The Day the Earth Stood Still

Revealing mistake: The man from Mars is in an elevator with a woman when the power goes out. He tells her he cut the electricity and gas powered engines all over the world for a half an hour. They proceed to show clips of the power out in different parts of the world. When they get to Big Ben in London, you can see a motorboat cruising down the river in the background. If the boat were powered by wood or coal, there would be plume of smoke trailing it. If it were powered by oil (ie. diesel) electricity is required to pump the fuel into the ejectors. (01:02:05)

Revealing mistake: When Gort goes behind the wall to pick up Patricia Neal, the camera moves about an inch in the same shot, because they had to stop filming, go rig the wires up to Patricia, then start filming once again. (01:17:00)

Hamster

Revealing mistake: After all of the elecrticity is neutralised, in a street shot you can see neon signs are still working; a huge Coca Cola one, for example. (00:59:30)

Hamster

Revealing mistake: When Gort begins to walk down the saucer ramp, after Klaatu is shot, the crowd gets scared and runs away. I guess the director found the extras running too slow so he sped up the film. (00:10:30)

Larry Koehn

Revealing mistake: During the black-out, there's a shot when you see two cars moving in the background. One of them is slowing, which is normal if the engine stops, but the other is parked and then starts moving. (01:01:45)

Dr Wilson

Revealing mistake: When Gort picks up Patricia Neal, then heads back to the spacecraft, you can see a zipper on the front of Gort's costume, which is never there in any other shots. (01:17:05)

Hamster

Revealing mistake: As Klaatu enters the control room of the spacecraft for the first time, we see the right side panel revolve so he can enter. Once inside, it is the other side of the panel which closes.

Revealing mistake: When the spaceship is going to take-off, every scientists are trying to escape, but there's a man wearing a light colored suit and hat who seems more interested in pushing the chairs everywhere than escaping. He even pushes a chair in another row. The director obviously told the actors to push some chairs to create more excitement in the scene, but he seems to take that too seriously. (01:31:05)

Dr Wilson

Revealing mistake: In a few scenes the stitches holding together the front and back halves of Gort's "metal" body can be seen.

Revealing mistake: After Gort takes out the guards and Carpenter passes by him, Gort turns around to follow, and the zipper for the costume is visible.

Revealing mistake: When Gort goes behind the wall to pick up Patricia Neal, the camera moves about an inch in the same shot, because they had to stop filming, go rig the wires up to Patricia, then start filming once again. (01:17:00)

Hamster

More mistakes in The Day the Earth Stood Still

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: 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

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

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