I don’t get to the movies very often, but when I had the chance to see the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still I jumped at the chance. The original was my all-time sci-fi movie as a kid.
The remake follows basically the same story as the original—an alien (Keanu Reeves) being lands on Earth, where he is treated with suspicion and hostility even though he arrives with a mission to save the planet.
In the original movie a huge spaceship lands in the Mall of Washington, D.C.; in the remake it’s a giant sphere and the landing is in New York’s Central Park. The alien, called Klaatu, makes an initial display of friendship, but a trigger-happy soldier shoots him. Out comes a huge robot that destroys the many tanks, trucks, and soldiers surrounding him. In the original, the robot was an impressive ten feet tall; the 2008 Gort is at least three times that size. Other than that, it looks like exactly the same machine, using precisely the same 1950s special effects.
The human-like creature is taken to a hospital, and his life is saved. In a typically American show of arrogance, when the creature asks to be taken to the United Nations so he can address the entire world, the Hillary Clinton-like Secretary of Defense (Kathy Bates) refuses. She represents the President of the United States (who is apparently busy reading “My Pet Goat”), and that should be good enough. Similarly, the Secretary of Defense refuses to allow access to the creature by scientists from other countries.
Only Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) trusts the alien, and she has problems at home. Dr. Benson is a widow who is struggling to gain the love and trust of her 12-year-old stepson, Jacob (Jaden Smith). The boy is bitter about his soldier-father’s death and is trying to make sense out of it.
Meanwhile, spheres similar to the one that landed in Manhattan show up all over Earth. When they open up and start taking wildlife samples, the Hillary Clinton stand-in realizes that they represent arks just before the deluge. Earth is to be saved, but humans are not.
The Secretary of Defense consults with the President, who orders who her to destroy the 1951 throwback robot. Not having learned anything from the Battle of Britain, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or even her own failure at the beginning of the movie, the Secretary tries to bomb Gort into submission. When that fails, the robot explodes and metallic, insect-like creatures begin destroying New Jersey. Dr. Benson begs the alien to stop the destruction, but he says no; people must change first.
With all that is going on, the scientist and her stepson reconcile their differences. The alien understands that people can change and very dramatically stops all machines all over the world; Earth stands still. Later, Klaatu returns to his planet and everyone lives happily ever after.
But what really happened? Like Barack Obama, Klaatu wants change, even though he never specifies exactly what kind of change or how it is going to happen. In fact, his message never gets beyond the Dr. Benson and her stepson, so there is no reason to believe there will be any real change at all.
My family and I left the theater, commented briefly about the message of change, and my kids asked if we could go to Starbucks for some coffee. This is the same Starbucks that exploits Ethiopian coffee farmers by its refusal to sign a fair-trade agreement, and the same Starbucks that serves its coffee in non-recyclable containers.

In this flick Klaatu and Gort are the superpower, a glaring difference to our current situation based on your statement.