The Island (spoilers)

[Random]

I've made a point not to watch this movie, only because of a dream I had. In the dream I was watching the movie and the movie had some big crazy *** revelations about the universe. Like the Matrix but a 100 fold. I dont recall what they were but I can recall the feeling of total awe. So I will not watch the movie cause nothing could live up to that and it would seem like a big disappointment

 

[MaxwellSmart]

This movie was just trying way too hard to make an ethical comparison cloning. The whole thing with it be necessary to make their minds active was stupid. That and the idea that clones don't have souls, so you don't have to feel sorry for kill them was rediculous. Jerry Bruckheimer shouldn't be allowed to do scifi.

And Scarlett Johanson didn't even get that naked. That was also a let down.

The funniest scene I heard of didn't even make it into the movie. Ewan McGreggor described a scene where he wakes up the morning after escaping and he's got a raging hard on. They can't figure out why this is happening because they supressed sexual urges at the facility through their food.

 

[E.Vi.L.]

That and the idea that clones don't have souls, so you don't have to feel sorry for kill them was rediculous. Jerry Bruckheimer shouldn't be allowed to do scifi.

I don't undertsand what you are trying to say. The moral of the story wasn't that Clones have no souls, to the contrary.

Some characters in the story believed that clones have no soul. And that's not ridiculous. Plenty of people, starting with religious fundamentalist of any stripe, would argue that a human clone would have no soul.

So it's not ridiculous.

And it's the third time I say it on this board but I'll say it again : Jerry Bruckheimer is a producer. He doesn't "do" any movies. He finances them. The director "does" the movie, though the script writer (often more than one), the director of photography and the editor alos have a lot of weight.

But the producer essentially provides the means, he doesn't do the damn movie. If I see another poster blame/credit the producer I'll start a rant. Yes, a real rant. This is just warm up. All the producer does is decide which horse to back. Some have better instinct than others, but when the movie is great, it would have been great with any other producer.

PS : You're mistaken, Jerry Bruckeimer didn't even produce The Island. So I'm just ranting on the principle.

IMO The Island is a fair action movie. Given its premise it could have aspired to also be a relevant movie with genuine food for thought, it could have been as good as Minority Report or the first Matrix as an action/philosophical combo. But it fell short on the intellectual side and didn't astound on the action side. It still is an honest action movie.

 

[MaxwellSmart]

Sorry, I didn't mean Jerry Bruckheimer. I meant Micheal Bay. Micheal Bay shouldn't be allowed to make scifi movies. I knew it was the guy that did Armageddon.

I stand by my other statements, though. Everyone who worked at the facility where they raised the clones was consenting to the killing of the clones. This seemed awfully ridiculous that no one who worked there would consent and never leak the existance of an illegal facility like that.

 

[David Blue]

I've made a point not to watch this movie, only because of a dream I had. In the dream I was watching the movie and the movie had some big crazy *** revelations about the universe. Like the Matrix but a 100 fold. I dont recall what they were but I can recall the feeling of total awe. So I will not watch the movie cause nothing could live up to that and it would seem like a big disappointment

Then by all means miss The Island (2005).

You can't see it as it was meant to be seen now anyway. DVD is nice, but some movies are meant to be seen on the big screen with big theatre sound.

 

[David Blue]

Sorry, I didn't mean Jerry Bruckheimer. I meant Micheal Bay. Micheal Bay shouldn't be allowed to make scifi movies. I knew it was the guy that did Armageddon.

I'm not a fan of evaluating movies by praising any movie by a received name such as Alfred Hitchcock and interpreting everything in it as deep (which many people do though you have not), and damning others because the director is non-received.

Das Boot (1981) is a good movie whether all Wolfgang Petersen's other movies are good or not. Die xue shuang xiong (The Killer) (1989) is a good movie whether all John Woo's other movies are good or not. The Island (2005) is a good movie regardless of whether all Michael Bay's other movies are good or not.

I stand by my other statements, though. Everyone who worked at the facility where they raised the clones was consenting to the killing of the clones. This seemed awfully ridiculous that no one who worked there would consent and never leak the existance of an illegal facility like that.

People disregard the law all the time when the money is good and they believe they won't be punished.

 

[David Blue]

IMO The Island is a fair action movie. Given its premise it could have aspired to also be a relevant movie with genuine food for thought, it could have been as good as Minority Report or the first Matrix as an action/philosophical combo. But it fell short on the intellectual side and didn't astound on the action side. It still is an honest action movie.

Sure. Of course everything I'm saying is just my opinion too.

