The 6th Day
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, this Sci Fi movie takes place in a not-too-distant future where limited cloning technology has come into use for a number of things, from curing diseases to re-animating your pet to cloning fish as a food supply. However, cloning people is illegal. Arnie plays helicopter charter pilot Adam Gibson, a man who unintentionally gets involved with a human cloning cabal, who will kill him to protect their secrets.
The title comes from Genesis 1:31, "And on the sixth day God created man," which ends up being plot-relevant. The official title is "The 6th Day," not "The Sixth Day," changed to prevent it from being confused with another film that came out the year before.
Tropes:
- As the Good Book Says: The legislation that outlawed cloning is known collectively as "Sixth Day Laws," in reference to the above verse.
- Automated Automobiles
- Big Bad: Michael Drucker
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: The below-mentioned thumb.
- Brain Uploading
- Broken Masquerade
- Came Back Wrong: While most clones are just fine, Wiley keeps having phantom pains from previous deaths.
- Also Drucker at the end, whose new clone wasn't quite done cooking. Squick.
- Cloning Blues
- Cloning Gambit: Unusual in that it's a voluntary activity, at least for the villains.
- Cool Plane: Adam owns a pair of helicopters that can transform into jet planes in mid-flight.
- Disney Villain Death
- Eternal Prohibition
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Natalie (Adam's Wife): "Is this because of the cigars?!" |
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- Expendable Clone: both subverted and played straight.
- Also played for laughs: a goon who's just had his leg shot off starts screaming angrily about his new boots being ruined!
- Fatal Method Acting: Arnold nearly drowned shooting a scene in the tank (where the incomplete clones float).
- Fingore: Adam shoots the female villain, severing some fingers. He uses the thumb on biometric scanners soon thereafter.
- For Inconvenience Press One
- Freeze Frame Bonus: Sarah Winter's bare breast is visible for one or two frames as she sits up as the newest clone of Talia Elsworth
- Gone Horribly Wrong: A vaguely alluded to early cloning experiment, producing something that was thereafter mercy killed, is among the reasons for the Sixth Day Laws.
- Hey Its That Guy: Along with a possible Actor Allusion. This film is not the first time that Rodney Roland has played cloned Cannon Fodder.
- Insecurity Camera: Subverted--there's a reason he comes in shooting all the cameras!
- I Say What I Say: Adam Gibson teams up with his clone. They're mixing up some thermite, and one of them decides to test-burn some of it. They watch as it burns through the table.
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Adam Gisbon and Adam Gibson: Cool. |
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- Justified Extra Lives: "Re-pet" and the illegal human cloning.
- Kiss Me I Am Virtual: Adam's associate has an ... interesting virtual companion.
- Meaningful Name: Adam Gibson.
- Memory Gambit: An interesting variation. Adam fakes his own memories, knowing that the bad guys will read them to find out where he stashed the evidence.
- Nightmare Fuel: the dolls. It's hard to tell if it's intentional.
- Papa Wolf: When his family is held to ensure compliance, Adam comes to the rescue, hard.
- Police Are Useless
- Respawn Point (a rare non-video game example)
- Resurrection Sickness
- Screw Yourself: Used as a bravado one-liner, but later appears again for laughs.
- Shut UP Hannibal: See "Screw Yourself," above.
- Storming the Castle: What the two Adams did in the end.
- Tomato in The Mirror
- Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The movie takes place "Sooner Than You Think."
- Utopia Justifies the Means: How Drucker tries to justify his cloning, saying with his technology, the world won't have to lose its Einsteins and Mozarts.
- Video Phone: Interestingly showcased a video phone call with an automated machine... for 911 Emergencies.
- Villains Never Lie: Double subverted: When Drucker tells Adam Gibson that he's really the clone, Adam just laughs him off, saying he's lying. Then Drucker provides proof.
- Doesn't Anyone Stay Dead Any More
- You Are Already Checked In
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Talia (a different color for each life, even). She even gripes about having to redye it every time she gets a new body.
- You Have Failed Me: It's bad enough that Wiley keeps screwing up and getting himself killed, but when he accidentally shoots Drucker, Drucker decides not to bring him back again.