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Day The Earth Stood Still: 3-Disc Special Edition (The)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (1st June 2009). |
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The Film
 After Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006) a number of studios seemed to be more open to films that promoted environmental themes more heavily, building upon the trend of becoming a more green society into the messages that would take place in films. By 2008, three major blockbuster films seemed to take this green sentiment to heart, ranging from the children’s animated epic “WALL•E” (2008), to the PG-13 “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (2008), and M. Night Shyamalan's first R-rated film “The Happening” (2008). All three seemed to attack the question of what the future would look like if the rates of technological development at the expense of the environment continued to occur, attacking it in three fairly separate ways, but all simultaneously taking up the wonderful ability of science fiction to function as a source of social commentary by engaging a more otherworldly premise. Of course, the most effective and best of the trio is undoubtably “WALL•E” as it can hit all ages without trying to be too condescending or skirting the issue too much. When it comes to “The Happening” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still” it becomes more of an interesting dispute, since “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is based on the 1951 film of the same name and “The Happening” is trying to translate that kind of 50’s B-horror into a modern framework. Unfortunately for this film, “The Happening” manages to hit more on that bizarre sort of attempt at terror in a threat that puts a small core group of protagonists at bizarre odds without having to be too effects heavy or underplay the situation either. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” tries to turn the more classic, “The Twilight Zone” (1959-1964) esque premise into a blockbuster that suffers at the hands of it’s own budget, pushing too far into huge scale effects shots that seem to take away from the story it’s putting out, combined with some missteps in writing and directing that just bring it down a notch. Like the original story it’s based on, the film focuses on the arrival of a mysterious alien ship with a single passenger, Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) making his arrival only to be shot and attacked by the paranoid military forces that surround his arrival. Taken into government custody, the strange alien form slowly morphs into a more recognizable Keanu, and is taken to be interrogated by the government in order to discern his intent. Dr. Michael Grainer (Jon Hamm), leader of the scientists that have studied and waited for Klaatu’s arrival, until Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) agrees to sedate Klaatu for transport, only to inject him with saline to give him a chance to escape. After being taken into a lone interrogation room, Klaatu quickly escapes into the regular world and begins to observe the other humans, soon rejoining with Dr. Benson as she attempts to figure out his motives and he looks to accomplish the mission he was sent to earth to perform. The film seems to hesitate between creating a new film from the original production and trying to mirror it, building Klaatu as a more vengeful character that comes to warn Earth, rather than Keanu who comes to judge it. Some scenes actually work better than I thought, with the meeting between Professor Barnhardt (John Cleese) and Klaatu holding similarity to the original with some newer interesting points to be made. However the commitment to the film's message is a little in doubt, trying to leave the audience with a question at the end of where it will go, rather than trying to look at people recovering from the disaster or giving a huge message moment, opting for a huge effects sequence instead of speeches or dialogue. In terms of the actors that have been brought on, it definitely represents the larger budget sensation that it was intended to be rather than a more writing focus piece (though apparently the film’s production came through the writer’s strike, meaning the script got frozen rather than being available to rewrites by actual writers). Keanu is believable as an alien, bringing some blank faced enjoyment to his role, but is nothing terribly special. Connelly looks the exact same way she has for the past 10 or more years, and doesn’t do a bad job acting, but her character could have used more depth. Similarly, Hamm’s fairly walk-on role in the film is most memorable, though likely only if you’re a big fan of “Mad Men” (2007) and want to see Don Draper in scientist mode. Overall, “The Day The Earth Stood Still” doesn’t live up to it’s predecessor, though it can’t really be expected considering the differing political situations as the message would have changed. I appreciate the writers trying to use the same sort of concept to build towards a new commentary, but it gets lost in the special effects budget of the movie that gets more towards trying to create a new set of “Independence Day” (1996) style sequences that just don’t fully commit to the absurdity like “ID4” or the message like the original would. It’s not nearly as terrible as I expected, but nothing special enough to crate a legacy that could set it apart from just being heckled as the remake of the 1951 classic.
Video
Presented in 2.35:1 widescreen in 1080p 24/fps with AVC MPEG-4 encoding at 26.4 MBPS, the film itself looks clear and crisp, but almost to it’s detriment, some parts of the CG in the effects sequences already look a bit dated and not as clean as they should based on how clean the rest of the images look. The small aliens and the dust that’s left behind by the nano-cloud have a level of cheesiness and poor quality that the film just doesn’t have the charm to pull off.
