The last time “The Day the Earth Stood Still” was showing on the big screen, the average price of a U.S. movie ticket was 53 cents, the number of UFO sightings recorded by the National UFO Reporting Center was 181 and Pluto was still a planet. Now, more than 57 years later, a trip to the movie theater will cost you upwards of $7, the National UFO Reporting Center has filed 51,175 reports of UFO sightings and the farthest planet from our sun is Neptune.

But if there is one thing that has not changed, it is America’s fascination with the unknown.

For this reason, odds are that director Scott Derrickson’s (“The Exorcism of Emily Rose”) blockbuster remake of the classic 1951 science fiction film will draw big numbers when it opens tomorrow. And how could it not with an all-star cast that features the likes of Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly and Jon Hamm (of TV’s “Mad Men”)? So in light of the film’s upcoming release, The Badger Herald recently took part in a conference call with the three stars to discuss their thoughts on the movie, remakes and the possibility that distant life forms do indeed exist.

During the call, Reeves was surprisingly energetic and well-spoken, a clear sign that the emotionless, robot-like roles he usually takes are a severe case of typecasting. In fact, he will once again be seemingly void of human emotions in this film as he portrays Klaatu, an alien messenger in human form. Nonetheless, Reeves has no regrets when it comes to frequently performing in similar roles.

“I love the genre,” Reeves said. “I grew up reading science fiction and watching science fiction films. I think it is a wonderful genre in the sense that it is a great way to look at ourselves. It is a genre that beautifully talks about our hopes, our fears and our anxieties and utilizes allegory and metaphor in such a fantastic way.”

Although in the past, Reeves has vocally expressed his dislike for remakes, he agreed to star in the film because he was a fan of the original movie as a kid and deemed the script to be more of a re-imagining than a remake.

“In general, with any film, you have to ask why. And with a remake, especially a remake of a classic, that question might be in bolder letters. I think the film itself does lend to the opportunity to answer why because of its timeliness and because of how it could be translated to present day, which maybe might not work so well for say, ‘The Wizard of Oz,'” Reeves said.

“We find ourselves in a different place,” Connelly added. “Filmmaking has come a long way in 57 years. It seemed like there was an opportunity to re-imagine the film in a way that would have merit.”

In order to make the film more accessible to today’s audiences, Derrickson modernized the story so that it relates to the present day. While the original film was designed to illustrate the fear and suspicion that characterized the early Cold War, the remake updates themes like nuclear warfare to the more contemporary issue of global warming.

“There is still that kind of military aspect,” Reeves said. “Obviously the film looks at the typical American militaristic response of shoot first, talk later, but also the film is kind of updated in the sense that it is not man-on-man. It is more about the human species and its relationship to the planet and the kind of crisis crossroads that we are at.”

“I do not know of any other movies out there that are really like it, to tell you the truth. I think it is really resonant with things that are going on in the world today that people talk about and are concerned about and maybe even anxious about,” Connelly said.

What is truly unique about this film, though, is that it will be the world’s first galactic motion picture release. With the help of the Deep Space Communications Network located at Cape Canaveral, 20th Century Fox will make history by transmitting the film at 186,000 miles per second into deep space toward Alpha Centauri, a star 4.37 light years away from our Sun. Unfortunately, if there are any civilizations currently orbiting Alpha Centauri, we will not receive their reviews of the film for another eight years.

When asked whether they believe there are aliens or any other sort of life forms out there as a result of making this film, Hamm, who in real life is far wittier than his intense onscreen counterpart Don Draper, was quick to respond.

“I believed it before doing a film like this, and I certainly have not changed my mind,” Hamm said. “I think that the numbers are such that there has got to be other life. I just hope they are nice to us.”

“I feel the same way,” Connelly said. “It did not affect my thoughts on it, which again, looking at the scale of the universe, it makes good sense to me that there is probably something else out there. I think it has become sort of common thinking.”

With production on “The Day the Earth Stood Still” now finished, the three can only sit back and wait for box office numbers to come in to see if all their hard work was well-spent. Even so, they still had their own opinions on the final product.

“Well, I die in it, so I think it is awful,” Hamm joked.

“We hope that people, obviously, enjoy the film,” Reeves said, “It hopes to entertain, but also to leave you with something to think about. I think it is a film that has a real positive message, and for people, in these times that we are facing with so many hardships and crisis, there is a kind of hope that we can do it.”