Books vs. Movies
In this podcast we set out to answer the age old question: is the book really always better than the movie?
Books vs. Movies
Ep. 48 Mickey7 by Edward Ashton vs. Mickey 17 (2025)
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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Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set out to answer the age-old question is the book really always better than the movie? I'm Yuvia, an actress and book lover based out of New York City, and today I will be discussing Mickey 7, edward Ashton and its 2025 adaptation, mickey 17. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode. I'm really hungry today. Today was just like a really busy day. Had a lot of things to do, so I did eat. I've been eating throughout the day, but I haven't been eating well. It wasn't like substantial meals. So now I'm really hungry. So let's try to get this through this episode as quickly as possible so that I can get to dinner quite fast. I mean, it's fine, I'm going to use this recording time to marinate the chicken for now, but I'm really hungry, so let's get started. So Mickey Seven by Edward Ashton was first published in 2022, and it was actually nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award in 2022 for Reader's Favorite Science Fiction. It didn't read, but it was a nominee.
Speaker 1:The book follows Mickey Barnes, who is an expendable. He is known as Mickey Seventh because now this is his seventh life, the seventh version of him to exist, and so, yeah, an expendable means that it is his job to live and possibly die for the good of the other colonists on Niflheim, the ice planet that they just so happen to inhabit. So it's been nine years since he has signed on to be an expendable. He is obviously sent on hazardous assignments, he is subjected to experiments on hazardous assignments, he is subjected to experiments and ultimately he's sacrificed over and over again for the greater good of the people on Niflheim. At the start of the book, when we meet Mickey Seven, he is injured and has been left for dead, only to be saved by creepers who are Niflheim's native species. After he gets to base, mickey 7 meets Mickey 8. There are no clones allowed in this world, so one of them has to die or else they will both be destroyed and the existence of Mickey 9 will never come to be. But Mickey 7 convinces Mickey 8 to trade off on tasks. And not only that, but Makey Seven also hasn't uploaded his memories for a month. So every day he's supposed to upload his memories so that when the next iteration of him is brought to life they have all his past memories, past lives in their head and they can learn and grow from the experiences of their past iterations. Min-ki 7 is also kind of not sure how all of his previous selves have died. He knows how some of them have died. He has memories of some of them and some of them he has no idea how they died. So this kind of puts him in a moral he's questioning the morality of his job as an expander.
Speaker 1:Min-ki 17 is its 2025 adaptation, directed by Bong Joon-ho and starring Robert Pattinson, naomi Ackie, mark Ruffalo and Steven Yeun oh, and Toni Collette Can't forget her and this film takes place during a human expedition to colonize space. Mickey 17 is an expendable and he is there to assist in the exploration of the ice planet Niflheim. So it sounds pretty close, but there are actually a lot of differences between the book and the adaptation. So, yeah, there are a lot of differences. Edward Ashton was very much aware that Bong Joon-ho was making these changes and he was okay with it. He completely trusted Bong Joon-ho's vision and was like I'm fine with the changes that he's making. So he was totally fine with everything, because Bong Joon-ho took this adaptation in a completely different direction from its source material. So let's get into that.
Speaker 1:And the easiest way to start is just in the names of both of these, we have Mickey 7 versus Mickey 17. And it's exactly what it sounds like Mickey 7, this is the seventh version of Mickey that we are aware of, and in the film this is the 17th Mickey that we meet, and Peng Joon-ho decided to make this change. He has admitted that he wanted to make this change. So he had the opportunity to kill Mickey off 10 more times than he would have been able to had he just made him Mickey 7. So he made the conscious decision to kill Mickey off a lot more for his version of the story. And this role was a lot of fun for Robert Pattinson as well, because he never knew which version of Mickey they were filming. And again, that was Bunkin' Ho's intention. He wanted to make sure. He wanted to, like, keep Robert Pattinson on his feet as an actor and kind of keep that element of surprise. So obviously, like Robert Pattinson had the script, he knew how these different versions of him died, but he didn't know the order in which they died. So every single time before they were about to film one of his death scenes, that's when Bong Joon-ho would be like all right, this is Mickey 10, or this is Mickey 2, or Mickey 3, or whatever. So that really kept Robert Pattinson on his toes and it adds, like this, really nice element of surprise for the audience to, at least I felt like.
