Five years after stunning the world, the stage is set for Bong Joon-ho to deliver yet another masterpiece withMickey 17. The latest trailer for the 2025 Warner Bros. film promises a groundbreaking sci-fi experience. However, for some sci-fi fans, the story may feel familiar, having been explored before on a much smaller scale and with less fanfare.
Based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novelMickey7, the film starsRobert Pattinsonas an “expendable” employee in space, who comes in multiple iterations through cloning and retains most of his memories after each death. Now, it seems like this central plot itself is a clone, which mirrors the premise of a 2009 sci-fi drama starringSam RockwellcalledMoon.
What Happens in the Sci-Fi MovieMoon(2009)?
The film in question is a modest UK-based production calledMoon, which marked the directorial debut of Duncan Jones. He later went on to makeSource Codein 2011andMute,a 2018 sequel toMoon. The film was written as ascience fiction vehicle, specifically keeping Rockwell in mind, who plays the character Sam Bell. As expected, the story is set on the moon on its far side, where Sam lives and works alone to complete a three-year contract at a lunar mining facility. However, he finds out that he’s not alone when he encounters another man there who looks exactly like him.
Sam’s discovery becomes even more unsettling when he realizes that he himself is also a clone, created by the company he works for. The catch is that each new Sam comes with most of his old memories intact, only for his “bodies” to be discarded after dying on dangerous missions assigned by the employer.Warner Bros.has set therelease date forMickey 17on June 07, 2025, but it’s not too early to assume from the official synopsis and the source material that it shares a similar premise withMoon.
How isMoonsimilar toMickey 17?
Calling the two plots identical might be reductive, but the similarities between the two sci-fi movies are hard to overlook. Both films are about workers who are considered disposable, thanks to their multiple versions or clones. And it so happens that these replicants are all tasked with fatally dangerous jobs. InMoon, much of the narrative shows Rockwell’s character dealing with loneliness and an identity crisis when he confronts his clone – emotions thatRobert Pattinson might also exploreinMickey 17.
Apart from the shared concept of clones spending time together in outer space, the thematic parallels are also interesting.Mooncritiques how real-world corporations treat employees as replaceable, with little to no regard for human life.Mickey 17will inevitably touch upon this idea too, and it’s not just due to the plot overlap. Capitalism and social inequality are recurring themes inBong Joon-ho’s films likeSnowpiercerandOkja.Considering the potential here, it’s unlikely that the South Korean auteur would pass up this massive opportunity to stand by what he believes in.
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Do these hints suggest thatMickey 17could be aMoonrip-off? After all, even theMickey7novel came out only in 2022, almost thirteen years after the low-budget sci-fi film. And this is not even aStar Wars-Dunesituation, where the former was loosely based on/inspired by the much older sci-fi novel. By his own admission,Bong Joon-hostill makes time to watch one new film a day, and an underrated, indie gem likeMoonmight have found its way onto his watchlist. Despite all this,Mickey 17deserves the benefit of the doubt, andMoonmay be just one of many creative influences.
Often, a great story is about how it’s told more than what it is. Thenew trailer forMickey 17proves just that. The director is a master at switching gears between high-stakes drama and comedic tension, and that’s exactly the kind of flavor that will make his film stand out from its 2009 “clone.” Between Pattinson’s uncanny accent, the solid supporting cast, and the wacky dystopian setting of the Niflheim Expedition,Mickey 17teases an incomparable style and tone. Moreover, its $150 million budget blowsMoon’s$5 million budget out of the water, making it unfair to pit the two films against each other.
For now, fans don’t need to worry about finding likenesses betweenMickey 17andMoon.One major difference is right there inMickey 17’stitle.Moonfocuses on just two Sams, butMickey 17might outdo its title and bring more than seventeen versions of Mickey to life. In fact,Mickey 17seems to be deviating even from its original novel, and its author Edward Ashton confirmed thisin an interview with Nerdist:
Literally, Director Bong is going to change a lot about the book. When I spoke with him, he made it pretty clear: “You’ve got a 350-page book. I’m gonna have a 120-page script. There’s a lot that’s gonna go.”
Interestingly, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker acquired the rights to theMickey7novel even before its official publication, much like how Steven Spielberg secured the rights toMichael Crichton’sJurassic Parknovels. WithMickey 17, Bong is also likely to pay homage to space classics such as Ridley Scott’sAlien(1979), which, ironically, also served as a direct influence onMoon.
