Mickey 17 is a sci-fi film by South Korean director Bong Joon Ho, starring Robert Pattinson and Steven Yeun. The plot centers on Mickey Barnes, a human "disposable" who repeatedly dies as part of a space mission to a distant planet. He’s sent on deadly assignments, experimented on, and then resurrected in a clone body with his memories loaded. Everything goes in a loop until the 17th Mickey unexpectedly survives.
The film is based on Edward Ashton's sci-fi novel Mickey-7, leading to a natural question from viewers: why is the film titled Mickey 17? Bong Joon Ho himself explained the choice.
"If dying is your job, you need to do it more often. It has to become your routine," he emphasized.
This comment explains a lot. For the director, it was important to highlight not just the absurdity but the ordinariness of the protagonist's death — it’s no longer an event but a work duty. In the book, Mickey dies only seven times, but in the film, he’s already on his 17th circle of hell. In a world where human life has become disposable, the more deaths there are, the more routine the idea of meaningless sacrifice becomes.
Ultimately, Mickey 17 is not just a sci-fi with clones and Pattinson; it’s an allegory about burnout, identity, and what happens when there are too many of you but hardly any of yourself left.