Speaker 1:One thing that's also different in the film is that Mickey 18 has a, I'm going to say, different personality than Mickey 17, although it's not really a different personality per se. So Mickey 7 and Mickey 8 are exactly the same personality-wise, like you can't really tell one apart from the other. What they did in the film is that each iteration of Mickey as he comes into the world is essentially he's like they have all his information in their system and so when one version of him dies, they essentially just upload all his information and he's 3d printed out as his new iteration, with full memories, full everything of his past selves. So every single time he comes back to life, it's still mickey, but it's like different personality traits of his are at the forefront. It's it's a lot more so. They're still. There's still different personality traits of his are at the forefront, it's a lot more so there's still different facets of him and his personality.
Speaker 1:But, for example, mickey 17,. As I said in the book, you can't really tell them apart. They are exactly the same Personality-wise. There's no difference between them. Mickey 17 is a lot more introverted and tender and caring and there's like this naivete to him almost although obviously it's not naivete after 17 times being 16 times before this, being dead and coming back to life he's not like naive to the world, but they're like there's this like that's just to describe the quality that he has about him and it's very like endearing and so sweet and charming.
Speaker 1:And then Mickey 18 comes out into 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 definitely would hate confrontation and would try to deescalate and avoid 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 liked that there was like distinct personalities to each one that really made them unique to each other and that the different aspects of the personality really got to shine each time that he was born. Aspects of the personality really got to shine each time that he was born. So his fellow, his friends and his girlfriend Nasha are kind of so like props to Nasha in the film because she doesn't know what version of Mickey she's gonna get every single time he's born, but she sticks by him and she still loves him and all his personalities. So that's yeah, I really liked that detail. So another big difference is that Mickey's so-called best friend and I say so-called because he proves to not be a very good friend at all, but Mickey calls him his best friend, so I will too.
Speaker 1:And that is in the book. He is presumably of Latin descent, his name is Berto Gomez and in the film his name is now Timo and he is Asian, played by Steven Yeun. Steven Yeun is fantastic and I've only ever seen him like. I know he was in Walking Dead. My mom absolutely loved him in Walking Dead, but before this I had only seen him in Us, and I guess he just plays like douche very, very well, like he's such a douchebag in both those films. But there's he. It's a douchebag that you love to hate, because Steven Yeun does add, like this, likeability to his characters. So you won't hear me say douchebags are likable very often, but if Steven Yeun is playing them probably will.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so the role of Marshall. So Marshall is the head of this space exploration, this space colony, and in the book that's what he is. He's the leader of the space exploration. He's very strict and by the book and in the film he is played by Mark Ruffalo and he is not like that at all. Like he, I mean, yes, he is the leader and he relishes in his power. But it's one of those things that they added Toni Collette's character in the film. She does not exist in the book but Toni Collette plays Marshall's wife, yeefa, and there are moments in the film where it's just like who's really calling the shots? Because I don't think it's Marshall, I actually think it's Aoife who is using her husband to kind of get what she wants. But Mark Ruffalo is so fun as this iteration of Marshall.
Speaker 1:Like I said, marshall in the book is just very, he's very strict, he's very, he follows the rules and there isn't really much to him. I felt like he was maybe a little one dimensional and in the film I guess he kind of is as well. But it's a completely different version of him. Like he's still the leader, people still are scared of him, people still have, like this respect for him, but it's more of his position rather than him himself. He's kind of the bumbling idiot at times. But so it's a lot of fun to see Mark Ruffalo in that role and he does great. So, yeah, marshall has more of a role overall in the film than he does in the book. Like in the book he really only appears when rules are broken or things are reported to him and he needs to make an appearance to like scold someone. And in the film, like, we do see him a lot more and we get to see his interactions with Aoife and Mickey and the other colonists.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, in the book there is a character called Kathy. I believe her first name is Kathy but her last name is Chen and she's one of is Chen and she's one of the few she's, she's one of the pilots for this expedition and she is the first one to figure out, or one of the first ones to figure out, that Mickey is now Mickey seven and Mickey eight are in existence at the same time, and that's obviously a big that's's just not allowed. So she agrees to hold that secret until she just, you know, she and mickey seven bond a little bit and then at one point she goes back to mickey's dorm, and this is after Nasha and the two Mickeys have had a threesome, because, of course, why wouldn't they? And so she walks in and then she's like oh my gosh, what did I just walk into? And then she reports them. So it's a little.
