The Day the Earth Stood Still

Plot hole: Klaatu is shot and his body is lying in a prison cell. Gort leaves the flying saucer and walks all the way to the heavily guarded police station in downtown Washington DC. Gort is 8 feet tall and is a robot plus he uses his noisy death ray to create a hole in the police station to retrieve Klaatu's body and nobody noticed him? On top of that, he walks all the way back to the saucer unseen with a dead body. (01:22:36)

Larry Koehn

Plot hole: In the scene at Arlington cemetery, Klaatu asks Bobby if it costs money to go to the movies. Bobby states he has $2 his mother gave him, which Klaatu trades for two diamonds. That being said, how in the world did they get from NW DC to Arlington in Virginia, and then on to the Lincoln Memorial at the Mall in DC? Much too far to walk, and Bobby made no mention of money he had before to take a bus or cab. (00:30:30)

ira ★

More for The Day the Earth Stood Still

Mistakes

More mistakes in The Day the Earth Stood Still

Quotes

Klaatu: Perhaps before deciding on a course of action, you'd want to know more about the people here - to orient yourself in a strange environment.
Mrs. Barley: There's nothing strange about Washington, Mr. Carpenter.
Klaatu: A person from another planet might disagree with you.
Mrs. Barley: If you want my opinion, he came from right here on Earth. And you know where I mean.
Mr. Krull: They woudn't come in spaceships, they'd come in airplanes.
Mrs. Barley: I woudn't be too sure about that.

More quotes from The Day the Earth Stood Still

Trivia

Trivia: In order to make Gort's body appear seamless, two different costumes were created, one that opened in the back for front shots and one that opened in the front for rear shots. Unfortunately, as someone has already pointed out on this site, it was sometimes rather difficult to co-ordinate which suit was needed for which shot and thus there are several times in the film where Gort's seams can be seen.

More trivia for The Day the Earth Stood Still

Questions

Question: For such and advanced species, wouldn't Klatu's people know that "reducing Earth to a burnt out cinder" (for its warlike ways) would also punish those billions of innocents who have no say in the policies of their governments or military? Wouldn't it be more effective to police the earth and neutralize any weaponry that we shot into space?

Answer: They said, how they handle their earth problems is no concern to them, it's only if they bring it to outer space and other worlds, they would take drastic measures to ensure that did not happen.

More questions & answers from The Day the Earth Stood Still

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.