The Island (2005 film)
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The Island is a sci-fi film first released by DreamWorks SKG on July 22nd, 2005, starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. The film was directed by Michael Bay, written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci, and produced by Kenny Bates and Michael Bay. Prior to its theatrical release, some reviewers of the film criticized it for being too simplistic and derivative of other motion pictures. Critics have claimed that The Island is a pastiche of "escape-from-dystopia" science fiction films produced in the late 1960s and 1970s such as Fahrenheit 451, THX 1138, and Logan's Run. This film could be a remake of [[Parts: The Clonus Horror]]. It earned over $160 million worldwide in its theatrical release, and cost $122 million to produce.
Plot
The film is estimated to be set in the year 2019 and is centered around a seemingly Utopian community of people, apparently rescued from the contaminated outside world. Isolated in an enormous building, the people of the structure live according to the rules that are selected for them: clothing, meals, leisure, and jobs are all structured and controlled. These people anticipate a random lottery, in which one person wins a chance to be permanently-relocated to the only uncontaminated area left on Earth- a paradise known as "The Island."
Lincoln Six-Echo, played by Ewan McGregor, is one of the colonists.
When the film begins, Lincoln awakes from a nightmare/dream. In it, he is relaxing on the deck of a boat with a beautiful blonde woman. The dream then shifts into a nightmare where Lincoln begins to drown before he startles awake. A computerized voice wishes him a good morning, automatically detecting every aspect of Lincoln's state, from his erratic REM cycle to the contents of his urine. In the elevator on the way to breakfast, Lincoln watches a screen announcing the latest lottery winner- Starkweather Two-Delta (played by Michael Clarke Duncan). In the dining hall, he meets his best friend, Jordan Two-Delta (played by Scarlett Johansson). She mentions a 'match' for tonight before they are separated.
After breakfast, Lincoln visits Dr. Merrick (played by Sean Bean) in the Tranquility Center about his dream: it involves imagery of a boat, cerulean blue waters, a rocky cliff side, a seemingly perfect island, drowning, and the word Renovatio.
At his job at the Department of Labor, a fellow employee, Lima One-Alpha, goes into labor and is moved to "the Island" to give birth.
Lincoln subsequently causes a computer failure to sneak off his job and visit his friend James McCord (played by Steve Buscemi). McCord is not a colonist- he wears regular clothes and works in a restricted, supposedly 'contaminated' part of the facility, which appears to be a boiler-room, cellar-type area. While visiting, Lincoln discovers something unusual: a flying insect. It leads him to wonder where it came from if the outside world has been contaminated. He catches the insect in a matchbox to take back to his room. This action illustrates that Lincoln's line of thinking is clearly different from the other colonists. He questions their perfect, peaceful existence. He rebels against their controlled environment and tries to share his theories to his friends.
Lincoln meets Jordan for their 'match', a virtual-reality fighting game. (Jordan wins.) After, Lincoln tells her about the insect, and shares his skepticism about the 'contamination' and about the seemingly-endless discovery of new 'survivors,' but Jordan simply calls Lincoln pessimistic. At the same time, the Community Announcer (Noa Tishby) announces that Jordan has won, and is next person to head to The Island.
That night, Lincoln has another nightmare. Shaken, he decides to sneak out of his room to the area where he caught the insect. He then releases the insect and decides to follow it. Lincoln climbs a ladder which takes him out of the colony and up to the upper levels of the facility.
He arrives on an upper floor, apparently the inner workings of the facility, which resembles a modern-day hospital. There, he witnesses the true fates of the past two lottery "winners." Lima One-Alpha gives birth and is then murdered, as the midwife looks on idly. The baby is then handed to a woman identical to Lima One-Alpha. In another room, Starkweather is being operated on, but awakens during surgery and flees in panic. The staff drag him back with harpoon guns as he begs to be allowed to live. Shocked by this discovery and knowing that Jordan is next to go to the Island (i.e. to be killed), Lincoln races back to the colony to save her from death.
Outside
Dragging a somewhat-reluctant Jordan Two-Delta with him, Lincoln makes a desperate attempt to escape to the outer world. It is just in time, as Merrick analyzes CCTV images of Starkweather's attempted escape, he recognizes Lincoln and orders his capture. Lincoln and Jordan escape the institute and emerge outside a U.S. military nuclear missile silo base in the desert near Yuma, Arizona.
