Bong Joon-Ho On "Mickey 17" And Why Humans Keep Making The Same Mistakes – Even In The Future

Bong, you are really great at finding the balance between social commentary and entertainment, reminding the audience of the darkest times in human history but we’re also laughing along the way. I want to ask you what is your process of bringing these themes together and how you managed to condense it into under two hours.

Bong: When I write or shoot a film it’s not like I think about how to balance it, I don’t put them on a scale and try to weigh or find the right mix of the two. My primary goal is to always entertain the audience because that in itself is such an effort. How do I make the audience not want to pull out their phones for two hours? How do I tie them to their seats and just focus on my screen? Hitchcock was really about that as well. 

With the other social-political layers of the story, I kind of want the audience to just focus on the entertainment and the film when they're watching it, so when they go home – or just before bed when they're lying down I just want them to think about it for like a minute. I want them to be absorbed in what they're seeing in theatres and then afterwards kind of wonder, “Oh maybe that's what that meant, maybe that's actually quite similar to my own situation.” You know like a small afterthought.

I did feel that, I was blessed to be able to see the film twice and the first time I was really entertained, it was really funny – however the second time I felt like I got way more of the symbolism that had been dropped in and it kind of just like took over my brain for a full day. So I feel like you really do leave with thoughts constantly from the film, which I think is fantastic.

Bong: You are my ideal audience.

This film has so many futuristic elements but it’s not set too far into the future, so I wanted to ask why you only chose to have it 30 years ahead of where we are right now but show the technology I don’t think we’re close to achieving

Bong: Yeah in the original novel, it's like much farther ahead in the future, but I wanted to pull it more closer to us to 2053. Kids who are in college right now when they get to my age that will be their world. 

So the key concept of human printing seems so futuristic and such advanced technology, but it's actually quite familiar to us because if you think about it, there are companies that are experimenting with printing like skin cells and some have even succeeded in these experiments. A lot of people are talking about migrating to Mars and going to other alien planets, there are companies creating plans for it, so these are things we are hearing even now.

That’s true

Bong: What's important is the attitude that we take to this new technology. Right now we have ChatGPT and we're starting to use all these AI technologies, but it's terrifying. As much as we sort of fall into the convenience that they provide, we're a bit unsure and a bit scared of what will come out of it. So we really have to ask, what attitude are we gonna have on these new things that are coming our way and I think Mickey 17 shows that [side of] society. You see it through how they all treat Mickey. 

The treatment of Mickey, even in our far advancement of technology, shows human nature still makes the exact same mistakes. You still try and conquer something or try push people out or treat living beings like Mickey like a test rabbit in a lab. It’s a reminder that we need to continuously do work on ourselves as people not just advance technology as things won’t change

Bong: You know, when I adapted the script and sent it to some of my friends, I had this one friend ask me “Even in the future when humans manage to migrate to another planet they will be just as stupid, just as pathetic and immature and make the same mistakes”. This seems to be the real theme of the story and I was so happy when I heard that reaction. But I didn’t want to stop at that foolishness. If you look at Mickey, he's goofy and sometimes he seems like an idiot, but even a weakling and powerless person like Mickey can find his own way, to respecting himself and finding his own dignity, and I think that's the journey that is at the centre of this film.