The Island is a 2005 American
science fictionScience fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
/thriller film directed by
Michael BayMichael Benjamin Bay is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing high-budget action films characterized by their fast edits, stylistic visuals and substantial practical special effects...
and starring
Ewan McGregorEwan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...
and
Scarlett JohanssonScarlett Johansson is an American actress, model and singer.Johansson made her film debut in North and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo . She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer and Ghost World...
. It was released on July 22, 2005 in the United States, and was nominated for three awards including the Teen Choice Award.
It is described as a
pasticheA pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
of "escape-from-
dystopiaA dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
" science fiction films of the 1960s and 1970s such as
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
,
THX 1138THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas in his directorial debut. The film is based on a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch...
,
Parts: The Clonus HorrorParts: The Clonus Horror, also known as Clonus, is a 1979 science fiction horror film about an isolated community in a remote desert area, where clones are bred to serve as a source of replacement organs for the wealthy and powerful...
, and
Logan's RunLogan's Run is a 1976 science fiction film based on the novel of the same name by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. It depicts a dystopian future society in which population and the consumption of resources are managed and maintained in equilibrium by the simple expediency of killing...
. The film's plot revolves around the struggle of Ewan McGregor's character to fit into the highly structured world he lives in, and the series of events that unfolds when he questions how truthful that world really is.
The film, which cost $126 million to produce, earned only $36 million at the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
box officeA box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
, but earned $127 million overseas, for a $162 million worldwide total. The original score for the film was composed by
Steve JablonskySteven Jablonsky is an American music composer for film, television and video games. He has been the music director for all the Michael Bay movies produced and directed since The Island...
.
Plot
Lincoln Six Echo (
Ewan McGregorEwan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...
) lives in an isolated compound which strictly regulates its inhabitants' lives. The Overseers control every aspect of the residents' lives, from diet and free time activities to social relationships. The inhabitants hope to win a lottery to go to "the Island", the only place on Earth not contaminated by a deadly
pathogenA pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...
. Lincoln tells Dr. Merrick (
Sean BeanShaun Mark "Sean" Bean is an English film and stage actor. Bean is best known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe...
) of his discontent with the plain white clothes everyone is given and the strict social controls. Concerned about strange dreams Lincoln experiences about a speedboat and other unfamiliar items, Merrick inserts probes into Lincoln's body to monitor his cerebral activities.
While illicitly visiting a power-plant basement where his friend, the technician James McCord (
Steve BuscemiSteven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
), works, Lincoln discovers a live moth in a ventilation shaft, leading him to deduce that the outside world is not contaminated. Lincoln captures and releases the moth and follows it to another section, where he witnesses two recent lottery winners being killed: one after childbirth, and the other in the process of
having his liver harvestedOrgan harvesting refers to the removal, preservation and use of human organs and tissue from the bodies of the recently deceased to be used in surgical transplants on the living...
. Security discovers that Lincoln has wandered into unauthorized areas, and starts searching for him. As Lincoln rescues Jordan Two Delta (
Scarlett JohanssonScarlett Johansson is an American actress, model and singer.Johansson made her film debut in North and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo . She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer and Ghost World...
), a friend who has just won the lottery, Dr. Merrick discovers that Lincoln is beginning to discover the truth.
While eluding security and escaping from the facility, Lincoln and Jordan learn that both the contamination of the outside world and the Island are myths. And later learn that the residents are
cloneCloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
s of wealthy sponsors, who intend to use them for spare parts or surrogate motherhood. Merrick's technology allows clones to incubate directly into adulthood. He tells sponsors and the government that the clones do not gain
consciousnessConsciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
, but when Merrick hires French
mercenaryA mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
Albert Laurent (
Djimon HounsouDjimon Diaw Hounsou is a Beninese actor and model. As an actor, Hounsou has been nominated for two Academy Awards.-Early life:Djimon Hounsou was born in Cotonou, Benin, in 1964, to lbertine and Pierre Hounsou, a cook. He emigrated to Lyon in France at the age of thirteen with his brother, Edmond....
) to kill or capture the escapees, he admits that the organs of unconscious clones inevitably fail, making them useless. Thus, he needs the clones conscious in the compound.