Lincoln and Jordan begin to walk, and find a bar frequented by McCord, using the matchbox that Lincoln used to capture the insect. McCord is shocked to find both Lincoln and Jordan outside of the institute. He takes Lincoln and Jordan back to his home and he reveals to both of them that they and everyone else in the colony, save the staff and Merrick, are clones, or "agnates." Jordan counters that she remembers her mother, but then McCord explains that the same few sets of memories are implanted in everyone. Lincoln's 'job' was actually injecting nutrients into tubes to nourish unfinished clones.
The clones are commissioned by "sponsors", wealthy people who pay to have a clone of themselves in case they ever have a medical need for organs or other biological material. The need for the organs corresponds to who will 'win the lottery.' Jamal Starkweather is a football player in liver failure; the liver of his clone, Starkweather Two-Delta, was then harvested. Jordan's sponsor, Sarah Jordan, was recently in a car accident, and requires multiple organ transplants to survive.
However, in order to sidestep moral and legal ramifications of commissioning the creation and eventual destruction of another human, Dr. Merrick, also the CEO of the cloning company, deceives prospective buyers by telling them the clones are kept in a persistent vegetative state, and are never really 'alive.' Truthfully, the first clones kept in this state suffered organ failure within 2 years. The company then determined that the clones needed to experience life in some form in order to be viable donors. The utopian community serves this purpose: the clones are fed, matured to adulthood, educated to approximately the same level as fifteen-year-olds, experience social interactions (though kept ignorant of sex), and made useful to the colony.
McCord gives them clothes, money, and a credit card to help them find their sponsors and reveal the truth. He tells them that Lincoln's sponsor lives in Los Angeles, and Jordan's lives in New York City.
Merrick sends a mercenary strike team to find the fugitives, led by Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou). At the train station, the strike team kills McCord and gives chase to Lincoln and Jordan. Lincoln and Jordan successfully evade Laurent's team members and board the train to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles
After arriving in Los Angeles, Jordan uses McCord's credit card and a video phone booth to call her sponsor. It is answered by a young boy with a striking resemblance to her. The boy says that Sarah Jordan, his mom, is very sick. Then upon seeing Jordan Two-Delta, he mistakes her for his mother. Suddenly, the L.A.P.D. shows up, having tracked the credit card, and arrest both Lincoln and Jordan, framing them for McCord's murder. En route to the police station, Laurent's team violently strikes at the police with the intent of killing Lincoln and Jordan. During the confusion, Lincoln and Jordan escape from the destroyed police car and the mercenary team follows after them. An intense car-chase action sequence ensues, during which the two obtain a futuristic jet-bike from the team and use it to escape.
Lincoln finds his sponsor, Scottish playboy racer Tom Lincoln, in an expensive and luxurious apartment. There, Lincoln spots a model of Renovatio, the ship he saw in his dream. Tom informs him that it means 'Rebirth' in Latin (a correct translation would be renewal, restoration). He seems amused to encounter his clone, and is friendly and informative. He flirts with Jordan, saying that he has seen her in Maxim magazine and kisses her hand. Tom Lincoln agrees to help the two plead their case before the media. However, he then calls the institute, informing them that his 'insurance policy' is sitting in his living room. Jordan whispers that she sees the same look of deceit in Tom's eyes that she picks out in Lincoln's eyes when he is lying, but Six-Echo leaves with him anyway. While the two are heading to a television station to expose Merrick Biotech, Tom Lincoln pulls a handgun on Lincoln Six-Echo. He takes him to meeting place with Laurent and his team, but ironically, Laurent and his men cannot distinguish the sponsor from the clone- the two men are similarly-dressed, and Six-Echo is perfectly mimicking Tom Lincoln's Scottish accent. Lincoln Six-Echo, having removed his clone ID bracelet, puts it on Lincoln's arm, causing Laurent to kill Tom Lincoln. Laurent urges "Tom" to secrecy about the events behind Merrick's company, to which Six-Echo replies (in Tom's distinct accent), "I just want to live. I don't care how."
Jordan waits at Tom Lincoln's apartment for Lincoln Six-Echo to return. After she deduces that Lincoln Six-Echo and not Tom Lincoln who survived, she kisses him. Natural instinct takes over and they make love in Tom Lincoln's home.
