve screwed convincing: “He knew what the potential mother to a brilliant microbiologist who up so badly that this universal pitfalls were. We spent hours in my yard helps Klaatu understand the human race parent is going to smack us.’” talking it over,” says Derrickson. “One time (and bargains for our survival). The goofy Not a moment too soon, he came in and my four-year-old son was kid has morphed into Helen’s rebellious this new Earth marks the like, ‘Hi Keanu!’ I was like, ‘Wow, he’s really stepson (played by Jaden Smith), whose return of Reeves as cinema’s spending a lot of time over here.’” father was killed in Iraq, while the aliens sci-fi saviour. Whereas in There was a slight problem, though: “You now travel in spherical orbs rather than The Matrix and its sequels, can’t have a spaceship land in Washington those hackneyed flying saucers. YOU JUST BUY THAT KEANUS AN ALIEN SCOTT DERRICKSON TFM148.feat_earth 70 8/10/08 3:52:25 pm Nuclear-armageddon goosebumps may no longer be the key issue afflicting the day, but this Earth’s deeper theme is man’s propensity to fuck it all up for himself – whether it be with violent aggression or polluting the planet through resource- wasting avarice. In the 2008 version, it’s environmental – not atomic – catastrophe that Klaatu warns is endangering humans. “At one point, Keanu’s character says to Professor Barnhardt [John Cleese], ‘You treat the world as you treat each other,’” says Connelly. “And how is it that we treat the world and each other? Is it sustainable? Is a secret. You think you’re in control, you like interstellar cop, towering over humans it responsible? Is it ethical?” think you’re empowered because I’m sitting at a whopping eight feet tall. But, as creepy “My character says that he’s a friend of here or I’m tied up, but it’s an illusion.” and terrifying as he no doubt was to ’50s the Earth and he means just that,” declares “I don’t think it’s easy for him,” observes moviegoers, that wasn’t going to get the Reeves. “He’s saying man’s impact on the Derrickson. “For some actors it’s really job done in 2008. But trying to work out planet is getting to such a state that you natural and easy, but he has to be very the best way to manifest Gort for the new have to change or it’s going to disappear. focused at all times to do his best work. millennium is where Derrickson and Fox You or the planet. He says, ‘You guys are He didn’t need a lot of input from me – he nearly came a cropper, particularly when great, but you’re not worth a planet.’” figured out on his own how to make the a Scarpa draft that depicted the robot as Hmm, some friend… Klaatu is made of character work and how to communicate a four-legged machine called Totem that much sterner stuff this time round.