The Day the Earth Stood Still
1951 filmWikipedia
86
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51
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39
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Search complete. 86 mentions across 51 episodes found for "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
Oct 27, 2026
Alan HoweGUEST
He was an English actor who was sort of briefly second division famous in the 50s and 60s.
Alan HoweGUEST
And I think in about 1959, he was in a film called The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Alan HoweGUEST
And it was about, and he played, he was like a Martian type character.
Alan HoweGUEST
And he was called Klaatu.
AdrianHOST
Oh, same here.
AdrianHOST
We've got Murray Leinster's A Logic Named Joe, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still.
ClaraHOST
Well, before we go any further, I just want to establish a firm baseline for our listeners.
AdrianHOST
Please do.
24 MINS LATER
ClaraHOST
Oh, yes.
AdrianHOST
What happens when we zoom out? What happens when our collective technological power confronts our moral immaturity on a planetary scale?
ClaraHOST
Then we must look at the 1951 cinematic classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
AdrianHOST
Directed by Robert Wise and based on a 1940 short story by Harry Bates, this movie is just a perfect time capsule of Cold War anxiety.
Ryan EllisHOST
The Thingamabob was released by RKO Radio Pictures 75 years ago on April 7th, 1951.
Ryan EllisHOST
This wasn't in the top ten at the box office that year, but I did read that it outgrossed The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Ryan EllisHOST
They're both pretty famous sci-fi flicks released that year, but I personally like Day of the Earth more, and it's more famous.
Ryan EllisHOST
this just packed more people in.
26 MINS LATER
Ryan EllisHOST
The very first cue certainly sounds just like the music he wrote for other Hawks projects.
Ryan EllisHOST
Well, many of the great composers are known to reuse their themes for other projects.
Ryan EllisHOST
I don't remember hearing it too often in this, but there was a theremin at one point, something that was used so well and so famously in another 1951 sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Ryan EllisHOST
Tiomkin took home four Oscars in total, including for song and score for a movie that Hawks hated, High Noon, and was nominated for a lot more.
KevinHOST
Right.
ErinHOST
But it was kind of like, did you ever see The Day the Earth Stood Still? Actually, I never have.
ErinHOST
Add it to the list.
ErinHOST
Okay.
Kyle MacFarlaneHOST
And that very much continued in August and September.
Kyle MacFarlaneHOST
We had screenings of The Day the Earth Stood Still and An American in Paris from the 1950s.
Kyle MacFarlaneHOST
And we had four screenings with our Broadway Youth Film Society, our four different branches.
Kyle MacFarlaneHOST
We showed The Firm, The Terminal, we showed The Jungle Book and Juno.
Rich KozGUEST
You know, but, you know, there's other things I'd love to get.
Rich KozGUEST
I'd love to get War of the Worlds and The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Rich KozGUEST
And a lot of times, you know, it's not just time that's the problem.
Rich KozGUEST
They're under contract elsewhere or, you know, they're in some cases, quite honestly, too expensive for our network.
James PayneHOST
But were you expecting an alien like this? Because we've looked at quite a few sort of benevolent alien figures.
James PayneHOST
I think the closest comparison to this is probably The Day the Earth Stood Still.
James PayneHOST
But this one feels like a bit of a counterpoint to that.
James PayneHOST
But we'll get into the sort of the differences as we go.
Matt WillcockHOST
And these films, some of them seem to be structured like a moral quandary or a thought experiment more than like a story or a film sometimes.
Matt WillcockHOST
And this one really falls into that category.
Matt WillcockHOST
And The Day the Earth Stood Still is a little bit like that as well, but a bit more of a... interesting and exciting movie as well.
Matt WillcockHOST
This one really feels more like a thought experiment put into a film.
EricHOST
The 1950s was when all that started really taking root, especially our fear about Russia beating us to the punch.
EricHOST
That's when movies like The Thing from Another World, the original one, came out, and The Day the Earth Stood Still...
EricHOST
War of the Worlds.
EricHOST
And those are just the good ones.
Joel MorrisHOST
So the biblical tone of early science fiction is now morphing into a sort of new age, environmental one.
Joel MorrisHOST
This is the first wash of that 60s environmentalism coming in that will... reach a peak when you get that photo of the Earth from Apollo 8 and Greenpeace starts to go, oh, we should look after this planet because, oh my God, what if we're not being good curators of it? What if our science, what if our tendency to do things before we've checked out what's going to happen, if our enthusiasm to make new things is dangerous? That's in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Joel MorrisHOST
It's very much in them.
Joel MorrisHOST
What's lovely watching them now is not only is this the birth of the sci-fi action blockbuster, it's an environmental movie.
SlimHOST
We'll get Ron Livingston also on for Bicentennial Mammoth for another episode.
Danny HaasHOST
Kyle also in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Danny HaasHOST
Whoa.
Danny HaasHOST
Whoa.
27 MINS LATER
SlimHOST
Awesome.
SlimHOST
They Live won the vote with 54%, and that is Proto's plan B pick.
SlimHOST
Just a reminder, the losing votes, The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951, 26%.
SlimHOST
And then in a distant third, 21% fire in the sky.
41 more episodes mention The Day the Earth Stood Still.
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