Lincoln and Jordan escape the compound and find themselves in the
ArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
desert. They find McCord, who gives them the name of Lincoln's sponsor in
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and helps them to the
YuccaYucca is an unincorporated community in Mohave County, Arizona, United States. Located along Interstate 40, it lies southwest of Kingman, just east of the southern section of the Black Mountains and west of the Hualapai and McCracken Mountains in the Sacramento Valley. Yucca has a ZIP Code of...
railway station. After Laurent's mercenaries find and kill McCord, Lincoln and Jordan ride the train in hopes of finding help in Los Angeles. (Jordan Two's sponsor, model Sarah Jordan, cannot help as she is in a coma following a car accident.) Lincoln Six's sponsor, Tom Lincoln—the owner of the speedboat in Lincoln's dreams—agrees to help expose the truth about the organ harvesting, but secretly turns against his clone by informing Merrick about the situation. Merrick sends the mercenaries to the location, but Lincoln Six tricks Laurent into killing Tom and assumes Tom's identity.
The cerebral probes reveal that Lincoln Six Echo inherited some memories from his sponsor Tom Lincoln (which had been assumed impossible). Merrick becomes afraid that the same will happen with the other clones and decides to kill them all. Lincoln and Jordan plan to liberate their fellow clones. Now posing as Tom Lincoln, Lincoln Six returns to the compound in order to destroy the holographic projectors that hide the outside world from its residents. With help from Laurent—who has moral qualms with treating the clones as if they are not human—and Jordan, Merrick is killed and the clones are freed. The film ends with a shot of the clones on hill outdoors, seeing the outside world for the first time, and then the film cuts to the final frame which shows Lincoln and Jordan together on the deck of the speedboat from his dreams.
Cast
- Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...
as Lincoln Six Echo, a clone of experimental designer Tom Lincoln.
- Tom Lincoln, automotive experimental designer from Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, sponsored his clone for a new liver since his viral hepatitisViral hepatitis is liver inflammation due to a viral infection. It may present in acute or chronic forms. The most common causes of viral hepatitis are the five unrelated hepatotropic viruses Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis D, and Hepatitis E...
is destroying his liver. Although both characters were played by the same actor, Echo is portrayed as kind, gentle, and generous, while Lincoln is arrogant, selfish, and greedy. Echo spoke with a Canadian accent, while Lincoln spoke with a ScottishThe Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
accent, which is Ewan McGregor's actual accent.
- Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson is an American actress, model and singer.Johansson made her film debut in North and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo . She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer and Ghost World...
as Jordan Two Delta, clone of model Sarah Jordan. About to be harvested for organs as her sponsor was severely injured in a car accident, but escapes with Lincoln, with whom she has taken up a friendship.
- Sarah Jordan, a supermodel for Calvin Klein
Calvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Klein has also given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry....
(among other brands), who also has a preschool-age son. Jordan is never seen on-screen, only in adverts.
- Sean Bean
Shaun Mark "Sean" Bean is an English film and stage actor. Bean is best known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe...
as Dr. Merrick, antagonist, owner of Merrick Biotech and creator of the cloning technology.
- Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Diaw Hounsou is a Beninese actor and model. As an actor, Hounsou has been nominated for two Academy Awards.-Early life:Djimon Hounsou was born in Cotonou, Benin, in 1964, to lbertine and Pierre Hounsou, a cook. He emigrated to Lyon in France at the age of thirteen with his brother, Edmond....
as Albert Laurent, FrenchThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
private military contractorA private military company or provides military and security services. These combatants are commonly known as mercenaries, though modern-day PMCs refer to their staff as security contractors, private military contractors or private security contractors, and refer to themselves as private military...
hired to bring back Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta.
- Steve Buscemi
Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
as James McCord, employee of Merrick Biotech.
- Michael Clarke Duncan
Michael Clarke Duncan is an American actor, best known for his breakout role as John Coffey in The Green Mile, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.- Early life :...
as Starkweather Two Delta, cloned from a footballAmerican football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player.
- Ethan Phillips
Ethan Phillips is an American actor, playwright and author. He is known for television roles such as Star Trek: Voyager's Neelix and Benson's Pete Downey.-Personal life:...
as Jones Three Echo, a short, nervous clone.
- Brian Stepanek
Brian Stepanek is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Arwin Hawkhauser in the Disney Channel Original Series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody...
as Gandu Three Echo, an easily frustrated clone repeatedly disciplined.
