The Day the Earth Stood Still

By David Walker, Ph.D.

Robert Wise's 1951 science fiction masterpiece "The Day the Earth Stood Still" came forth when the Korean War, the Cold War, the Red Scare, and McCarthyism were in the forefront of American national cultural consciousness. In the film, alien Klaatu (Michael Rennie) arrives in a flying saucer on the Capitol plaza to meet and greet Earthlings and to bring a message of peace from a superior civilization. Stepping from his ship, he reaches for a device and flicks it open as soldiers approach. It is shot from his hand and he is wounded in the shoulder. "It was a gift for your President," he says mournfully, "with this he could have studied the stars and other worlds." Klaatu is hustled off to Walter Reeves Hospital, leaving behind the extraordinary powerful and intimidating Gort, a robot intergalactic police officer, who melts the soldiers' many weapons in order to make a point following Klaatu's shooting.

Klaatu attempts to make diplomatic contact with all world leaders through a cynical secretary to the President but finds he is quickly rebuffed. He is confined to his room but escapes, steals an army officer's suitcase and makes his way to a rooming house, driven to learn more of these strangely irrational humans before making his next move. There he meets Bobby and his mother, Helen, a widow who lost her husband in WWII. On the spur of the moment, Mary, accepts Klaatu's (now "Mr. Carpenter") offer to look after Bobby while she goes on a date with her boyfriend, Tom. Klaatu and Bobby visit Bobby's father's grave at Arlington. They also visit Professor Barnhart, a world-renowned physicist, but he is not at home. Klaatu boldly corrects an equation on Barnhart's office blackboard and is discovered by his secretary. He leaves his name and address.

Later that evening, Klaatu is taken by Army Intelligence (who believe him to be Carpenter) to see the Professor. He then reveals his identity to the Professor and asks to meet with the scientists of the world. A meeting is critical, according to Klaatu: the advent of "rudimentary atomic power" on Earth signals a new era that endangers the remainder of the universe-- Earth must conform to intergalactic standards of peace and nonviolence or face "destruction." The Professor insists that convincing others to do this will involve a show of power on Klaatu's part. Klaatu agrees to put together an international "display" of sorts. But Bobby follows Klaatu that night to the spaceship and sees him give commands to Gort via Bobby's Boy Scout flashlight. Suspicion begins when Bobby tells his mother and Tom. Tom instigates an investigation and Klaatu is discovered. 

Trapped on a downtown street, he is shot down by an Army machine gunner. Sensitive Helen, more trusting of Klaatu than others, holds him as he dies. Before he's gone, he tells her a command to give to Gort-- a command essential to the safety of the Earth. Holding back her fear, Helen goes to Gort, who seems intent on hurting her initially. When she manages to get the command out, Gort obeys by taking her aboard the ship. He then retrieves Klaatu's body and revives him. Klaatu, restored to life "temporarily," succeeds in addressing a surrounding body of scientists outside the ship. He warns them of humanity's irresponsibility, of its threat to itself and the rest of the universe. He warns the scientists that world peace must be achieved and that "others will be watching." 

The implication is clear as he departs: humanity must find peace and control its aggression or face dire consequences from beyond.

This film came at a time when public paranoia was at its height. Its maturity and survival across time speak to the evocative images in Harry Bates' story. Fear of the unknown competes for desperate hope for a benevolent authority to save us from our own destructive tendencies. And is psychoanalysis humanity's friend or foe? Certainly, it is confined by its own language, culture, some might say its own etiquette. Perhaps that makes it a soldier maintaining order and protecting from the threat of outside forces. How does it react to the disrupting, alien intruder from outside its world? And that which is unknown, which is unconscious, intrinsically resists conformity to structure. 

The unconscious is thus delimited through this story. Taken in metaphor, are we who understand our universe psychoanalytically earth-bound or as space travelers? If earthbound, then Professor Barnhart's equations will never be made complete, if space travelers, we must take the risk of getting out into the world we have created to consider how it differs from the universe of possibilities implied by this unknown, this unconscious. There may be no drives implicit or cathexes to make in that universe. There may be no objects to relate to or no self. The common language we use to understand ourselves and others from the psychoanalytic perspective may instead be an ordering mechanism, our own imposition, for a domain as vast as a billion light years. That domain we may name the unconscious, hoping to confine it to our techniques for making it conscious. Yet the stars and worlds within it may be infinite and beyond the limits of one lifetime or a thousand to unravel. 

When given a hint of such a possibility, will psychoanalysis ratchet down its structure harder, wound the intruder, and shoot the threatening device for exploration from the explorer's grasp with the ammunition of parochialism? Will it take apart its own assumptions and dispositions for sake of internal peace? Or will psychoanalysis warn humanity that its own conventionality, obtuseness and close-mindedness is the pathway to destruction? Klaatu berada nektu.