How Pluribus Reimagines 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers for a Generation With Nothing Left to Sell Out - Reactor

Comparing Pluribus to Invasion of the Body Snatchers is hardly a revelatory thought. Many, including Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan, have cited the classic sci-fi story when identifying Pluribus’ biggest genre influences. As the story of an alien… something that comes to Earth and turns humans into vessels, it’s difficult to watch Gilligan’s brilliant new series without thinking of Body Snatchers.

It’s somewhat ironic that people often stop short of saying which version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers to compare Pluribus to. They are not, after all, vessels for the same consciousness but unique interpretations of a core concept that reveal something about the times they were made in. The original 1954 sci-fi novel is a pulpy tale of heroism, complete with a happy ending. The 1956 movie more overtly explored the idea that we are the pod people. Director Abel Ferrara’s 1993 adaptation was more about the military, fascism, and new normals.

Sadly, there is little doubt that the Body Snatchers story Pluribus draws deepest from is director Philip Kaufman’s 1978 movie. Both deal with a generation’s fears of giving in and selling out. Their horror comes not just from losing ourselves, but realizing how easily we may surrender our identities en masse for comfort. For all their similarities, though, it is the differences between the ‘78 movie’s characters and Pluribus’ protagonist Carol that reveals what has changed about the world and how we view it during that time.

Many of the main characters in the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie are well-to-do thirty and forty-somethings living in San Francisco. There’s a scientist, a psychiatrist, a writer, and other featured players of the upper-middle-class and above. Not exactly the white picket fence types featured in the 1956 movie, but people of comfort and prominence nonetheless.

Look harder, and you’ll find something about them that the movie never directly addresses. There is the lingering idea that each of these people were, at one point, counterculturalists, hippies, or simply idealists. Some still are, in a “come to my loft to celebrate my book about philosophy” way. Something about them changed along the way, though. They may be more progressive, but it’s telling that the movie makes it difficult to tell who is an invader and who is simply being themselves. Some are so far removed from the real world that they may as well be aliens. Maybe you know the type.

They represent a class that feels as if they lost something coming out of the 1960s. That time was overly romanticized even back then, but there was still the powerful shared idea that something important had been lost. Perhaps some of those characters were never really into the causes of free love and new thinking, and maybe some simply fell into the system when, as Hunter S. Thompson said, “the wave finally broke, and rolled back.” It was still a group that feared they had compromised too much, given too much, and, to use a phrase that was popularized during that era, had “sold out.”

When a group of parasitic creatures invade the Earth and turn former individuals into vessels, they think, “We sold out once to make things easier… what’s one more time?” They have a primal urge to resist, but they are tired. Not just because the invaders get you while you’re sleeping, but because they are burdened with the belief that the outcome is inevitable. They’ve fought this battle before, and they lost. Besides, they are told that being taken over will lead to a life “free of anxiety, fear, and hate.” How bad could that be?

I kept thinking of those words as Pluribus revealed its true form. The show’s first episode plays out like The Last of Us pilot and countless other apocalyptic romps. Fire, chaos, and death surround Carol as she survives the chemical attack that makes everyone around her convulse and races to get her partner Helen to the hospital. When the smoke settles, though, we learn that the “invaders” that have infected much of humanity are not quite as hostile as their takeover suggested. Much like the body snatchers, they claim that they really just want to make the world a better place. They don’t exactly promise one free of “anxiety, fear, and hate,” but they make it clear that they’d rather have everyone peacefully assimilate rather than resist a scenario that is careening towards inevitable. In both stories, the invaders are more interested in a merger and acquisition of humanity than a hostile takeover.

Generally speaking, Pluribus has, thus far, not really told us much about its invaders. They’re a kind of collective that has absorbed the entirety of their hosts’ knowledge, they insist they’re not actually aliens in the traditional sense, and they refuse to commit direct violence (aside from the millions that died during their biological takeover, of course). Most importantly, they too say they only want people to be happy, especially as it concerns Carol and the rest of the humans who were immune to the chemical “takeover.”