Speaker 1:It was a little strange like her motivations in the book it was just like so you walked in on them having a threesome and you didn't like that and there isn't really. I guess you could say she might have been jealous. She wants Mickey for herself. Maybe there's some attraction there. But she says several times that she's not and I guess she could have been lying. But I didn't reading the book that I didn't really get the feeling that she was lying about that. So yeah, like she's also another one. That's like a rule maker. She follows all the rules and she agreed to keep this secret until she walked in on them and was like I can't keep this secret. So yeah, her motivations were a little unclear in the book.
Speaker 1:In the film she is not Kathy, her name is Kai and in this one it is a little bit more fleshed out that she probably she doesn't end up reporting anyone, but she's really close to and there is a moment in the film when she tries to seduce Mickey 17,. But she doesn't realize that he's a double at that point. So she tries to seduce him and then he leaves and then she finds both Mickey's and Asha they don't have a threesome and they're about to do it and then I believe Kai's the one that walks in on them and catches them. So she's going to report them, but then they convince her not to. So in the film it's definitely a lot more like oh, I'm a little bit jealous, so I'm going to report you as payback.
Speaker 1:But in the book I didn't feel like it was very clear. Yeah, like I said, I guess she could have been lying about her attraction to him or something. But I, like I said, I didn't get the feeling that she was lying. So it was kind of just out of left field for me as to why she would report him in the book. But in the film it was a lot more 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.
Speaker 1:That part did seem to come out of nowhere for us, for that we saw, I saw the film with Orlando and because this happens and then it's kind of like never talked about, ever brought up again, and at the end we see her happily in a relationship with another woman. So it yeah, it just seemed like just to really nitpick on the film here, because I feel like I've been more nitpicky on the book. But to nitpick on the film, that moment, like the her desire to seduce Mickey, was just a little like that just seemed to come out of nowhere. There wasn't. I mean, maybe she was just really lonely or something, but that part just felt like a little out of place in the rest of the film and I'm talking about 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.
Speaker 1:We know that clones are not, like doubles of a person are not allowed. So one of us has to die, and the one that's going to die is you I'm going to kill you right now. And he gets very close to killing Mickey 17, but ultimately he is unable to, and so, after that attempted fail, they agree, like at that point, to share the tasks and the duties, like split them amongst themselves, which is something that happens in the book. But in the film, after mickey 18 almost kills mickey 17, they end up getting separated and mickey 17 is caught by. So they have like these like lotteries, in which you, if you win this lottery, you have the honor of having dinner with Marshall. And this is just in the film. This doesn't happen in the book. So in the book he wins the lottery and they, the people that are the hosts of this lottery bump into Mickey 17, so he's the one that gets to go to Marshall's office, while Mickey 18, I believe, goes with Nasha somewhere else. So it's one of those things that had they would have taken whichever one, but they don't know that there's two Mickeys at this point.
Speaker 1:So Mickey 17 goes to dinner with the Marshall and Yeefa and I believe Kai is there, and they're eating dinner and then Mickey 17 almost dies at this dinner because it turns out that they fed him like they only fed him this, obviously, but he scarves it down because he's so hungry and they have to split the rations. They have a limited amount of rations each day, but now, since there's mickey 17 and mickey 18 are splitting everything, like that's half the rations, so they're eating even less. So he's like, so happy to have gotten 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 we know what this thing that we put in the meal does. But then he like wakes up and just like violently throws up. So it's this whole thing.