I think the movies you chose are good points for comparison, and I think The Island (2005), The Matrix (1999) and Minority Report (2002) are all honest action movies whatever else they are.

From there, it's down to what works for each individual personally.

Some people don't mind the economics of human beings as batteries in the Matrix, and the "real world" outside it, while they might find the worlds and the events of The Island (2005) and/or Minority Report (2002) require such an effort to suspend disbelief that the movie is no fun. I don't go for batteries at all, but it's just individual which premises you can accept or not, it's not a matter of one of these movies and its audience being smart and the others dumb.

Again, which actors do you like? All these movies have some great actors. For me, Scarlett Johansson is right at the top of the tree, Ewan McGregor is very close, and I could go on and on - the talent in The Island (2005) is banked deep, and these are good performances. Other people might prefer Tom Cruise, who I also like, or Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss.

Which characters do you find most sympathetic and engaging? For me, Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta win that, followed by daylight. But others may prefer the love story of Neo and Trinity or Chief John Anderton and his ex-wife.

Again, which score do you like? For me, The Island (2005) really works (though I can't recommend the soundtrack CD at all, unfortunately), and I like how serious religious music comes in when it should (when Renovatio is first named). But The Matrix (1999) and Minority Report (2002) also have "real" scores, not just semi-appropriate pop compilations, and I'm not putting any of them down.

Which issues hits you where you live and strike you as "real" or "relevant"? This is individual too.

But I think these are all honest action movies. And I think they are all the better for trying hard to make real points.

 

[MaxwellSmart]

People disregard the law all the time when the money is good and they believe they won't be punished.

I'm not saying that you couldn't find people who would do it. What I'm saying is that you would inevitably employ someone who did have a problem with it, even if you thought they wouldn't or had screened them. We hear about plenty of whisle blowers who had crises of conscience. The ones we often hear about are in situations where dozens of highly executives were in on it. The Island presumes that there existed a facility that was creating and raising clones for slaughter where hundreds of people worked.

The obvious analogy is to concentration camps, but I don't something like that could happen in the US in this social climate. Nazi germany was a very different place than the US is now(or in the near future).

 

[David Blue]

I'm not saying that you couldn't find people who would do it. What I'm saying is that you would inevitably employ someone who did have a problem with it, even if you thought they wouldn't or had screened them. We hear about plenty of whisle blowers who had crises of conscience. The ones we often hear about are in situations where dozens of highly executives were in on it. The Island presumes that there existed a facility that was creating and raising clones for slaughter where hundreds of people worked.

The obvious analogy is to concentration camps, but I don't something like that could happen in the US in this social climate. Nazi germany was a very different place than the US is now(or in the near future).

You don't have to get people to shut up forever. You just need to cover a window between when you start up big time, and when you make what you are doing legal and officially moral.

You do that by providing the wealthy and the powerful with something they want. We see that Doctor Merrick was doing this.

Let's assume there would be a whistle blower, and that this would matter if the secret was blown before Doctor Merrick was in business curing children's leukemia. (This means, before he was creating and "harvesting" child clones on an industrial basis.)

After that, with his growing influence with the wealthy and powerful, his clients, Doctor Merrick could paint anyone objecting to his business as in favor of making little children die of leukemia. He would make what he was doing legal, and all the highest voices in society, wanting insurance policies of their own, would support him. That's how privilege works. But before then, a whistle blower might change things.

McCord was that whistle blower.

If your problem was not "there should have been a whistle blower" - there was one - but that it should have been someone else, before then, acting on some other motive than McCord's human sympathy, when he was pressed hard enough by his charming friend Lincoln Six Echo and the beautiful and likeable Jordan Two Delta ... are you really cutting the movie enough slack?

Not many movies will survive if you say, for example, well OK a policeman should have gotten onto this crime, and here is the policeman getting onto it - but I insist that it be some other policeman on some other day.

Movies sort of need to have the right to be covering the pivotal character and the pivotal event, instead of having the viewer think: "Instead of having the Batman do that, now, I would have the Punisher intervene, the previous week," or something like that.

By the way, I'm not meaning this to be a negative thing about America at all. I think you could do it even more easily in Australia.

This is how people are: they wanna eat the steak, but that doesn't mean they wanna meet the cow.

 

[ourchair]

This is how people are: they wanna eat the steak, but that doesn't mean they wanna meet the cow.

I would.

It's nice to get acquainted with someone before he/she becomes an intimate part of yourself.

That goes for friends, sex and love and I believe it goes for food as well.