May 8, 2025 • 38 mins
Delving into Edward Ashton's sci-fi novel "Mickey7" and Bong Joon-ho's film adaptation "Mickey 17," this episode presents a rare case where the movie might outshine its source material.
The story follows an "expendable" human—Mickey—whose job is to die repeatedly for the colony's benefit on the ice planet Niflheim. Each death results in a new Mickey with the previous memories, until an unexpected survival creates two simultaneous Mickeys, something strictly forbidden in their world.
Director Bong Joon-ho made fascinating changes that transform the narrative. By increasing Mickey's iterations from 7 to 17, the film creates more opportunities for character development. Robert Pattinson delivers a standout performance, portraying distinct personalities for different Mickey versions—something absent in the book where the duplicates are virtually identical.
The native "creepers" evolve from somewhat menacing creatures in the novel to largely peaceful beings in the film, creating a nuanced exploration of colonial encounters. Supporting characters receive enriched story lines, with Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette bringing theatrical flair to their roles as the colony's leaders.
Where the book occasionally gets bogged down in technical explanations and flashbacks, the film maintains a streamlined focus on questions about identity, sacrifice, and what makes us human. Bong's visual storytelling eliminates the need for extensive exposition while preserving the philosophical core.
Whether you're a sci-fi enthusiast or someone who typically avoids the genre, "Mickey 17" offers accessible storytelling with emotional depth. After comparing both versions, I gave the film 3.5 stars and the book 3 stars, making this a clear victory for the adaptation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set
out to answer the age-oldquestion is the book really
always better than the movie?
I'm Yuvia, an actress and booklover based out of New York City
, and today I will be discussingMickey 7, edward Ashton and its
2025 adaptation, mickey 17.
Hi everyone, welcome back toanother episode.
I'm really hungry today.
(00:21):
Today was just like a reallybusy day.
Had a lot of things to do, so Idid eat.
I've been eating throughout theday, but I haven't been eating
well.
It wasn't like substantialmeals.
So now I'm really hungry.
So let's try to get thisthrough this episode as quickly
as possible so that I can get todinner quite fast.
I mean, it's fine, I'm going touse this recording time to
(00:43):
marinate the chicken for now,but I'm really hungry, so let's
get started.
So Mickey Seven by EdwardAshton was first published in
2022, and it was actuallynominated for a Goodreads Choice
Award in 2022 for Reader'sFavorite Science Fiction.
It didn't read, but it was anominee.
(01:03):
The book follows Mickey Barnes,who is an expendable.
He is known as Mickey Seventhbecause now this is his seventh
life, the seventh version of himto exist, and so, yeah, an
expendable means that it is hisjob to live and possibly die for
(01:23):
the good of the other colonistson Niflheim, the ice planet
that they just so happen toinhabit.
So it's been nine years sincehe has signed on to be an
expendable.
He is obviously sent onhazardous assignments, he is
subjected to experiments onhazardous assignments, he is
(01:49):
subjected to experiments andultimately he's sacrificed over
and over again for the greatergood of the people on Niflheim.
At the start of the book, whenwe meet Mickey Seven, he is
injured and has been left fordead, only to be saved by
creepers who are Niflheim'snative species.
After he gets to base, mickey 7meets Mickey 8.
There are no clones allowed inthis world, so one of them has
(02:12):
to die or else they will both bedestroyed and the existence of
Mickey 9 will never come to be.
But Mickey 7 convinces Mickey 8to trade off on tasks.
And not only that, but MakeySeven also hasn't uploaded his
memories for a month.
So every day he's supposed toupload his memories so that when
the next iteration of him isbrought to life they have all
(02:36):
his past memories, past lives intheir head and they can learn
and grow from the experiences oftheir past iterations.
Min-ki 7 is also kind of notsure how all of his previous
selves have died.
He knows how some of them havedied.
He has memories of some of themand some of them he has no idea
how they died.
(02:57):
So this kind of puts him in amoral he's questioning the
morality of his job as anexpander.
Min-ki 17 is its 2025 adaptation, directed by Bong Joon-ho and
starring Robert Pattinson, naomiAckie, mark Ruffalo and Steven
Yeun oh, and Toni Collette Can'tforget her and this film takes
(03:19):
place during a human expeditionto colonize space.
Mickey 17 is an expendable andhe is there to assist in the
exploration of the ice planetNiflheim.
So it sounds pretty close, butthere are actually a lot of
differences between the book andthe adaptation.
(03:41):
So, yeah, there are a lot ofdifferences.
Edward Ashton was very muchaware that Bong Joon-ho was
making these changes and he wasokay with it.
He completely trusted BongJoon-ho's vision and was like
I'm fine with the changes thathe's making.
So he was totally fine witheverything, because Bong Joon-ho
took this adaptation in acompletely different direction
(04:05):
from its source material.
So let's get into that.
And the easiest way to start isjust in the names of both of
these, we have Mickey 7 versusMickey 17.
And it's exactly what it soundslike Mickey 7, this is the
seventh version of Mickey thatwe are aware of, and in the film
this is the 17th Mickey that wemeet, and Peng Joon-ho decided
(04:29):
to make this change.
He has admitted that he wantedto make this change.
So he had the opportunity tokill Mickey off 10 more times
than he would have been able tohad he just made him Mickey 7.
So he made the consciousdecision to kill Mickey off a
lot more for his version of thestory.
And this role was a lot of funfor Robert Pattinson as well,
(04:49):
because he never knew whichversion of Mickey they were
filming.
And again, that was Bunkin'Ho's intention.
He wanted to make sure.
He wanted to, like, keep RobertPattinson on his feet as an
actor and kind of keep thatelement of surprise.
So obviously, like RobertPattinson had the script, he
knew how these differentversions of him died, but he
(05:10):
didn't know the order in whichthey died.
So every single time beforethey were about to film one of
his death scenes, that's whenBong Joon-ho would be like all
right, this is Mickey 10, orthis is Mickey 2, or Mickey 3,
or whatever.
So that really kept RobertPattinson on his toes and it
adds, like this, really niceelement of surprise for the
audience to, at least I feltlike.
(05:32):
One thing that's also differentin the film is that Mickey 18
has a, I'm going to say,different personality than
Mickey 17, although it's notreally a different personality
per se.
So Mickey 7 and Mickey 8 areexactly the same
personality-wise, like you can'treally tell one apart from the
(05:53):
other.
What they did in the film isthat each iteration of Mickey as
he comes into the world isessentially he's like they have
all his information in theirsystem and so when one version
of him dies, they essentiallyjust upload all his information
and he's 3d printed out as hisnew iteration, with full
memories, full everything of hispast selves.
(06:15):
So every single time he comesback to life, it's still mickey,
but it's like differentpersonality traits of his are at
the forefront.
It's it's a lot more so.
They're still.
There's still differentpersonality traits of his are at
the forefront, it's a lot moreso there's still different
facets of him and hispersonality.
But, for example, mickey 17,.
As I said in the book, youcan't really tell them apart.
They are exactly the samePersonality-wise.
(06:38):
There's no difference betweenthem.
Mickey 17 is a lot moreintroverted and tender and
caring and there's like thisnaivete to him almost although
obviously it's not naivete after17 times being 16 times before
this, being dead and coming backto life he's not like naive to
the world, but they're likethere's this like that's just to
(07:00):
describe the quality that hehas about him and it's very like
endearing and so sweet andcharming.
And then Mickey 18 comes outinto the world and he's very
gruff, he's very aggressive,he's very masculine, he's very
like.
He's a lot more like.
Mickey 17 would definitelywould hate confrontation and
(07:22):
would try to deescalate andavoid it, and Mickey 18, like if
you look at him the wrong way,he's very ready to fight you.
So that I also really likedthat there was like distinct
personalities to each one thatreally made them unique to each
other and that the differentaspects of the personality
really got to shine each timethat he was born.
(07:44):
Aspects of the personalityreally got to shine each time
that he was born.
So his fellow, his friends andhis girlfriend Nasha are kind of
so like props to Nasha in thefilm because she doesn't know
what version of Mickey she'sgonna get every single time he's
born, but she sticks by him andshe still loves him and all his
personalities.
So that's yeah, I really likedthat detail.
(08:05):
So another big difference isthat Mickey's so-called best
friend and I say so-calledbecause he proves to not be a
very good friend at all, butMickey calls him his best friend
, so I will too.
And that is in the book.
He is presumably of Latindescent, his name is Berto Gomez
(08:25):
and in the film his name is nowTimo and he is Asian, played by
Steven Yeun.
Steven Yeun is fantastic andI've only ever seen him like.
