The original The Day the Earth Stood Still, released in 1951, reflected Cold War fears. Fittingly, this year's remake will address warmer concerns.

Keanu Reeves, who stars as the film's intergalatic messenger, Klaatu, tells MTV Movies that in Scott Derrickson's remake of the sci-fi classic, his voyage to Earth is prompted by more than just humanity's endless thirst for war:

"The first one was borne out of the cold war and nuclear détente. Klaatu came and was saying cease and desist with your violence. If you can't do it yourselves we're going to do it. That was the film of that day. The version I was just working on, instead of being man against man, it's more about man against nature. My Klaatu says that if the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the earth survives. I'm a friend to the earth."

That's right, gang -- Klaatu has gone from pacifist weenie to tree-hugging hippie. (Or, more precisely, pacifist weenie and tree-hugging hippie; as Reeves puts it, "We're trying to reach beyond the idea of [just] environmentalism.")

Good news for fans of the original, though: When he isn't battling global warming or watching An Inconvenient Truth on his spaceship, Klaatu will find time to utter the famous words "Klaatu barada nikto" -- and he'll still have his robot bodyguard Gort, although Gort won't have the same leotard-and-spraypaint charm he did in '51; Reeves promises "another version of [the robot]."

The Day the Earth Stood Still is scheduled for a December 12 release.

Source: MTV Movies