I knew it - Keanu isn't real; he's made up of sex toys and goo. At least, parts of him are, according to MastersFX's Todd Masters, who worked on special effects for The Day The Earth Stood Still. He recently revealed that some of the movie's designs involved a whole lot of sex toys. Some spoilers ahead, which explain why this week's blockbuster is sexier than a boutique dildo.
According to Masters, the crew enlisted the aid of a sex toy manufacturer to create a lifelike skin for Klaatu when he first arrives on Earth, before he takes on human guise. Says Masters, alien skin is
made of dermal plastic and silicone. We actually hired a gentleman who worked in the sex toy business. He had the greatest materials I’ve ever seen. We brought him on and we bought a sex toy making machine and now we can make this weird stuff that nobody else can make.
It has an amazing translucency and an amazing flexibility. These are things I don’t usually relate to sex, but it’s apparently what they do. We’re making a lot of the skins out of that.
And apparently, getting shot is the catalyst that transforms Klaatu from his dildo self into the regular Keanu incarnation:
[Klaatu] comes out of his orb looking grey, but he’s more translucent. That’s the CG, to be created by WETA digital down in New Zealand. He gets shot, he falls into Helen’s arms, bleeds all over her. All CG at that point. As he’s losing his life force he becomes less translucent and more opaque. We do a timecut transition, a helicopter trip to the O.R. Once he’s being pushed down the hallway in his hyperbolic chamber, that’s when he’s a practical piece. We rush him into the O.R. and do all these surgery scenes. Until we do the big reveal, which reveals the inner being.
To read more spoilers and juicy bits from the interview go to Rope Of Silicon. TDTESS releases on December 12.