Speaker 1:But there's this dinner does not happen with marshall. In the book, like anytime that mickey seven is usually the one that gets coerced by mickey eight into seeing marshall live in person. It's to get in trouble, it's doesn't almost die in while they're doing these experiments. And that's another big change between the book and the film is that in the film, like he's literally an expendable, the way his job title says so they're willing to kill him off anytime, any day because they're just going to print him out again. And the book, they're just gonna print him out again. In the book, while that is his job title and he is killed intentionally for like his first few iterations once, like all the experiments are done on him and they have all the information they need so that they can live on, so they can survive. On Niflheim he's still sent out on the dangerous missions, but it becomes more of like we need to try to keep him alive, as if we can, and it's more of an effort to like regenerating.
Speaker 1:Mickey uses up a lot of resources. So using up those resources means there's less resources for everyone and it also brings down, like it uses up everything it uses up. Like that's less food for everyone, that's less power for everyone. Like it definitely costs a lot more to bring mickey back to life than, like I said, in the film they're willing to kill him any. Like I said, they're experimenting on him willy-nilly just to see what happens and he doesn't know he's being experimented on. So, yeah, in the film he definitely fits the title, the job title of expendable, a lot more than he does in the book, while he is still there to take on the dangerous missions in which they don't want to lose anyone significant, for lack of a better word. He's still the one that goes out there, but his mission and the mission of everyone else is to 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 of resources it takes to bring him back, it's like please try to keep him alive, please try to stay alive as much as you can, so that happens.
Speaker 1:The other characters that play a much bigger role in the film than they do in the book are the creepers. The creepers are the native species of Niflheim and they look like really big worms with a lot of legs Not like centipede amount of legs, but they do have quite a bit of legs and they have like like they they open their mouth and it's like just a circle of teeth. So they're very and and they range in size. So they have like the really, really big ones that can kill a person by just sitting on them because they're that big. And then you have the little itty bitty baby ones that are like Voldemort size. If you know how big Voldemort is, if you don't know how big Voldemort is, he's a little three pound chihuahua, four pound chihuahua. So they're like his, maybe slightly bigger. A lot of things are bigger than him. But yeah, so the creepers play a much more significant role in the film than they do in the book, which really caught me off guard.
Speaker 1:I saw the. We saw the film first, and in the book they they do kill some people, like some of the colonists, mainly because they don't know, like what they are and they don't know if they come in peace. And in the film they don't kill anyone, they're very peaceful creatures and they do almost start a war and we will. We will get into that, but otherwise they they don't kill people, like they're very friendly. And so the way the film starts off well, the book and the film start off is that Mickey has fallen down an icy fissure and he's deep in there and Berto slash Timo, are like oh man, well, it's not worth saving you, so bye. And they don't even make an effort to try to save him. And we end up finding out that the creepers are actually the ones that saved him. Like he one approached him, the like the leader approached him and he thought he was going to die because they, like he just saw, like the body come over him and like fangs approaching his face. And then the next thing he knew they were releasing him out back out of the crevice, out really close to the base. And so that's when he starts thinking like I guess these creatures are not evil. Like they don't.
Speaker 1:In the film there is this like moment in which the two little baby creepers, the little Voldemort sized ones, come out. They don't know what these creatures are at this point Mickey's the only one that has had any like an interaction with them and so he, so they, the colonists dig up like this huge rock that's going to be like the kind of like the Plymouth rock, if you will, of Niflheim. They're going to display it to show that this is where they landed. And, unbeknownst to them, two little creeper babies were on that rock. And so when they end up so they ended up making an appearance and they come out and everyone's like freaking out.
Speaker 1:People have seen the creepers before, but they're kind of touted. They're kind of like seen as wild animals, like you avoid them at all costs because they will kill you. And so the little baby creepers come out and then I actually don't remember if so Mickey seven is after he at some point, like they're he. He tells them about the creepers and they're like I don't remember if he and a group of people you know what it's before, because I think Kai loses her best friend during this expedition and she has not tried to seduce him yet. So, yes, so he returns and then they ask him about the creepers and then they're sent down to like kill the creepers. And then one of the members of the team ends up getting killed by the creepers and at that point the creepers are defending themselves. So I was wrong. They do kill one person, but again that was they kill this person in self-defense, because this person is shooting at them and then everyone else is able to escape.
