Interesting latest movie by Bong Joon Ho. Robert Pattinson plays a clone on a distant planet, raising classic questions about identity, class exploitation, and the ethics of cloning, somewhat in the spirit of Parasite. The identity problem nods to Derek Parfit (and ship of Theseus): what exactly makes Mickey 17 different from Mickey 18? What makes a “Mickey” at all? If each version differs slightly, at what point do we stop calling it the same person (Mickey)?
On the surface, the film critiques cloning and exploitation, showing how artificial representations of human existence can devalue human dignity. But a Straussian reading suggests the opposite: Mickey chose this. He volunteered, presumably was paid, and his participation led to vaccines that allowed human expansion across planets. The movie doesn’t go into detail of why people are leaving Earth, but perhaps these vaccines were critical to survival? Mickey never fully rebels against cloning itself, suggesting, perhaps, that artificial representations of humans might be necessary for survival of the species.
Some interesting takeaways for the future of AI-human interaction. Good movie.