The Island, very "meta"
Ever fry an egg too long and notice that it tastes metallic?
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I watched The Island last night. For me it falls right in the middle of enjoyable escapist sci-fi and total crap. I will now "spoil" it for you, but in doing so, I actually hope to make it more interesting. The "secret" of The Island is that it is a world of clones and, unbeknownst to the clones themselves, they are used for body replacement "insurance" for the original source human, who has paid 5 million dollars to have a clone on standby in case of a critical emergency. If you need a new liver, for example, you take it from your clone.
The amazing irony of the movie itself is that it is composed of ideas, themes and scenes CLONED from other great sci-fi movies. The only thing keeping this movie alive are the vital organs it has copied from originals. That and Ewan Mcgregor and Scarlett Johansson are pleasing to watch.
The Island is: Logan's Run, THX-1138, Blade Runner, there's at least one action sequence on "speeder bikes" from Return of the Jedi, a nick from A Clockwork Orange in the scene of forced video-brainwashing. I'm sure there are others too. Please enlighten me if I've forgotten any. A little Gattica maybe?
Logan's Run is about a guy who finds out his society is putting people to death under the guise of a lottery based prize. But when he finds this out, he decides to escape. So is The Island.
THX-1138 is about a guy named THX-1138 who decides to escape his world because of its ant-colony-like utopian oppression where there are virtually no freedoms and everything is prescribed for you. In The Island, this is the condition that Lincoln Echo 6 is suffering.
Blade Runner is about manufactured people who rebel against their lives of slavery, and the semi-retired cop who is hunting them. They have artificial memories from "real people" imprinted to their own brains in order to socialize them. In both movies there is a scene where the Replicant/Clone says "...but I have memories of my childhood." But the human who knows the truth tells them that those memories have been imprinted on them. It's virtually the exact same "sit down and talk about the birds and the bees" scene. And in both movies it's that human who becomes sympathetic to the plight of the Replicant/Clones and helps them escape. The Island also includes a bounty hunter character who eventually switches sides from hunter to helper in order to liberate the clones. And guess WHAT? That bounty hunter is played by African actor Djimon Hounsou; PLUS, Ewan McGregor's characer's name is LINCOLN. HA! Isn't that just charming your first-grade American history lesson's socks off? (There are 2 other odd character names: Merrick and Starkweather, real people made famous as characters in the films Elephant Man and Badlands respectively. The writers even cloned their characters NAMES.)
When the clones in The Island are first born (as fully-formed adults), they are strapped to a table, their eyelids forced open and they are subjected to video images that make them want to go to "the Island" (the false lottery prize that is actually death for them) as the primary motivation in their lives. They are inundated with images and voices telling them they are "special". This technique was used as criminal reform brainwashing in A Clockwork Orange.
So, given all that, I thought it was basically a fun movie: some good action sequences, decent actors, nice looking sets, just without any originality whatsoever. And really the movie makes a thematic case for itself. In the end, the clones are liberated because they are realized to be not "soulless" copies of their originals, not lesser beings because of their unoriginality, but valid beings in spite of their derivative origin. So condemn the makers: the director, writer, producer, but take the product at face value and appreciate it for the sci-f-eye-candy that it is. The title, after all, is The Island, which is the *lie* of the story, it is the thing that does not really exist, and that's what this movie is about: nothing but its cloned parts that its creator hopes you will accept as the real thing.
Edit: It has been brought to my attention that aside from my quaint observations, The Island is an overwhelmingly clear ripoff of a movie called "Parts: The Clonus Horror"
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I watched The Island last night. For me it falls right in the middle of enjoyable escapist sci-fi and total crap. I will now "spoil" it for you, but in doing so, I actually hope to make it more interesting. The "secret" of The Island is that it is a world of clones and, unbeknownst to the clones themselves, they are used for body replacement "insurance" for the original source human, who has paid 5 million dollars to have a clone on standby in case of a critical emergency. If you need a new liver, for example, you take it from your clone.
The amazing irony of the movie itself is that it is composed of ideas, themes and scenes CLONED from other great sci-fi movies. The only thing keeping this movie alive are the vital organs it has copied from originals. That and Ewan Mcgregor and Scarlett Johansson are pleasing to watch.
The Island is: Logan's Run, THX-1138, Blade Runner, there's at least one action sequence on "speeder bikes" from Return of the Jedi, a nick from A Clockwork Orange in the scene of forced video-brainwashing. I'm sure there are others too. Please enlighten me if I've forgotten any. A little Gattica maybe?
Logan's Run is about a guy who finds out his society is putting people to death under the guise of a lottery based prize. But when he finds this out, he decides to escape. So is The Island.
THX-1138 is about a guy named THX-1138 who decides to escape his world because of its ant-colony-like utopian oppression where there are virtually no freedoms and everything is prescribed for you. In The Island, this is the condition that Lincoln Echo 6 is suffering.
Blade Runner is about manufactured people who rebel against their lives of slavery, and the semi-retired cop who is hunting them. They have artificial memories from "real people" imprinted to their own brains in order to socialize them. In both movies there is a scene where the Replicant/Clone says "...but I have memories of my childhood." But the human who knows the truth tells them that those memories have been imprinted on them. It's virtually the exact same "sit down and talk about the birds and the bees" scene. And in both movies it's that human who becomes sympathetic to the plight of the Replicant/Clones and helps them escape. The Island also includes a bounty hunter character who eventually switches sides from hunter to helper in order to liberate the clones. And guess WHAT? That bounty hunter is played by African actor Djimon Hounsou; PLUS, Ewan McGregor's characer's name is LINCOLN. HA! Isn't that just charming your first-grade American history lesson's socks off? (There are 2 other odd character names: Merrick and Starkweather, real people made famous as characters in the films Elephant Man and Badlands respectively. The writers even cloned their characters NAMES.)
When the clones in The Island are first born (as fully-formed adults), they are strapped to a table, their eyelids forced open and they are subjected to video images that make them want to go to "the Island" (the false lottery prize that is actually death for them) as the primary motivation in their lives. They are inundated with images and voices telling them they are "special". This technique was used as criminal reform brainwashing in A Clockwork Orange.
So, given all that, I thought it was basically a fun movie: some good action sequences, decent actors, nice looking sets, just without any originality whatsoever. And really the movie makes a thematic case for itself. In the end, the clones are liberated because they are realized to be not "soulless" copies of their originals, not lesser beings because of their unoriginality, but valid beings in spite of their derivative origin. So condemn the makers: the director, writer, producer, but take the product at face value and appreciate it for the sci-f-eye-candy that it is. The title, after all, is The Island, which is the *lie* of the story, it is the thing that does not really exist, and that's what this movie is about: nothing but its cloned parts that its creator hopes you will accept as the real thing.
Edit: It has been brought to my attention that aside from my quaint observations, The Island is an overwhelmingly clear ripoff of a movie called "Parts: The Clonus Horror"