Speaker 1:So when the little baby creepers come out, people start freaking out and one of the little baby creepers is shot to death and then the other one is taken for studies, and this is so in the book. They're like genuinely fighting with, they're genuinely fighting and killing anyone that they see is on their own, and that's, again, mainly because the creepers don't know what these colonists are, if they're safe, if they're friendly, if what they are. So they are killing people. But the creepers in the film are definitely peaceful. They do not attack or kill anyone unless they have to. And so when the little baby creeper is killed, they hear the cries as it's dying, and then they hear the cries of the other little baby that's getting experimented on, and then they hear the cries of the other little baby that's getting experimented on, and so, like they as a huge mass all appear and surround the ship, the colony, demanding that the remaining baby gets returned to them. So in the film, so at this point, they do end up getting reported, not by Kai, but by someone else and so they're in jail and then they're taken to Marshall. Once like they do break out of jail and then, before they can face further punishment, they're taken to Marshall and more like at this point all the creepers are starting to surround them and they're everyone's freaking out.
Speaker 1:And then Mickey mentioned something to Nasha, and that's when she says they understand us, like we. I feel like we can communicate with them and like some of the other scientists are kind of like it does sound like they're trying to communicate. So maybe we can communicate and see 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 wild animals. Like we need to get rid of them all.
Speaker 1:And I will say this this is one weird thing about Yifa that I was like what is this? Like she's obsessed with making sauce. I don't know she's obsessed, but she's obsessed with making sauce. Like that is like her main character trait is that when she is not manipulating Marshall, she's making sauce and she discovers that the creeper's tails make really good sauce. So the little hostage creeper, she cuts off his tail and makes sauce out of it, and so that's how she knows that it makes really good sauce. And so when all the creepers are there, she's like you know what, let's send the Mickeys out there to get me as many tails as they can, and that can do whatever, like if that means killing them or if they just chop it off, whatever. But whoever collects the most tails gets to live and the other one is killed and in the well, I'll finish talking about what happens in the film.
Speaker 1:So one of the scientists finds a way to, like, once mickey tells them like they seem to try to be communicating, and this is how they communicate one of the scientists creates like a really rough translator so that they go out and they're able to communicate with the creepers in this way. And the creeper says, like we will leave you alone if you return the baby and if you sacrifice one of your own to take the baby that you killed's place An eye for an eye kind of thing. And so they, like Mickey 17 and Mickey 18, are like like okay, they have, like these bombs attached to them that, if they like, if they try to avoid doing this task and run away. If they once they read, once they pass a certain amount of distance, the bombs will go off. So they have no choice but to either complete this mission If they get attacked by creepers, detonate the bombs themselves and take some of the creepers along with them, or try to run away and the bomb detonates after a certain distance. So makey 17 and makey 18, and more makey 17 rather than makey 18, makey 18 is looking to f things up, but banky 17 is really trying to keep the peace, and so at this point they they're able to get a message to Nasha to bring the baby, and they convince Marshall like they want to have a peace, talk with you, like, please come out. And so Marshall comes out and at that point Mickey 18, marshall's out, like, is ready to keep shooting the creepers, and Mickey 18 is like not on my watch, mother effer, and he like jumps into the transport vehicle that Marshall is on and he sacrifices himself and Marshall to appease the creepers. And Mickey 17 returns to the creepers and then at this point all the creepers disperse and the colonists are left in peace.
Speaker 1:In the book, after Mickey 7 and Mickey 8 are turned in by Chen and at this point, several other colonists have been killed. And Marshall's like all right, here's what we're going to do. There's not a lot, there's not going to be multiples, there's multiples are not a lot. So both of you got to die. But we're what you're going to do is you're going to go down to the nest of the creepers and you're going to detonate this bomb which will kill all the creepers and obviously you. So that's the last act you'll do for us as an expendable Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:And so they're sent to the creepers to destroy the nest and essentially cause mass extinction for all the creepers. So Mickey 8 is like all right, I'm gonna do it. And Mickey 7's like I don't think they're, I mean they literally saved me, I don't think they're all bad. And Mickey seven's like I don't think they're, I mean they literally saved me, I don't think they're all bad. 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 like looking to actually kill the creepers, but the creepers kill him before he can kill them.