I know he was in Walking Dead.
My mom absolutely loved him inWalking Dead, but before this I
had only seen him in Us, and Iguess he just plays like douche
very, very well, like he's sucha douchebag in both those films.
(08:48):
But there's he.
It's a douchebag that you loveto hate, because Steven Yeun
does add, like this, likeabilityto his characters.
So you won't hear me saydouchebags are likable very
often, but if Steven Yeun isplaying them probably will.
But yeah, so the role ofMarshall.
So Marshall is the head of thisspace exploration, this space
(09:11):
colony, and in the book that'swhat he is.
He's the leader of the spaceexploration.
He's very strict and by thebook and in the film he is
played by Mark Ruffalo and he isnot like that at all.
Like he, I mean, yes, he is theleader and he relishes in his
power.
But it's one of those thingsthat they added Toni Collette's
(09:33):
character in the film.
She does not exist in the bookbut Toni Collette plays
Marshall's wife, yeefa, andthere are moments in the film
where it's just like who'sreally calling the shots?
Because I don't think it'sMarshall, I actually think it's
Aoife who is using her husbandto kind of get what she wants.
But Mark Ruffalo is so fun asthis iteration of Marshall.
(09:57):
Like I said, marshall in thebook is just very, he's very
strict, he's very, he followsthe rules and there isn't really
much to him.
I felt like he was maybe alittle one dimensional and in
the film I guess he kind of isas well.
But it's a completely differentversion of him.
Like he's still the leader,people still are scared of him,
(10:17):
people still have, like thisrespect for him, but it's more
of his position rather than himhimself.
He's kind of the bumbling idiotat times.
But so it's a lot of fun to seeMark Ruffalo in that role and
he does great.
So, yeah, marshall has more ofa role overall in the film than
he does in the book.
Like in the book he really onlyappears when rules are broken
(10:40):
or things are reported to himand he needs to make an
appearance to like scold someone.
And in the film, like, we dosee him a lot more and we get to
see his interactions with Aoifeand Mickey and the other
colonists.
And, yeah, in the book there isa character called Kathy.
I believe her first name isKathy but her last name is Chen
(11:02):
and she's one of is Chen andshe's one of the few she's,
she's one of the pilots for thisexpedition and she is the first
one to figure out, or one ofthe first ones to figure out,
that Mickey is now Mickey sevenand Mickey eight are in
existence at the same time, andthat's obviously a big that's's
just not allowed.
(11:23):
So she agrees to hold thatsecret until she just, you know,
she and mickey seven bond alittle bit and then at one point
she goes back to mickey's dorm,and this is after Nasha and the
two Mickeys have had athreesome, because, of course,
why wouldn't they?
And so she walks in and thenshe's like oh my gosh, what did
(11:46):
I just walk into?
And then she reports them.
So it's a little.
It was a little strange like hermotivations in the book it was
just like so you walked in onthem having a threesome and you
didn't like that and there isn'treally.
I guess you could say she mighthave been jealous.
She wants Mickey for herself.
Maybe there's some attractionthere.
But she says several times thatshe's not and I guess she could
(12:09):
have been lying.
But I didn't reading the bookthat I didn't really get the
feeling that she was lying aboutthat.
So yeah, like she's alsoanother one.
That's like a rule maker.
She follows all the rules andshe agreed to keep this secret
until she walked in on them andwas like I can't keep this
secret.
So yeah, her motivations were alittle unclear in the book.
(12:31):
In the film she is not Kathy,her name is Kai and in this one
it is a little bit more fleshedout that she probably she
doesn't end up reporting anyone,but she's really close to and
there is a moment in the filmwhen she tries to seduce Mickey
17,.
But she doesn't realize thathe's a double at that point.
(12:53):
So she tries to seduce him andthen he leaves and then she
finds both Mickey's and Ashathey don't have a threesome and
they're about to do it and thenI believe Kai's the one that
walks in on them and catchesthem.
So she's going to report them,but then they convince her not
to.
So in the film it's definitelya lot more like oh, I'm a little
bit jealous, so I'm going toreport you as payback.
(13:14):
But in the book I didn't feellike it was very clear.
Yeah, like I said, I guess shecould have been lying about her
attraction to him or something.
But I, like I said, I didn'tget the feeling that she was
lying.
So it was kind of just out ofleft field for me as to why she
would report him in the book.
But in the film it was a lotmore clear.
But this was one of the scenes,the moment in which she's
trying to sleep with Mickey 17.
In the film it does.
(13:35):
That part did seem to come outof nowhere for us, for that we
saw, I saw the film with Orlandoand because this happens and
then it's kind of like nevertalked about, ever brought up
again, and at the end we see herhappily in a relationship with
another woman.
So it yeah, it just seemed likejust to really nitpick on the
film here, because I feel likeI've been more nitpicky on the
book.
But to nitpick on the film,that moment, like the her desire
(13:58):
to seduce Mickey, was just alittle like that just seemed to
come out of nowhere.
There wasn't.
I mean, maybe she was justreally lonely or something, but
that part just felt like alittle out of place in the rest
of the film and I'm talkingabout like the seduction portion
of it specifically.
So yeah, in the film, as I said, mickey 18 is a lot more
aggressive, a lot more like I'm.
(14:20):
We know that clones are not,like doubles of a person are not
allowed.
So one of us has to die, andthe one that's going to die is
you I'm going to kill you rightnow.
And he gets very close tokilling Mickey 17, but
ultimately he is unable to, andso, after that attempted fail,
they agree, like at that point,to share the tasks and the
(14:41):
duties, like split them amongstthemselves, which is something
that happens in the book.
But in the film, after mickey18 almost kills mickey 17, they
end up getting separated andmickey 17 is caught by.
So they have like these likelotteries, in which you, if you
win this lottery, you have thehonor of having dinner with
(15:01):
Marshall.
And this is just in the film.
This doesn't happen in the book.
So in the book he wins thelottery and they, the people
that are the hosts of thislottery bump into Mickey 17, so
he's the one that gets to go toMarshall's office, while Mickey
18, I believe, goes with Nashasomewhere else.
So it's one of those thingsthat had they would have taken
whichever one, but they don'tknow that there's two Mickeys at
(15:22):
this point.
So Mickey 17 goes to dinner withthe Marshall and Yeefa and I
believe Kai is there, andthey're eating dinner and then
Mickey 17 almost dies at thisdinner because it turns out that
they fed him like they only fedhim this, obviously, but he
scarves it down because he's sohungry and they have to split
(15:42):
the rations.
They have a limited amount ofrations each day, but now, since
there's mickey 17 and mickey 18are splitting everything, like
that's half the rations, sothey're eating even less.
So he's like, so happy to havegotten to go to this dinner, he
scarves it down and then, like,he passes out and they're like,
oh my gosh, he died, like now weknow what this thing that we
put in the meal does.
But then he like wakes up andjust like violently throws up.
(16:05):
So it's this whole thing.
But there's this dinner does nothappen with marshall.
In the book, like anytime thatmickey seven is usually the one
that gets coerced by mickeyeight into seeing marshall live
in person.
It's to get in trouble, it'sdoesn't almost die in while
they're doing these experiments.
And that's another big changebetween the book and the film is
(16:27):
that in the film, like he'sliterally an expendable, the way
his job title says so they'rewilling to kill him off anytime,
any day because they're justgoing to print him out again.
And the book, they're justgonna print him out again.
In the book, while that is hisjob title and he is killed
intentionally for like his firstfew iterations once, like all
the experiments are done on himand they have all the
(16:49):
information they need so thatthey can live on, so they can
survive.
On Niflheim he's still sent outon the dangerous missions, but
it becomes more of like we needto try to keep him alive, as if
we can, and it's more of aneffort to like regenerating.
Mickey uses up a lot ofresources.
So using up those resourcesmeans there's less resources for
(17:11):
everyone and it also bringsdown, like it uses up everything
it uses up.
Like that's less food foreveryone, that's less power for
everyone.
Like it definitely costs a lotmore to bring mickey back to
life than, like I said, in thefilm they're willing to kill him
any.
Like I said, they'reexperimenting on him willy-nilly
just to see what happens and hedoesn't know he's being
(17:34):
experimented on.
So, yeah, in the film hedefinitely fits the title, the
job title of expendable, a lotmore than he does in the book,
while he is still there to takeon the dangerous missions in
which they don't want to loseanyone significant, for lack of
a better word.
He's still the one that goesout there, but his mission and
(17:54):
the mission of everyone else isto try to keep him alive if
possible.
If they're not able to, yes,they'll print him out again, no
problem.
