12 Crazy Sequel Pitches That Almost Ruined Great Films
2. The Day The Earth Stood Still... Again
The original The Day the Earth Stood Still left a lot of unanswered questions. That was sort of the point. This was a time before rabid internet fans demanding to know the meaning of every line of dialogue and every pregnant pause in Prometheus after all, and it was part of the film's appeal that it was deliberately vague, and we could fill in the blanks ourselves.
Nevertheless, this didn't stop Fox from trying to bring a sequel to screen in 1981, when they commissioned sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury to turn out a script. And it might have been a good decision if Bradbury's idea hadn't abandoned most of what made the first film great, as well as adding in an off-putting solar energy message, as well as some festive joy and a love story.
To be called The Day the Earth Stood Still II: The Evening of the Second Day the film would have opened on Christmas Eve, thirty years after the original film when an alien ship lands on Earth, in sight of Chris Atkins, a NASA employee who half-remembers the same thing happened when he was a kid. It's revealed that a passenger of the ship, who is Klaata, daughter of the now-dead Klaatu has escaped, and NASA on are on her tail, failing to spot her hiding in Atkins' boarding house, where he falls in love with her over some Christmas decorations.
It turns out that when Klaatu died, Klaata decided to travel to Earth with his body to continue his work. It being Christmas, the Messianic metaphors are about as subtle as a sledge-hammer. That turns out not quite to be the festive message as Klaata is actually on Earth to judge humanity again, checking up on their progress in following Klaatu's demands from thirty years ago.
She's come, primarily to also halt humanity's reliance on Oil, and so it all degenerates into an ecological warrior story in which Klaata tries to recruit Atkins as humanity's guide to alternative energy. Like Avatar without the decency to pretend to hide its politicised message.
Klaata then basically promises Atkins she'll jump his bones is he does as she says by the time she returns, undermining the earnest message of the film in favour of the vague promise of some cheap alien boob.