Returning to the facility
Merrick has determined that three generations of clones (including Lincoln's) are naturally more curious than others and makes plans to exterminate them all.
Instead of living off of Tom Lincoln's identity and fortune, Lincoln and Jordan agree to rescue the rest of their fellow clones and decide to infiltrate the cloning complex. Lincoln goes into the complex as Tom Lincoln, ostensibly to have a replacement agnate made again of himself.
Soon after Lincoln departs, Jordan, buys ice cream cones for children in a park. She pays for it with McCord's credit card, instantly alerting Laurent and his team. She is caught by the team and brought back to the facility. During the trip, Laurent notices the agnate brand mark on Jordan's wrist, seems to have second thoughts on his role in the situation. Jordan is taken to the operating room to be killed, but she escapes and meets up with Lincoln.
Laurent later explains that he began to object to dehumanising those who are clearly human, because he and members of his family were involved in the Burkinabe rebellion (possibly in Burkina Faso) in Africa in which Laurent's father (who was involved in the rebellion) was killed and Laurent and his brothers were branded on the palm of their left hand to tell others that he and his brothers were "less than human." He was also disgusted to learn from Dr. Merrick that Jordan Two-Delta would be killed although it would most likely have no effect in saving Sarah Jordan's life (the delay had been too long), which he regarded as completely unnecessary killing. As a result, Laurent aids Jordan in rescuing a group of clones from a mass incineration.
After Lincoln destroys the holographic projectors surrounding the facility, revealing the truth about the institute's location to the agnates, he and Dr. Merrick engage in a fight. Enraged after Dr. Merrick calls him by his product name of "Six-Echo," Lincoln bellows, "My name is Lincoln!", and inadvertedly kills Merrick. Large exhaust fans collapse, thus destroying the facility. The last few scenes of the movie are of the thousands of white-uniformed clones spilling onto the Arizona desert into the real world for the first time. Lincoln and Jordan meet outside the facility and embrace. Laurent smiles at the pair and leaves quietly.
The very last image is of Lincoln's dream come true as he and Jordan sail away to a beautiful tropical island on the Renovatio.
Cast
| Actor/Actress | Role |
|---|---|
| Ewan McGregor | Lincoln Six Echo/Tom Lincoln |
| Scarlet Johansson | Jordan Two Delta/Sarah Jordan |
| Djimon Hounsou | Albert Laurent |
| Sean Bean | Merrick |
| Steve Buscemi | McCord |
| Michael Clarke Duncan | Starkweather |
| Ethan Phillips | Jones Three Echo |
| Brian Stepanek | Gandu Three Echo |
| Noa Tishby | Community Announcer |
| Siobhan Flynn | Lima One Alpha |
| Troy Blendell | Laurent Team Member |
| Jamie McBride | Laurent Team Member |
| Kevin McCorkle | Laurent Team Member |
| Gary Nickens | Laurent Team Member |
| Kathleen Rose Perkins | Laurent Team Member |
Controversy
Due to some points of similarity, some have accused the filmmakers of remaking the 1979 film [[Parts: The Clonus Horror]] without crediting the original as described [in this article]. The science fiction novels Brave New World, The Giver, House of the Scorpion, Logan's Run and Anthem also have been compared to the concept for the movie.Michael Marshall Smith's 1996 novel Spares, in which the hero liberates intelligent clones from a "spares farm" whose clients are told they are not conscious, was optioned by Dreamworks in the late 1990s but was never made. It remains unclear if the story inspired The Island, and Marshall Smith did not consider it worthwhile to pursue legal action over the similarities. Paramount (now sister studio to Dreamworks after its parent Viacom purchased Dreamworks in late 2005) was in talks to option the novel after Dreamworks' rights expired, but declined after The Island was released; Marshall Smith considers it unlikely a Spares film will ever be made.[link]
Reviewers have also objected to the prominent product placement within the film. MSN Search, Xbox, Puma, Apple Computer, Cadillac, Mack, Aquafina, Speedo, Amtrak, Ben & Jerry's and Nokia are some of the sponsors of the film. However, in an Entertainment Weekly cover story, Bay explained the extensive product placement was the result of trying to keep production costs down. "[Bay] called on friends at major corporations — outfits like Budweiser, General Motors, and Microsoft — and offered overt product placement in exchange for cash. ' We made about $850,000 on that,' he says. 'And we needed that money to get this movie made.'" [link]
Symbolism and references to other films
The film comes out at a time when stem-cell research has come to the fore of public debate, and much of the dialogue of The Island can be read as a critique on recent advancements in genetic engineering. Such debates frequently center around what constitutes personhood, and the ethics of such research. Towards the end of the movie, there is to be a mass-execution of "defective" products. They are put into a large room marked "incinerator" and made to burn, a possible reference to the Holocaust and the cremation of "defective" human beings.The movie may also be considered to include subtle references to the Exodus - after escaping, Lincoln (McGregor) returns to free his people. Another subtle reference to the Bible that was seen in The Island can be found in one scene when Lincoln and Jordan found a rattlesnake in the ruins of a building in the desert outside of the institute. This scene can be seen as a reference to Adam and Eve with the Serpent. The Garden of Eden is also mentioned in the film.