But because of the amount ofresources it takes to bring him
back, it's like please try tokeep him alive, please try to
stay alive as much as you can,so that happens.
The other characters that play amuch bigger role in the film
(18:15):
than they do in the book are thecreepers.
The creepers are the nativespecies of Niflheim and they
look like really big worms witha lot of legs Not like centipede
amount of legs, but they dohave quite a bit of legs and
they have like like they theyopen their mouth and it's like
just a circle of teeth.
(18:36):
So they're very and and theyrange in size.
So they have like the really,really big ones that can kill a
person by just sitting on thembecause they're that big.
And then you have the littleitty bitty baby ones that are
like Voldemort size.
If you know how big Voldemortis, if you don't know how big
Voldemort is, he's a littlethree pound chihuahua, four
(19:00):
pound chihuahua.
So they're like his, maybeslightly bigger.
A lot of things are bigger thanhim.
But yeah, so the creepers playa much more significant role in
the film than they do in thebook, which really caught me off
guard.
I saw the.
We saw the film first, and inthe book they they do kill some
people, like some of thecolonists, mainly because they
don't know, like what they areand they don't know if they come
(19:21):
in peace.
And in the film they don't killanyone, they're very peaceful
creatures and they do almoststart a war and we will.
We will get into that, butotherwise they they don't kill
people, like they're veryfriendly.
And so the way the film startsoff well, the book and the film
(19:41):
start off is that Mickey hasfallen down an icy fissure and
he's deep in there and Bertoslash Timo, are like oh man,
well, it's not worth saving you,so bye.
And they don't even make aneffort to try to save him.
And we end up finding out thatthe creepers are actually the
ones that saved him.
Like he one approached him, thelike the leader approached him
(20:05):
and he thought he was going todie because they, like he just
saw, like the body come over himand like fangs approaching his
face.
And then the next thing he knewthey were releasing him out
back out of the crevice, outreally close to the base.
And so that's when he startsthinking like I guess these
creatures are not evil.
Like they don't.
In the film there is this likemoment in which the two little
(20:27):
baby creepers, the littleVoldemort sized ones, come out.
They don't know what thesecreatures are at this point
Mickey's the only one that hashad any like an interaction with
them and so he, so they, thecolonists dig up like this huge
rock that's going to be like thekind of like the Plymouth rock,
if you will, of Niflheim.
They're going to display it toshow that this is where they
(20:48):
landed.
And, unbeknownst to them, twolittle creeper babies were on
that rock.
And so when they end up so theyended up making an appearance
and they come out and everyone'slike freaking out.
People have seen the creepersbefore, but they're kind of
touted.
They're kind of like seen aswild animals, like you avoid
them at all costs because theywill kill you.
And so the little baby creeperscome out and then I actually
(21:12):
don't remember if so Mickeyseven is after he at some point,
like they're he.
He tells them about thecreepers and they're like I
don't remember if he and a groupof people you know what it's
before, because I think Kailoses her best friend during
this expedition and she has nottried to seduce him yet.
So, yes, so he returns and thenthey ask him about the creepers
(21:34):
and then they're sent down tolike kill the creepers.
And then one of the members ofthe team ends up getting killed
by the creepers and at thatpoint the creepers are defending
themselves.
So I was wrong.
They do kill one person, butagain that was they kill this
person in self-defense, becausethis person is shooting at them
and then everyone else is ableto escape.
So when the little baby creeperscome out, people start freaking
(21:56):
out and one of the little babycreepers is shot to death and
then the other one is taken forstudies, and this is so in the
book.
They're like genuinely fightingwith, they're genuinely
fighting and killing anyone thatthey see is on their own, and
that's, again, mainly becausethe creepers don't know what
(22:18):
these colonists are, if they'resafe, if they're friendly, if
what they are.
So they are killing people.
But the creepers in the filmare definitely peaceful.
They do not attack or killanyone unless they have to.
And so when the little babycreeper is killed, they hear the
cries as it's dying, and thenthey hear the cries of the other
little baby that's gettingexperimented on, and then they
(22:40):
hear the cries of the otherlittle baby that's getting
experimented on, and so, likethey as a huge mass all appear
and surround the ship, thecolony, demanding that the
remaining baby gets returned tothem.
So in the film, so at thispoint, they do end up getting
reported, not by Kai, but bysomeone else and so they're in
jail and then they're taken toMarshall.
Once like they do break out ofjail and then, before they can
(23:02):
face further punishment, they'retaken to Marshall and more like
at this point all the creepersare starting to surround them
and they're everyone's freakingout.
And then Mickey mentionedsomething to Nasha, and that's
when she says they understand us, like we.
I feel like we can communicatewith them and like some of the
other scientists are kind oflike it does sound like they're
(23:23):
trying to communicate.
So maybe we can communicate andsee what they want and try to
make peace with them and like,if we, if we give them what they
want, it'll be okay.
But Marshall and Yeefa are like, no, like these are creatures
that can't be, these are wildanimals.
Like we need to get rid of themall.
And I will say this this is oneweird thing about Yifa that I
(23:45):
was like what is this?
Like she's obsessed with makingsauce.
I don't know she's obsessed,but she's obsessed with making
sauce.
Like that is like her maincharacter trait is that when she
is not manipulating Marshall,she's making sauce and she
discovers that the creeper'stails make really good sauce.
So the little hostage creeper,she cuts off his tail and makes
(24:07):
sauce out of it, and so that'show she knows that it makes
really good sauce.
And so when all the creepersare there, she's like you know
what, let's send the Mickeys outthere to get me as many tails
as they can, and that can dowhatever, like if that means
killing them or if they justchop it off, whatever.
But whoever collects the mosttails gets to live and the other
one is killed and in the well,I'll finish talking about what
(24:29):
happens in the film.
So one of the scientists finds away to, like, once mickey tells
them like they seem to try tobe communicating, and this is
how they communicate one of thescientists creates like a really
rough translator so that theygo out and they're able to
communicate with the creepers inthis way.
And the creeper says, like wewill leave you alone if you
return the baby and if yousacrifice one of your own to
(24:51):
take the baby that you killed'splace An eye for an eye kind of
thing.
And so they, like Mickey 17 andMickey 18, are like like okay,
they have, like these bombsattached to them that, if they
like, if they try to avoid doingthis task and run away.
If they once they read, oncethey pass a certain amount of
distance, the bombs will go off.
(25:11):
So they have no choice but toeither complete this mission If
they get attacked by creepers,detonate the bombs themselves
and take some of the creepersalong with them, or try to run
away and the bomb detonatesafter a certain distance.
So makey 17 and makey 18, andmore makey 17 rather than makey
18, makey 18 is looking to fthings up, but banky 17 is
(25:33):
really trying to keep the peace,and so at this point they
they're able to get a message toNasha to bring the baby, and
they convince Marshall like theywant to have a peace, talk with
you, like, please come out.
And so Marshall comes out andat that point Mickey 18,
marshall's out, like, is readyto keep shooting the creepers,
and Mickey 18 is like not on mywatch, mother effer, and he like
(25:56):
jumps into the transportvehicle that Marshall is on and
he sacrifices himself andMarshall to appease the creepers
.
And Mickey 17 returns to thecreepers and then at this point
all the creepers disperse andthe colonists are left in peace.
In the book, after Mickey 7 andMickey 8 are turned in by Chen
(26:19):
and at this point, several othercolonists have been killed.
And Marshall's like all right,here's what we're going to do.
There's not a lot, there's notgoing to be multiples, there's
multiples are not a lot.
So both of you got to die.
But we're what you're going todo is you're going to go down to
the nest of the creepers andyou're going to detonate this
bomb which will kill all thecreepers and obviously you.
(26:41):
So that's the last act you'lldo for us as an expendable
Bye-bye.
And so they're sent to thecreepers to destroy the nest and
essentially cause massextinction for all the creepers.
So Mickey 8 is like all right,I'm gonna do it.
And Mickey 7's like I don'tthink they're, I mean they
literally saved me, I don'tthink they're all bad.
And Mickey seven's like I don'tthink they're, I mean they
literally saved me, I don'tthink they're all bad.
(27:02):
And Mickey eight's like well,it sucks to be them.
And so he actually goes,looking like they, they separate
.
And Mickey eight is likelooking to actually kill the
creepers, but the creepers killhim before he can kill them.
And then the leader of thecreepers, the one, so they in
the book, they wear like comms,so that's how they communicate.
And then.
(27:22):
So if you've ever seen likeDragon Ball Z, they have like
those glasses and then textappears on the glasses and
that's kind of what I'menvisioning for these comms.
So Mickey Six was also killedby creepers, but Mickey Seven
does not know this.
