 |
| Martians like young children; their robots like our women. |
Before I saw it when I was about ten years old, I had long heard how this classic Sci-Fi film was among the best because of its timely moral lesson. Okay.... I suppose... But...
Some creepy alien comes to earth, tries to blend in, ignores the man-hungry single Mom living in the same boarding house he has taken, but gets very attached to her young ten year old boy, Bobby. Whenever adults show up, he is in Bobby's room, or just back from spending the day with Bobby. Then they find he is leaving diamonds as little gifts in the boys bedroom. Yet, when he gets gunned down by a fifty caliber machine gun, the moment is filmed as if poignant, instead of a climatically fortunate end.
 |
| Got him! |
To Bobby's Mom, "I saw Bobby this morning before he went to school. I want to know if he told you anything about... last night... and did you believe him?" The Lord alone knows how many times Michael Jackson spoke those very words.
The moral I have learned? I'm shooting the first alien I see.
Then...
Mysteriously, he tells someone that he just traveled from his planet for five months, and covering about a quarter of a billion miles. That would be about the distance for an energy-efficient route from Mars to Earth. Some mystery. Newton, I think, figured that out.
Then, he explains that he has come to put a stop to human wars or else he and his morally superior people will declare war on us. Mull that over. Like I said, I am shooting the first alien I see.
After insuring any alien has been appropriately dispatched, then I am saying, "Klaatu, barada nikto." It seems to disarm their so-powerful-they-can-destroy-worlds robots.
 |
| Kind of hard to see in here. |
By the way, watch the robot, Gort, after he kidnaps the Mom and takes her inside the ship. When he leaves to go get Klaatu (Mr. Carpenter), a door opens and he uses his right hand to feel for the doorway. Apparently, the actor in the suit had smacked the wall a few times before they got a take.
