Creation Station
Education and Current Events
The Day the Earth Stood Still - How Movies Reflect Society’s Attitudes
I don’t usually review movies, but this one is just too good to pass up. December of last year a remake of the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still was released, the original was released in 1951.
Each version of the movie represents attitudes of many of the people of their respective times. In 1951 one of the biggest fears was of a world destroying nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The movie was about an alien that came from a federation of planets to warn the people of Earth that if they took their hostilities into outer space, the Earth would be destroyed. The 2008 version has an alien from a federation of planets coming to Earth to warn us that if we don’t stop damaging the Earth’s environment, the aliens would destroy humanity in order to save the rest of the inhabitants of the Earth.
One of the laws of human behavior is that when dealing with people, perception is reality. Although the reality of environmental damage was actually greater in the 1950’s, America is a much cleaner country today then it was back in those days, the perception of environmental problems has increased dramatically since then. The threat of a nuclear war is still very real, but the perception of that threat has faded.
Another aspect of the 2008 version of the movie is its clear evolutionary motives. Klaatu, the Keanu Reeves character, acts as though murdering over 6 billion human beings was a fair trade to protect kangaroos and dolphins. While to most people humans have a greater value than kangaroos and dolphins, to many radical environmentalists, they have less. Many radical environmentalists see humans as a plague upon the Earth that should be eliminated, leading some to become ecoterrorists. In fact there have been a number of magazine articles and TV programs and movie about a people free Earth. All of this is a logical outgrowth of evolutionism. If people are nothing more than an accident of nature then we have no more value than a kangaroo, dolphin or bacterium. The only way to truly value human beings is to see them as having been created in the image of God with an eternal purpose and value. While we should be good stewards of this marvelous Earth that God has given us, it will someday pass away, God’s people will not.
I do not know if the screenwriters, director or stars of the 2008 version of the movie consciously intended to deliver an evolutionist sermon in their movie, but what is clear is how deeply evolutionary ideas have penetrated the consciousness of America.