He discovered this fairlyrecently after confronting Berto
.
And so the after they killedMickey 6, the creepers have been
(27:44):
trying to figure out how tomake this calm work and they
figured out a very rudimentaryway of speaking to Mickey
through the calm.
So there are no stolen babycreepers in the book.
Mickey 8 goes down there and iskilled by the creepers.
Mickey seven is able and theleader, like the leader asks the
(28:04):
leader of the creepers asks areyou the leader of the creatures
above us, above ground?
And mickey's like yeah, yeah,I'm the leader.
So then they talk leader toleader and then via the comms
and then they make mickey sevenessentially makes a peace pact
with the creepers.
So when he gets back aboveground he tells marsh Marshall,
like I told them, we're notgoing to kill them and you have
(28:26):
to keep the promise and you haveto keep the peace or else
they're going to detonate thebomb.
So after they killed Mickey 8,they kept the bomb that was
strapped to him and Mickey 7's,like I taught them.
I told them how to use the bombbecause they said if I didn't,
that they were just gonna set itoff and that would have been
(28:46):
bad for everyone.
So I told them how to use itand they're prepared to use it
If we don't keep the treaty Ijust came up with them.
So Marshall begrudgingly acceptsthis peace treaty and the
creepers and the humans live intentative peace.
But it's peace In the film.
So after Marshall is sacrificed, gifa later ends up killing
(29:08):
herself.
So there are no more leaders.
So now all the colonists hold avote and Nasha is elected
leader and so now she is theleader of Nefelheim and, knowing
that these creepers are nowsentient beings, they, they live
in harmony together.
They're not like bffs, but it'snot like the tentative peace
that there is in the book, likethere's definite, like they
understand each other and likethey mind they're living a lot
(29:31):
of love, essentially.
So nasha takes over.
In the film.
Marshall doesn't die, as I said.
Uh, mickey works out this peacetreaty and marshall has to kind
accept it, and so he accepts itand he remains leader.
He doesn't die.
So yeah.
So like the film kind ofdefinitely has more happily ever
after, the book kind of hasmore of an ambiguous ending.
(29:52):
At the end of the book Mickeytakes the snow, starts to melt a
little bit.
It's still an ice planet, butthere's like a semblance of like
spring, so there's like lesssnow and there's like little
sprouts of plant life popping up.
And Mickey takes Nasha out tothe rock where he was released
by the creepers and he revealsthat the bomb that he told
(30:13):
Marshall the creepers hadactually is buried by this rock.
He never the creepers neverkept the bomb.
They gave it back to him and hedecided to bury it and kind of
keep that knowledge to himself,should he ever need it.
And then they walk off into thedistance and that's how the
book ends.
So yeah, I.
So this is a science fictionfilm and I kind of just watched,
(30:36):
I kind of chose Mickey 17 on awhim.
I was kind of like I don't know, like no, it's science fiction,
it's not really my thing, but Idon't know, there's nothing
really else I want to watch.
So I guess we'll watch that andI actually ended up really,
really, really liking it.
It's really good and apparentlylike, and it has like great.
It's been like criticallyacclaimed, critics love it.
(30:58):
I'm not sure how well receivedit is by the audience, but it
has like a good Rotten Tomatoesscore, audience score.
But it's one of those thingswhere apparently it's considered
a commercial failure whichmakes me kind of bummed because
it's actually it's a really goodfilm.
It's actually a really reallygood film and y'all know science
fiction is not my genre, Idon't really care for science
fiction, but I really, reallyenjoyed this film.
(31:19):
So that says something.
The book, on the other hand, Idid struggle with it a little
bit more.
There was definitely so in thefilm.
The book and the film start offthe same way, as I said Mickey
has just fallen down the creviceand the fissure, whatever you
want to call it, and then itflashes back in time to how they
ended up in Niflheim andMickey's backstory, how he came
(31:43):
to be an expendable, and thenthe book kind of goes back and
forth a little bit more, like itflashes back and forth In the
film.
We get that one really reallyreally long flashback letting us
know Mickey's backstory, all ofthat, and then, once we get
back to where we left off at thestart of the film, then it just
keeps moving forward from thenon.
(32:05):
I don't necessarily mind whenfilms or books go back and forth
in time.
That doesn't really bother me.
But I, in this instance, in thebook, it did start to bother me
a little bit because I feltlike, mind you, I guess, if
you're no matter what, if you'retraveling back and forth in
time, if you you're going backin time, you're getting
exposition, no matter what,because you're getting glimpses
(32:25):
into what this person was like.
But there's a way to like makethe exposition not feel like an
exposition.
And I felt like this one isvery like.
When we went back in time,especially once we got towards
the later chapters, it was likevery exposition, expositiony.
So was like, okay, I kind ofjust want to stay with current
mickey and not read about hispast selves.
(32:46):
And there is also times in whichthe there were certain chapters
dedicated to certain technologyand how it works.
So those chapters definitelynot my thing.
I was like I don't think thisis important to the story moving
forward.
It's science fiction.
I accept that if there's a bombthat lives inside a bubble and
(33:08):
in order for this bomb to go off, you just need to pop the
bubble.
So it's a very delicate bombExists, I'm with you, but I
don't need a whole backstory onhow this bomb ended up being
created.
I really don't care how thisbomb ended up being created, but
that's just me.
So I definitely struggled withthe book a lot more for that
reason, just because it wasdefinitely like when you think
(33:29):
science fiction, like it wasscience fiction.
There was a lot of explanation,a lot of exposition on how
certain things work in thisworld.
I will say also that I reallylike that Bong Joon-ho focused
so much on the creepers in thefilm and he is so good at that.
I've seen both of his.
(33:50):
I don't know how many otherfilms he has, but I've seen two
of his previous films.
I've seen Parasite and Okja.
And Okja is like that Likehighly recommend Okja if you've
never seen it.
But it's like this, like hugehippopotamus looking creature
that is kind of like the cow ofthe, this alternate universe,
and so it's definitely like acommentary on factory farming.
(34:12):
So I thought that was a cleverway to get the anti-factory
farming message out withoutbeing too cruel on animals that
we know and love.
And yeah, he just has this wayof making you care for like CGI
creatures, cause, like in thisone, like the little baby gets
its tail cut off, like thenoises it makes.
Obviously it's extremelypainful for any animal to have
(34:35):
their tail cut off, and he justreally has this way of making
you care for fictional CGIcreatures.
So, yeah, it's really he's justso good at that, like he has
this way of having you careabout these non-existent
creatures.
So I really really enjoyed thatand, yeah, he just has this way
with it.
So let's get into it.
(34:55):
I think you can tell which onethe winner is based on what I
just said, but I rated the film3.5 stars and I rated the book
three stars, but it's more likemaybe like 2.75 rounded up to
three.
But yes, the winner is the film.
I definitely, definitelyrecommend the film.
(35:19):
It is just so good the way thatBong Joon-ho tells this story
and makes you care about all thecharacters.
Everyone's acting like.
Mark Ruffalo and Tony Colletteare just a blast to watch.
They are having the time oftheir lives playing these like
over-the-top villainouscharacters.
(35:40):
And Robert Pattinson just, I'vereally only seen Robert
Pattinson in Harry Potter andthe Goblet of Fire and I know he
was in Twilight, but I wasnever a Twihard, so I did.
I have not watched those films,but he was just so good and and,
like I, no doubt in hisabilities as an actor Orlando
has definitely seen more of himand he's like, every single time
(36:02):
I see him, like he, just, hejust he just gets better and
better.
So, yeah, he was fantastic,like the way, like the way he
was able to differentiatebetween Mickey 17 and Mickey 18.
And like he didn't really get achance to really differentiate
the other iterations of Mickey,just because there we got more
glimpses of them as opposed toreally seeing the different
(36:23):
personalities and how differentthey are from each other.
But, yeah, he was so good, hewas so good.
So I really like all the actorsin this were fantastic and
Kwong Joon-ho is a greatdirector as well.
So, yeah, I have nothing butgood things to say about the
film, other than that minornitpick that I mentioned, and
(36:47):
the book definitely didn't hateit, but it was just.
It was definitely more alongthe science fiction realm of
science fiction that I don'tlike.
And again, because it's sciencefiction, I can suspend my
disbelief, but I don't.
Whatever you tell me exists inthis world, I'm all for it.
I believe that it exists.
You don't need to go into thehistory of how it was created.
(37:09):
So yeah, those chapters again,those came more towards the end
of explaining how certaintechnology works and what it's
used for.
Just not my thing, just notsomething that interests me.
It might be some.
