Thursday 17 June 2010

Cinemaniacal: Never Let Me Get Rid Of A Hackneyed Idea

Welcome to the show folks...

First I have to say that this post is chock full of
SPOILERS. So if you are planning to see the movie Never Let Me Go, and don't want it ruined, go no further, for here be dragons, known as big fat spoilers.

Last night I saw this trailer for the upcoming film
Never Let Me Go:



Something about the story seemed familiar. In fact, it sort of made me think it was a Masterpiece Theater/Merchant-Ivory version of this film:



Which itself was the Michael Bay version of this low budget 70s shocker,
PARTS: The Clonus Horror, ably mocked by the good people and robots of Mystery Science Theater 3000:



In fact,
The Island was so close to PARTS, that the studio had to shell out some shekels to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Now the latest version of this is adapted from a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, the author of Remains of the Day, so his defenders will say that it's all a metaphor for the British class system as seen through a Marxist-Leninist Organic Agriculturalist context, or something like that, but I have to say that there's something about this whole sub-genre that bugs the living crap out of me and my clones.

That something is that as a plot device, cloning and raising people into adulthood to provide replacement organs for the elite is total horse-shit.

If there's one thing I can't stand is a bad idea being re-hashed over and over again, and I don't care if it's a metaphor for labor, capital, and imperialist exploitation of third world resources as seen through a Maoist-feminist context, it's still a bad idea, so find another one please. I wasn't afraid to call Repo-Men on being horse-shit, and I'm sure as sugar going to call this movie on it.

Now here's why I think it's all total horse-shit.

1. TECHNOLOGY: The most promising research being done in organ replacement is taking fat cells, turning them into stem-cells and growing them into organs using specially designed bio-chemical matrices. It's showing to be actually more promising, faster, and simpler, than trying to clone an entire person for replacement parts.

2. TIMING: The whole operation is founded on the premise that the wealthy elite will know when their organs are going to fail, and can arrange to be cloned over 18 years in advance.

3. COST: First there's the cloning. Then there's feeding, clothing, housing, raising, and educating the little bastards so they stay healthy and will go quietly to the organ harvesting lab to be stripped for parts. Then there's bribing every level and branch of government, law enforcement, and the media because such an operation would be extremely illegal, no matter how powerful the wealthy elite are. That would literally mean millions upon millions per clone, per year.

4. SECURITY: You would literally need an army to guard such a facility. People firebomb medical labs for testing drugs on monkeys. What do you think people like that will do when they find out that human beings are being chopped up for parts to keep the rich and incontinent alive? Then there are the rivals of the rich elite who didn't have the money or clout to buy into this plan. They're going to do something to put the screws to their enemies, from kidnapping clones, to exposing the operation to media or legal scrutiny.

Then comes all the killing you have to do, and not just of the clones. You will have to kill every scientist, doctor, teacher, care-taker, janitor, security guard, and kitchen staff involved to keep them from talking, whether they're intending to or not. That's a lot of killing, and pretty soon, the people that do the killing are going to realize they're on the hit list too, and then you have a world of hurt.

All this means that no matter how well Never Let Me Go is made, or how good the performances are, I will never be able to enjoy it, because the fundamental premise behind is complete horseshit.

It's just that simple.

1 comment:

  1. Dirty Dingus sezs:

    That's why Michael Crichton of 'Jurassic Park' fame will forever be the one and only director who "gets" it. His work with Robin Cooks' 'Coma' is the best way to pull this stylings of medical malpractice!

    But remember; those types of movies involving clones usually involve the current times of paranoia. Outside of Bays want to see stuff blow up~

    The times now is a period of lazy malaise in the part of hollyweird where originality takes back road for safer deals.

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