In The Day the Earth Stood Still, the 20th Century Fox contemporary reinvention of the 1951 science fiction classic (additionally screening in IMAX), renowned scientist Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) finds herself face to face with an alien called Klaatu (Keanu Reeves), who travels across the universe to warn of an impending global crisis. When forces beyond Helen’s control treat the extraterrestrial as a hostile and deny his request to address the world’s leaders at the United Nations, she and her estranged stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith) must find a way to convince the entity who was sent to destroy Earth that mankind is still worth saving.

Mankind has long been fascinated by the possibility of life beyond Earth. Science fiction literature and films have served to not only entertain, but to address the questions, hopes and fears about extraterrestrial life. Co-stars Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly, along with director Scott Derrickson, spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about the possibility that we are not alone.

MediaBlvd Magazine> Scott, why did you want to take this sci-fi classic and bring it into the 21^st century?

Scott Derrickson> 20^th Century Fox wanted to do a re-make, and I was the first to sign on to doing it. When I was given the script, I was a bit skeptical. I do love the original very much. It’s one of my two favorite Robert Wise films, the other one being The Haunting. The screenplay certainly still needed work when I read it, but I was struck by the idea that updating this movie had tremendous value because of the original being so rooted in the social issues of its time. It was such an intelligent and interesting, self-reflective commentary, coming from an American studio and an American filmmaker, on the Cold War and the fear of the atomic bomb and the struggle to establish the U.N. -- all things that were controversial and divisive. I loved the idea of being able to basically tell the same story, but bring in these new social issues that we have now. We’ve gotten ourselves into new, interesting messes in the world now. That alone seemed to have value to it and made sense. The other thing was that it’s been 57 years since the first one and you’d better have a good reason to re-make a classic film. I do think there is something different about this film, as opposed to other classics, which are so much more known by the general movie-going audience. There is value to telling this story to the general movie-going population that, for the most part, won’t have seen the original and won’t know that story. That was the motivation. The approach was to try to respect that original and its fan base, and the fact that it is a sacred movie to a lot of people.

Keanu Reeves> I had the same questions about it, and then I heard Scott’s answer and I went, “Okay!” I knew it would be fun to play an alien, and it’s a worthwhile story. That’s when I came onboard.

MediaBlvd> But Klaatu is not fully alien, right?

Keanu> That’s correct. Part of the interesting side of the role was that it starts alien and becomes quite human. Scott> It became an interesting conversation that Keanu and I had quite a bit, during the making of the movie. To what degree is he human? He says his body is human, but where does the body end and the mind begin, and vice-versa. We had to at least work out an understanding for ourselves, of where and how him becoming human was really occurring. That was part of what was fun and interesting about the process of working on that character.

MediaBlvd> Keanu, what did you base your character on?

Keanu> It really came to me through the obligations of the character in the story. It was in the script. That’s really where I worked from. The character has certain cues, like when he’s born and the first time he starts to speak, he tries to drink a glass of water and says, “This body is going to take some getting used to.” It was just the concept of the separation of his consciousness and his body. I just approached it like any other role.

MediaBlvd> The movie is about saving the Earth. What are you guys doing in your personal lives to help the planet?

Keanu> All I can.  I recycle, have a couple of solar panels and do some rainforest conservation. 

Jennifer> It’s similar for me. We drive a Prius. We recycle. We turn off the light switches, when we can. My husband is better at it than I am. 

Scott> We got rid of our SUV and got a hybrid. I also believe those contributions are important, but aren’t, in the end, going to solve the problems. I really like Thomas Friedman, who writes for the New York Times, and his perspective on these issues. I love his statement, “Don’t change the light bulbs, change your leaders.” I think the larger solutions are going to come from larger places.

MediaBlvd> This was Fox’s first Green production. How did that affect things for you, as a director?

Scott> I honestly don’t know all the ins and outs of it. I do know there was a lot of effort that went into making a true Green production. The only effect it had on me, personally, was that it was paperless and, for a director, storyboards became very complicated because they were all digital. I never knew who had what, and there was no notebook to carry around. That became confusing.

