The Day the Earth Stood Still
In 1928, on an expedition in the snowy mountains of India, a mountaineer encounters a glowing sphere. He then finds himself awakening after a sudden loss of consciousness, with the sphere now gone and a scar on his hand. In the present day, the United States government hastily assembles a group of scientists, including Princeton professor Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), to formulate a survival plan when it is feared that a large unknown object with a speed of approximately one-tenth the speed of light is due to impact Manhattan in approximately 78 minutes.
The object is a large spherical spaceship, which slows down and lands gently in Central Park. A being emerges from the sphere and in the confusion over jurisdiction, the alien is shot. A large robot emerges emitting a sound that paralyzes humans and disrupts all electrical systems in New York City, including all of the defense systems the military has in a perimeter around the spaceship. Before the robot can take the being back, the alien orders the robot to shut down.
While recovering from his injuries, the being takes on the appearance of the man from the opening scene of the film. Regina Jackson, the United States Secretary of Defense, insists on meeting the being where they find out his name, Klaatu, and that he is a representative of a group of alien races sent to talk to the United Nations. After learning this Klaatu is sent to a secure location by orders of Jackson. Klaatu manages to escape with the help of Helen, and is pursued by the authorities throughout Newark, New Jersey, and the forested Highlands, with Helen and her stepson Jacob.
Meanwhile, the presence of the sphere has caused a worldwide panic. The United States military manages to capture the robot after it thwarts their attempts to destroy the sphere using unmanned aerial vehicles that launch Hellfire missiles. Klaatu meets with Mr. Wu, another alien who had been assigned by the group of alien civilizations to live with the humans for 80 years. Upon learning of humanity's destructive tendencies, Klaatu decides that humans shall be exterminated to ensure that the planet—with its rare ability to sustain complex life—can survive. Mr. Wu, however, decides to stay on Earth, having seen another side to humanity that he is unable to explain to Klaatu. Klaatu orders smaller spheres—previously hidden on Earth—to begin taking animal species off the planet, and Jackson fears that a cataclysm is imminent.
The robot, named "GORT" (Genetically Organized Robotic Technology) by the United States government, is subjected to experiments in an underground facility in Virginia. It then transforms itself into a swarm of self-replicating insect-like nanites that begin destroying everything in their path back to Manhattan, including an armored battalion of the U.S. Army.
Helen requests that Klaatu see one of earth's actual leaders. After speaking with Nobel Prize-winning Professor Barnhardt about how his own species went through a drastic evolution to survive its own star's demise, Klaatu is convinced by Helen and Jacob that humans can change their ways and are worth saving. The three go toward the sphere in Central Park, where Klaatu warns that even if he manages to stop GORT, there will be a price to the human way of life. The nanobot cloud arrives before they can reach the sphere and they hide under a footbridge.
There, it is revealed that Jacob and Helen have been infected by the nanites. She pleads with Klaatu to save Jacob. Klaatu saves both of them by transferring the infection to his own body, then sacrifices himself to stop GORT by walking through the nanites to the sphere and touching it. His actions cause the sphere to emit a massive EMP which destroys GORT, saving humanity, but at the price of most of Earth's technology becoming useless and immobile. Klaatu disappears, and the giant sphere leaves Earth.
