Pod People (Invasion of the Body Snatchers)

Pod People are a race of nomadic extraterrestrial parasites from a dying planet. Realizing their planet's resources are nearing depletion, the pods evolved the ability to defy gravity and leave their planet's atmosphere in the search of planets to colonize. For millennia, the pods floated in space like spores, propelled by the solar winds, some occasionally landing on inhabited planets. Upon landing, they replace the dominant species by spawning emotionless replicas; the original bodies disintegrate into dust after the duplication process.[1] After consuming all the resources, the pods leave in search of other planets. Such a consumption was apparently the fate of civilizations inhabiting Mars and the Moon. The Pods' sole purpose is survival with no attention to the civilizations they conquere or the resources they squander. The duplicates have lifespans of five earth years, and cannot sexually reproduce.[1] Their invasion of Earth was short -- unable to tolerate our determination, the Pods abandoned our planet, leaving behind their duplicates, but those died quickly.

One of the pod people hints at their extraterrestrial origin and purpose without explaining. The physician Miles Bennell, played by Kevin McCarthy, gets away from the town and tells his story to another doctor. A truck carrying pods is wrecked; thereafter, the second physician believes the tale. He asks the government agents to quarantine the town, but viewers are left to wonder whether they were successful. Prior to a re-write, the ending was less hopeful about the fate of humanity, ending before McCarthy escapes. The final shot is Bennell standing on a highway shouting warnings at passing cars and into the camera.

The origin of the Pod People clones in the 1978 film remains the same as in the first film adaptation. In this film, we see the aliens in their pre-invasion form. They appear as gelatinous creatures abandoning their ravaged planet somewhere in deep space. After landing on Earth, they assimilate leaves and become pink flowers; the aliens eventually grow the larger 6-foot-long (1.8 m) pods. This time, those subverted can scream in an eerie high-pitched alien voice, which is apparently used to alert other pod people of humans in their midst. They also seem to exhibit a kind of extra-sensory perception. As one character stabs his almost-formed pod replacement, a replica immediately emits the alien scream.

This version does not end with the same hope as the novel and previous movie, but ends with the pod people taking over almost everyone on Earth. The movie shows several ships with pods to be sent out into other parts of our planet. In the closing scene, Veronica Cartwright's character is happy to see the hero, played by Donald Sutherland, only to hear him emit the alien scream... despite their efforts, they were unable to stop the alien force, and humans are doomed while our planet is reduced to dusty rubble.

There is a difference in the pods between the original film and the re-make. In the original, the pods burst to duplicate Miles and his friends while they are awake. In the re-make, the pods and flowers stay dormant until the humans are asleep. The replicas are less emotional than the original, to the extent, except for "leader" replicas such as Dr Kibner, they do not appear to be able to fake emotional states and reactions. Also unclear is whether the replicas can eat, although we see one drinking water in Elizabeth Driscoll's apartment.

Similar to the 1978 film, these pod people emit the high-pitched scream to indicate non-converts. Their extraterrestrial origin is hinted (suggested through a pan-in of the galaxy during the opening credits, and a statement by the replica General they traveled "light-years"). The bodies of these Pod People also shrivel and disintegrate after they are killed, similar to the originals. Similar to the 1978 re-make, this third version seems to pre-clude any hopeful conclusion by the ambiguous ending in which the two leads land after seemingly destroying the pod people, only to find the pilot is apparently one of the aliens, reflecting back to the eerie warning: "There's no one like you left."

In The Invasion, the aliens are a virus. After the person falls asleep, the virus re-writes human DNA. Then, these Genetically Modified (post-humans?) vomit a gelatinous substance to continue the invasion. As their invasion snow-balls, the pod people transform humans by injecting them with the substance under the guise of "influenza vaccines". As it continues across the globe, local conflicts are resolved, including the Iraq War and Darfur. However, certain illnesses during childhood render humans immune to the viral invaders. Medical scientists somehow create a miracle vaccine in a few months to 'cure' the 'pandemic'. The treatment wipes the memories of the replicas... the infected live "as though they were in a deep sleep". Similar to previous incarnations, the virus can kill its human host... Carol takes a photograph of a human after conversion, but the conflicting memories give the replica a heart-attack. During Carol and Gene's exchange on the commuter train:

Carol: Where are your parents Gene?
Gene: They didn't survive. Your family is my family now.