In the movie, the attire and the appearance the Censors (the security personnel at the institute and the colony) can be seen as a subtle reference to the Sandmen from the 1976 movie Logan's Run with the Censors and the Sandmen both wearing black and grey uniforms. While on the other hand, the white attire of the clones can be seen as a subtle reference to the attire worn by the main characters in the 1971 movie THX 1138.
Actor Steve Buscemi, who plays the part of McCord, is attached to playing card symbolism. The bar where Lincoln Six-Echo finds McCord is called the Aces and SPADES. When Lincoln confronts McCord in the bar's bathroom, McCord's pants are down, and his white boxer shorts featuring black CLUBS are exposed. When McCord takes Lincoln to his home, there are white plastic slits in the chain-link fence of his front yard that make the shape of white DIAMONDS. The inevitable reference to HEARTS appears to be that McCord is shot in the heart by one of Laurent's mercenaries as he aids Lincoln and Jordan in their escape to Los Angeles in search of their sponsors. In addition, the name McCord conjures up the word umbilical cord. McCord, by exposing Lincoln to the truth and stimulating his curiosity, symbolically cuts Lincoln's umbilical cord by removing him from the artificial world of the Merrick Institute.
The movie has many many visual similarities and elements from a wide variety of movies including Coma, the Fifth Element, Metropolis (anime film), Return of the Jedi, Freejack, even Blade Runner, 1984, The Blues Brothers, Clockwork Orange, and The Matrix. As such, it is not an uncredited remake or a pure derivative work. Aside from these interesting elements, the utter destruction of the car-chases, the high-fall and the incinerator scene combined with the bright daylight cinematography and social satire stand out as unique to this film.
Although the general idea of growing clones for spare parts in an isolated area and controlling their education is apparently taken from [[Parts: The Clonus Horror]], there are major differences from Clonus, a low budget affair, that are notable. The clones are older in Clonus, the escaped clone is befriended and aided in Clonus and most of satirical elements in The Island are not present in Clonus. Cinematically, that is to say, visually, there is no resemblance between the two. Clonus is also decidedly low tech. It is possible, ironically, to describe The Island not as a remake but a collection of cloned parts from many movies and some science fiction stories.
Scientific accuracies and inaccuracies
The film presents the idea that entire humans are cloned in order to harvest organs, rather than cloning individual organs in vitro. As it turns out, however, the proposal of this movie is actually in line with current technology in the sense that it would be easier, though still difficult to clone an entire organism than to clone just one of its organs. In order to clone an organ, the entire chemical environment of the body - numerous growth factor proteins, complex fats and sugars, etc. - must be artificially reproduced. This is not currently practical, since we are still not certain how full organ development occurs.However, a cloned individual would be a baby, not an adult. Speeding up aging, as we currently understand the cell cycle, would probably be irreversible (meaning that we couldn't stop it once we started it), and it would be incredibly difficult to 'age' someone to a very specific age. In essence, speeding up someone's age would just make them die more quickly, not advance them physically to a later phase in life. On the other hand, it seems that the clones are grown around some sort of matrix that "sets" the age since Six-Echo's fingerprints are identical to Tom Lincoln's (even identical twins do not have the same fingerprints). This would also explain why some of Tom's neural patterns have been copied to Six-Echo.
