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Egbert Souse posted:How does it justify? Is he really any more of a psychopath than Marshall and his wife? If I had to die and be regenerated 17 times, I don't know if my mind would be in the best place. But at least Mickey 18 wasn't chopping off the tails of puppies to make sauce It’s just a funny aspect of Bong Jong Ho’s entire oeuvre where the poor really are violent murderers but it’s okay because the rich are gauche.
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Mar 16, 2025 15:12
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| # ? Apr 24, 2025 13:21 |
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"this guy's a maniac but he's only that way because the system made him that way. Meanwhile this other guy is even worse and is celebrated. He's the one that made the system."
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Mar 16, 2025 15:20
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ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:It’s just a funny aspect of Bong Jong Ho’s entire oeuvre where the poor really are violent murderers but it’s okay because the rich are gauche. This is more the vibe I get from the violence in Parasite and Mickey 17, though: 
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Mar 16, 2025 16:07
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Egbert Souse posted:This is more the vibe I get from the violence in Parasite and Mickey 17, though: lol
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Mar 16, 2025 16:38
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Egbert Souse posted:This is more the vibe I get from the violence in Parasite and Mickey 17, though: Sure, so that Kamala Harris can lead the colonization of a planet with an indigenous population. The problem with Marshall isn’t that he’s rich or powerful, but a dang cheeto.
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Mar 16, 2025 17:13
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ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:Sure, so that Kamala Harris can lead the colonization of a planet with an indigenous population. The problem with Marshall isn’t that he’s rich or powerful, but a dang cheeto. I didn't miss the irony of one of the few Black females on the ship also being a cop, but Nasha is shown to be persuasive enough it's not a stretch she'd be a leader. The ending could be read as cynical or optimistic, which I lean more towards the latter. Though, the film was long finished before Biden dropped out of the election. Marshall is an interesting character because it's all familiar bullshit he does, but Ruffalo does make him incredibly charismatic. I mean, as gross as his character is, I loved Ruffalo's performance and found it to be hilarious. Kind of in the same vein as John Travolta playing not-Clinton in Primary Colors or Jamie Foxx as not-Obama in White House Down. Except I think his performance is more interesting being an amalgamation of tyrants and techbros rather than just being one person. Trump himself is a cartoon character in real life, much like other autocrats, which is what Bong and Ruffalo nailed for Marshall. Egbert Souse fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Mar 16, 2025 |
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Mar 16, 2025 18:32
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Yeah Ruffalo was absolutely inspired by Trump but there was just as much Musk, RFK jr, and Mussolini in the actual performance. I appreciated that the first frame he's on screen you can clock that he's an absolute dipshit, it just radiates out of him before he even says or does anything.
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Mar 16, 2025 18:51
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Saw this tonight and it definitely had the stink of dropped / re-edited plot lines. Get the strong sense that at some point in the production the spaceship's fascist ethnostate vibes were downplayed, hence Kai's character arc -- a repressed/suppressed lesbian who makes several desperate moves in order to maintain her space on the ship -- being mostly left to subtext. Also there was definitely a lot of stuff with the mum that was cut; presumably involving more dream sequences than that one at the end that's just randomly interpolated into the plot. tbh I wouldn't be shocked if the entire first act -- dominated by SO MUCH voice over -- was thrown together in the edit for some dumb reason. Loved a lot of it, frustrated by a lot more. Shame.
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Mar 17, 2025 12:40
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Were they dropping hints that she was queer earlier in the movie? There is something good about someone who's ostensibly been recruited to be a baby machine going "eh, I'd rather not", but wasn't sure if the movie was hitting that beat, showing that she would be ok without her Mickey, or whatever.
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Mar 17, 2025 15:35
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CatstropheWaitress posted:Were they dropping hints that she was queer earlier in the movie? There is something good about someone who's ostensibly been recruited to be a baby machine going "eh, I'd rather not", but wasn't sure if the movie was hitting that beat, showing that she would be ok without her Mickey, or whatever. The woman who died in the cave collapse was her girlfriend. vvv or it was like that and less spelled out than what I said and was more indirectly stated, I thought her and Mickey talked about it directly in her room but we're getting far enough away from when I saw it that specifics like that are kinda fuzzy. Nazzadan fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Mar 17, 2025 |
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Mar 17, 2025 15:50
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CatstropheWaitress posted:Were they dropping hints that she was queer earlier in the movie? There is something good about someone who's ostensibly been recruited to be a baby machine going "eh, I'd rather not", but wasn't sure if the movie was hitting that beat, showing that she would be ok without her Mickey, or whatever. She is very close to jennifer. Is standing next to her when men and women are banned from sex and has a "that shouldn't be a problem for us" reaction to it. Then when jennifer dies she is focused on as sobbing and reacting extremely more than anyone else in the room.
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Mar 17, 2025 15:51
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Totally missed that reaction, but otherwise just assumed they were besties in the long running history of side character henchpeople
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Mar 17, 2025 16:04
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Kai'a happy ending also involves her hooking up with a woman credited as "Kai's girlfriend" so I admit I'm partly joining the dots from that, but I think it's cogent. This went completely over the head of everyone else I saw it with though, but I blame a bungled edit.