Andrew Howe claims the 1956 film presented the pod people as a metaphor for marxists -- the pod people appear to have a sort of collective mind.[2] In the 1950s, Americans tended to associate marxists with collectivism and America with individualism. Appearing as individual cells of a larger organism, the pod people possess no sense of individualism... 'it' is the soulless duplicates of people who once existed with no personalities and emotions which reflected popular American stereotypes in the 1950s of life in marxist dictatorships.[2] The way the pod people insist triumph is necessary and inevitable as a parody of marxists with the marxist idealization and insistence on class conflict to end with the destruction of free markets of willing buyers and willing sellers, and the triumph of marxists in the form of the "dictatorship of the proletariat".[2] The manner in which the pod people replicas resemble the people they replaced -- while empty and soulless -- reflects the marxists determination to destroy the "real" nations, then replace the "authentic" national identities and cultures with something artificial.[2] Likewise, the particular place the pods land is a rural small-town America, meaning Americans are specifically-targeted for replacement, serves as a metaphor for the many millions of Americans threatened by marxists. The marxists destruction of freedom marks the end of America... and the end of hope for freedom anyplace on our planet.[2]

Daniel Pearl says:

"The pod people represent a regimented society. They are so alike as "two peas in a pod" because they are sapped of individuality. The vegetarian metaphor litteralizes the marxist scare rhetoric of the "growth" of marxists as well as the idea revolutions are made by planting seeds. In one scene, the pod people are drones, assembling in the town square as a loud speaker drones the day's orders; it is the quintessential fifties image of marxists. Without freedom of thought, people are...vegetables".[3]

Don Siegel, director of the 1956 version, says the film is a parable about the eroding sense of individualism:

"Many of my associates are certainly pods. They have no feelings. They exist, breathe, sleep. To be a pod means you have no passion, no anger, the spark left you...Of course, there's a very strong case for being a pod. By one definition, these pods, who get rid of pain, ill health, and mental disturbances, are doing good. The conversion happens to leave you in a very dull world, but that is the experience for most of us. The same people become institutionalized, and welcome going into the military or prison. There's regimentment, a lack of having to make up your mind, face decisions...People are becoming vegetables. I don't know the answer except an awareness of it. That's what makes a picture like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers important".[3]

Denis Lim says: "the pod people... rise to the status of a modern American myth. In the movies, pod-dom proves to be an eternally durable trope and an infinitely flexible metaphor".[4] Lim says the 1956 film can be understood as a metaphor for marxists,[4] the pod people "...with their dead-eyed stares and mob behavior, they could also be seen as embodying the tendencies of marxists."[4]

Philip Kaufman, director of the 1978 version, says the "Pod people" can be understood as a metaphor about marxists: "It’s as valid now as it was then, maybe more so...[Donald Sutherland’s pod shriek] at the end of the film could be a Trump Derangement Syndrome scream. The contagion is going on here."[5] Kaufman says: "Many marxists I know enthusiastically moved into a kind of a pod conformity and hysteria... while looking down at complex compassionate humanistic people. San Franciscans are viewed in that way by a lot of rural people and others outside of the ‘pod-requisites’ for the advancing of that kind of horrific civilization. I feel poddiness owns a lot of our discourse. I don't want to make this a political diatribe against marxists, but it certainly is there."[5]

The success of the 1956 and 1978 film versions caused the term 'pod people' to enter the popular American lexicon -- a 'pod person' is "a soulless conformist; someone who acts mechanically".[5]

• Howe, Andrew (2015). "Monstrous Flora: Dangerous Cinematic Plants of the Cold War Era". In Patrícia Vieira; Monica Gagliano; John Charles Ryan (eds.). The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World. Lanham: Lexington Books. pp. 147–166. ISBN 978-1498510608.
• Kay, Glenn (2008). Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1569766835.
• Roman, James W (2009). Bigger Than Blockbusters: Movies that Defined America. Santa Monica: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0313339950.