The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film)/Headscratchers


 * Why did Klaatu have only one science-advancing item, if only so that more people could look at them at once?
 * And why did he think that advancing on an obviously-violent race without saying a word and while holding an item that popped open unexpectedly once within melee range was good diplomacy?
 * Clearly Klaatu's people need to rethink their First Contact protocols.
 * Why are the world's nations being such hard-asses about meeting together? Why does Klaatu have to speak to them all at once, in person, in one room? Can't they just invite the TV news from every country?
 * Put this in the context of 1951. This was only 6 years after the end of WWII. The anti-red hysteria was rolling towards full steam. There was a shooting war going on in Korea. Both the US and the USSR were deathly afraid of the other launching a nuclear attack. TV was in its infant stages. And maybe, just maybe, Klaatu thought it important to speak to all of the world leaders face to face.
 * The Aesop! On the surface it's "end all war and embrace world peace!" but since Klaatu gets this message across by threatening Earth with Gort, it comes more across as "embrace peace or we'll render you extinct!" You can't force a species to accept peace through threat of annihilation, that's been done time and again in tv, movies and books, but it's often a villain's goal.
 * Minor quibble: he said the aliens don't care if we never give up our warlike ways and blow ourselves up, it's if we try to blow any other species up that we face death by non-mutant-laser-cyclops-bot.
 * Given that current UN policy towards "developing nations" is 'Kill each other in a civil war all you want, but you try and export that shit over a border into anywhere that's an ally of ours we will land on you like the Wrath of God', Klaatu's ultimatum is perfectly normal diplomacy. 'Now that you're soon about to join the interstellar community, here are the rules. Rule #1 -- if you start a war, we will finish it.'


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