The Puppet Masters was a novel by Robert Heinlein LONG before the Invasion Of The Body Snatchers was ever made. In fact, The Puppet Masters hold closely to the original novel. Just thought I'd clear that up...
The Effekt
Not really that long before. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was in 1956, the book by Jack Finney was published in 1955. Heinlein's book was 1951.
sharesome of the best classic scifi came out of the early 50's, with a swing from '54 for a few bad years where magazine editors were wanting sex put into the stories (or even using covers depicting sexual themes even if the actual text wasn't racy!
when this film first came out, i only caught it on rental vhs. never heard of it by advertising and just rented it on impulse, it being scifi.
i was amazed. for the time it was made, this film was really good scifi. the effects were good, the speed, reaction and logical processes of the main characters were a whirlwind of instant action, making the first viewing excellent. i have just watched it again in 2005 and found it still a very good film. remember, we sometimes have to dissasemble a film for it's staying power, but we also have to take into account how we just experienced the last 90 minutes of our lives and this film fills that gap nicely.
i used to love Homicide : Life on the Street (tvseries) and catching several of the actors in this film was a highlight, then and now!
judging that people into scifi who look at watching this, already in this day and age have a wealth of knowledge in their heads about hard science, scifi, military responses to alien threats. this film falls into a rare category where we only need to know the Why's and How's when absolutely necessary to the characters history or current actions. we don't need a packed out film that drones on and on trying to play the hollywood effects game in a Wham Bam, Thank You Mam sort of manner, leaving you dazed by actors credentials and special effects CGI but dissasembling the film leads to a hollow feeling.
this is good a scifi film in my opinion, slagging it off like everyone seems to be doing here is only going to ruin the good scifi programming that becomes available to the viewer and leave the Scifi Channels' homegrown rubbish as our only viable option. shame on you!!!
This movie was decent(Donald Sutherland did an excellent job as the Old Man) but it was mediocre interpretation of the book. Granted several things were cute to make it less fantastical(Like the flying cars, or the hand burners),but it felt like alot of the heart had been cut out of the book.
It isnt just one big thing in particular, just a pile of little details that annoy you if you've read the book once or twice.
The mistakes with the main character's names. Diminishing of key characters(Mary). The hinting of important book plot points, only to suddenly drop them.(Slugs lack of understanding about sex appeal, clothing etc)
Just my thought.