In 1940, Harry Bates’ story Farewell to the Master was published.
(Picture from here.)
The story is relatively short and simple. Two aliens visit Earth: Klaatu and Gnut. Klaatu is a beautiful human being and Gnut is a large robot. Klaatu is subsequently killed by a lunatic and buried. Gnut remains by the ship but at night goes inside. Eventually, he’s found out by a reporter who discovers Gnut is trying to restore Klaatu. The reporter tries to impress on Gnut that his master’s death was a terrible accident. Gnut replies, “You misunderstand. I am the master.”
This was the basis of two interesting SF films. The first, 1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, and its remake in 2008. Both films share the idea of an alien visiting Earth because of Earth’s human failures.
I’ve been thinking for a long time that it’s unreasonable for aliens to visit Earth. There can be only two reasons: we’re a threat or they want something. (There might be a lot of reasons aliens might want to move here. We do live on valuable real estate, after all.)
The problem is there is a tension between the value and cost of making the trip. A lot of SF stories suggest they’re coming here for our “resources.” What resources is never explained but the usual definition might be mining (Independence Day), or water (The Man Who Fell to Earth), or our flesh. (To Serve Man.) The problem is that the technology that would be necessary to get here is also sufficient to get those resources much, much cheaper. Except, maybe, for the flesh. We might be really tasty. Who knows?
So, whatever they might come here for it has to be worth the trip.
In the 1951 version, the problem is the threat posed by Earth taking nuclear weapons into space. In galactic society, aggression control has been given over to robots. They keep the peace. I’ve always found this interesting in a film that machines are more trustworthy than humans. It’s not a new idea—Asimov Multivac stories explored the idea that computers might know what’s better for humans than humans did. Given the way things have been happening in the early twenty-first century, it’s hard to disagree.
The antithesis of this concept is the nefarious computer or nefarious robot. The original R.U.R. considered robots as slaves rebelling against slavery—close but not quite. The earliest “realistic” exploration of this I would argue is Jack Williamson’s The Humanoids, where the robots are perfect and leave humans with nothing to do.
So, Klaatu comes to Earth, Gnut—now Gort—in hand to reason with human beings regarding the threat they’re representing. And gets shot. I mean this happens in the first ten minutes.
He’s wounded and taken to a hospital where he recovers—miraculously due to a salve. Purveyors of CBD ointments take note—and tries to get himself heard at the United Nations. Our government refuses. Things are, as they say, complicated.
Klaatu escapes and acts like a normal human being trying to understand them. There’s a long attempt where he’s trying to talk to scientists and demonstrates his power—and mercy—by stopping electrical systems across the world except for essential systems like hospitals and airplanes. He’s discovered. Shot again, this time fatally. But before he dies, he commissions his new friend to go to Gort and give him code words to prevent Gort from destroying the world.
Gort finds his body. Brings him back to the ship and brings him back to life. Klaatu gives a speech about the problem human beings have with war—and Gort as the solution—gets into his ship and leaves.
There are two things very interesting in this film: 1) Humans are at fault here from the first moments in the film to the end. Klaatu—and the culture he represents here—are trying to head off the problem of humans. Hopefully, peacefully. Klaatu sort of likes people by the end, even though they’ve shot him twice. But if humans don’t disarm, Klaatu would regretfully obliterate them. He might even shed a discrete tear later.
The other interesting thing here is Klaatu and his culture have without any apparent regret given up a significant amount of control to machines. They are not afraid that Gort and Company are going to do them harm. They trust the robots and the robots have not let them down. Again, in 1951 with nuclear annihilation on the horizon, this might have seemed a good bet.
So, in the value/cost equation, the value in trying to end the threat outweighs the cost of getting there. The Earth, and the humans, have little of value in and of themselves.
The 2008 film is a bit different.
It has a similar structure. Klaatu and Gort come to earth. Klaatu gets shot but prevents Gort from retaliating. There’s no mention of Gort and Company ruling the galaxy (as father and son, I suppose?) as in the 1951 film but there is a side statement that Gort is activated by violence.
Just as in the 1951 film, Klaatu is taken to a hospital and essentially imprisoned. He escapes with ease and ends up impressing Helen Benson, an astrobiologist pulled in with the examining team, into his cause. She does so on the intuition that somebody better treat Klaatu right or there’s going to be hell to pay. She brings along her son, too.
It turns out there was an earlier envoy years before named Mister Wu. (Played brilliantly, as always, by James Hong.) This envoy describes humans as destructive, stubborn, and unwilling to change. Even so, he has come to love them and will stay and die with them.
It is at this point we discover the mission Klaatu is on: he is trying to save the Earth from humans.
This brings up the value part of the equation: Earth’s biological immensity is rare and of value to Klaatu’s culture.
I felt a wee bit of vindication when I heard this because of all of the “resources” Earth has, this is the one that is actually potent. Earth has a biological depth of 3.5 billion years. Living organisms now have embedded in them the cumulative biological knowledge of that deep time. I would go so far as to say that if there was anything that Earth could serve up as valuable to the rest of the universe, it is that.
In this respect, Klaatu (2008) is different from Klaatu (1951.) Klaatu 1951 is presenting Earth with a choice. The wrong choice will be bad but Earth people get to make it. Klaatu (2008) has already made that choice. Humans are to be wiped out. Anything that needs to be preserved (animals, plants, etc.) prior to the destruction is taken away. Then, Gort dissolves into nano-insects that feed on anything human (including humans) creating more nano-insects. The imagery of vast clouds of alien locusts is stunning
.
Klaatu (1951) leaves with a deeper understanding of huma beings but it does not sway him from his course. Klaatu (2008) is the instrument of human destruction and it is up to Helen Benson and her son to take the counterargument first presented by Mister Wu and convince Klaatu (2008) of human value.
She does, barely, and Klaatu turns off the nano-bugs and leaves. Though, there is great destruction left in his wake and the electricity is off.
Both of these films are moral lectures. Klaatu (1951) on the horrors of nuclear war. Klaatu (2008) on the horrors of ecocide. Both of them posit that human beings are not particularly high on the value scale. Both leave a change or die message.
There’s a messianic tinge to both films. There are explicit God references in both. The title, The Day the Earth Stood Still, is, I think, a clear reference to Joshua 10:1-15 where Joshua stops the sun and moon. Joshua did it in furtherance of war, so the title is perhaps disingenuous. Klaatu (1951) dies and is resurrected—something that apparently gave the censors (Ahem. The MPAA) heartburn, so he makes a reference to the “Almighty Spirit.” In both cases, there is a problem recognized by the writers and a fervent wish to be rescued.
One of my favorite scenes in Independence Day is the scene on the top of the skyscraper in Los Angeles just prior to its destruction where there is a crowd of welcomers. One sign says: Rescue Us!
Many SF films have humans fighting off a threat of one sort or another. Either it’s aliens, mutated bugs, or our political/corporate masters. Both of these films explicitly state that humans—not our institutions, parties, religions, clans, or cultures—are the problem. At the root. And that we have to change.
I think this message is important. We evolved to get here through a series of our own decisions, values, and conflicts. That past has made us who we are—and served to get us here.
It’s not at all clear it will get us further.
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