If you like science fiction,maybe this is more for you, but
so this one is definitely amatter of preference.
(37:30):
This is just not sciencefiction is not my genre.
But I really enjoyed the filmand I was looking forward to
reading the book, and I'm glad Idid.
But anytime I will recommendthe film anytime over the book.
So that is it for this episodeof Books vs Movies.
Thank you for tuning in.
If you are liking this podcast,please leave it a rating and a
review.
Tell your friends about it, letthem know that it exists.
(37:51):
I would love to get my numbersup, my download numbers up.
I have a very small, dedicated,poor audience and I thank all
of you, but I would definitelylove to grow my audience and
have more people know that thispodcast exists.
But anyway, thank you fortuning in and I will see you
(38:12):
next time.
Bye.
Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set
out to answer the age-oldquestion is the book really
always better than the movie?
I'm Yuvia, an actress and booklover based out of New York City
, and today I will be discussingMickey 7, edward Ashton and its
2025 adaptation, mickey 17.
Hi everyone, welcome back toanother episode.
I'm really hungry today.
(00:21):
Today was just like a reallybusy day.
Had a lot of things to do, so Idid eat.
I've been eating throughout theday, but I haven't been eating
well.
It wasn't like substantialmeals.
So now I'm really hungry.
So let's try to get thisthrough this episode as quickly
as possible so that I can get todinner quite fast.
I mean, it's fine, I'm going touse this recording time to
(00:43):
marinate the chicken for now,but I'm really hungry, so let's
get started.
So Mickey Seven by EdwardAshton was first published in
2022, and it was actuallynominated for a Goodreads Choice
Award in 2022 for Reader'sFavorite Science Fiction.
It didn't read, but it was anominee.
(01:03):
The book follows Mickey Barnes,who is an expendable.
He is known as Mickey Seventhbecause now this is his seventh
life, the seventh version of himto exist, and so, yeah, an
expendable means that it is hisjob to live and possibly die for
(01:23):
the good of the other colonistson Niflheim, the ice planet
that they just so happen toinhabit.
So it's been nine years sincehe has signed on to be an
expendable.
He is obviously sent onhazardous assignments, he is
subjected to experiments onhazardous assignments, he is
(01:49):
subjected to experiments andultimately he's sacrificed over
and over again for the greatergood of the people on Niflheim.
At the start of the book, whenwe meet Mickey Seven, he is
injured and has been left fordead, only to be saved by
creepers who are Niflheim'snative species.
After he gets to base, mickey 7meets Mickey 8.
There are no clones allowed inthis world, so one of them has
(02:12):
to die or else they will both bedestroyed and the existence of
Mickey 9 will never come to be.
But Mickey 7 convinces Mickey 8to trade off on tasks.
And not only that, but MakeySeven also hasn't uploaded his
memories for a month.
So every day he's supposed toupload his memories so that when
the next iteration of him isbrought to life they have all
(02:36):
his past memories, past lives intheir head and they can learn
and grow from the experiences oftheir past iterations.
Min-ki 7 is also kind of notsure how all of his previous
selves have died.
He knows how some of them havedied.
He has memories of some of themand some of them he has no idea
how they died.
(02:57):
So this kind of puts him in amoral he's questioning the
morality of his job as anexpander.
Min-ki 17 is its 2025 adaptation, directed by Bong Joon-ho and
starring Robert Pattinson, naomiAckie, mark Ruffalo and Steven
Yeun oh, and Toni Collette Can'tforget her and this film takes
(03:19):
place during a human expeditionto colonize space.
Mickey 17 is an expendable andhe is there to assist in the
exploration of the ice planetNiflheim.
So it sounds pretty close, butthere are actually a lot of
differences between the book andthe adaptation.
(03:41):
So, yeah, there are a lot ofdifferences.
Edward Ashton was very muchaware that Bong Joon-ho was
making these changes and he wasokay with it.
He completely trusted BongJoon-ho's vision and was like
I'm fine with the changes thathe's making.
So he was totally fine witheverything, because Bong Joon-ho
took this adaptation in acompletely different direction
(04:05):
from its source material.
So let's get into that.
And the easiest way to start isjust in the names of both of
these, we have Mickey 7 versusMickey 17.
And it's exactly what it soundslike Mickey 7, this is the
seventh version of Mickey thatwe are aware of, and in the film
this is the 17th Mickey that wemeet, and Peng Joon-ho decided
(04:29):
to make this change.
He has admitted that he wantedto make this change.
So he had the opportunity tokill Mickey off 10 more times
than he would have been able tohad he just made him Mickey 7.
So he made the consciousdecision to kill Mickey off a
lot more for his version of thestory.
And this role was a lot of funfor Robert Pattinson as well,
(04:49):
because he never knew whichversion of Mickey they were
filming.
And again, that was Bunkin'Ho's intention.
He wanted to make sure.
He wanted to, like, keep RobertPattinson on his feet as an
actor and kind of keep thatelement of surprise.
So obviously, like RobertPattinson had the script, he
knew how these differentversions of him died, but he
(05:10):
didn't know the order in whichthey died.
So every single time beforethey were about to film one of
his death scenes, that's whenBong Joon-ho would be like all
right, this is Mickey 10, orthis is Mickey 2, or Mickey 3,
or whatever.
So that really kept RobertPattinson on his toes and it
adds, like this, really niceelement of surprise for the
audience to, at least I feltlike.
(05:32):
One thing that's also differentin the film is that Mickey 18
has a, I'm going to say,different personality than
Mickey 17, although it's notreally a different personality
per se.
So Mickey 7 and Mickey 8 areexactly the same
personality-wise, like you can'treally tell one apart from the
(05:53):
other.
What they did in the film isthat each iteration of Mickey as
he comes into the world isessentially he's like they have
all his information in theirsystem and so when one version
of him dies, they essentiallyjust upload all his information
and he's 3d printed out as hisnew iteration, with full
memories, full everything of hispast selves.
(06:15):
So every single time he comesback to life, it's still mickey,
but it's like differentpersonality traits of his are at
the forefront.
It's it's a lot more so.
They're still.
There's still differentpersonality traits of his are at
the forefront, it's a lot moreso there's still different
facets of him and hispersonality.
But, for example, mickey 17,.
As I said in the book, youcan't really tell them apart.
They are exactly the samePersonality-wise.
(06:38):
There's no difference betweenthem.
Mickey 17 is a lot moreintroverted and tender and
caring and there's like thisnaivete to him almost although
obviously it's not naivete after17 times being 16 times before
this, being dead and coming backto life he's not like naive to
the world, but they're likethere's this like that's just to
(07:00):
describe the quality that hehas about him and it's very like
endearing and so sweet andcharming.
And then Mickey 18 comes outinto the world and he's very
gruff, he's very aggressive,he's very masculine, he's very
like.
He's a lot more like.
Mickey 17 would definitelywould hate confrontation and
(07:22):
would try to deescalate andavoid it, and Mickey 18, like if
you look at him the wrong way,he's very ready to fight you.
So that I also really likedthat there was like distinct
personalities to each one thatreally made them unique to each
other and that the differentaspects of the personality
really got to shine each timethat he was born.
(07:44):
Aspects of the personalityreally got to shine each time
that he was born.
So his fellow, his friends andhis girlfriend Nasha are kind of
so like props to Nasha in thefilm because she doesn't know
what version of Mickey she'sgonna get every single time he's
born, but she sticks by him andshe still loves him and all his
personalities.
So that's yeah, I really likedthat detail.
(08:05):
So another big difference isthat Mickey's so-called best
friend and I say so-calledbecause he proves to not be a
very good friend at all, butMickey calls him his best friend
, so I will too.
And that is in the book.
He is presumably of Latindescent, his name is Berto Gomez
(08:25):
and in the film his name is nowTimo and he is Asian, played by
Steven Yeun.
Steven Yeun is fantastic andI've only ever seen him like.
I know he was in Walking Dead.
My mom absolutely loved him inWalking Dead, but before this I
had only seen him in Us, and Iguess he just plays like douche
very, very well, like he's sucha douchebag in both those films.
(08:48):
But there's he.
It's a douchebag that you loveto hate, because Steven Yeun
does add, like this, likeabilityto his characters.
So you won't hear me saydouchebags are likable very
often, but if Steven Yeun isplaying them probably will.
But yeah, so the role ofMarshall.
So Marshall is the head of thisspace exploration, this space
(09:11):
colony, and in the book that'swhat he is.
He's the leader of the spaceexploration.
He's very strict and by thebook and in the film he is
played by Mark Ruffalo and he isnot like that at all.
Like he, I mean, yes, he is theleader and he relishes in his
power.
