I love the ending of the movie so much. It’s so bleak. Whereas the original was at its core a product of Red Scare with a potentially hopeful ending (are we in time?) this one is all about mistrust in government, in organizations, insidiousness wrapped in beauty, the dehumanization of the daily routine, bref, what the 70s were all about. 

There is little hope in this movie, by the time our viewpoint characters figure out what’s going out, it’s so widespread they never have a chance. Even Matthew’s attack on the nursery is a futile gesture on a personal and and global level. They’ve spread so many pods beyond the city and the woman he’s been fighting for has turned one of them. And when we finally see the full conversion, there’s no turning back.

And this life form that’s taken over, is without love or hate, or joy or pity. Well, almost without hate, the sound that comes out when you hurt it enough and when it no longer needs to hide is both terrifying and funny. But this life form, this sort of group consciousness (it’s vague about that but there’s a group mentality at work, a genetic memory of their progenitor race, an awareness of each other on some level but it can be fooled). is only interested in spreading itself to survive. It has no aspirations it seems beyond that, and without those traits that made it human whatever civilization emerges, assuming the infected parts aren’t bombed into the stone age before it spreads, will be stagnant. There doesn’t seem to be any innovation at work or much in terms of motivation. I’m not even sure how it will reproduce beyond this current generation? another set of seed pods? do the same people get born again and again? I has no need for art or music and it will wear our faces, do the repetitives tasks needed to survive, nothing more, repeat, until the end.