MediaBlvd> Jennifer, your character has everything on her shoulders. Helen is basically the human prototype by which Klaatu is going to decide whether we live or die on Earth. Did you feel like playing this character was a huge responsibility?

Jennifer Connelly> Yes. It felt a huge responsibility, but what Scott did is really clever because it’s not just on Helen’s shoulders, in reality. The relationship between Helen and Jacob (Jaden Smith) is employed in a different way than it is in the original film. It really functions like a little microcosm of human nature, and how we are treating each other. They’re in conflict, and then there’s a bit of a crisis, and then there’s a reconciliation and they each take responsibility, and then there’s a movement towards a resolution, and Klaatu observes this. There is that dynamic. There is also the Barnhardt (John Cleese) scene, and other encounters that he has that help shape it. So, that was a little bit of a relief that it wasn’t just me. I wanted people to be able to identify with her and I thought it was important that she, herself, be aware of the enormity of that task. I like that she has a moment with Barnhardt where she says, “What do I do? Tell me what to do.” She’s aware what the stakes are and what she’s found herself involved in. I liked Patricia Neal’s character in the original because she is open-minded, and she’s a very strong, free-thinking individual. I thought it was important to carry over that bravery. I thought, to be a woman, a human without prejudice, without bias, was really essential. I thought she should be able to communicate and that she really make you feel the depths of her love. Those were all really important things.

MediaBlvd> How was it working with Jaden Smith?

Jennifer> Working with Jaden was fantastic. It’s really clear that he has a lot to offer. He did a great job. It was a complex relationship with a lot of nuance to ask of someone his age, and he did it beautifully. He even seemed to have a good time doing it, which was a relief.

MediaBlvd> Scott, why no cool flying saucer for Klaatu?

Scott> I watched the original quite a few times, when just starting pre-production on the movie. I felt that I needed to respect the original film and try to figure out what made it great and what I could take from the original to a modern audience that will work for them. In watching the flying saucer from the original, land in Washington, D.C., what really hit me was the precedent that that set for spacecrafts represented in science fiction cinema. From that point forward, space ships, all the way through 2001, Star Wars, the Terminator films and the Matrix movies, they have all been represented in a similar fashion, which is that they are metallic-constructed machines that are engine-driven. They are projections of our industrial age technology, like our cars and our airplanes. And so, I loved the idea of trying to develop an alien technology that came from a completely different trajectory altogether, and came from a completely different tradition. I discussed it with the art department and everybody. The idea was that this was a species that had a technology that was essentially more ecologically and biologically based, and that’s why the ship looks the way that it does.

MediaBlvd> Keanu, is there something special about the sci-fi genre that keeps pulling you back, or do you approach a film like this the you would any other movie?

Keanu> I love the genre, and I approach it like any other film. I think science fiction provides great storytelling opportunities. In the past, I’ve just had the good fortune to be part of good stories in science fiction genre films.                                                                              

MediaBlvd> When Klaatu and John Cleese’s character were writing math formulas on the chalk board, it almost had a musical quality of a duet. Was that intentional?

Keanu> That was intentional. We were thinking about it as a  dance and a conversation.

Scott> It’s a real math equation for a significant high physics theory about the universe. We tried to be truthful to the scientific aspects. I just did an interview with Discover and the interviewer was really surprised at little things in the movie, but that being the biggest one. We had an astrophysicist who worked with Keanu and John, and I remember watching them, for quite a long time, in a room, working out the back-and-forth of that, and we added material to make it longer, to get that flow and rhythm to it. I didn’t have that much to do with that. It was really Keanu and the theoretical physicist and John Cleese. The three of them just figured that out and, when I saw it, I thought it was fantastic

MediaBlvd> Scott, what, if any part, did the politics of America, in the last eight years, play in your approach to the making this movie?

