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Every generation gets the Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie it deserves. To date, there have been four official adaptations of Jack Finney’s 1954 novel The Body Snatchers and each one adapts its premise to the concerns of the time in which it was made. The deep core of the novel asks, “what exactly is it that makes us human?” and then examines it through a non-human threat that attempts to replicate humanity but just can’t get it quite right. Every twenty years or so, a new version of the story applies that question to the current climate. We are right around that twenty-year mark. We are ready for a new Body Snatchers movie, and it should be about Artificial Intelligence.
In 1954 and 1956 when the novel and the first film version of the story directed by Don Siegel were released, the Cold War was America’s preoccupation. The brilliance of that original film is that it can be read from either side of the political divide. Anti-communists could see the Pod People as the Soviet hordes trying to take over American individualism. The anti-McCarthy crowd could say that the actions of the Anti-communist witch hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon and others were destroying the American soul built on the ideals of freedom of speech, expression, and association. Don Siegel claimed that neither was true, that it was just a good story. This only proves the effectiveness and malleability of Invasion of the Body Snatchers for decades to come.
The 1978 adaptation, directed by Philip Kaufman is still arguably the best of the bunch (though many give unwavering allegiance to the original). The 1970s were a time of searching for meaning in the wake of Watergate, the collapse of the hippie and anti-war movements, and more. Self-help and religious cults abounded in the wake of the perceived “failure of the 60s” with pseudo-psychological gurus filling the vacuum of man’s search for meaning. Of all the adaptations of the story, this retains the most relevance today in our time of political divisions, social alienation, social media induced echo chambers, and conspiracy theories.
Abel Ferrara’s 1993 film Body Snatchers is the most overtly political adaptation and a response to the culmination of a decade of military buildup, most of it during peacetime. With decades of Cold War ending in the collapse of the Soviet Union, the film asks why the US was still devoted to its massive military might. Was it really “peace through strength” or positioning the United States to be a worldwide police force and more importantly, what effect does this have on the psychology and personality of the nation. In essence, are we as a nation losing our souls in this buildup and becoming a culture of conformity in the process?
‘Body Snatchers’ (1993)
In the smallest interval between official adaptations, a great deal happened, specifically in the science of genetics. In 1996, Dolly the sheep was cloned, the Human Genome Project was completed in 2004, and stem cell research became a hot-button political issue. Concerns were raised about the genetic alteration of foods and the effect it would have on human biology and psychology. Of all the versions of The Body Snatchers, The Invasion (2007) is considered the least effective despite the involvement of superstar producer Joel Silver and a cast led by Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. It does, however, tap into the contemporary fears of the era and ask the important questions asked by every version of the story.
The questions at the heart of every adaptation are clear: is there something beyond biology, intellect, memories, and experiences that makes us human? and would giving ourselves over to certain trends and conveniences rob us of that humanity? Thousands of years of philosophy, religion, and science haven’t been able to make a definitive declaration one way or the other, so I certainly cannot make an airtight argument for the existence of a soul. I can however suggest that we recognize the presence of human agency when we see it, or more to the point, when we don’t. In Jack Finney’s original novel, Wilma, a young woman, describes to the lead character, Dr. Miles Bennell, why she believes that her Uncle Ira is no longer really her Uncle Ira:
“‘Miles, he looks, sounds, acts and remembers exactly like Ira. On the outside. But inside he’s different. His responses”—she stopped, hunting for the word—’aren’t emotionally right, if I can explain that. […]there was—always—a special look in his eyes[…]Miles, that look, ‘way in back of the eyes, is gone. With this—this Uncle Ira, or whoever or whatever he is, I have the feeling, the absolutely certain knowledge, Miles, that he’s talking by rote. That the facts of Uncle Ira’s memories are all in his mind in every last detail, ready to recall. But the emotions are not. There is no emotion—none—only the pretense of it. The words, the gestures, the tones of voice, everything else—but not the feeling.’”
In the 1978 adaptation, the invaders can be fooled by not showing emotion, but the humans know that something is off, that their loved ones have been taken over. Humanity sees and responds to humanity, and that cannot be synthesized. There is an intangible beyond the sum of intellect and experience that makes us who we are. So, call it whatever you want—a soul, mojo, life force, je ne sais quoi, the X factor, or “it,” there is something that cannot entirely be explained that makes humans human, that a machine simply does not have and will never have. And this is why we are not only due for a new Body Snatchers film, but it absolutely must be about Artificial Intelligence.