For now, that means getting them anything they want to reduce the chance of hostile emotions (which the collective is incredibly sensitive to). Ultimately, though, they want a cure. Something that will let them absorb the immune into the hive mind. What’s it like to be part of the hive mind? We don’t know because Carol has never asked. The other survivors are shocked that Carol never asked before she decided to become aggressively indignant at the prospect of joining the collective.

Is that because Carol is a bastion of humanity and morality who simply refuses to give up, give in, and sell out? Hardly. She’s bitter, depressive, and, based on what we’ve seen of Carol’s life before the incident, more than willing to give up on her beliefs for an easier life.

Carol didn’t want to be a romantasy writer, but it paid the bills. She wanted her book’s love interest to be a woman, but having it be a man was just easier. Cruelly, Carol doesn’t seem to have derived much joy from such compromises. She even frets over how high the book she never wanted to write sits on the bestseller list, but she resents those who enjoy her work and feels incapable of finding pleasure in the joy she brought them. Yet, she fights harder against what has happened than those in 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers do, despite the fact that the “others” just want her to be happy and despite the fact that she doesn’t really seem to have enjoyed much of the world or the people in it prior to these events.

There’s a key difference between the protagonists, though. The characters in the 1978 Body Snatchers movie were there for the cultural revolution. They remember when the atmosphere was so electric that the spark of an idea could start a fire. There was at least the idea that they had the world in the palm of their hands before they let it slip away. And when they sold out, there was a transaction. Give up on some of your ideas in exchange for a good job and a comfortable life. Look, we’ve even offered your favorite directors, authors, writers, and artists a seat at the table. It’s all going to work out fine. The world is still very much yours.

Carol doesn’t live in that world at that time. She lives in our world during this time. Selling out has gone from a transaction to a vague cultural concept. Many would gladly compromise for a decent job, a few niceties, and the feeling they belong in something they can understand. For many, the offer is simply no longer on the table. The deal went from “give up on your pursuit of a better world in exchange for a better place in this one” to simply “give up.” We’re told, again and again, to expect less.

Even those like Carol who can take a version of the deal find that there isn’t much left to claim. It’s not just about going for the money; it’s about finding use for the money in a world where art, literature, design, and even the material things in life that may bring you joy have been so thoroughly corrupted by concessions that you need to be able to shed your sense of self like skin to find joy in it all.

So when Carol is told she’s now living in a utopia run by glorified chatbots that exist to make her happy, she’s suspicious. Wouldn’t you be? There are reasons to believe that the collective has a sinister secondary purpose we haven’t yet learned. Even if that wasn’t the case, who got to decide that paradise is an all-inclusive resort? What if Carol wants anger, conflict, art, and all the beauty and horror that comes from individuality? The only thing the collective can take is the desire for such things, and Carol is livid at the idea of succumbing to another force that wants to take that desire from her.

Pluribus sometimes suggests that Carol is just bitter, and… yes, she is. But who says she is entirely wrong? Her bitterness seemingly stems from living in the kind of world the invaders are trying to perpetuate. A world where efficiency and finding the things that will satisfy the most while truly thrilling few has become the rule. She can’t accept the idea of a one-size-fits-all utopia because she fundamentally rejects that concept based on her previous experiences. Maybe it took this incident for Carol to realize what she wants out of life, or maybe she’s just once again looking at the world and asking, “What the hell is wrong with all of you?”

Nearly 50 years later, the fears in 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers still resonate. But its “we’re all pods now” nihilism feels less like prophecy and more like resignation. The sins of the ’60s generation are well documented; their compromises have already calcified into the world we inherited. Are we really doomed to treat those compromises as law?

Pluribus argues otherwise. The miracle of the show is that it doesn’t ignore the sins of the past nor the parts of ourselves that may make them again. Yet, it is a show that finds optimism about the future in the most cynical person in the world. It’s that cynicism that gives Carol the perspective needed to look at the world and say, “This is not ok. None of this is ok.” She’s not tired, and she’s not ready to give up. She’s fucking angry.

With her righteous indignation, Carol embodies the battle cry of a new generation. They may not always know what a better world looks like, but they know we won’t reach it by giving away more of ourselves. What’s the value of being pampered in a world where everything that brings you joy has been taken from you?