Your Personal Theories
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joeann_21 — 12 years ago(November 06, 2013 10:32 AM)
When I had first seen this movie and Melanie has an encounter with the mother who tells her that it was said that when she came to the town this is when all the bird attacks started and called her evil.
I started to think at one point that maybe there was some connection.
More recently I can't say I would have any theorie - but this movie is still sooo chilling even after the loads of times I have watched it.
This must have been incredible to see on the big screen when it first came out in 1963. -
Mighty_Duck_4 — 11 years ago(November 25, 2014 02:54 AM)
The fisherman talks about a gull attack on one of his boats a week prior. Also the radio report says there were attacks on other towns as well. Which means Melanie didn't "bring on" the attacks.
PS: This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R didn't exist. -
christomacin — 10 years ago(May 24, 2015 01:33 PM)
Bodega Bay was built over an ancient avian burial ground.
I would loved to have heard Rod Taylor say this line:
"You moved the headstones, but you didn't move the birdies, did you? WHY? WHHHHYYYYYYYYYY?!!!!" -
rerunwatcher — 11 years ago(October 28, 2014 03:42 PM)
I think the birds are fighting back against mankind. There is the pet-shop part when we see caged birds. There is the cafe part when in the background someone is ordering fried chicken. That makes me think the birds are fed-up with humans.
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ecarle — 11 years ago(November 27, 2014 09:38 AM)
Hitchcock was "aiming for the fences" with this one. He had everything but a Best Director Oscar, and he seems to have felt that only with a "really big symbolic idea" driving "The Birds" could he get one.
I don't think Hitchcock ever really wanted an explanation for the birds doing what they are doing.
But I would suggest: it can't be for a "small" reason. It can't be because they have rabies or even because they want revenge for Thanksgiving and bird hunting.
Hitchocck SUGGESTS that Thanksgiving/hunting reason in his trailer for The Birds but ask thiswhy wouldn't all the OTHER animals we hunt and eat come after us? Cattle? Fish?
Hey, wait a minute. Really, birds are the main animals other than cattle and fish we DO eat. And outside of a shark or pirhana or barracudawe can't have killer fishthey can't come on land. And stampeding cattle can't get down into chimneys and up into attic rooms like the birds. (OK, we slaughter some other animal breeds, too pigs, deerbut, not all that many categories for domestic food.)
Still, "Something Big" is going on with the bird attacks and I daresay the big solution might well be the religious one:
God has begun the project of removing the human species from the planet.
For these killer birds seem to be driven by an "overriding intelligence" that commands them to group together, wait at rest for long periodsand then suddenly go berserk.
The birds here are presented very much like storms or hurricanes or tornadoes"climatic changes" that build and build and build and then unleash destructionand then end.
And there are those who have believed, over the centuries, that savage attacks "from nature" ARE directed by a God-like intelligence. He,she or it doesn't SAY anything.it just DOES things. Unleashes things. Thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes..earthquakes, floods, wildfires.
To go to the "God theory" of the bird attacks loses our non-believers rapidly, but there is also the pseudonym of "nature" for patterns of behavior that we cannot explain in human scientific terms. If we can't explain why a skunk has THAT smell, or why a spider builds a web to trap prey, or why a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, or why birds fly in a certain "V" pattern well, those are REAL unexplainable things in REAL life.
"The Birds" just asks us to go a bit farther in comprehending what might happen if a "higher universal intelligence" decided it was time to exterminate the human species.
And WHY would that intelligence seek to exterminate humans? Because the humans now had nuclear weaponry and the ability to wipe out ALL species from the earth.
Hey, it a theory. -
lm362 — 9 years ago(July 30, 2016 08:35 PM)
Your "God Theory" does not work because God gave this earth to humans to be their home for eternity. Only the bad people will be off the earth-Psalms 115:16; Psalms 37:10, 11
"Do All Things For God's Glory"-1 Corinthians 10:31
I try doing this with my posts -
justinr1496 — 10 years ago(April 24, 2015 12:57 PM)
I think the bird expert in the diner had something to do with it. I mean, how many bird experts are there in the world? What are the odds that one would just happen to be in Bodega Bay the day the birds attack? I think she was ticked at the way people treats birds and somehow found a way to train a large group of them to attack people.
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Ray_BLOODY_Purchase — 10 years ago(January 24, 2016 07:47 PM)
Maybe the bird expert was a geneticist? Just performing studies on altering the bird's DNA for some reason (probably well-intentioned) only to cause them to become vicious carnivorous maniacs.
Y'know, Grayditch, basically.
It's me.Barait's always bloody Bara!
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Kawada_Kira — 10 years ago(May 01, 2015 10:37 PM)
I don't believe it was intended for there to be any explanation for it, but if I had to come up with one i'd say it was probably nature starting to fight back against humans. Human activity has disrupted the ecosystem and a balance needs to be restored, the birds began perceiving humans as a threat and started attacking them on sight. Actually I was half-expecting for someone in the movie to come up with this theory, and was surprised when nobody said it after Cathy specifically asked why the birds were attacking people.
Even this, though, I don't know if it's adequate. It's just what i'd expect, I guess. Humans have been a threat to the environment for a long while, so why only now ("now" being 1963)? Of course, at that time, humans were becoming an even bigger threat due to the rising level of industrial development and its destructive effect on the environment, as well as the development of more destructive weapons of war, but animals wouldn't perceive the latter change (well, animals in Asia would, since wars from the 1930s to 70s pretty much burned much of the region to the ground, but animals in California wouldn't notice a difference). And even then, why only birds? And very common birds that have weathered human activity fairly well too, such as seagulls and crows.
Of course there's the religious "end of the world" scenario, but even then, why only birds, and why only in that general area? Though you could say it's only just starting then and there.
Or maybe it's something more simple, like a local chemical plant or something releasing stuff into the air that caused the birds of the area to go insane.
The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of history.
-Mao Zedong -
Stevicus-2 — 10 years ago(May 23, 2015 06:07 AM)
I've also tried to interpret this movie from the standpoint of what was going on in the world at the time. WW2 had ended less than 20 years earlier, and the world was gripped in a Cold War and threat of nuclear war. Former colonies were demanding and fighting for their independence. There was also growing civil unrest within the United States and other countries.
The fact that Melanie was created as a daughter of a wealthy newspaper publisher might also be significant, since freedom fighters, protesters or anyone with a cause would certainly want to get the attention of the press. -
essex9999 — 10 years ago(June 29, 2015 01:49 AM)
I'm sure it was caused by global warming.
Or, no, wait a minute. It was 1963. The birds had all read
Silent Spring
, published the year before. As a result, they were mad as hell and weren't going to take it any more. -
Wednesday06 — 10 years ago(July 06, 2015 07:21 PM)
I prefer a more supernatural approach. The book of Revelation in the Bible speaks of the role birds will play during Armageddon, which lends itself nicely to the movie:
Revelation 19:17-18
Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, "Come, assemble for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great."
I kind of like the idea that our main characters were driving off into certain doom. -
lm362 — 9 years ago(July 30, 2016 08:47 PM)
But these people did not know why they and many others were being attacked. The Bible plainly shows that when Armageddon happens those being destroyed will know it is happening and why. Jesus said "they(people of Noah's day) took no note until the flood came and swept them all away" When the rain started, they knew it was too late for them and why. Jesus likened Armageddon to what happened to them-Matthew 24:39.
"Do All Things For God's Glory"-1 Corinthians 10:31
I try doing this with my posts