Hacker Cinema
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1956 · Film · 80 min
Directed by Don Siegel
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
4 positive8 neutralfrom 12 commenters
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12 comments on Hacker News
"They live" was a cult classic, and great fun if you were a Roddy Piper fan.
Other entertaining films =3
"The Great Dictator" (Charlie Chaplin, 1940)
https://archive.org/details/the-great-dictator-disc-01-title-2
"Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951)
https://archive.org/details/day-the-earth-stood-still-1951
"Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" (1956)
https://archive.org/details/invasionofthebodysnatchers1956_201911/
"The Man in the White Suit" (1951)
https://archive.org/details/the-man-in-the-white-suit_202105
"The Twilight Zone" (1959)
https://archive.org/details/the-twilight-zone-1959-s-01-e-00-original-pilot/The+Twilight+Zone+1959+S01E12+What+You+Need.mp4
https://archive.org/details/the-twilight-zone-1959-s-01-e-00-original-pilot/The+Twilight+Zone+1959+S01E25+People+Are+Alike+All+Over.mp4
https://archive.org/details/the-twilight-zone-1959-s-03-e-15-a-quality-of-mercy/The+Twilight+Zone+1959+S03E24+To+Serve+Man.mp4
https://archive.org/details/the-twilight-zone-1959-s-03-e-15-a-quality-of-mercy/The+Twilight+Zone+1959+S03E28+The+Little+People.mp4
I'm a big fan of Cold War-era thriller films
there're also some good spy films at that time, but these are not as cool as thrillers such as The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers
unfortunately or fortunately, there hasn't been such brilliant films since the end of the Cold War(I like The Facult, but it is not that good)
fortunately or unfortunately, I believe that such brilliant films are about to make a comeback
I still can't get used to it. It's totally creepy. Every time I'm out in public, it feels like the old movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where 99% of the people have been replaced with alien, but physically exact, replicas. And they're all just zombied out on their phones. It's an addiction that's run through the population completely wild and unaddressed. Often dangerously, scrolling messages while driving 75mph down the freeway. I used to host movie night, but we stopped because 5 minutes into the movie people were just ignoring the movie scrolling Instagram. You can do that at home, guys, jeez.
Having been born in '71, my folks, who loved horror and sci-fi, dragged me along to a lot of these. There was an old drive-in in town that would show this stuff so, we'd pull in, get popcorn and I'd usually fall asleep part way in, but I still remember scenes from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Incredible Melting Man, etc. Funny, though, many of those movies I never watched again when I was older.
Interesting that Silent Running is list as "underrated", yet I think it's way overrated. I mean, on the topic of sci-fi, the movie has been mentioned in lists and otherwise for years. The theme is good, and I like the idea of watching the movie. But then I turn it on, and man, it's sure can be cringey. My shoulders go up around my ears when Dern's character is lecturing his shipmates on "real food". IRL, they would have thrown him out an airlock after one too many sanctimonious speeches. And that part with Joan Baez screeching on the soundtrack, ugh.
And to digress into nit-picking, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Saw that in the theaters because...it got good reviews.
Sorry, I did not complete my thought. Namely that another way to think about these LLMs is something like... Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Or any one of a number of other films. Pod People! Masquerading as hoominz.
> Reminds me a little of Star Trek TNG's The Game[1], where the crew becomes addicted to an automated AR/VR game that just sits there autoplaying, directly manipulating the brain's pleasure sensors.
Huh. That appears to be a mostly-accurate summary of Wikipedia's description of the episode, which heavily features the term "addicted". But it's an awful summary of the episode itself, which doesn't use the concept of addiction at all. (Also, the game doesn't autoplay; it is shown on screen requiring effort from the player.)
The game is a malevolent agent which intentionally makes very specific modifications to the players' minds. The relevant concept is infection, not addiction. The plot of the episode is essentially identical to that of the TNG episode Conspiracy[1], or the Buffy episode Bad Eggs[2].
And while not completely identical, the plot is also very similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers[3]. It's a very, very common theme. (As shown by the fact that TNG did it twice!)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Eggs_(Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers
Postwar America was huge into self-medication. You watch a film like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and characters are casually popping pills and swigging scotch every other scene. Before that, you had patent medicine shows and snake oil remedies and puritanical types inventing Graham crackers and corn flakes to promote temperance. The U.S. has always had a self-medicating, consumerist approach to health, for whatever reason.
I had a sudden flashback remembering a "Lost In Space" episode on TV as a kid: haunted by the giant alien plants that threaten the Robinson family. I suppose the writer was rehashing "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers".
Maybe, but with all the people stuck at home, it really should be on everyone's Netflix to-watch list. Fantastic movie.
Some other good picks relevant for these times: The Andromeda Strain (1971) Outbreak (1995) Contagion (2011) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 and 1978 versions) 28 Days Later (2002)
Videodrome has faded from my memory. All I remeber is how I felt watching it. Like A Clockwork Orange, Dead Ringers, and Blue Velvet, I'm not sure I ever want to see it again.
A film I don't often see mentioned but that I still think is a good watch is Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
As Rod Serling would say, "Submitted for your approval":
Eraserhead Forbidden Zone Gaslight Invaders from Mars Invasion of the Body Snatchers Laura Minority Report Mirage Rebecca Suddenly, Last Summer The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari The Devil's Advocate The Wizard of Oz Total Recall Vanilla Sky
Some are better than others, of course. And some fit the mindf definition better than others. Oh, well. These are some films that popped into my head.