Political message in a classic film

This evening my wife and I watched Robert Wise's science fiction classic, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) on TVO. By today's standards, of course, it's all pretty low tech. But it's considered a classic because of its antinuclear message coming during the early and most frightening years of the Cold War. And the dated special effects are more than made up for by the wonderfully ethereal score composed by the incomparable Bernard Herrmann.

I've seen this film more than once before, but what stood out for me this time were the political subtexts. Without giving too much away, I can say two things:

(1) Klaatu, the extraterrestrial visitor, brings a message from an interplanetary confederation that sounds uncannily like the Bush Doctrine, including the right of pre-emption to eliminate even the whisper of a threat.

(2) The interplanetary confederation sounds uncomfortably like the Hobbesian commonwealth, with a cosmic leviathan ready to lower the boom if anyone gets out of line. This effectively ends the interstellar state of nature and frees everyone from the threat of war.

Perhaps I should propose to teach a course on the political message of films.