Sean Bean's character, Dr. Merrick, suggests that he was two years away from curing childhood leukemia. One of the current treatments for leukemia involves killing all blood cells via chemotherapy or radiation, and then transplanting the blood cells of a non-cancerous individual via bone marrow transplant (bone marrow is where blood cells are made). To clone a human in order to help cure childhood leukemia would only be helpful in that the blood cells transfused from the non-cancerous individual would be your own.
In a panning shot during a montage sequence, the human 'embryos' in the clear bags are shown in different stages of growth. One bag appears to contain only the vascular system of a human. This is not the way that development occurs. The vascular system grows at the same time as the epidermis (skin) and internal organs, not in fully separate stages as is depicted. For more info, see developmental biology.
Finally, a comment on aging and Dolly, the cloned sheep. Dolly, though healthy immediately after birth, did not live a full life. It is sometimes alleged that this was because the cells from which she was cloned were adult cells. DNA molecules contains long stretches of meaningless repeating sequences at the tips of our DNA molecules, called telomeres. Each time a cell divides, its DNA is replicated, and because of the cellular machinery involved in cell replication, a little bit of the telomere is irreversibly removed each time. This slow degradation of the meaningless bit is one of the proposed explanations for the process of aging, since after a certain period of time, the DNA that is getting clipped off at each replication may not be meaningless anymore, but actually meaningful, important DNA.
However, Dr. Ian Wilmut, who admitted under oath that he was not the creator of Dolly, has stated that Dolly's death probably had nothing to do with the fact that she was a clone. Likewise Wilmut's statement should probably not be taken seriously as it is not certain what somebody who played a "supervisory role" really knows about the science. She caught a lung infection of a kind that is common to sheep kept indoors (as had to be the case with Dolly, for security reasons). Other cloned animals have lived lives of normal length for their species.
Potential plot holes explained
The truck with the train axles is seen as anachronistic by some with the presence of the maglev train, however as in any city with subways, it is often cheaper to leave the older technologies, such as subway cars, alone instead of upgrading everything to the latest and greatest technology.That Lincoln Six-Echo can drive a motorcycle has to be taken in the larger context of the presence of the powerboat Renovatio in his memories and dreams. This suggests that his abilities are linked to his sponsor's ability to ride motorcycles. Although this has "new-age"/pseudo-scientific connotations, in the context of the movie only, it makes it believable that he can fly the Jet-bike.
The repairman that Jordan & Lincoln befriend says that their presence in L.A. would blow the whole thing open. It is not clear why this wouldn't happen anyway without their presence, but unstated in the movie is the idea that a clone in the presence of its sponsor is evidence that is not easily suppressed by the security apparatus of the corporation.
Trivia
- The name of the head doctor (and antagonist of the film, played by Sean Bean), has the name "Dr. Merrick." This name shows a striking similarity to the pharmaceutical company Merck. The name also suggests Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, who had an incurable disease, much like the sponsors who desire clones for spare parts.
- One of the clones was killed for being in the same group (Echo) as Lincoln Six Echo. All Echo clones were supposed to be the same age, but this clone clearly complains earlier of how much longer he has been waiting to go to the Island (and has thus been alive longer). However, the length of a year could be different inside the Merrick facility and outside of it, thus explaining that phenomenon, as well as the differences in the dates inside and outside of the facility (2019 vs. the speculated 2050).
- The train axles were made out of rubber.
- There is a scene where Jordan-Two Delta discovers a large print advertisement that features her double, Sarah Jordan, posing with a man. That advertisement is an actual ad for "Eternity Moment" that Scarlett Johansson did for Calvin Klein in 2004.
- In The Island, Suzie (played by Shawnee Smith) is the wife of McCord (played by Steve Buscemi). This is the same woman "Rockhound", from Armageddon (also Buscimi) was hitting on in a bar. Rockhound was looking at the woman's engagement ring, before announcing it was fake. Both films were directed by Michael Bay.
References
- Breznican, Anthony (March 18 2005). "Car-wreck 'Island' keeps director smash-happy". USA Today, p. E1.
- Fierman, Daniel (July, 22 2005). "Attack of the Clones". Entertainment Weekly, issue #830. Retrieved from http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1082270_1|105587||0_0_,00.html on June 19 2006.
- Rottentomatoes.com. Collection of reviews for The Island. Retrieved from http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/island/ on January 3 2006.
External links
- [The Island] — official website.
- .
- [}}}] at Rotten Tomatoes.
- [118 wallypower] — the boat being referred to as Renovatio in the film.
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