THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (2008)

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Scott Derrickson, dir. David Scarpa (script), from Edmund H. North's 1951 script. [Ultimately based on Harry Bates's "Farewell to the Master," not credited on IMDb listing of WGA writing credits.]) USA: Earth Canada Productions, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. (prod.) / 20th Century Fox et al. (dist.), 2008. See IMDb full credits for long lists of SpFx and Visual Effects contributors.

A remake of the 1951 classic SF film, q.v. The robot Gort is back, scary as ever and moving more smoothly, less "robotically," and looking slightly more realistically humanoid, if more pumped-up and macho. Gort and Klaatu are more destructive than in earlier versions, and the method of the most serious destruction is significant. In keeping with the environmental message—the threat to the Earth is humankind—the weapon Gort uses is a swarm of very small insectoid miniature robots (Gort "mini-Me's"?; more likely metallic locusts, as noted on NPR.[1]). The mini-robots appear to be self-replicating "von Neumann machines"; cf. and contrast 2010 as film and novel, for mostly positive von Neumann machines; cf. and contrast the swarm in Stanislaw Lem's "The Upside-Down Evolution" (English trans. copyright 1986) and the robotic or nanotech "swarm" motif thereafter.[2]

RDE, Title, 20Aug19