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Invasion of the Body Snatchers Movies
1956 Version Trouble is afoot in a small town although everything appears just fine on the surface. People are telling Dr. Miles Binnell that their relatives aren't actually their relatives. At first Miles assumes its just a mass cass of hysteria sweeping the town. As a logical man Miles assumes there must be some logical cause or catalyst to cause people to start doubting the identities of their own friends and families. As time goes on Miles becomes more suspicious. A strange body is found over at a close friend's house and Miles is called to looking into it. He brings his female friend Becky. At first the body appears like any other corpse. But upon closer inspection, it is noticed that the body has no finger prints and no clear defined features of any sort. It's like the body is still in a process of being formed. The body closely resemble Miles himself which is quite eerie for everyone to grasp. Shortly after this, a host of pods are found in a green house along with a partially formed body. Miles and everyone else deduces that these pods are somehow replicating people and taking the place of who they replicate. This would explain the hysteria of relatives not being relatives. Miles and Becky attempt to notify federal authorities of this danger. But upon trying to call the switchboard refuses to let them through and the operator knows who Miles is. Apparently the pod people have taken the town. Miles is confronted by what were his former friends. They instruct him to sleep so that he too can emerge as they are and feel no emotion at all. That is how the replicated humans are; completely comformed, completely unemotional. Miles battles his way out of town with Becky. A great alarm sounds and everyone chases after them. Becky hides in a cave while Miles looks around. He returns to find his girlfriend Becky has been changed into one of the pod people. Miles finally makes it to a free way. One of the pod people then says "let him go, no one will believe him" Miles tells his story to authories who at first think he is crazy. After trucks carrying strange pods are seen coming from the town Miles was in the authorities start to listen. The movie ends with Miles running through the streets trying to warn America about the dangers of assimilation by the pods. |
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1978 Version This remake takes place in the large city of San Franciso rather than in a small town like the first film. The film features actor Donald Sutherland as a public health inspector investigating why people in the city are complaining of their relatives not being their trueselves. The health inspector and a few others witness several pods outside on the lawn with bodies forming in one scene. They just wake up go outside and copies of themselves are forming clear as day. That was unique to see. From there the movie dragged out. By the movie's end a female who knows of the pods presence in the city spots the health inspector across the street and calls out his name. He replies by looking at her and leting out a ghastly noise. He too was now one of the pod people trying to warn his fellows about this female threat. This movie is without doubt the weakest of the body snatchers trilogy. |
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1993 Version This version is my favorite of the Body Snatchers trilogy. It all began in a small town near a local military base. Steve Malone a scientist with the EPA is sent to find out if toxins stored at the base are stored safely and being disposed of properly. He brings his family with him. He expects his trip will be a brief and uneventful one. His daughter Marty is in her teens and can never get along with her father. They seem to be the typical dysfunctional family. During one of Malone's scientific tests at the base a massive container breaks open and spews toxin onto one of the workers there. The worker doesen't seem in pain and the workers at the base refuse Malone's help. This seemed odd. Malone then meets a Major at the base that inquires as to the pschological and physiological effects that toxins could have on the mind. The major insists that he is seeing men turn up right and left at the base that are afraid of family members and that unsure of people's real identitys. The major is quite frightened he states. As the story builds Malone's daughter Marty meets a chopper pilot and basically parties with the boys. Marty's brother is constantly encouraged to sleep at school. When the students of his class hold up their various creative artworks, they all are eerily identical except the one of Marty's brother. A unity of thought and identical sameness seems to be the way of his class and the way of this town. Many of the people of this military town have a unique understanding. You can just see it in their eyes, especially during trash day. They have a unique understandng because they are all the same. The story unfolds slowly in the beginning. The mood builds and the little inconsistancies found in the people of the base tend to bind a viewer in a state of utter curiosity. Marty awakes one night terrified to discover a near perfect copy of herself floating in the bath tube she fell asleep in. She awakes her father who also discovers a forming copy of himself under his bed, and then all hell breaks loose. Malone then motions his wife to join them as they attempt to leave this town. She looks at him with indifference and says "Listen Steve, what's hapeneing in your room is not an isolated incident. Its happening in towns like this everywhere. So where you gonna go, where you gonna run, where you gonna hide; no where cause there's no one like you left." His wife then walks slowly to the door and points and this horrible squell insues. It is apparent that this is no longer a human being. Then the whole town it seems mobolizes. Military police are everywhere and one can clearly see armed resistance in the street. Most people it appears apparent are copies like Marty and Malone discovered. Such copies are perfect in everyway but lack emotion or sense of individual initiative. These copies come from a pod like lifeform that travels the universe. When placed near any living creature it can replicate anything exactly while it sleeps. A systematic rounding up of human beings to be used as "hosts" is clearly visible through the darkness of this night. Some scream as they are taken away and some fight. The harder someone fights the more valuable they would be to the group cause when copied so they are never just shot. The eye connection between members of the town during trash day now make sense as such trash bags are filled with the former remains of the human host that this pod like lifeform had replicated. Marty eventurally loses everyone she loves and knew to "them." She escapes with a chopper pilot and the movie ends with the pods continuing to be efficiently shipped to bases and towns all around the world. Would anyone believe this tale of alien partasites copying people and then replacing human beings with emotionless copies? Would this new form of life prove to be the better one and dominate or would humanity win in the end. The movie ends with that question. Ultimately what is more important the group or the individual? Is the societal hive human beings create for progress to be maximized at all cost? The movie has a masked anti communist, and anti socialist theme to it. Its a movie for individuals. The movie features incredible effects, dialogue and a slowly progressing plot that leaves one questioning the importance of everything from one's values to ones individual essence. |
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