Okay, I'm not "denigrating" the comparison, which to me means I'm knocking it, calling it invalid or worse, which I was not. However you interpret a phrase such as "apples and oranges", it is not in itself a negative.
I'm not dissing the comparison. Quite the opposite, since I specifically said I do find some comparisons between the two films apt -- not to mention I also made a rather lengthy comparison of the substance of the two films a couple of posts back. The guy who replied was answering that post, and I saw no need to restate my prior points. I simply think there's a limit to how closely you can compare IFM and IOTBS.
I really don't agree that the two films are remotely as alike as you believe. The similarities are broad and not very specific to one another. Really the only basic similarity (though it is a crucial one) is the take-over of human beings' minds by an alien force. But the pods in IOTBS are essentially simply life forms who happened to drift here and are absorbing other life forms as they would on any planet: it's their built-in, routine if you will, means of survival. It happens without pre-planning, though once the take-overs have begun the pod people fight to sustain their lives just as the humans resisting them do. The human (or any animal) replica is merely the form the pod takes -- in effect, the pod takes the person's form, the original is destroyed, and the pod, in human guise but not human, lives on.
In IFM, on the other hand, the Martians are a "conventional" invader, in that they are simply an armed invading enemy force. They do not assume human form but instead surgically insert a device that forces a captured human to do their bidding -- after which he or she is killed. They are not able to or interested in taking over human life forms, and they can't assume human form themselves. They don't need to assume another form to survive. There is nothing accidental in their invasion. Landing on Earth was not a chance encounter in space, as it is in IOTBS. Just how far they want to carry their invasion is unclear -- simply to destroy our capacity to move into space, or a prelude to a full-fledged invasion a la The War of the Worlds -- though the former seems far more likely from what we hear and see. But theirs is a premeditated, strictly military invasion, perhaps for protection against humans going into space -- completely contrary to the pods' actions, which are a biological reaction geared solely to their own self-preservation.
That's essentially why I say there's little the two films truly have in common. The motive, means and ultimate ends of the alien forces are very different, and furthered in very different ways. The broad similarity of an alien invasion, coupled with a very basic (and completely dissimilar) notion of subjugating humans -- in different ways, to different degrees and for entirely different purposes -- doesn't make these two films any more alike than they are to any other alien invasion film. In fact, IFM is vastly closer to The War of the Worlds than it is to IOTBS. Village of the Damned, for one, has much more in common with the latter.
Apples and oranges, respectfully undenigrated.
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