Scott> When we were making the movie, I knew what the release date was going to be. I knew that it was going to be released in December 2008, but at the time, I didn’t know who the candidates would be, let alone the President. I felt the way most Americans felt, which was that we had slipped off track, in a number of ways, and gotten ourselves into some real serious jams. I also had the same feeling the majority of Americans had, which was not one of cynical pessimism. I just really didn’t feel that way about it. I felt good about the fact that the collective community of America that I lived in was recognizing its mistakes. That was really encouraging to see and be a part of. I even looked back at the election and the way it was conducted and felt like there was something uncynical about what has gone on in America, in the last year. I knew that this movie would be coming out when that President, whoever it was going to be, had been elected, before he would have taken office. I just had faith and hope that it would be a time of optimism and expectation that there would be some significant changes in this country. That’s not a partisan statement. That’s just a statement of fact because we all know we made some mistakes. We’ve made some misjudgments, and everybody is ready to admit it, correct them and represent ourselves better, not just domestically, but as part of a global community. I love the idea of making a big, entertaining popcorn movie that had some of that uncynical point of view. It’s an admission of serious mistakes and serious problems that we have, and recognizing those things. That’s again where I was trying to respect the original film because, for a Cold War film, it’s surprisingly introspective. It surprisingly turns the lens back on America, as opposed to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where it’s about the Red Scare.

MediaBlvd> Gort is one of the most well-known science fiction robots of all time. How did you decide on the look for Gort, and why did you want to use nano-technology with the robot?

 Scott> The nano-technology element was in the script, and I thought it was interesting, so that was already there when I got involved with the project. But, there was no real description of him in the screenplay, and we started down the wrong path, honestly. I looked at the original and tried to figure out what things I could bring to a modern movie that audiences who don’t know this film will still appreciate. I just couldn’t quite make sense of why this thing would be in human form, and it certainly can’t look like the tin robot from the original. So, we spent a lot of time designing fantastic, alien monster-creature things that got increasingly ridiculous. It got to the point where I remember sitting in a room with these two pieces of artwork that were the current versions and just saying, “This looks like something that should be in a museum of modern art, or in a park as a piece of modern art.” I didn’t even know what I was looking at. And then, our visual effects supervisor was just standing in the doorway, and this was after three or four months of doing this, and he said, “Why aren’t we just making it look like Gort?” It was one of those moments where I just looked at him and I was like, “Oh, God!” I didn’t want to acknowledge how dumb I felt when he said that. It was like, “Okay, you’re right. Let’s get rid of all of these.  We need to make it look and feel like the original somehow, but with the impact, the scale and the magnitude that a modern audience will find satisfying.” So, we basically tried to find the best blend of how we could best keep it looking like the original without it falling short of what our modern audience standards are for a sci-fi robot thingy. Then, I thought the nano-technology aspect of it was an interesting aspect of science fiction storytelling, and certainly a major part of science fiction literature right now. I liked the idea of that playing a role in it, and also helping to justify why Gort is in human form. It’s not that he was built that way. He chose that shape to present himself. That made rational sense to me.

MediaBlvd> Was it difficult to walk that fine line between having a happy ending and not focusing so much on the negative impact of what happens at the end?

Scott> It was something I thought a lot about. I don’t think this is really a message movie. I’m not trying to tell anybody to do anything in particular. I’m just trying to be entertaining, tell an entertaining story and represent the world where it’s at right now. I love the line when Helen says to Klaatu, “We can change. Can you stop this?,” and he says, “It would come at a price to you and your way of life.” I wanted to find some way to not just have everything wrap up perfectly and be inconsequential, at the end. There is a price. But, I decided not to try to dissect exactly what that price would be because I don’t know what it’s going to be. It’s the idea that the messes that we’ve gotten ourselves into as Americans, and as a species of the human race, have solutions that will come at a price, and we have to be willing to pay that price. I liked the idea of putting it out there for the audience to manage in their own mind, and decide what they think that price is and what the consequences of this would be. There is both a closure to the story and an open-endedness to what comes next that I like. I appreciate that sometimes, in movies, they leave you having to decide for yourself what you think just happened and what it means.

MediaBlvd> Keanu, do you know what you’re doing next?

Keanu> I don’t. I've been working on it. 

MediaBlvd> Are you taking a break?

Keanu> No, I’m just trying to find a good film and role.

MediaBlvd> You’ve done a lot of films that could have sequels. Is there one that you’d really like to return to?

Keanu> I wouldn’t mind doing another Constantine.

MediaBlvd> Could that happen?

Keanu> I don’t know.