YMMV / Invasion of the Body Snatchers

• Adaptation Displacement: The number of people who've seen the movies dwarf the number who've read the book quite handily.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: There's some room for uncertainty regarding whether the aliens are truly replacing the originals, and taking their memories is merely useful for blending in, or if they actually see themselves as merging with the original individual in a symbiotic relationship. This can make the aliens either a case of Always Chaotic Evil, or simply Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• Applicability: Each film follows the same basic plot, but uses the aliens as a metaphor for different contemporary fears — communism (or McCarthyism, as noted above) in The '50s, urban alienation in The '70s, suburban alienation and military regimentation in The '90s, and the paranoia of The War on Terror in the 2000s.
• Death of the Author: There's a noticeable divide among film critics and historians over whether the original film is an allegory for Communist takeover or the insular paranoia of McCarthyism, both of which were fears of the American public at the time the film was made.
• He's Just Hiding: In the first film we only have pod Jack's word that Teddy was also captured, and he could have motives to lie. Also, it's unclear if Jack himself was ever really captured given that his pod had woken up once when he'd fallen asleep, and possibly had stayed awake.
  • Also, the fifties film is the only one to never confirm that the original humans are being killed in addition to being replaced, although its speculated on.
• Paranoia Fuel: Have your friends and loved ones been acting strangely lately? How strangely? By the way, if you fall asleep you might be replaced by an alien doppelganger. FYI.

---