Different versions have different political backgrounds:
1956 version-The political background is the white terror of McCarthyism.
The 1956 edition was the age of McCarthyism. Americans’ fear of communist infiltration created the white terror of the McCarthy Committee’s persecution of suspected communists. Those alien pods posing as humans aroused the audience's fear of the Communist Party; however, those fake humans who persecuted normal people alluded to the white horror of McCarthyism.
1978 edition-Watergate triggered distrust
The background of the 1978 edition is no longer McCarthyism, but the United States after the Vietnam War and Watergate. At that time, the entire United States was divided and distrusted because of the Watergate Incident. Those pods create mistrust, deceived humans suffer, and those who are not deceived find themselves in a world that no one can trust. (By the way, the ending of the 1978 edition is one of the famous unexpected endings in the history of film.)
1993 edition-the box office was not ideal. When the
1993 edition was painted in the United States, which was a peaceful and prosperous era , it was the most peaceful and windless in the United States. The era of no waves. At that time, the Soviet Union had disintegrated, and the United States defeated Iraq in the first Gulf War. There is no political message in the film. At most, it points out that the army emphasizes obedience, which is actually very similar to the world of the pod. This version is not a hit at all and is regarded as a work close to a B-level film.
2007 edition (The Invasion)-No fear, no longer resonating. When the
2007 edition was released, there was no major political and military crisis.
When the story of The Pod Man’s invasion of the earth is not supported by a political background, it will be difficult to get the audience's resonance, and it is destined to not be a hit. The fear in the minds of Americans in this age is Islamic terrorists, but their Arab appearance is very recognizable and does not fit the story of alien infiltration.
This version is not without political information-humans will kill each other (the examples in the film are the US invasion of Iraq, the India-Pakistan conflict, etc.), and if they are assimilated by alien creatures, they will find peace. However, this kind of peace sacrifices the free will of mankind.
However, this political message has nothing to do with the infiltration of aliens, and is so powerless that this classic story has become an ordinary science fiction film.
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