THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Robert Wise, dir. USA: 20th Century Fox, 1951.

Possibly the classic SF film featuring a robot. Based on H. Bates's "Farewell to the Master" (q.v. under Fiction) but without the story's final revelation that the robot is the master and the "man" the creature. See for duality of robot as both servant and threat. Discussed by Sobchack in The Limits of Infinity.[1]

In his review of The Philosophy of Science Fiction Film (Lexington, KY: UP of Kentucky, 2008), in SFRA Review #284 (Spring 2008): p. 11),[2] Bruce Beatie cites in that anthology Aeon J. Skoble's "Technology and Ethics in The Day the Earth Stood Still. The essay is available from the author, with a link and very brief abstract (quoted immediately below) at the link here.[3]

Robert Wise's 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still is generally regarded as a classic of science fiction film. At least as a working definition of the genre, I take science fiction to be that branch of literature (and by extension films) that deals with the effects of science or technology on the human condition or that explores the human condition via science. This can include utopian or dystopian future societies, of course, but The Day the Earth Stood Still is set in early 1950s America.

RDE, initial; and finishing 5Jan20