- Noa Tishby
Noa Tohar Tishby is an Israeli actress, producer, model and singer, currently residing in Los Angeles, California, in the United States.-Career:In her homeland of Israel, Noa Tishby’s name is well known...
as Community Announcer.
- Siobhan Flynn as Lima One Alpha.
- Kim Coates
Kim Coates is a Canadian-American actor who has worked in both Canadian and American movies and television series. He has worked on Broadway portraying Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and in the lead role of Macbeth performed at the Stratford Theatre...
as Charles Whitman, director of Public Relations for Merrick Biotech.
- Tom Everett
Tom Everett is an American actor known for his performances in political films such as Air Force One and Thirteen Days.-Film:-TV:-External links:...
as President of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, appears on television.
- J.P. Manoux
Jean-Paul Christophe Manoux is an American actor.-Life and career:Manoux is the oldest of seven and a native of Fresno, California. He is perhaps best known for his work in multiple Disney series: as S.T.A.N...
as Foxtrot.
- Shawnee Smith
Shawnee Smith is an American film and television actress and singer. Smith is best known for her roles as Amanda Young in the Saw films and Linda in the CBS sitcom Becker....
as the girlfriend of the Steve BuscemiSteven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
character. Buscemi and Smith were also paired together in a short bar scene in "ArmageddonArmageddon is, according to the Bible, the site of a battle during the end times, variously interpreted as either a literal or symbolic location...
".
Filming
The computer in Merrick's office at the Institute, which features a large, tabletop
touchscreenA touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...
display capable of detecting several forms of input, was rumored to be a large version of
Microsoft SurfaceMicrosoft Surface is a multi-touch product from Microsoft which is developed as a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user, or multiple users, to manipulate digital content by the use of gesture recognition. This could involve the motion of hands or physical objects. It was...
. The design was actually proposed by a technology adviser at MIT, who aimed for producing a believable vision of futuristic technology.
The boat featured at the end of the film is the
118 WallyPower118 WallyPower is a luxury motor yacht with a maximum speed of 60 knots produced by Wally Yachts. The yacht is narrow and angular in design with black glass housing, driven by three Vericor TF50 gas turbines generating , each driving a Rolls-Royce Kamewa water jet, two steerable outboard and a...
, built by
Monte CarloMonte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
-based
Wally YachtsWally Yachts is a maritime design and manufacture company based in Monte Carlo, Monaco.-Company history:Founded by wealthy Italian businessman Luca Bassani in 1994, Wally started out primarily as a sail boat design firm and have more recently branched out into designing cutting edge motor yachts,...
.
The car that Tom Lincoln owns is a 2002 concept car, the
Cadillac CienThe Cadillac Cien was a concept car created by Cadillac and unveiled at the 2002 Detroit Auto Show to celebrate Cadillac's 100th anniversary...
.
The
Calvin KleinCalvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Klein has also given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry....
advertising Jordan sees in the street, in which she recognizes her sponsor Sarah Jordan, is the actual advertising for the Eternity Moment fragrance by Calvin Klein, in which Johansson was the model for in real life.
Filming locations
The ruined buildings where Jordan and Lincoln sleep after leaving the subterranean compound are in
Rhyolite, NevadaRhyolite is a ghost town in Nye County, in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is located in the Bullfrog Hills, about northwest of Las Vegas, near the eastern edge of Death Valley. The town began in early 1905 as one of several mining camps that sprang up after a prospecting discovery in the surrounding...
. The city parts of the movie were filmed in
Detroit, MichiganDetroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, most notable the
Michigan Central StationMichigan Central Station , built in mid-1912 through 1913 for the Michigan Central Railroad, was Detroit, Michigan's passenger rail depot from its opening in 1913 after the previous Michigan Central Station burned, until the cessation of Amtrak service on January 6, 1988...
and the Michigan Theater.
Box office
The Island grossed $12,409,070 in over 3,100 theaters its opening weekend, but saw steadily diminishing domestic revenue during its seven week release period. The film went on to gross $35,818,913 domestically and $127,130,251 in foreign markets, for a worldwide total of $162,949,164.
