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Have just watched the Host. Never read the book, never watched Twilight either. Quite a different take on science fiction to what I’m used to. A bit too hunk orientated etc, but that’s Stephenie Meyer for you.
For an alien invasion film, it’s incredibly non-violent. Not many explosions for example. That was refreshing. The romance wasn’t.
The beginning is great, it mentions the environment is healed, violence is gone etc.
However, it’s interesting to see a few (unconscious?) parallels with Mormonism-
* The remnant of humanity live out in the western desert of the USA, and are fleeing persecution.
* People’s bodies get taken over by “souls” (aliens), which don’t have proper bodies. The dual personality thing is a bit like demon possession. The souls have a pre-existence.
* The Seekers (those tracking down humanity), are dressed in white, rather like baptismal clothes, or temple suits.
* They drive chrome vehicles and helicopters (oddly enough, all our local missionaries ALL have silver cars – no other colors)
* The two lead roles are female, as is the author and the scriptwriter.
* The aliens have a kind of millenial kingdom and go between planets.
* The main character has to choose between two men – shades of polygamy here. Not really, but you’ll see.
Sounds like the choosing between two men is just more female teen fantasy (Twilight’s Team Jacob vs. Team Edward and the Hunger Games Trilogy’s Peeta vs. Gale). Haven’t seen this yet. I’ve never read or seen any of the Twilight stuff. Seems too much like romance novels for teens, whereas the Hunger Games trilogy was more plot driven and paralleled Rome, so it was like a history lesson but written in a dystopian future. I may watch it when it’s on HBO. I thought it looked like a plot ripoff of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Was it?
Aye – I’m a big fan of the Hunger Games. (Did I mention there is no hunger in the Host?) Yes, people get taken over like the bodysnatchers, but it is quite different in other respects. The souls are keen on experiencing human life for example – most are not anti-human.
Oddly, I’d say the alien agenda was more like the Network in the Simon Pegg vehicle, the World’s End, than the bodysnatchers. They want to create peace, and are happy to lessen human violence and inequality.
It is interesting how much of Mormondom has come to the fore of late – Meyer, Romney, Card, even the winter olympics. Makes up for the Osmonds and Battlestar Galactica of old.
Not a big fan of Meyer’s stuff. I thought The Host film was pretty poor (not read the book) but I agree that you can see Meyer’s mormon origins in her writing. Hawkgrrl – completely write on the love triangle, the as Sambee said, Host has a bit of a twist on it.
I loved reading the hunger games. I both liked and disliked the way the third concluded for different reasons.
If anything I was left with a reminder of how ridiculous it is that we send our kids off to fight in wars. Utterly pointless and unneeded.
“keen on experiencing human life” Reminded me of the ST: TOS episode where an alien race takes human form so they can travel to another galaxy, but soon they find that human emotions have drastically changed their behavior in ways they didn’t expect. Suddenly everyone’s punching each other or making out. Classic Kirk. I didn’t go much for the love triangle business – being male, I prefer two wives to one man, rather than two men to one husband (sorry, bad joke)… but I did appreciate the fact that it didn’t go down certain science fiction cliche routes – as seen in Man of Steel and Elysium… they could have gone down the explosions and long drawn out fight sequence road, and didn’t. (Usually these fight sequences involve pushing people through lots of things, like walls, crops or buildings). The real star of the film – oddly enough – is the New Mexico desert, which looks fantastic in this film.
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