Compare Contrast Essay

Travis Tricker

Compare & Contrast Essay
Human­Alien Encounter
2015­03­23

Human­alien encounters are terrifying. In the film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and the short story “April 2000: The Third Expedition”, humans unknowingly encounter aliens with devastating powers that can cripple the human race. Although, both alien species have their intriguing similarities, they also have their slight differences. In addition, both alien species affect the human race mentally more than physically by tapping into humans deepest emotions to turn one against oneself. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “April 2000: The Third Expedition” have two similar factors that make them horrifying to the human race. First, both alien invaders have the power to psychologically affect a human's. The alien species in both stories make the human think that the alien is a loved one of theirs. The alien perceives to look like a close friend or family member of the victim to only later on stab them in the back while the human is at their weakest point. After the aliens kill the humans, both alien species continue to live the humans lives as if the humans were still there. In addition, the aliens in the short story “April 2000: The
Third Expedition” celebrated the humans funerals in character of their family members even after they killed them. For example, “The coffins were lowered. Someone murmured about the unexpected deaths of sixteen fine men” and “Earth pounded down on the coffin lids. The brass band, playing”.

Secondly, the alien species in both stories attack while the humans are sleeping. For example, the aliens in the movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” wait for the human to sleep before their parasitic flower pod devours the the human and hatches a identical human counterpart. In addition, the aliens in “April 2000: The Third Expedition” kill their human victims while they think that they are sleeping in their beds at home. As soon as they fall asleep,

the aliens react quickly and reluctantly to kill them. For example, “Some great clever plan by the
Martians to divide and conquer us, and kill us? Sometime during the night,perhaps”. Although both stories have their similarities, they also have their differences. Firstly, In the short story “April 2000: The Third Expedition” the humans are the ones who invade the aliens (Martians). The human species send a crew sixteen to investigate the disappearance of the other two expeditions. So they travel through space to only find the same fate as the other two expeditions. Secondly, In the movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” the aliens invade the humans. The alien species attack the humans by secretly planting their non­indigenous seeds into the earth soil. They then grow in numbers by having their parasitic humans replant them. Another difference is the aliens kill the humans for different reasons. Firstly, the aliens in
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” kill the humans because they believe that humans waste too much time on feelings and relationships than progressing in development of the world. While, the aliens in the short story “April 2000: The Third Expedition” only kill the humans because they wish to protect their identity from other species. In conclusion, it can be seen that, while both alien encounters are alike in two ways, they also differ in two ways. They both affect the human species in similar ways. Both species psychologically affect the humans as well as kill the humans in similar ways. Furthermore, the alien encounters differ in many ways. Such as, the way the humans encounter them. Therefore, both alien encounters have similarities and differences that make them horrifying.