But it's one of those thingsthat they added Toni Collette's
(09:33):
character in the film.
She does not exist in the bookbut Toni Collette plays
Marshall's wife, yeefa, andthere are moments in the film
where it's just like who'sreally calling the shots?
Because I don't think it'sMarshall, I actually think it's
Aoife who is using her husbandto kind of get what she wants.
But Mark Ruffalo is so fun asthis iteration of Marshall.
(09:57):
Like I said, marshall in thebook is just very, he's very
strict, he's very, he followsthe rules and there isn't really
much to him.
I felt like he was maybe alittle one dimensional and in
the film I guess he kind of isas well.
But it's a completely differentversion of him.
Like he's still the leader,people still are scared of him,
(10:17):
people still have, like thisrespect for him, but it's more
of his position rather than himhimself.
He's kind of the bumbling idiotat times.
But so it's a lot of fun to seeMark Ruffalo in that role and
he does great.
So, yeah, marshall has more ofa role overall in the film than
he does in the book.
Like in the book he really onlyappears when rules are broken
(10:40):
or things are reported to himand he needs to make an
appearance to like scold someone.
And in the film, like, we dosee him a lot more and we get to
see his interactions with Aoifeand Mickey and the other
colonists.
And, yeah, in the book there isa character called Kathy.
I believe her first name isKathy but her last name is Chen
(11:02):
and she's one of is Chen andshe's one of the few she's,
she's one of the pilots for thisexpedition and she is the first
one to figure out, or one ofthe first ones to figure out,
that Mickey is now Mickey sevenand Mickey eight are in
existence at the same time, andthat's obviously a big that's's
just not allowed.
(11:23):
So she agrees to hold thatsecret until she just, you know,
she and mickey seven bond alittle bit and then at one point
she goes back to mickey's dorm,and this is after Nasha and the
two Mickeys have had athreesome, because, of course,
why wouldn't they?
And so she walks in and thenshe's like oh my gosh, what did
(11:46):
I just walk into?
And then she reports them.
So it's a little.
It was a little strange like hermotivations in the book it was
just like so you walked in onthem having a threesome and you
didn't like that and there isn'treally.
I guess you could say she mighthave been jealous.
She wants Mickey for herself.
Maybe there's some attractionthere.
But she says several times thatshe's not and I guess she could
(12:09):
have been lying.
But I didn't reading the bookthat I didn't really get the
feeling that she was lying aboutthat.
So yeah, like she's alsoanother one.
That's like a rule maker.
She follows all the rules andshe agreed to keep this secret
until she walked in on them andwas like I can't keep this
secret.
So yeah, her motivations were alittle unclear in the book.
(12:31):
In the film she is not Kathy,her name is Kai and in this one
it is a little bit more fleshedout that she probably she
doesn't end up reporting anyone,but she's really close to and
there is a moment in the filmwhen she tries to seduce Mickey
17,.
But she doesn't realize thathe's a double at that point.
(12:53):
So she tries to seduce him andthen he leaves and then she
finds both Mickey's and Ashathey don't have a threesome and
they're about to do it and thenI believe Kai's the one that
walks in on them and catchesthem.
So she's going to report them,but then they convince her not
to.
So in the film it's definitelya lot more like oh, I'm a little
bit jealous, so I'm going toreport you as payback.
(13:14):
But in the book I didn't feellike it was very clear.
Yeah, like I said, I guess shecould have been lying about her
attraction to him or something.
But I, like I said, I didn'tget the feeling that she was
lying.
So it was kind of just out ofleft field for me as to why she
would report him in the book.
But in the film it was a lotmore clear.
But this was one of the scenes,the moment in which she's
trying to sleep with Mickey 17.
In the film it does.
(13:35):
That part did seem to come outof nowhere for us, for that we
saw, I saw the film with Orlandoand because this happens and
then it's kind of like nevertalked about, ever brought up
again, and at the end we see herhappily in a relationship with
another woman.
So it yeah, it just seemed likejust to really nitpick on the
film here, because I feel likeI've been more nitpicky on the
book.
But to nitpick on the film,that moment, like the her desire
(13:58):
to seduce Mickey, was just alittle like that just seemed to
come out of nowhere.
There wasn't.
I mean, maybe she was justreally lonely or something, but
that part just felt like alittle out of place in the rest
of the film and I'm talkingabout like the seduction portion
of it specifically.
So yeah, in the film, as I said, mickey 18 is a lot more
aggressive, a lot more like I'm.
(14:20):
We know that clones are not,like doubles of a person are not
allowed.
So one of us has to die, andthe one that's going to die is
you I'm going to kill you rightnow.
And he gets very close tokilling Mickey 17, but
ultimately he is unable to, andso, after that attempted fail,
they agree, like at that point,to share the tasks and the
(14:41):
duties, like split them amongstthemselves, which is something
that happens in the book.
But in the film, after mickey18 almost kills mickey 17, they
end up getting separated andmickey 17 is caught by.
So they have like these likelotteries, in which you, if you
win this lottery, you have thehonor of having dinner with
(15:01):
Marshall.
And this is just in the film.
This doesn't happen in the book.
So in the book he wins thelottery and they, the people
that are the hosts of thislottery bump into Mickey 17, so
he's the one that gets to go toMarshall's office, while Mickey
18, I believe, goes with Nashasomewhere else.
So it's one of those thingsthat had they would have taken
whichever one, but they don'tknow that there's two Mickeys at
(15:22):
this point.
So Mickey 17 goes to dinner withthe Marshall and Yeefa and I
believe Kai is there, andthey're eating dinner and then
Mickey 17 almost dies at thisdinner because it turns out that
they fed him like they only fedhim this, obviously, but he
scarves it down because he's sohungry and they have to split
(15:42):
the rations.
They have a limited amount ofrations each day, but now, since
there's mickey 17 and mickey 18are splitting everything, like
that's half the rations, sothey're eating even less.
So he's like, so happy to havegotten to go to this dinner, he
scarves it down and then, like,he passes out and they're like,
oh my gosh, he died, like now weknow what this thing that we
put in the meal does.
But then he like wakes up andjust like violently throws up.
(16:05):
So it's this whole thing.
But there's this dinner does nothappen with marshall.
In the book, like anytime thatmickey seven is usually the one
that gets coerced by mickeyeight into seeing marshall live
in person.
It's to get in trouble, it'sdoesn't almost die in while
they're doing these experiments.
And that's another big changebetween the book and the film is
(16:27):
that in the film, like he'sliterally an expendable, the way
his job title says so they'rewilling to kill him off anytime,
any day because they're justgoing to print him out again.
And the book, they're justgonna print him out again.
In the book, while that is hisjob title and he is killed
intentionally for like his firstfew iterations once, like all
the experiments are done on himand they have all the
(16:49):
information they need so thatthey can live on, so they can
survive.
On Niflheim he's still sent outon the dangerous missions, but
it becomes more of like we needto try to keep him alive, as if
we can, and it's more of aneffort to like regenerating.
Mickey uses up a lot ofresources.
So using up those resourcesmeans there's less resources for
(17:11):
everyone and it also bringsdown, like it uses up everything
it uses up.
Like that's less food foreveryone, that's less power for
everyone.
Like it definitely costs a lotmore to bring mickey back to
life than, like I said, in thefilm they're willing to kill him
any.
Like I said, they'reexperimenting on him willy-nilly
just to see what happens and hedoesn't know he's being
(17:34):
experimented on.
So, yeah, in the film hedefinitely fits the title, the
job title of expendable, a lotmore than he does in the book,
while he is still there to takeon the dangerous missions in
which they don't want to loseanyone significant, for lack of
a better word.
He's still the one that goesout there, but his mission and
(17:54):
the mission of everyone else isto try to keep him alive if
possible.
If they're not able to, yes,they'll print him out again, no
problem.
But because of the amount ofresources it takes to bring him
back, it's like please try tokeep him alive, please try to
stay alive as much as you can,so that happens.
The other characters that play amuch bigger role in the film
(18:15):
than they do in the book are thecreepers.
The creepers are the nativespecies of Niflheim and they
look like really big worms witha lot of legs Not like centipede
amount of legs, but they dohave quite a bit of legs and
they have like like they theyopen their mouth and it's like
just a circle of teeth.
(18:36):
So they're very and and theyrange in size.
So they have like the really,really big ones that can kill a
person by just sitting on thembecause they're that big.
And then you have the littleitty bitty baby ones that are
like Voldemort size.
If you know how big Voldemortis, if you don't know how big
Voldemort is, he's a littlethree pound chihuahua, four
(19:00):
pound chihuahua.