Ultimately, the film was considered a box office bomb, which Edward Jay Epstein of
Slate MagazineSlate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
blamed on poor publicity. Epstein notes that research polls showed little awareness of
The Island's impending release amongst its target audience and that trailers bore little relation to the film's plot. He writes, "What really failed here was not the directing, acting, or story (which were all acceptable for a summer movie) but the marketing campaign."
Critical reception
The Island received mixed reviews from critics. It has a 40% "Rotten" rating (based on 185 reviews) at
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, and scored 50/100 (based on 38 reviews) at
MetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
. Critical consensus was that the film was well acted and had impressive special effects but didn't deal with the ethical issues it raised as well as it could have. Many reviewers noted that the
The Island seemed like two separate films.
Roger Ebert said, "[the first half] is a spare, creepy science fiction parable, and then it shifts into a high-tech action picture. Both halves work. Whether they work together is a good question." He gave the film three out of four stars and praised the performances of the actors, in particular Michael Clarke Duncan: "[He] has only three or four scenes, but they're of central importance, and he brings true horror to them." On the critical side, he says the film "never satisfactorily comes full circle" and missed the opportunity "to do what the best science fiction does, and use the future as a way to critique the present."
VarietyVariety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
's Justin Change called the film an "exercise in sensory overkill" and said that Bay took on "the weighty moral conundrums of human cloning, resolving them in a storm of bullets, car chases and more explosions than you can shake a syringe at." He noted McGregor and Buscemi as highlights of the film, along with Nigel Phelps' production design. However, he felt the story lacked in surprises and blamed "attention-deficit editing by Paul Rubell and Christian Wagner" for actions sequences that he felt lacked tension and were "joltingly repetitive".
SalonSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
's Stephanie Zacharek also praised the actors but felt that when the film "[gets] really interesting, Bay thinks he needs to throw in a car crash or a round of gunfire to keep our attention." She felt the film had enough surprises "to make you wish it were better." Similarly,
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reviewer, A.O. Scott, said "[the] film is smarter than you might expect, and at the same time dumber than it could be."
Reviewers objected to the prominent use of
product placementProduct placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...
for several brands in the film. In an
Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
cover story, Bay stated that the extensive product placement was the result of trying to offset production costs - "Bay called on friends at major corporations .. and offered product placement in exchange for cash. 'We made about $850,000 on that,' he says. 'And we needed that money to get this movie made.'" Bay began his directorial career in commercials and music videos, which is why these relationships were already in place.
Copyright infringement controversy
The creators of the 1979 film
Parts: The Clonus HorrorParts: The Clonus Horror, also known as Clonus, is a 1979 science fiction horror film about an isolated community in a remote desert area, where clones are bred to serve as a source of replacement organs for the wealthy and powerful...
, which was also about a colony that breeds clones to harvest organs for the elite, filed a copyright infringement suit. According to a 2007 interview with
Clonus screenwriter
Bob SullivanBob Sullivan is an American writer who was a major contributor to The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture and When Falls the Coliseum, editor of the literary magazine Helicon, and a film reviewer for the Los Angeles Free Press. He currently writes a for the website...
, DreamWorks and Clonus Associates reached a settlement, the specific terms of which are sealed.
The controversy surrounding the lawsuit opened the floodgates to more criticism and accusations.
Michael Marshall SmithMichael Marshall Smith is a British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer who also writes as Michael Marshall.-Biography:...
's 1996 novel
Spares, in which the hero liberates intelligent clones from a "spare farm", whose clients are told they are not conscious, was optioned by DreamWorks in the late 1990s but never made. It remains unclear if the story inspired
The Island, and so Marshall Smith did not consider it worthwhile to pursue legal action over the similarities.
ParamountParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
(once sister studio to DreamWorks after its parent
ViacomViacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
purchased DreamWorks in late 2005, then spinning it off again in 2008) was in talks to option the novel after DreamWorks' rights expired, but declined after
The Island was released. Marshall Smith considers it unlikely a
Spares film will ever be made.
Tessa Dick, former wife of the late science fiction writer
Philip K. DickPhilip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
, accused the filmmakers of plagiarizing his 1964 novel
The Penultimate TruthThe Penultimate Truth is a 1964 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The story is set in a future where the bulk of humanity is kept in large underground shelters. The people are told that World War III is being fought above them, when in reality the war ended years ago. The...
, as well as several other works of fiction.
External links