Invasion of the Puss-Covered Kudzu

I saw the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers last night. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

"It initially received varied reviews from critics, though its critical reception has significantly improved in subsequent years, receiving a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, and also being hailed as one of the greatest remakes ever as well as one of the best science-fiction horror films of all time."

Here's what I have to say:

It's shit. Absolute total shit. Despite having at least 3 A-listers on board, it was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The acting was worse than some school plays I've seen, with some of the top actors of all time phoning in some of the absolute worst performances in the entire history of cinema.

Absolutely zero money was spent on wardrobe, as everyone wore the exact same outfit (as if they were me) over the course of about a week, with at least two or maybe three of the characters wearing the exact same coat, as if they were on sale at K Mart or something at the time.

The last third of the movie was shot in near total darkness from some of the worst angles I have ever seen. The sound quality was shit, the dialogue was shit, the effects were sub-par for movies made during that era, and there's a scene where a dog with a man's face appears out of butt fuck nowhere, for no other reason than to scare the humans and out them in front of the aliens, and then disappears with no explanation and is never spoken of again.

Now the two worst aspects. First, the movie breaks its own rules. When you have a movie where something impossible happens, like alien plants invade and duplicate people or zombies come back to life, you have to establish the rules early on and stick with them to the very end. It's already been established two things: 1. the aliens just float in from space and 2. it takes hours for a person to be duplicated. If we take 1 at face value then why do the aliens need to establish a base in San Francisco and then have pods trucked out to everywhere else? Couldn't they just waft in anywhere and everywhere on the planet simultaneously? This does not make sense. This is a major plot hole. The other major plot hole is 2, it takes hours for a person to be duplicated. For 3/4 of the movie this is a major plot point, because three times people have fallen asleep and we watch the pod grow a duplicate very slowly, slow enough that the person can be woken up and the duplicate will die. Yet somehow, for "drama" or lack of time or whatever, near the very end when Brooke Adams' character falls asleep for like a second, despite there being no pods in the vicinity, she crumbles to dust and a new perfectly formed duplicate appears naked in the bushes instantly to scare Donald Sutherland. This is the second major plot hole, and taken together they absolutely ruin this movie.

And the second worst aspect is the script. This is some of the absolute worst writing I have ever seen. Okay, so we begin the movie, the beginning, the very beginning, where the aliens invade. Maybe two characters are very partially introduced, and then in the next scene hundreds of people have already been replaced. It's like the whole first act was cut out. Brooke Adams (I don't remember any of the characters names except Donald Sutherland was Matthew because they said his name seven, eight thousand times) goes to Donald Sutherland and says "My boyfriend has been replaced, his personality is totally different!" Let's not introduce the character and spend 20 minutes getting to know him so we the audience can be sure he's different, let's introduce him out of nowhere already replaced and just take it as given he's different. The same thing happens with everyone. Characters are not introduced until after they are replaced and we're supposed to take as given that they are different. There's zero chance of getting into the movie because the entire first third, where the world and the characters are introduced, was omitted for whatever reason. It wasn't run time, because the movie was almost 2 hours long and they had time enough to repeat several plot points three times, just so we would get it.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978 shouldn't have been released to theaters, it shouldn't even even have been released straight to video, it should have been released straight into the garbage.

Let's Go Die at Area 51!

Some two million idiots have pledged to "Storm Area 51" because "They can't stop all of us." These idiots think they can run to the base, confident in the belief that the base's defenders will run out of bullets (and napalm) before all their ranks are devastated.

Storming Area 51 is a logistics nightmare. Even reaching it is something that's very difficult, and almost impossible on foot. The nearest civilian rest stop is 86 miles from the base. Even running at 200% capacity it may be able to supply a couple thousand people. As for Area 51 itself, the distance from the gate to the buildings themselves is 28 miles of some of the harshest desert on the planet. You would have to be in peak physical condition (and not the people who signed up to storm the base) just to make it there on foot. The world record for marathon, which is less than the distance that needs to be crossed than the perimeter around Area 51, is just over 2 hours. Imagine doing that in 110 degree heat on blinding white salt flats with no shade. The elements themselves will defeat 90% of the people attempting this stunt, and, given the lack of medical facilities in the area, several thousand will probably die from heat stroke even just camping out in the desert.

Assuming even 10% of the people stupid enough to go manage to cross the desert, Area 51 sits on a US Air Force base. The Air Force has napalm, and they're not afraid to use it, at least in built-up civilian areas in Iraq.

This is Napalm. Water cannot put it out. Yes, they can stop all of you.

Napalm aside, those signs all over the desert warning of the use of lethal force are not jokes. People have been shot, to death, trying to access Area 51. Even if 10% of the keyboard warriors decide not to sleep late and actually storm Area 51, and if 10% of them are surprisingly fit enough to make it the nearly 100 miles through the desert to the base, that means 20,000 people will be on the receiving end of, at the very least, rubber bullets, active denial weapons (which will stop you in your tracks unless you are very stoned on PCP or something), tear gas, and other rather cool non-lethal weapons.

This is Active Denial. It will stop you.

There are also legal ramifications in attempting to storm Area 51, as this Internet lawyer can explain. Even if you are not killed, pelted with rubber bullets, or sent to the hospital for dehydration, you will be sent to jail and fined perhaps half your monthly welfare check.



One can only pray to our Lord Thanos (the best alien, by the way) that at the very least 10% of these idiots do decide to go through with this jackassery so that the universe can become more balanced, as all things should be, through their removal from the gene pool. Best case scenario ALL of them decide to go and balance the universe.

A man can dream, can't he?