The Island

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In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
Just read a little blurb on this on AICN.

Looks like John Darnton's little known sci-fi'er, originally titled The Experiement, is finally getting a movie treatment, which saddens me for personal reasons.

The AICN blurb was as such
Scarlett Johansson is in final talks to star opposite Ewan McGregor in THE ISLAND for director Michael Bay and DreamWorks. A Oct. 25 start is being planned on the Caspian Tredwell-Owen script. It centers on a "harvested being" who suddenly becomes self-aware and tries to escape the utopian facility where he and others are being kept. Johansson will play a woman who is the only one that McGregor's character can trust. She also is pregnant with her "sponsor's" child. Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci also turned in a draft.
Possible spoilers below, at least for a book.

I hope Darnton is getting some well earned royalties on this one. I haven't been able to find anything on it, but I hope this concept is getting credited to his book and not some Hollywood script writers. The Experiment focused on an island in which all the people living on it were treated perfectly and kept in perfect health, the only thing they were denied was knowledge of the outside world. The book introduces a group of friends on this little utopian island and one by one they slowly start to dissapear. The main character soon finds a friend of his split open on an operating table. He and a female try to escape the island, only he succesfully doing so. He makes it back to the main land and bumps into none other than.......himself. The two embark on a long journey to unlock why they look exactly the same. They even go to a doctor and get some blood work done only to find out they are genetically identical, except the man from the island is several years younger.

To make a long, and fascinating, story short, the island's population were grown for the sole purposes of harvesting their organs. Everyone on the island was a clone of someone offlan who could afford to pay the huge sum to have a body readily available for organ donation. Because a needed organ would be coming from someone genetically identical to yourself, the body would not reject the organ and those transplants would be seamless.

The book was an awesome exploration of modern science and where it may be taking us one day. The ending...well, that should probably be changed for the film, but it was a good book regardless.

If done right, it'll make a highly provocative movie, but it'll probably fall short of the goals set for it. If indeed The Island is based off of this book. If not, someone wasn't being terribly original.
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In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
Though everyone poops on Michael Bay (and rightfully so), the first trailer is out...

http://www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/the_island/

I still say this is a straight The Experiment rip-off...

But the shot of Scarlet Johansson in the white shirt, oh man. Game Over.



In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
That's a German film about (liberally) the Philip Zimbardo prison studies conducted at Stanford several decades ago. The Experiment I'm talking about is a book by John Darnton about an island in which clones are grown to fulfill a need for organs, should they ever arrive.



Originally Posted by OG-
Though everyone poops on Michael Bay (and rightfully so), the first trailer is out...
I'm pooping on Michael Bay as I type this. *poop*

The trailer looks good, but my expectations are low. I'll go see it though and see for myself.

Oh...never read the book.
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In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
Originally Posted by LordSlaytan
Oh...never read the book.
Well no one has actually come out and said that the movie is based off the book, so I think it's just a case where they took the plot and reworked it enough so that they could legally claim it as their own material.

The book, to my remembrance (read it at like age 12), didn't have any of the high tech flying car chases etc. And of course there have been other stories of people grown for their organs, but everything I've read about the movie has some origin in the book and I've seen other people on the imdb bring it up as well. Of course once someone does there are 10 more posters who flame them saying "can't anyone have an original idea anymore!".

I think the book has been jacked though and no one is doing much about it because John Darnton is a rather unknown and unsuccesful author. He had a hit with Neandrathal, which was a pretty cooky book, but that was about it.



Looks like Dr. Moreau/Logans Run/Highlander all wrapped into one. Which could be good, I guess.
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I'm interested in this one.



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Sorry if this is the wrong forum/thread, but does anyone happen to know what band or what song is played in the second domestic trailer (available at http://www.theisland-themovie.com/tr...omestic_2.html ). It sounds E.S. Posthumus-esq but I've never heard it before.



I really found that this film s 2 thirds very engaging and very interesting material, i really like the premise however the movie falls short and goes into generic stuff come the end.....big big disapointment to me after a great great 2/3 of the film