The 6th Day
Man was created by God on the sixth day. Nevertheless, according to “The 6th Day”, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new thriller, this is a male preserve. Consequently, even though human cloning is now possible it is illegal.
Nevertheless, there’s an underground market for clones of humans. For instance Johnny Phoenix, a pro quarterback who gets paid 300 million dollars per season and becomes brain dead from an injury in the field. A team owner complains that “We got ourselves a lifetime contract with a vegetable” as he pulls the plug on Johnny’s life support system (“Sorry Johnny you’re gonna have to take one for the team”). But guess what? Next thing you know, dead but here comes Johnny playing football again!
This is far from Adam Gibson (Schwarzenegger), the helicopter pilot who brings rich skiers to their slopes with his friend Hank (Michael Rapaport). Adam has a contented home life with his wife Natalie (Wendy Crewson) and daughter marred only by the death of their pet dog Oliver. So should Adam clone Oliver at RePet? No he does not think so because there seems something wrong about overturning such core processes as living and dying.
On his part, Hank does not have scruples and lives with a holographic woman called Perfect Virtual Woman, which welcomes him after long lasting days: “I’ve recorded all your sports programs. Maybe we could watch them together. Or should I just take this dress off right now?”
(There is a “Saturday Night Live” sketch there somewhere about an overworked man taking Viagra to keep up with his insatiable virtual woman’s desires; perhaps she can be programmed to say “Honey tonight I feel like pineapple and pepperoni pizza some beer and watching you clean your guns”). However since Dolly the sheep cloning has made large advances in “The 6th Day.” Cloners don’t start with a cloned fertilized egg. Instead, they grow “blanks” assemblages of protoplasm floating in nurturing fluid that are ready to be inputted with the total mind and body information of adults.
Through a quick eye scan, cloners can “syncord” the contents of your pet’s brain so it still recognizes you and does all the tricks it used to do. In the movie, illegal things like that happen to humans at the hands of Drucker (Tony Goldwyn who is handsome but reptilian). Robert Duvall is the brilliant scientist for the corporation, but has his doubts.
This process sounds like what Arthur C. Clarke envisioned as Soul Catcher a memory chip into which all human thought could be downloaded. My problem with both processes is that while the resulting clone or chip might know everything I know and remember everything that ever happened to me and think of itself as me, I myself would still be over here in this old vessel. The Goldwyn character gets time for reflection during a death scene full of melodrama on this matter when he realizes that my immortal perfect copy leaves behind what must always be considered by me as my reality.
Dr. Weir (played by Robert Duvall) is the genius behind this wicked corporation, and Talia (Sara Wynter), who is both seductive as well as cruel, keeps egging him on They aim to murder and duplicate Hank, Adam’s buddy but instead they create a copy of Adam. Consequently, there are two Arnold Schwarzeneggers in the film who believe themselves to be the original one since that is what most Schwarzenegger movies feel like it is not as confusing as it sounds.
That much you will gather from the trailers. The rest I shall leave unsaid save that it involves encounters between two Adams with their wife Natalie called so because she was saved from being named Eve only by god like resolve of movie scriptwriters.
This however puts “The 6th Day” in another league altogether; unlike the great films of Schwarzenegger like “Total Recall” and “Terminator 2” this film is an entertainment piece of art made with enough thoughts in order to distinguish it from any other futurist thriller movie. Notably Schwartzenneger once again exploits his presence’s oppositeness to his average man image where in one occasion he has a dialogue that mischievously pairs them together thus: “My little daughter, I don’t want her to see any violent content.
She already gets a lot of that stuff from the media.” Several times Drucker and Tali have been cloned making us wonder whether they really enjoy starting afresh or leaving anything behind for remorse In fact we will never know: these discarded entities produced during cloning process do not have tongues to complain through Generation upon generation your children get your genes or rather your genetic material gets copied indefinitely undermining evolution itself naturally One wonders if you can make a Syncording of yourself as a child; grow up, clone the kid and raise yourself again just like one would raise own child These are some of the thoughts that are suggested by “The 6th Day” and provide a part of its entertainment.
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