After several years of waiting, director Bong Joon-ho’s latest sci-fi comedy film, Mickey 17, has finally premiered in theaters. Adapted from Edward Ashton’s novel Mickey7, Bong’s movie follows Mickey, a man down on his luck who signs up to be an “expendable” laborer on the ice planet Niflheim for a fresh start. However, he starts fresh again and again as his job forces him to die and be reborn in a cloned body, eventually fighting for his life as a war with Niflheim’s native creatures breaks out.
It’s a very different story from Bong’s more grounded black comedy Parasite. Nevertheless, Bong delivers another dark satire with Mickey 17‘s story, which holds several surprises and many implications about humanity and its future. At the same time, it gives audiences an idea of where Bong and his new sci-fi film franchise could go from here.
What’s the story of Mickey 17?
Mickey 17 shows Mickey Barnes and his business partner Timo on the run from a loan shark after their macaron store fails. Hoping to escape their debts and deaths, the duo signs up for a mission to colonize Niflheim led by the fascist politician Kenneth Marshall and his wife, Ylfa. As an expendable, Mickey is subjected to several life-threatening tasks during his trip to Niflheim. The ship’s scientists essentially treat him like a lab rat, repeatedly killing him in order to test chemical weapons or create vaccines to help the crew survive in their new world.
Though Mickey’s 17th iteration falls into a crevice and is left for dead, he is rescued by the Niflheim’s inhabitants, the “Creepers.” Making his way back to the ship, Mickey 17 sees another clone has been generated, making the two of them “multiples.” Since multiples are outlawed after a serial killer cloned himself to carry out murders, Mickeys 17 and 18 try to kill each other before their superiors execute them both. Unfortunately, they are eventually discovered and imprisoned with their love interest Nasha.
As punishment for their “crimes,” Marshall sends out the two Mickeys to kill the swarm of Creepers surrounding the ship, as the former is holding one of their young captives. Using a hi-tech translator, the Mickeys agree to return the child Creeper and kill one human in order to even the scales tipped by another Creeper’s death at the crew’s hands. With that, Nasha and her allies lead a rebellion against Marshall and Ylfa and return the little Creeper to its kind. However, Mickey 18 blows up Marshall and himself with a bomb vest, killing them both and fulfilling the bargain, making peace with the Creepers.
What does it all mean?
Mickey, Nasha, and the rebel allies are imprisoned for their uprising. Fortunately, they are exonerated, and Nasha becomes a leading figure in the colony of Niflheim. Thanks to her, the expendables program is banned, and Mickey blows up the printing machine used to generate clones of himself. Before the latter destroys it, he has a nightmare about Ylfa, who died earlier, using the printer to create a clone of Marshall, arguing that this is what Mickey wanted.
Despite it being a dream, this image of Ylfa cloning Marshall symbolizes how the fascism that they embodied hasn’t died, as another person like them could rise to power one day as long as people continue to perpetuate their evil ideas. This scene also conveys Mickey’s fear of destroying the expendable printer, as death for him then would truly be final. Mickey chooses not to let his fear control him, waking up from his nightmare and destroying the printer, guaranteeing that neither he nor Marshall will be resurrected. It also shows how Mickey has finally embraced himself as a single person, with the film’s title shifting from “Mickey 17” to “Mickey Barnes” to cement this face.
Mickey 17 doesn’t explicitly set up a sequel, but Edward Ashton has published a sequel to Mickey7: Antimatter Blues. This second novel displays the potential for a follow-up to Bong Joon-ho’s film, as it follows Mickey on another adventure to save his colony by restoring its power, all while learning to live his life without the luxury of coming back as a clone. This premise aligns with how Mickey rid himself of all cloning technology at the end of the film, meaning a sequel movie could have the same premise.
Mickey’s nightmare in the film could even hint at a new villain like Marshall and Ylfa appear the sequel, continuing the cycle of oppression that they carried out in the original movie. While this would be an intriguing follow-up film, Mickey 17 presented a satisfying narrative that has wrapped itself up within its own story. Marshall and Ylfa’s evil may return in some other form, but Mickey Barnes seems ready to live his new life as a person of Niflheim.