Speaker 1:And then the leader of the creepers, the one, so they in the book, they wear like comms, so that's how they communicate. And then. So if you've ever seen like Dragon Ball Z, they have like those glasses and then text appears on the glasses and that's kind of what I'm envisioning for these comms. So Mickey Six was also killed by creepers, but Mickey Seven does not know this. He discovered this fairly recently after confronting Berto. And so the after they killed Mickey 6, the creepers have been trying to figure out how to make this calm work and they figured out a very rudimentary way of speaking to Mickey through the calm. So there are no stolen baby creepers in the book.
Speaker 1:Mickey 8 goes down there and is killed by the creepers. Mickey seven is able and the leader, like the leader asks the leader of the creepers asks are you the leader of the creatures above us, above ground? And mickey's like yeah, yeah, I'm the leader. So then they talk leader to leader and then via the comms and then they make mickey seven essentially makes a peace pact with the creepers. So when he gets back above ground he tells marsh Marshall, like I told them, we're not going to kill them and you have to keep the promise and you have to keep the peace or else they're going to detonate the bomb. 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 bomb because they said if I didn't, that they were just gonna set it off and that would have been bad for everyone. So I told them how to use it and they're prepared to use it If we don't keep the treaty I just came up with them.
Speaker 1:So Marshall begrudgingly accepts this peace treaty and the creepers and the humans live in tentative peace. But it's peace In the film. So after Marshall is sacrificed, gifa later ends up killing herself. So there are no more leaders. So now all the colonists hold a vote and Nasha is elected leader and so now she is the leader of Nefelheim and, knowing that these creepers are now sentient beings, they, they live in harmony together. They're not like bffs, but it's not like the tentative peace that there is in the book, like there's definite, like they understand each other and like they mind they're living a lot of love, essentially. So nasha takes over.
Speaker 1:In the film. Marshall doesn't die, as I said. Uh, mickey works out this peace treaty and marshall has to kind accept it, and so he accepts it and he remains leader. He doesn't die. So yeah. So like the film kind of definitely has more happily ever after, the book kind of has more of an ambiguous ending. At the end of the book Mickey takes the snow, starts to melt a little bit. It's still an ice planet, but there's like a semblance of like spring, so there's like less snow and there's like little sprouts of plant life popping up. And Mickey takes Nasha out to the rock where he was released by the creepers and he reveals that the bomb that he told Marshall the creepers had actually is buried by this rock. He never the creepers never kept the bomb. They gave it back to him and he decided to bury it and kind of keep that knowledge to himself, should he ever need it. And then they walk off into the distance and that's how the book ends. So yeah, I.
Speaker 1:So this is a science fiction film and I kind of just watched, I kind of chose Mickey 17 on a whim. I was kind of like I don't know, like no, it's science fiction, it's not really my thing, but I don't know, there's nothing really else I want to watch. So I guess we'll watch that and I actually ended up really, really, really liking it. It's really good and apparently like, and it has like great. It's been like critically acclaimed, critics love it. I'm not sure how well received it is by the audience, but it has like a good Rotten Tomatoes score, audience score. But it's one of those things where apparently it's considered a commercial failure which makes me kind of bummed because it's actually it's a really good film. It's actually a really really good film and y'all know science fiction is not my genre, I don't really care for science fiction, but I really, really enjoyed this film. So that says something.
Speaker 1:The book, on the other hand, I did struggle with it a little bit more. There was definitely so in the film. The book and the film start off the same way, as I said Mickey has just fallen down the crevice and the fissure, whatever you want to call it, and then it flashes back in time to how they ended up in Niflheim and Mickey's backstory, how he came to be an expendable, and then the book kind of goes back and forth a little bit more, like it flashes back and forth In the film. We get that one really really really long flashback letting us know Mickey's backstory, all of that, and then, once we get back to where we left off at the start of the film, then it just keeps moving forward from then on.