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Mar 17, 2025 16:18
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I wonder what the original intended plot for any of this was. It feels like there is so many characters and little plot elements that just do not matter. The whole cgi alien swam and trump stuff feels like the added part. But what was supposed to happen? Drug trade stuff?
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Mar 17, 2025 16:32
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Definitely read those women as being romantically involved with Kai, though it was unclear to me if her interest in Mickey 17 was her attempting to fit in—given we didn't see societal pressure to pair off (rather the opposite) and an illegal duplicate is hardly the safe choice for doing so—or if she might just be bi. But then there's a bunch of stuff in the movie that seems less than the sum of its parts so you end up with lots of ways to connect the dots.
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Mar 17, 2025 16:34
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It's pretty clear that she's bi. But then the movie doesn't really do anything with her shaky status within the ship. With the movie overall, I just kind of think political satire is a bit of a dead genre right now. It's like great, you watch the movie and share a knowing chuckle with a bunch of like-minded individuals, and now what?
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Mar 17, 2025 17:33
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Sir Kodiak posted:Definitely read those women as being romantically involved with Kai, though it was unclear to me if her interest in Mickey 17 was her attempting to fit in—given we didn't see societal pressure to pair off (rather the opposite) and an illegal duplicate is hardly the safe choice for doing so—or if she might just be bi. The dinner was specifically set up by the senator and his wife in order to pressure Kai and Mickey into reproducing. Mickey 17 is the only socially acceptable union on offer to her, given that it's essentially autarch mandated. So, given that, I read her as gay and not bi. Her decision to pursue a relationship with Mickey 17 before she discovers he's a duplicate is through her attempts to blur the emotional line between him and her dead ex -- her attempted seduction of him in her bedroom happens when he's weak and vulnerable, and therefore not particularly in a position to clock her manipulations, and after a conversation where she tries to draw as many comparisons between the two as possible. Then, once she discovers that he's a duplicate, she negotiates for a relationship with him through his girlfriend because not their relationship can be one of mutually beneficial convenience rather than one where she's the sole partner risking persecution should she be exposed. It's essentially a business transaction; do this thing for me and I won't sell you out, which is why Naomi Ackie gets so loving mad -- Kai sees Mickey as just another transactional body who can be used instrumentally, rather than as a person who deserves respect. Or perhaps she is bi, and just really horny for him, but I don't buy that she'd be so horny that she'd continually risk exclusively illicit unions when there's alternative potential outlets available to her, and it seems less thematically relevant to the film's overall concerns.
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Mar 17, 2025 18:07
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It feels like "lesbian that would date jennifer and replacement girlfriend never have children" is the angle they were going for. like specifically for some thematic thing where she's being made a child factory totally against her will on a space ship that literally has a literal actual people factory that can make as many mickeys as you need.
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Mar 17, 2025 18:28
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Her introduction is her sharing food with Mickey, and Nasha immediately coming over to assert her claim over him, while Mickey narrates to the audience that he is faithful to Nasha. It's unambiguous that she has a romantic interest in Mickey. To add, it seemed pretty clear that she was being pressured to have babies with Marshall not with Mickey.
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Mar 17, 2025 18:40
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Simplex posted:Her introduction is her sharing food with Mickey, and Nasha immediately coming over to assert her claim over him, while Mickey narrates to the audience that he is faithful to Nasha. It's unambiguous that she has a romantic interest in Mickey. My read is that this was cover.
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Mar 17, 2025 19:17
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I have a new topic: Why was exactly one word in the whole movie in directional surround sound?
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Mar 17, 2025 19:24
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Cat Census posted:I have a new topic: lol I clocked that too
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Mar 17, 2025 19:29
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Mickey 17 was not sillier than Okja. I don’t remember which thread someone told me that but I’m responding here. I think it could have been way sillier to its benefit tbh
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Mar 17, 2025 20:45
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It was me, I thought it was silliest. RPats is basically doing the same level of ridiculous gremlin man that JakeG was doing in Okja but for the whole movie
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Mar 17, 2025 21:01
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I really liked this. Bong stays winning for me. Just a fun time at the movies. Cool aliens. Loved Mickey. What can I say?
