Klaatu is the humanoid alien
protagonist in the 1951
science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still and its
2008 remake. Klaatu is famous in part because of the phrase "
Klaatu barada nikto!" used in the classic film and its re-use in the
Bruce Campbell cult comedy film
Army of Darkness, as well as many other films.
Michael Rennie as Klaatu
Klaatu (played by
Michael Rennie) arrives in a
flying saucer in
Washington, DC, wearing a silver spacesuit and accompanied by a large humanoid robot,
Gort (played by
Lock Martin). Klaatu arrives as a peaceful ambassador from an extraterrestrial confederation, but when he presents a harmless device he is shot by one of the soldiers that form his rather apprehensive welcoming committee. Klaatu explains the device was a gift to the President and could have been used to study life on other planets. To protect Klaatu, Gort vaporizes all of the surrounding weaponry.
Klaatu is taken to a hospital, where he quickly recovers. On learning that the government does not expect other nations to be willing to come to meet him, he goes out to meet the common people, using the surname "Carpenter," the name found on the clothes and suit case he borrows, as a pseudonym. He takes up residence in a boarding house and is shown the town by a young boy named Bobby Benson (played by Billy Gray) who stays there with his mother, Helen Benson (played by
Patricia Neal), and drops by the home of Professor Barnhardt, a brilliant scientist...
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