So they're like his, maybeslightly bigger.
A lot of things are bigger thanhim.
But yeah, so the creepers playa much more significant role in
the film than they do in thebook, which really caught me off
guard.
I saw the.
We saw the film first, and inthe book they they do kill some
people, like some of thecolonists, mainly because they
don't know, like what they areand they don't know if they come
(19:21):
in peace.
And in the film they don't killanyone, they're very peaceful
creatures and they do almoststart a war and we will.
We will get into that, butotherwise they they don't kill
people, like they're veryfriendly.
And so the way the film startsoff well, the book and the film
(19:41):
start off is that Mickey hasfallen down an icy fissure and
he's deep in there and Bertoslash Timo, are like oh man,
well, it's not worth saving you,so bye.
And they don't even make aneffort to try to save him.
And we end up finding out thatthe creepers are actually the
ones that saved him.
Like he one approached him, thelike the leader approached him
(20:05):
and he thought he was going todie because they, like he just
saw, like the body come over himand like fangs approaching his
face.
And then the next thing he knewthey were releasing him out
back out of the crevice, outreally close to the base.
And so that's when he startsthinking like I guess these
creatures are not evil.
Like they don't.
In the film there is this likemoment in which the two little
(20:27):
baby creepers, the littleVoldemort sized ones, come out.
They don't know what thesecreatures are at this point
Mickey's the only one that hashad any like an interaction with
them and so he, so they, thecolonists dig up like this huge
rock that's going to be like thekind of like the Plymouth rock,
if you will, of Niflheim.
They're going to display it toshow that this is where they
(20:48):
landed.
And, unbeknownst to them, twolittle creeper babies were on
that rock.
And so when they end up so theyended up making an appearance
and they come out and everyone'slike freaking out.
People have seen the creepersbefore, but they're kind of
touted.
They're kind of like seen aswild animals, like you avoid
them at all costs because theywill kill you.
And so the little baby creeperscome out and then I actually
(21:12):
don't remember if so Mickeyseven is after he at some point,
like they're he.
He tells them about thecreepers and they're like I
don't remember if he and a groupof people you know what it's
before, because I think Kailoses her best friend during
this expedition and she has nottried to seduce him yet.
So, yes, so he returns and thenthey ask him about the creepers
(21:34):
and then they're sent down tolike kill the creepers.
And then one of the members ofthe team ends up getting killed
by the creepers and at thatpoint the creepers are defending
themselves.
So I was wrong.
They do kill one person, butagain that was they kill this
person in self-defense, becausethis person is shooting at them
and then everyone else is ableto escape.
So when the little baby creeperscome out, people start freaking
(21:56):
out and one of the little babycreepers is shot to death and
then the other one is taken forstudies, and this is so in the
book.
They're like genuinely fightingwith, they're genuinely
fighting and killing anyone thatthey see is on their own, and
that's, again, mainly becausethe creepers don't know what
(22:18):
these colonists are, if they'resafe, if they're friendly, if
what they are.
So they are killing people.
But the creepers in the filmare definitely peaceful.
They do not attack or killanyone unless they have to.
And so when the little babycreeper is killed, they hear the
cries as it's dying, and thenthey hear the cries of the other
little baby that's gettingexperimented on, and then they
(22:40):
hear the cries of the otherlittle baby that's getting
experimented on, and so, likethey as a huge mass all appear
and surround the ship, thecolony, demanding that the
remaining baby gets returned tothem.
So in the film, so at thispoint, they do end up getting
reported, not by Kai, but bysomeone else and so they're in
jail and then they're taken toMarshall.
Once like they do break out ofjail and then, before they can
(23:02):
face further punishment, they'retaken to Marshall and more like
at this point all the creepersare starting to surround them
and they're everyone's freakingout.
And then Mickey mentionedsomething to Nasha, and that's
when she says they understand us, like we.
I feel like we can communicatewith them and like some of the
other scientists are kind oflike it does sound like they're
(23:23):
trying to communicate.
So maybe we can communicate andsee what they want and try to
make peace with them and like,if we, if we give them what they
want, it'll be okay.
But Marshall and Yeefa are like, no, like these are creatures
that can't be, these are wildanimals.
Like we need to get rid of themall.
And I will say this this is oneweird thing about Yifa that I
(23:45):
was like what is this?
Like she's obsessed with makingsauce.
I don't know she's obsessed,but she's obsessed with making
sauce.
Like that is like her maincharacter trait is that when she
is not manipulating Marshall,she's making sauce and she
discovers that the creeper'stails make really good sauce.
So the little hostage creeper,she cuts off his tail and makes
(24:07):
sauce out of it, and so that'show she knows that it makes
really good sauce.
And so when all the creepersare there, she's like you know
what, let's send the Mickeys outthere to get me as many tails
as they can, and that can dowhatever, like if that means
killing them or if they justchop it off, whatever.
But whoever collects the mosttails gets to live and the other
one is killed and in the well,I'll finish talking about what
(24:29):
happens in the film.
So one of the scientists finds away to, like, once mickey tells
them like they seem to try tobe communicating, and this is
how they communicate one of thescientists creates like a really
rough translator so that theygo out and they're able to
communicate with the creepers inthis way.
And the creeper says, like wewill leave you alone if you
return the baby and if yousacrifice one of your own to
(24:51):
take the baby that you killed'splace An eye for an eye kind of
thing.
And so they, like Mickey 17 andMickey 18, are like like okay,
they have, like these bombsattached to them that, if they
like, if they try to avoid doingthis task and run away.
If they once they read, oncethey pass a certain amount of
distance, the bombs will go off.
(25:11):
So they have no choice but toeither complete this mission If
they get attacked by creepers,detonate the bombs themselves
and take some of the creepersalong with them, or try to run
away and the bomb detonatesafter a certain distance.
So makey 17 and makey 18, andmore makey 17 rather than makey
18, makey 18 is looking to fthings up, but banky 17 is
(25:33):
really trying to keep the peace,and so at this point they
they're able to get a message toNasha to bring the baby, and
they convince Marshall like theywant to have a peace, talk with
you, like, please come out.
And so Marshall comes out andat that point Mickey 18,
marshall's out, like, is readyto keep shooting the creepers,
and Mickey 18 is like not on mywatch, mother effer, and he like
(25:56):
jumps into the transportvehicle that Marshall is on and
he sacrifices himself andMarshall to appease the creepers
.
And Mickey 17 returns to thecreepers and then at this point
all the creepers disperse andthe colonists are left in peace.
In the book, after Mickey 7 andMickey 8 are turned in by Chen
(26:19):
and at this point, several othercolonists have been killed.
And Marshall's like all right,here's what we're going to do.
There's not a lot, there's notgoing to be multiples, there's
multiples are not a lot.
So both of you got to die.
But we're what you're going todo is you're going to go down to
the nest of the creepers andyou're going to detonate this
bomb which will kill all thecreepers and obviously you.
(26:41):
So that's the last act you'lldo for us as an expendable
Bye-bye.
And so they're sent to thecreepers to destroy the nest and
essentially cause massextinction for all the creepers.
So Mickey 8 is like all right,I'm gonna do it.
And Mickey 7's like I don'tthink they're, I mean they
literally saved me, I don'tthink they're all bad.
And Mickey seven's like I don'tthink they're, I mean they
literally saved me, I don'tthink they're all bad.
(27:02):
And Mickey eight's like well,it sucks to be them.
And so he actually goes,looking like they, they separate
.
And Mickey eight is likelooking to actually kill the
creepers, but the creepers killhim before he can kill them.
And then the leader of thecreepers, the one, so they in
the book, they wear like comms,so that's how they communicate.
And then.
(27:22):
So if you've ever seen likeDragon Ball Z, they have like
those glasses and then textappears on the glasses and
that's kind of what I'menvisioning for these comms.
So Mickey Six was also killedby creepers, but Mickey Seven
does not know this.
He discovered this fairlyrecently after confronting Berto
.
And so the after they killedMickey 6, the creepers have been
(27:44):
trying to figure out how tomake this calm work and they
figured out a very rudimentaryway of speaking to Mickey
through the calm.
So there are no stolen babycreepers in the book.
Mickey 8 goes down there and iskilled by the creepers.
Mickey seven is able and theleader, like the leader asks the
(28:04):
leader of the creepers asks areyou the leader of the creatures
above us, above ground?
And mickey's like yeah, yeah,I'm the leader.
So then they talk leader toleader and then via the comms
and then they make mickey sevenessentially makes a peace pact
with the creepers.
