The Island
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"You're special. You have a very special purpose in life. You've been chosen. The Island awaits you." |
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The Island is a 2005 film by Michael Bay set Twenty Minutes Into the Future starring Ewan McGregor as Lincoln Six Echo and Scarlett Johansson as Jordan Two Delta. They live in a tightly controlled facility for "survivors" from a vague disaster that rendered the Earth uninhabitable except for "The Island", a paradise on Earth. Periodically, survivors "found" in the outside world are brought in, needing to learn basic skills like reading, while others "win the lottery" and get to go to the island.
It turns out they're all clones that will be used for spare parts as part of a life-insurance policy, and those sent off to The Island are killed. When Lincoln starts getting dreams from his original he gets curious and stumbles across a harvesting procedure, he goes back to rescue Jordan and the two escape to the outside world.
Many fans consider this an unofficial remake of Parts the Clonus Horror, since both share far too many similarities to be coincidence. It also seems to have echoes of Logan's Run. Also notable for being one of the many movies in which Sean Bean is a bad guy.
The Island provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: Dr. Merrick and the original Tom Lincoln.
- Aesoptinum
- Brick Joke: Dr. Merrick injects microprobes into Lincoln near the beginning of the film, and says that he will pass them through his urine. Later Lincoln is seen standing in front of of a urinal, groaning.
- While you can hear something going CLINK CLINK CLINK in the Urinal.
- City in a Bottle
- Cloning Blues
- Color Wash: Orange and Teal (see poster at top of this page)
- Cool but Inefficient
- Cool Car: Lincoln's "real" self designs them as well as boats, which his clone dreams about and are our first clue that something's up.
- Evil Brit: Dr. Merrick -- he's played by Sean Bean, so of course.
- Expendable Clone
- Eye Scream: Lincoln is injected with microprobes near the beginning of the film, which enter via the eye sockets.
- Fish Out of Water: Lincoln and Jordan after escaping, they have no concept of how anything in the real world works.
- Genetic Memory: How Lincoln can drive all the cool vehicles in the movie, and mimic Tom Lincoln's Scottish accent with impeccable accuracy.
- Let's Meet the Meat: Quoted with amusing and unnerving effect by Buscemi's character "Well just because you like the hamburger does not mean you want to meet the cow."
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot- Lincoln uses crowbars and hand-to-hand combat to fight while Jordan uses guns. Even though she was shown to be superior at the combat simulator.
- Insistent Terminology: All the workers in the compound refer to the clones as "products", and think about them this way as well, leading to some heartless exchanges like this one:
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Doctor: You mean you want to destroy $2 million worth of product? |
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- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Steve Buscemi plays one, befriending Lincoln and helping him after escaping despite great reservations.
- Kick the Dog: Dr. Merick gets to do this repeatedly, mostly to create dissonance between things he says (e.g. telling investors that their spare parts do not come from sentient humans) and what he does (heartlessly killing a clone who actually likes being there there while praising him for the human trait of curiosity).
- Meaningful Name: Lincoln Six Echo emancipates the clones.
- My Name Is Inigo Montoya
- Name's the Same: As a 2006 Pavel Lungin film whose title, Ostrov, translates to The Island.
- No Sex Allowed: Inside the community of clones. Subverted in the outside world...
- Nobody Poops: Averted, as part of a Brick Joke.
- Oh Crap: When it is discovered that the dead Lincoln is the original Tom Lincoln and not the clone.
- People Farms
- Product Placement: Probably one of the most blatant examples in movie history: why are there ads for KFC and Microsoft in a closed society filled with penniless clones?
- As Michael Bay notes in the director's commentary, however, this is not really at all unrealistic, considering society today is awash in advertising. (Also, not all of this society is closed: the clones' keepers go home at the end of their shifts and presumably have somewhere they can go to spend their paychecks.)
- Also, XBOX.
- Punch Clock Villain: Djimon Hounsou's mercenary rampages across LA in pursuit of Lincoln and Jordan. He ends up helping them after the institute considers his mission completed.
- Released to Elsewhere: winning a tour to the Island.
- Shout-Out: Someone on that production team has an appreciation for Square; the room where Lincoln and Merrick duke it out looks suspiciously like a mako reactor.
- Spot the Imposter: Lincoln actually kills his original (in self defense) by getting the people after him to believe he was the original.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Sean Bean described Dr. Merrick as this in an interview.
- Dr. Merrick presented himself more or less this way to Albert Laurent, although his rather megalomaniacal boasting suggests he's pretty firmly into villainous Mad Scientist territory.
- You Are Number Six