Speaker 1:I don't necessarily mind when films or books go back and forth in time. That doesn't really bother me. But I, in this instance, in the book, it did start to bother me a little bit because I felt like, mind you, I guess, if you're no matter what, if you're traveling back and forth in time, if you you're going back in time, you're getting exposition, no matter what, because you're getting glimpses into what this person was like. But there's a way to like make the exposition not feel like an exposition. And I felt like this one is very like. When we went back in time, especially once we got towards the later chapters, it was like very exposition, expositiony. So was like, okay, I kind of just want to stay with current mickey and not read about his past selves.
Speaker 1:And there is also times in which the there were certain chapters dedicated to certain technology and how it works. So those chapters definitely not my thing. I was like I don't think this is important to the story moving forward. It's science fiction. I accept that if there's a bomb that lives inside a bubble and in order for this bomb to go off, you just need to pop the bubble. So it's a very delicate bomb Exists, I'm with you, but I don't need a whole backstory on how this bomb ended up being created. I really don't care how this bomb ended up being created, but that's just me. So I definitely struggled with the book a lot more for that reason, just because it was definitely like when you think science fiction, like it was science fiction. There was a lot of explanation, a lot of exposition on how certain things work in this world.
Speaker 1:I will say also that I really like that Bong Joon-ho focused so much on the creepers in the film and he is so good at that. I've seen both of his. I don't know how many other films he has, but I've seen two of his previous films. I've seen Parasite and Okja. And Okja is like that Like highly recommend Okja if you've never seen it.
Speaker 1:But it's like this, like huge hippopotamus looking creature that is kind of like the cow of the, this alternate universe, and so it's definitely like a commentary on factory farming. So I thought that was a clever way to get the anti-factory farming message out without being too cruel on animals that we know and love. And yeah, he just has this way of making you care for like CGI creatures, cause, like in this one, like the little baby gets its tail cut off, like the noises it makes. Obviously it's extremely painful for any animal to have their tail cut off, and he just really has this way of making you care for fictional CGI creatures. So, yeah, it's really he's just so good at that, like he has this way of having you care about these non-existent creatures. So I really really enjoyed that and, yeah, he just has this way with it. So let's get into it. I think you can tell which one the winner is based on what I just said, but I rated the film 3.5 stars and I rated the book three stars, but it's more like maybe like 2.75 rounded up to three. But yes, the winner is the film. I definitely, definitely recommend the film. It is just so good the way that Bong Joon-ho tells this story and makes you care about all the characters.
Speaker 1:Everyone's acting like. Mark Ruffalo and Tony Collette are just a blast to watch. They are having the time of their lives playing these like over-the-top villainous characters. And Robert Pattinson just, I've really only seen Robert Pattinson in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and I know he was in Twilight, but I was never a Twihard, so I did.
Speaker 1:I have not watched those films, but he was just so good and and, like I, no doubt in his abilities as an actor Orlando has definitely seen more of him and he's like, every single time I see him, like he, just, he just he just gets better and better. So, yeah, he was fantastic, like the way, like the way he was able to differentiate between Mickey 17 and Mickey 18. And like he didn't really get a chance to really differentiate the other iterations of Mickey, just because there we got more glimpses of them as opposed to really seeing the different personalities and how different they are from each other. But, yeah, he was so good, he was so good. So I really like all the actors in this were fantastic and Kwong Joon-ho is a great director as well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I have nothing but good things to say about the film, other than that minor nitpick that I mentioned, and the book definitely didn't hate it, but it was just. It was definitely more along the science fiction realm of science fiction that I don't like. And again, because it's science fiction, I can suspend my disbelief, but I don't. Whatever you tell me exists in this world, I'm all for it. I believe that it exists. You don't need to go into the history of how it was created. So yeah, those chapters again, those came more towards the end of explaining how certain technology works and what it's used for. Just not my thing, just not something that interests me. It might be some. If you like science fiction, maybe this is more for you, but so this one is definitely a matter of preference. This is just not science fiction is not my genre. But I really enjoyed the film and I was looking forward to reading the book, and I'm glad I did. But anytime I will recommend the film anytime over the book. So that is it for this episode of Books vs Movies.
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