Klaatu Barada Nikto

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

In the classic 1951 sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still the alien Klaatu arrives on Earth with a message for the world's leaders. His welcome on arrival was less than warm.

Anticipating that things could go very wrong, Klaatu teaches a human woman this phrase should anything happen to him. "Klaatu Barada Nikto" is a now common catchphrase in sci-fi. It was a message to shut down the rampage of the robot, Gort, that accompanied Klaatu on his mission to Earth. Oddly enough, no known translation has ever been given for the phrase though "Klaatu" can be presumed to refer to the film's protagonist.

The classic status of the film has led to "Klaatu Barada Nikto" being hidden in all manner of media from sci-fi to fantasy to comic books to music.

Despite its appearance in the original and even though Keanu Reeves insisted on its presence, the phrase was deliberately rendered almost unintelligible in The Remake.

(What does it mean? Well, it stopped Gort's rampage, so a loose translation would probably be along the lines of "Gort, Klaatu says cut it out.".)

Examples of Klaatu Barada Nikto include:

Anime and Manga

  • Whether a coincidence or not, the phrase shows up in the second episode of the Read or Die OVA when Genjo begins to chant while preparing to chant. It's rendered more like "klatu barata niktu" and only in the dub, but it can still be heard fairly clearly.

Comic Books

Film

  • In Army of Darkness, Ash needed to say these three words to shut down a rampage too.
    • And of course when it came time to say them, he forgot what the third word was.
      • Twice.

Ash: Klaatu...barada...niCOUGHtCOUGH!

    • Some of the subsequent allusions to this phrase (including some listed on this page) refer to Army of Darkness, which has overshadowed The Day the Earth Stood Still to some extent.
      • Extremely obvious in Germany. In Army of Darkness's German dub version, the line was "Klaatu Verata Nikto", so every German dub afterwards that considered AoD to be the origin of the reference will have the "Verata" line.
  • In Galaxy Quest, the Thermians come from the Klaatu nebula.
  • In Star Wars, Klaatu (of the species Nikto) and Barada (of the species Klatoonian) were two of Jabba's guards.
  • In the Robin Williams movie Toys. The Big Bad tries to deactivate his experimental killing machine with this in the climax.
  • In Tron, a plaque that reads "Gort, Klaatu Barada Nikto" can be seen on the wall of Alan Bradley's cubicle. Oddly appropriate for a programmer on a system like ENCOM's grid.

Literature

  • In one of the volumes of Animorphs Ax is forced to demorph in front of a human (to his andalite form) when his morph is poisoned. Marco, disguised in morph and speaking for Ax using thought-speak, attempts to convince the human that Ax is friendly using this phrase.
  • In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the Nikto are a species of reptilian slaves, while Barada and Klaatu are two of Jabba the Hutt's lackeys.
  • In the Stephen King novel, The Tommyknockers, a young reporter, John Leandro, is convinced that something is wrong in a small town called Haven. His collegue, David Bright mocks him from it, saying that it's must be "green men from space" and quotes the phrase. (The town is actually controlled by aliens).

Live Action TV

Music

  • The band Klaatu is named after the same character.
  • Ringo Starr's solo album Goodnight Vienna uses a still from The Day The Earth Stood Still as its cover art, with Ringo's head replacing Klaatu's.

Theatre

  • The play The Foreigner references this. The main character, a science-fiction magazine editor, ends up scaring off the local KKK with a string of frightening-sounding nonsense, including this line.

Video Games

  • Reunion has a scientist named Klaatoo and a planet named after him with moons called Barada and Nikto.
  • The Lost Vikings 2; in the medieval levels, the teleportation spell is always "Klaatu, barada, something". Needless to say they don't work as desired.
  • Myth II: Soulblighter[context?]
  • robotfindskitten[context?]
  • In RuneScape, the magic words "Klaatu Barada Nikto" spoken by a certain character trigger a spell that teleports you a place where you can mine rune essence.
  • In Sacrifice, "klaatu", "barada", and "nikto" are three of the magic words that are combined to form various magical incantations; though not necessarily all three together or in order.
  • Mysterio's first appearance in Spider-Man 2, The Game Of The Movie, has him posing as an alien invader, and says this, as well as "All Your Base Are Belong to Us."
  • In World of Warcraft, there are three NPCs named Klaatu, Barada and Nikto.
  • Spyro 2 (Ripto's Rage/Gateway to Glimmer) references this, as a sage in one of the later levels claims that saying those words would bring Spyro to where he wanted to go at the start of the game. However, he couldn't quite remember the third word, so he dropped the matter.
  • There's a series of helms in Dragon Fable named after this.
  • Spike the Clown from Toonstruck says this in response to being told "I believe the spatula is mine!". Did we mention he's an insane clown?
  • In one mission in the RTS Myth: The Fallen Lords, a barbarian is sent to say the magic phrase that will awaken Myrdred the Deceiver. Subverted when, even though the barbarian says something like "Clambake Baraka Nictuu", it works anyway... Myrdred wakes up from his thousand-year-sleep, says "close enough", and teleports himself and your troops out of the area.
  • When Globox is trying to open the doors in Rayman 3, he can be heard calling out this phrase, among others.
  • In Robot Odyssey, it pops up after solving the final puzzle on the city level.
  • In the "Ebil Dread" adventure from the Adventure Quest Worlds 2nd Birthday Event, the horde of pink undead summoned up by Beleen can only be destroyed by assembling the George Lowe-onomicon and speaking the magic words. As the adventure in question is a Shout-Out to the Evil Dead series and Army of Darkness in particular (including Artix replacing his possessed pink hand with a chainsaw), one can pretty much guess what those magic words are. And much like Ash, Artix...doesn't quite get that last word right. Poor guy.
  • The Peacekeeper in Sword of the Stars, in Pig Latin. It's been nicknamed "Ortgay" as a result.
  • Ragnarok Online the quest in the underworld Nifflheim (part of the very long "Sign" quest) where you speak the magic words "Klaatu Barada Nikto" to a ghost named "Ash", this is another Army of Darkness reference as the title character of that movie is Ash.
  • Uttered by the Advanced Magic Towers in Kingdom Rush.

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation

  • Jimmy Neutron:
  • Jimmy used these as magic words in a Harry Potter parody.
    • The phrase was also used by Carl in the episode "Time Is Money", when Jimmy met his own parents in the past.
  • One episode of the 2003 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had Michelangelo trying to stop an alien Humongous Mecha this way. It didn't work.
    • An episode of the 1980s Turtles series revealed that members of the alien Polarisoid's family had these names.
  • An episode of Darkwing Duck has aliens from a literal Planet of Hats invade Earth; their names are Flarg, Barada, and Nikto, but the benevolent alien ruler who comes to apprehend them is named Klaatu II.
  • In an episode of Rocko's Modern Life, Heffer, convinced that Filburt is an alien, intent on high-fiving the rest of them to death (just go with it), says the phrase to Filburt, in an attempt to trick him into revealing that he's an alien by way of understanding it. According to Heffer, "It's alien language, I heard it from |a sci-fi movie."
  • An alien species uses the phrase (actually, "Klaatu Nikto Barada", but close enough) as a greeting in an episode of Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers.

Real Life

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