| “ | We came here from a dying world. We drift through the universe, from planet to planet, pushed on by the solar winds. We adapt and we survive. The function of life is survival. | „ |
| ~ Kibner explaining the origins and motives of the Pod People |
| “ | We don't hate you. There's no need for hate now. Or love. | „ |
| ~ Kibner voicing the aliens' philosophy |
Dr. David Kibner is the main antagonist of the 1978 science fiction horror film The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He is a psychiatrist who is possessed by an extraterrestrial hive mind and becomes the leader of a mob of possessed "Pod People".
He was portrayed by the late Leonard Nimoy, who also portrayed Mirror Spock and Henoch in Star Trek: The Original Series, Mr. Hyde in The Pagemaster, the Zarn in Land of the Lost, Dr. Barry Mayfield in Columbo, Master Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts, Galvatron in Transformers: The Movie, and Sentinel Prime in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Overview[]
Kibner is a psychiatrist based in San Francisco who specializes in treating married couples and lonely single people, and who has written several bestselling books about building and sustaining relationships and families. He is also a close friend of the film's protagonist, health inspector Matthew Bennell.
When several of his patients come to him claiming that their partners have been replaced by emotionless duplicates, he writes it off as a delusion brought on by their unconscious desire to end their relationships. When hundreds of people throughout the city express the same fear, however, he begins to grow concerned. Unbeknownst to him, the "duplicates" are in fact genetic copies of human beings created by a race of parasitic extraterrestrials who possess humans while they sleep and use them as hosts.
In the film[]
Bennell calls Kibner one day and asks him to see his friend and colleague Elizabeth Driscoll, who believes that her boyfriend Geoffrey has been replaced by a duplicate. He meets with Bennell and Driscoll at the launch party for his latest book, where he reassures Driscoll that there is nothing wrong with her boyfriend. He also gets into an altercation with Jack Bellicec, another of Bennell's friends, who accuses him of being a quack.
Later that night, Bennell calls Kibner again and asks him to come to the mud baths that Bellicec runs with his wife Nancy, claiming that they have found a body in one of the baths that looks exactly like Bellicec. Kibner inspects the baths, but does not find the body, and tells Bellicec that someone has played a prank in him.
The next morning, Bennell, Driscoll, and the Bellicecs - who have all seen and destroyed duplicates of themselves - call Kibner to Bennell's apartment to tell him what happened. He is once again skeptical, and says that there must be a reasonable, scientific explanation for what is happening. After he leaves, however, he gets in a car driven by Geoffrey's duplicate and says it is time to put their plan in motion, proving that he has been duplicated, as well.
Bennell and Driscoll flee from the growing occupation of the duplicates, but Kibner, Geoffrey, and a now-duplicated Bellicec catch up to them and inject them with sedatives. He explains that his race consumes the resources of every inhabited planet they travel to, while "evolving" their populations into beings untroubled by emotions such as fear, anger, and love. When his back is turned, however, Driscoll hits him over the head with a bottle and locks him in a freezer, while Bennell kills Bellicec. Kibner then signals the other duplicates by emitting a high-pitched scream, the aliens' method of communicating with each other.
In the end, Bennell and Driacoll are both duplicated, and Kibner presumably continues leading the new, "evolved" human race.