Friday, the sci-fi movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” opened in theaters throughout the United States, raising some questions about human nature, the extinction of humanity and the possibility of becoming better people.

The production is a remake of the 1951 film, in which alien Klaatu and gigantic robot Gort come to warn human kind that they have brought Earth to the point where all other living beings run the risk of disappearing off the face of the planet.

Now, panic, fear and the brooding feeling of an apocalypse approaching take over mankind when Keanu Reeves, who portrays Klaatu in the 2008 movie, lands his spacecraft prepared to take humans’ fate in his hands.

Unlike in the original movie, the alien in the remake is given both the power of the judge and of the executioner of human kind, since he is the one to decide whether man should continue to exist and inflict pain upon animal life and bring further destruction upon Earth.

Nevertheless, Klaatu chooses to explain people why he is planning to exterminate them, in the hope that maybe they would come around and change. Unfortunately, only one human is willing to listen, an expert in astrobiology called Dr. Helen Benson. The latter, played by Jennifer Connelly, is part of a team of scientists taken into government custody against their will when a giant orb appears to be nearing an impending crash into Earth.

Still, the spaceship actually lands in Central Park, delivering Klaatu and his giant robotic counterpart to our planet.

Under the threat of being annihilated, the Secretary of defense takes the military force course of action, which only goes to prove that humanity has been deeply corrupted by violence and brutality.

But Benson, in her attempt to save mankind from extinction, pledges to Klaatu that humans can really change and even tries to prove that to him, by taking the alien to see her mentor, Professor Barnhardt. The latter is a scientist who listens to Bach and has even been awarded the Nobel Prize for „altruistic biology,” who in his wisdom, tells Helen she should convince Klaatu not to bring the world to an end with herself, and not through the power of reason.

If the original movie aimed to draw attention to the terrible aftermath of wars, which threaten to destroy the planet and all its living creatures, the 2008 „The Day the Earth Stood Still” switches focus to a more ecological message, by emphasizing the harm done by humans to animals and the surrounding environment.

Directed by Scott Derrickson, with a script written by David Scarpa and based on the screenplay by Edmund H. North, the almost two hours long production also stars John Cleese as Professor Barnhardt, Jaden Smith as Helen Benson’s stepson Jacob and Kathy Bates in the role of Secretary of defense Regina Jackson.

The original movie was directed by Robert Wise and it starred Michael Rennie (Klaatu), Patricia Neal (Helen Benson) and Sam Jaffe as Jacob Barnhardt.