MTV spoke with Scott Derrickson, director of the upcoming remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, which stars Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, a humanoid alien that visits Earth along with his protective robot Gort.
Very early on in development, there were reports that the iconic Gort would not appear in the film, but in earlier this year, Reeves confirmed the robot’s appearance, stating that Gort would “be a different version from 1951 robot.” Gort can be seen, very quickly, in the very last frame of the teaser trailer (see ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ Teaser Trailer).
Derrickson says that, ultimately, Gort’s new design was intentionally made to look like the original.
“It was intentional,” Derrickson said. “I certainly took a lot of time to explore other possibilities. It wasn’t just a foregone conclusion in my mind that we would be sticking to the original…. You have to also just have some respect for Gort. Gort is Gort. There’s no question what we designed pays homage to the original.”
There’s also the issue of the remake’s message. While Klaatu’s message in the Cold War-era original was for humans to cease warring or be destroyed, in the remake, his purpose is of an environmental nature. Reeves had said that Klaatu’s warning to Earth was to stop destroying the environment, but in the trailer, we can see what looks like Earth being destroyed. Derrickson said that his film “is an attempt to address a number of issues that are amongst the most pressing issues for the human race.”
There is certainly the issue being addressed in the movie of our treatment of one another on the planet. I think it’s a movie about human nature as much as anything else and how human nature is acting itself out in the world right now.”
Derrickson also talks about how Reeve’s plays Klaatu, as well as how Jennifer Connelly handles her character — Helen, now a microbiologist and professor at Princeton University — in this modern-day version. Lastly, Derrickson speaks to the original film’s Christ allegory and how it plays out in his film. Check out the entire interview over at MTV.