There are many wonderful uses for A.I. It is an extraordinarily helpful scientific tool, for example. It can extrapolate weather patterns, chart climate change, predict the spread of viruses, and so on, giving humans a template to help foresee and intervene in various crises. It has been a great asset in medical research and the production of vaccines and life-saving medicines. A.I. is wonderful for things that require cold precision or predictive models. In movies, it can help make computer-generated crowd scenes, for example, more authentic. I have no problem with the use of A.I. in certain circumstances. I’m not too worried (yet) that we are in the process of creating a Skynet, Matrix, or Battlestar Galactica situation. What I object to is the placement of artificial intelligence at the center of the creative process.
‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (1956)
Creativity is a uniquely human pursuit. We create to seek meaning, to hold the mirror up to nature, to discover who we are. A.I. doesn’t care about any of those things. By handing the creative process over to A.I. merely to save time and money we are quite literally selling our souls. The spark of creativity is driven by the engine of humanity. It is this spark that the invaders in the Body Snatchers stories cannot replicate, and neither can A.I. It can be told the parameters and process the probable outcomes, but it cannot understand what it means to be human. It is incapable of offering a surprising and illogical human solution to a plot point that causes us to sit forward in our chair or take a sharp intake of breath when we see something we have never seen before.
It does not know how deeply heartbreak hurts, it doesn’t feel the sting of disappointment, the joy of connection, the ecstasy of making love or seeing a sunset. It does not feel the longing for something better or have any hope for the future. It can analyze the works of Mozart or Beethoven and create the missing pieces of the Requiem or write a “Tenth Symphony” (Beethoven wrote nine, but died in the early stages of another), but they can never be the works of genius that the men themselves would have written had they lived. All A.I. can do is produce derivation based on existing information. All it can do is produce mediocrity. A hollow imitation. It can rehash and repackage but it cannot truly innovate. It cannot transcend or surprise. Our humanity cannot be touched in that special way that only great art can by something that has no humanity. It reduces the act of creativity to a parlor game.
In the film Amadeus, Mozart is called upon to play a familiar tune in the style of J.S. Bach, which he proceeds to do quite well. Is it how Bach would have arranged the melody? Almost certainly not, but in that case at least it is filtered through a creative entity who not only has similar knowledge, but similar feelings. If the same trick were performed by A.I. it would be technically correct but joyless, hollow, lacking any kind of soul. We may not be able to pinpoint exactly why, but something about it would strike us as “wrong” or “off.” The humanity in us recognizes the humanity in others and by extension the humanity in art. When A.I. is used as a parlor trick, it can be a diverting pastime, but when it is seriously being considered to produce art, it is dangerous.
Some may argue that current filmmakers can only assimilate what has come before and repackage it. This is a regular criticism aimed at filmmakers like George Lucas, Brian DePalma, and Quentin Tarantino. What critics of these and others fail to recognize is the innovation with which they amalgamate what has come before, through the filter of their unique humanity and creativity, into something new and exciting. Yes, George Lucas was inspired by space and adventure serials of the 30s when he created Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but the result is neither Flash Gordon nor Allan Quatermain. De Palma was a student of Hitchcock, but his best films advance the tools of the Master of Suspense to a new level. Tarantino tosses the ingredients of exploitation, 70s action cinema, and king fu movies into a stew that becomes something unique and often greater than the sum of its parts. Their visions are unique and rise far above facsimile.
Imagine downloading all of Quentin Tarantino’s knowledge and personal experience along with the scripts he has written into a computer equipped with A.I. It still would not be able to produce the script for a hypothetical eleventh Tarantino movie. Even if it knows everything that Quentin Tarantino knows it lacks one important element—it is not Quentin Tarantino. In other words, only he could make Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill or Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood because his films are more than the sum of their parts just as humans are somehow more than the sum of theirs.
‘The Invasion’ (2007)
In the world of the Pod People, the only pursuit of life is survival, but it seems like there is not much reason to survive. There is no artistic expression or creativity of any kind, only the collective work that needs to be done for continued existence. It is a world of conformity and detachment. In the 1978 version, the Pod Person Dr. David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy) states that they came from a dead planet implying that once they have depleted earth’s resources, they will ride the solar winds to another planet, then invade and deplete it as well. The Pod People only know how to exist and consume, they do not know how to live.
Art is meant to not merely pass the time, but feed our souls, and one thing we need as humans is nourished souls. We need our imaginations to be set free, our creativity unbound—relying on A.I. to fill this role will only chain them. A common complaint about Hollywood is that it is all out of ideas. Everything is remakes, sequels, and I.P., there is nothing new under the sun. Giving filmmaking over to Artificial Intelligence will only make this worse, butchering and puréeing even what we have now into a bland, tasteless soup of mediocrity. Right now, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA workers on the picket lines seem to be the only thing standing between us and this nightmare scenario becoming a reality—fight on friends!
But then maybe it’s too late for this argument. A.I. is already here, there’s no stopping it, and you’re next…
