Klaatu came to Earth not to necessarily save humanity but to say
behave yourselves or we'll fix you good. If we did make it, it was
almost by default.

Klaatu even said they didn't care if the whole human race blew themselves
up, just don't stink up the rest of us truly civilized types with your
damn dirty ape ways.

I know the real message was Nuclear war is bad, which outside of a
few real diehards is a logical thing to say. But I don't think the film
was all that squishy and wimpy, even and perhaps especially for its
day. The aliens didn't want to save humanity so much as they wanted
to make sure we didn't mess up their nice galactic country club. Most
other cinematic aliens either wanted to save us like angels or take over
our turf. The Klaatu guys were like don't bother us and we wont' care
what you do otherwise.

But the point of my original post in this thread was that Hollywood has
once again taken a true classic (and it is a classic) and turned it into
true mush with a truly wimpy environmental message. Don't mess up
the planet. Oh gee, thanks a lot. I am not going to pay $10 for that.