FAQ for
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Day the Earth Stood Still can be found here.

No. American science fiction editor and writer Harry Bates [1900-1981] wrote the short story Farewell to the Master on which The Day the Earth Stood Still is based. Farewell to the Master was first published in the October 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. The screenplay was adapted from the story by Edmund H. North. Farewell the the Master may be found online here. [Note: the owner of the preceding website maintains that a thorough search for a copyright has been done, but no copyright has been found.]

There are differences. In the story, Gort's name is Gnut, and the famous phrase, "Klaatu barada niktu" is absent. The character of Helen Benson [Patricia Neal] was made up for the movie. Finally, the end of the story has a twist that was not brought out in the movie.

It has no translation. It represents an inscrutable failsafe against a catastrophic mistake. "Klaatu" is the name of Michael Rennie's alien character, so it may mean something of the order of "Klaatu orders you to stop."

All we are given is that Klaatu (Michael Rennie) traveled 250 million miles. Pluto is about 3 billion miles (varies from apogree to perigee) from the sun, and the nearest other solar system (Alpha Centauri) is over 3.5 light years away, so he must have come from another planet in our own solar system, assuming, of course, that the storywriters were even concerned about scientific accuracy.

Gort was played by an actor named Lock Martin. Martin's biography says that he was 7' 7" tall.