So when he gets back aboveground he tells marsh Marshall,
like I told them, we're notgoing to kill them and you have
(28:26):
to keep the promise and you haveto keep the peace or else
they're going to detonate thebomb.
So after they killed Mickey 8,they kept the bomb that was
strapped to him and Mickey 7's,like I taught them.
I told them how to use the bombbecause they said if I didn't,
that they were just gonna set itoff and that would have been
(28:46):
bad for everyone.
So I told them how to use itand they're prepared to use it
If we don't keep the treaty Ijust came up with them.
So Marshall begrudgingly acceptsthis peace treaty and the
creepers and the humans live intentative peace.
But it's peace In the film.
So after Marshall is sacrificed, gifa later ends up killing
(29:08):
herself.
So there are no more leaders.
So now all the colonists hold avote and Nasha is elected
leader and so now she is theleader of Nefelheim and, knowing
that these creepers are nowsentient beings, they, they live
in harmony together.
They're not like bffs, but it'snot like the tentative peace
that there is in the book, likethere's definite, like they
understand each other and likethey mind they're living a lot
(29:31):
of love, essentially.
So nasha takes over.
In the film.
Marshall doesn't die, as I said.
Uh, mickey works out this peacetreaty and marshall has to kind
accept it, and so he accepts itand he remains leader.
He doesn't die.
So yeah.
So like the film kind ofdefinitely has more happily ever
after, the book kind of hasmore of an ambiguous ending.
(29:52):
At the end of the book Mickeytakes the snow, starts to melt a
little bit.
It's still an ice planet, butthere's like a semblance of like
spring, so there's like lesssnow and there's like little
sprouts of plant life popping up.
And Mickey takes Nasha out tothe rock where he was released
by the creepers and he revealsthat the bomb that he told
(30:13):
Marshall the creepers hadactually is buried by this rock.
He never the creepers neverkept the bomb.
They gave it back to him and hedecided to bury it and kind of
keep that knowledge to himself,should he ever need it.
And then they walk off into thedistance and that's how the
book ends.
So yeah, I.
So this is a science fictionfilm and I kind of just watched,
(30:36):
I kind of chose Mickey 17 on awhim.
I was kind of like I don't know, like no, it's science fiction,
it's not really my thing, but Idon't know, there's nothing
really else I want to watch.
So I guess we'll watch that andI actually ended up really,
really, really liking it.
It's really good and apparentlylike, and it has like great.
It's been like criticallyacclaimed, critics love it.
(30:58):
I'm not sure how well receivedit is by the audience, but it
has like a good Rotten Tomatoesscore, audience score.
But it's one of those thingswhere apparently it's considered
a commercial failure whichmakes me kind of bummed because
it's actually it's a really goodfilm.
It's actually a really reallygood film and y'all know science
fiction is not my genre, Idon't really care for science
fiction, but I really, reallyenjoyed this film.
(31:19):
So that says something.
The book, on the other hand, Idid struggle with it a little
bit more.
There was definitely so in thefilm.
The book and the film start offthe same way, as I said Mickey
has just fallen down the creviceand the fissure, whatever you
want to call it, and then itflashes back in time to how they
ended up in Niflheim andMickey's backstory, how he came
(31:43):
to be an expendable, and thenthe book kind of goes back and
forth a little bit more, like itflashes back and forth In the
film.
We get that one really reallyreally long flashback letting us
know Mickey's backstory, all ofthat, and then, once we get
back to where we left off at thestart of the film, then it just
keeps moving forward from thenon.
(32:05):
I don't necessarily mind whenfilms or books go back and forth
in time.
That doesn't really bother me.
But I, in this instance, in thebook, it did start to bother me
a little bit because I feltlike, mind you, I guess, if
you're no matter what, if you'retraveling back and forth in
time, if you you're going backin time, you're getting
exposition, no matter what,because you're getting glimpses
(32:25):
into what this person was like.
But there's a way to like makethe exposition not feel like an
exposition.
And I felt like this one isvery like.
When we went back in time,especially once we got towards
the later chapters, it was likevery exposition, expositiony.
So was like, okay, I kind ofjust want to stay with current
mickey and not read about hispast selves.
(32:46):
And there is also times in whichthe there were certain chapters
dedicated to certain technologyand how it works.
So those chapters definitelynot my thing.
I was like I don't think thisis important to the story moving
forward.
It's science fiction.
I accept that if there's a bombthat lives inside a bubble and
(33:08):
in order for this bomb to go off, you just need to pop the
bubble.
So it's a very delicate bombExists, I'm with you, but I
don't need a whole backstory onhow this bomb ended up being
created.
I really don't care how thisbomb ended up being created, but
that's just me.
So I definitely struggled withthe book a lot more for that
reason, just because it wasdefinitely like when you think
(33:29):
science fiction, like it wasscience fiction.
There was a lot of explanation,a lot of exposition on how
certain things work in thisworld.
I will say also that I reallylike that Bong Joon-ho focused
so much on the creepers in thefilm and he is so good at that.
I've seen both of his.
(33:50):
I don't know how many otherfilms he has, but I've seen two
of his previous films.
I've seen Parasite and Okja.
And Okja is like that Likehighly recommend Okja if you've
never seen it.
But it's like this, like hugehippopotamus looking creature
that is kind of like the cow ofthe, this alternate universe,
and so it's definitely like acommentary on factory farming.
(34:12):
So I thought that was a cleverway to get the anti-factory
farming message out withoutbeing too cruel on animals that
we know and love.
And yeah, he just has this wayof making you care for like CGI
creatures, cause, like in thisone, like the little baby gets
its tail cut off, like thenoises it makes.
Obviously it's extremelypainful for any animal to have
(34:35):
their tail cut off, and he justreally has this way of making
you care for fictional CGIcreatures.
So, yeah, it's really he's justso good at that, like he has
this way of having you careabout these non-existent
creatures.
So I really really enjoyed thatand, yeah, he just has this way
with it.
So let's get into it.
(34:55):
I think you can tell which onethe winner is based on what I
just said, but I rated the film3.5 stars and I rated the book
three stars, but it's more likemaybe like 2.75 rounded up to
three.
But yes, the winner is the film.
I definitely, definitelyrecommend the film.
(35:19):
It is just so good the way thatBong Joon-ho tells this story
and makes you care about all thecharacters.
Everyone's acting like.
Mark Ruffalo and Tony Colletteare just a blast to watch.
They are having the time oftheir lives playing these like
over-the-top villainouscharacters.
(35:40):
And Robert Pattinson just, I'vereally only seen Robert
Pattinson in Harry Potter andthe Goblet of Fire and I know he
was in Twilight, but I wasnever a Twihard, so I did.
I have not watched those films,but he was just so good and and,
like I, no doubt in hisabilities as an actor Orlando
has definitely seen more of himand he's like, every single time
(36:02):
I see him, like he, just, hejust he just gets better and
better.
So, yeah, he was fantastic,like the way, like the way he
was able to differentiatebetween Mickey 17 and Mickey 18.
And like he didn't really get achance to really differentiate
the other iterations of Mickey,just because there we got more
glimpses of them as opposed toreally seeing the different
(36:23):
personalities and how differentthey are from each other.
But, yeah, he was so good, hewas so good.
So I really like all the actorsin this were fantastic and
Kwong Joon-ho is a greatdirector as well.
So, yeah, I have nothing butgood things to say about the
film, other than that minornitpick that I mentioned, and
(36:47):
the book definitely didn't hateit, but it was just.
It was definitely more alongthe science fiction realm of
science fiction that I don'tlike.
And again, because it's sciencefiction, I can suspend my
disbelief, but I don't.
Whatever you tell me exists inthis world, I'm all for it.
I believe that it exists.
You don't need to go into thehistory of how it was created.
(37:09):
So yeah, those chapters again,those came more towards the end
of explaining how certaintechnology works and what it's
used for.
Just not my thing, just notsomething that interests me.
It might be some.
If you like science fiction,maybe this is more for you, but
so this one is definitely amatter of preference.
(37:30):
This is just not sciencefiction is not my genre.
But I really enjoyed the filmand I was looking forward to
reading the book, and I'm glad Idid.
But anytime I will recommendthe film anytime over the book.
So that is it for this episodeof Books vs Movies.
Thank you for tuning in.
If you are liking this podcast,please leave it a rating and a
review.
Tell your friends about it, letthem know that it exists.
(37:51):
I would love to get my numbersup, my download numbers up.
I have a very small, dedicated,poor audience and I thank all
of you, but I would definitelylove to grow my audience and
have more people know that thispodcast exists.
But anyway, thank you fortuning in and I will see you
(38:12):
next time.
Bye.
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