A
Appleby
Guest
Independence Day hands down. My oldest and I saw it here in Canada when it first came out, and since we always discussed the “author’s message” in a movie, we were talking about the one in this movie (that there is only one Operating System for all the computers in the universe, and the only guy who knows it is at lunch) when we noticed that the Canadians had picked up an entirely different message: “There go the *&&^%$% Americans saving the world AGAIN!”
The offspring turned to one of them and said gravely, “You’re welcome.”
There also was an underlying message in having this movie made during the administration of Bill “Ah LOATHE thuh militurry” Clinton – showing a former Vietnam fighter pilot President leading the world. Personally I found it a secret giggle.
“The Day The Earth Stood Still” is actually a seriously fascist movie if you consider that the real message is “Either you run your planet the way our robots want you to, or we’ll kill you.” Coming that soon after World War II, this theme is acutely uncomfortable to a family with Jewish roots. (Also if you have ever read any of the Berserker novels, or considered the Cylons or the Daleks, you will realize that robots with that degree of autonomy would think of human beings as Not-Us and eventually would turn against them completely. (Also if you have a scientist son in the house, he would have pointed out to you that given the mileage Mr. Klaatu claimed to have travelled to get to Earth, he was in fact coming from Mars, which is ridiculous.)
There also was an underlying message in having this movie made during the administration of Bill “Ah LOATHE thuh militurry” Clinton – showing a former Vietnam fighter pilot President leading the world. Personally I found it a secret giggle.
“The Day The Earth Stood Still” is actually a seriously fascist movie if you consider that the real message is “Either you run your planet the way our robots want you to, or we’ll kill you.” Coming that soon after World War II, this theme is acutely uncomfortable to a family with Jewish roots. (Also if you have ever read any of the Berserker novels, or considered the Cylons or the Daleks, you will realize that robots with that degree of autonomy would think of human beings as Not-Us and eventually would turn against them completely. (Also if you have a scientist son in the house, he would have pointed out to you that given the mileage Mr. Klaatu claimed to have travelled to get to Earth, he was in fact coming from Mars, which is ridiculous.)