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Mar 17, 2025 21:21
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Cat Census posted:I wonder what the original intended plot for any of this was. It feels like there is so many characters and little plot elements that just do not matter. The whole cgi alien swam and trump stuff feels like the added part. But what was supposed to happen? Drug trade stuff? I've read the book, the major change (apart from 10 more Mickeys) is the addition of Marshall and his wife. That whole fascist cult element just isn't there, it's still a colony with a brutal inhumane system, they still think the aliens outside are monsters to be exterminated, etc., most of the rest is the same. (I also get the impression that the colony in the book was generally smaller, having one Expendable makes sense because there really isn't a lot of anyone, these are very desperate attempts to establish human life on the closest thing they can find to habitable worlds.) There's some other detail stuff but that's the big change, and it does end up making the whole story messier. The alien part is still basically the main story- Mickey 17 falls down a hole and is declared dead, but the alien grubs they've been hunting all this time save him, and that carries the implication that they may not be hostile, may even be intelligent, etc. All while the two Mickeys try to keep themselves alive and undiscovered. I'm on the fence about this one, I'll give it points for daring to be weird and messy and crazy but it does also feel like it got away from them at some point. And while Ruffalo and Collette are good, I really can't point to any Trump-esque character in fiction since 2015 or so that has actually worked or been someone I enjoyed watching- like, they never quite capture the sheer venality of the real thing, but are still obnoxious enough that you get enough of that poo poo from whatever your news source is. I agree with the other posters that he's not JUST a Trump character but there's still that problem. I mentioned the "10 more Mickeys" thing and it does feel like the main thrust of this adaptation is that it has much more of a broad satiric tone- like having him die more often is bound up with making the deaths, and the proceedings in general, more darkly comical. And obviously Bong has gone this route before and it works in places, but at other times it can feel... distancing? Pattinson was a lot of fun though. I like his commitment to just going weird.
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Mar 19, 2025 04:07
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Do you think the reason the machine always hitched and pulled him back in a little halfway through printing him was because it had to print his dong?
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Mar 19, 2025 04:26
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I remember one of the printing scenes has a brain cable get pulled out accidentally and hurriedly stuck back in. I can't remember if that was for Mickey 18 or 17. Is that there to explain some of the personality differences between copies, or is it just another bit of dehumanizing awfulness?
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Mar 19, 2025 04:37
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Tree Bucket posted:I remember one of the printing scenes has a brain cable get pulled out accidentally and hurriedly stuck back in. I can't remember if that was for Mickey 18 or 17. Is that there to explain some of the personality differences between copies, or is it just another bit of dehumanizing awfulness? It was one of the earlier ones IIRC so I'm pretty sure it was just to show that most of the scientists don't give a poo poo about the Mickeys
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Mar 19, 2025 04:45
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Yeah. The script also establishes that all the Mickeys are different to each other, but it's in a very brief line of voice over.
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Mar 19, 2025 07:01
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Baron von Eevl posted:Do you think the reason the machine always hitched and pulled him back in a little halfway through printing him was because it had to print his dong? lol I thought it was doing the thing paper printers do when they pull the paper back sometimes.
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Mar 19, 2025 08:22
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Maxwell Lord posted:
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Mar 19, 2025 15:43
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I really liked this. It is messier than Bong's others, but he still hasn't made a bad movie. Just a fun time at the theaters. Bong's ability to shift tone is amazing to me.
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Mar 19, 2025 16:20
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Simplex posted:The character as written isn't Trump. But then Ruffalo's performance is absolutely Trump. For me, it just doesn't work at all. Marshall seems like he's written as an amalgamation of all our modern oligarchs but Ruffalo's performance simply leans in too hard on just being Trump. It's one of the worst, maybe the worst, performance I've ever seen him give. He was absolutely the weak link of the movie and learning from above that he's not even in the book lowers my opinion of this film a bit, even though I still didn't hate it - it's just the weakest Bong Joon-Ho movie by a mile.
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Mar 19, 2025 19:20
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Pirate Jet posted:Marshall seems like he's written as an amalgamation of all our modern oligarchs but Ruffalo's performance simply leans in too hard on just being Trump. It's one of the worst, maybe the worst, performance I've ever seen him give. He was absolutely the weak link of the movie and learning from above that he's not even in the book lowers my opinion of this film a bit, even though I still didn't hate it - it's just the weakest Bong Joon-Ho movie by a mile. I agree broadly with this. I read a review or maybe someone on here say that it suffers from trumps victory in the election. That rang true to me.
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Mar 19, 2025 20:03
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Drewsky posted:Bong's ability to shift tone is amazing to me. I saw post somewhere saying the fragmented messed up cut off story lines is to match Mickey living many short and abruptly ended lives and that definitely isn’t the actual intent but did win points with me for a good explanation for the bad writing
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Mar 19, 2025 20:58
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A little surprised Kai didn't just hop right into the Mickey sandwich.
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Mar 19, 2025 21:02
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I've tried to finish this movie 3 times this week, it's too different from the book and i really liked the book. It's making me angry.
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Mar 20, 2025 01:29
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This movie feels like an SNL skit wearing the skin of a sci-fi book that somehow spent a billion dollars on a failed campaign. It fails as political commentary being facile and cowardly, it fails as scifi by not actually having the core technology matter to the actual story (aside from constant torture porn, presumably for Team Jacob), every character changes from scene to scene with the mickii somehow ending up being more similar at the end of the film, and frankly makes me wonder how Parasite actually had interesting things to say about class and yet this movie would have a globe emoji in its twitter bio. 3/10 the effects were decent.
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Mar 20, 2025 03:16
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Anyway if you want to see something actually address human brain uploading my suggestion is to watch Pantheon (2022).
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Mar 20, 2025 03:17
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