Movie Coincidences

In the 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, a giant robot stepped out of the alien spaceship and zapped all the weapons of the military present with a raygun from it's visor, after one of them fired at the humanoid alien ambassador, injuring him and destroying the gift he'd brought.   The giant robot was played by a giant human actor named Lockard Martin.  The central theme of the movie was that our military power made human existence a threat to other life.

Today, Lockheed Martin is one of the largest military contractors, making jet fighters, UAVs, ballistic missiles, bombers, and much, much more.  It was formed from the merger of several earlier military contractors.  Martin-Marrietta and Lockheed merged in 1995, creating the present corporate entity.  Lockard Martin (who was well over 7 feet tall and played a giant in many movies in the 40s and 50s) died in 1959.

In the movie Dr. Stragelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, one of the navigators on the B52 keeps popping his head up from the downstairs navigation bay to tell the pilots their fuel and other status.  The actor who played that navigator was named Glen Beck.  (the other navigator was played by James Earl Jones in his very first movie appearance) Stanley Kubrick used him in several of his movies, and he's had bit parts in dozens of movies through the years.  Dr Strangelove was also about the consequences of the military-industrial complex and the danger it held for humanity, including the particularly scary possibility of an individual with a lot of power losing their mind and starting a war.

Another actor named Glenn Beck sells gold, controversy and conspiracy theories on TV and the internet.  He has undeniably lost his mind but he had a huge influence for a time and still has a lot of influence.  He was one of the most enthusiastic boosters of an aggressive military posture for the US, especially of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, arguing that doing so would help prevent World War III.   The invasion of Iraq on wholly fraudulent grounds has significantly destabilized the middle east and permanently damaged US credibility, especially in the middle east.  It seems very likely that WWIII, if it happens, will arise out of the long term consequences of this horrific policy blunder.

addenda, april 2022

In an interesting coincidence, Glenn Beck, the conspiracy theorist, was born in Mt Vernon, WA, in 1964.  Glen C Beck, the actor, was born in Cranbrook, BC, in 1935, although he's spent a lot of his career in Britain.   Cranbrook is near the southeast corner of BC, where Mt Vernon is near the northwest corner of neighboring WA.