Audio
Like the blockbuster it is, the film is presented with English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixed at 48kHz/24-bit, there are also optional French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. The DTS-HD audio brings through the film’s score and sound effects incredibly well, though not even nearing the same kind of composition that the original had. The score is fairly forgettable, but technically the soundtrack works well for what it is and has the right sort of movement for the blockbuster that it is. There are English for the hearing impaired, Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese, Korean and Mandarin Subtitles.
Extras
The 3-Disc 'Special Edition' includes a good collection of special features related to this current release on the first disc, including an audio commentary, deleted scenes, a documentary, 3 featurettes, still galleries, theatrical trailer, bonus trailers as well as exclusive extras such as two picture-in-picture commentaries, an interactive feature, a digital copy of the film, plus the original version of the film. DISC ONE: First is the audio commentary with screenwriter David Scarpa, who does a good job of talking about the making of the film and his hand in creating the script. However, despite some interesting facts about the production of the film, there are so many pauses and gaps in his commentary that sometimes you can forget whether or not he’s actually there, I would rather that Scarpa try to deal with what’s on the screen as it’s coming or dealing with what went into the film, rather than simply let the pauses and drops happen. Next is “Klaatu’s Unseen Artifacts: ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’" Picture-in-Picture commentary which runs during the film and will pop up occasionally with some previsulization material or production stills that go through some of the making of the film as you watch. There’s also a "Storyboard" Picture-in-Picture commentary track that plays with the film. “Build Your Own Gort” is an interactive feature that allows the viewer to create their own GORT robot/nanocloud thing out of some of the previsualized forms for the robot. There are just 3 deleted scenes in total, described below: - “Equipment is Issued to the Scientists” runs for 22 seconds, the scientists get their equipment. - “Helen and Grainer Discuss the Shot”runs for 16 seconds, Grainer and Benson bring up sedating Klaatu briefly. - “Extended Version of Klaatu Being Wheeled Down Hallway” runs for 1 minute and 18 seconds, just some added in shots of Klaatu in a wheel chair headed towards interrogation. “Re-imagining ‘The Day’” runs for 30 minutes and 6 seconds, labeled on the disc’s cover as a making-of documentary, it’s more towards featurette length, but manages to go through the original film and the production of the film itself, with all of the major players in the current film weighing in on the original. It’s not a terrible featurette that spends enough time acknowledging the original to get at the current film, while also using a lot of interviews and on set footage to really try and link the two together while bringing in some good discussion of why they did things in certain ways on this new version. “Unleashing Gort” runs for 13 minutes and 52 seconds, this featurette deals with the production design surrounding this revamped version of GORT. It’s interesting hearing about how GORT evolved in the script, originally referred to as ‘The Idol,’ while also talking with production designers and showing many of the conceptual work and production stills. It seems like there are a bunch of in-between steps to simply come up with a design that almost exactly mirrors the original. “Watching the Skies: In Search of Extraterrestrial Life” runs for 23 minutes and 8 seconds. In this featurette, a bunch of scientists and enthusiasts come together to pontificate over the potential for extraterrestrial life. It feels more like a History channel special, or something you would watch in class when the substitute teacher wanted to hide away from actually talking with the class. Still, it brings some interesting points and pulls together some actual scientific figures to talk about the idea of life and what forms it would take in the larger sense of the universe. “The Day the Earth Was Green” runs for 14 minutes and 4 seconds. This final featurette talks about the green and environmental message of the film, talking about the film’s overall conclusion as well as a larger commentary from cast and crew about the need for environmental change and reconsideration. At the same time much of it feels like almost an ad for Fox production studios in it’s attempts to create an environmentally friendly blockbuster in terms of it’s production and it’s environmental impact in putting together the film. Next are 3 still galleries: - “Concept Art” contains 236 images. - “Storyboards” contains every storyboard for the entire film, much like the Picture-in-Picture Commentary track from earlier. - “Production Photos” contains 410 images. The theatrical trailer runs for 1 minute and 48 seconds. Bonus trailers on this disc are: - “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” runs for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. - “Quantum of Solace” runs for 2 minutes and 22 seconds. - “Australia” runs for 1 minute and 32 seconds. - “Taken” runs for 1 minutes and 46 seconds. DISC THREE: This is simply a digital copy of the film. DISC THREE: This disc is a nice toutch in putting in the original version of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951), but incredibly disappointing considering it’s just a movie of the disc without any of the special features from the DVD or Blu-Ray editions that have already been released.
Overall
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