Bong Joon-ho’s much-publicized and delayed “Mickey 17 (2025),” based on the 2022 novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton is finally out on digital after what feels like a very brief theatrical release. The box-office bomb stars Robert Pattinson as an “expendable” – a replaceable gig worker who works at a space colony and is printed out anew every time he dies. Mickey 17 has an ending that fades out on a triumphant note, unlike the book which follows up the story in a sequel titled “Antimatter Blues,” wrapping up Mickey’s journey of living and re-living death to snatch back the identity that was taken away from him.
In the following article, we will take a detailed look at all that Bong Joon-ho is trying to explore with his latest outing and how the universality of his subject matter cannot be dismissed as something that happens in a particular nation. Please be aware that the article will be full of spoilers, so proceed at your own risk.
Mickey 17 (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The story begins in the year 2054, on an ice planet—Niflheim—as Mickey (Robert Pattinson) finds himself in a deep ice pitfall, wondering why he isn’t dead yet. The thing is, Mickey is an expendable worker—a deadly occupation with a very specific job description. He has to die in order to complete the task he’s sent out for each time, while his limited crew members aboard the spaceship work tirelessly to colonize the ice planet. The death is painful, but he doesn’t have to worry about it too much, because advanced science and technology can ‘reprint’ him with all his previous memories the day after his reported death.
As a disposable worker left to fend for himself if a grave situation comes by, Mickey knows he will get to see another day, even if it means waking up to be eaten by a crawly, creepy spider-like creature—an inhabitant of Niflheim. Timo (Steve Yeun), Mickey’s best friend and a pilot, sees Mickey in the condition and doesn’t have much hope of his friend making it back. So he takes Mickey’s weapon—a resourceful tool—back to the base and wishes him a quick death. However, to Mickey’s surprise, the creeper drags him out of the pitfall and gets him on the surface, leaving Mickey feeling confused about the creeper being an ally or an enemy.
Why did Mickey have to leave planet Earth?
The story goes back in time on Earth when the planet’s inhabitants are struggling to live. The commanding government of the time declares the need to find another planet safe for the people. The leader in charge of this orchestra is a narcissistic politician—Commander Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo)—who is the puppet of his devious, controlling wife, Ylfa Marshall (Toni Collette).
Meanwhile, Mickey and Timo land in big trouble when their business idea flops—like many other times—and the boss in charge, Darius Blank, is after their lives to extract the money the two boys loaned from him. Darius Blank is a man of few words, and any tardiness in repayments means a painful death.
Despite Commander Marshall’s failed political career, people still believe he will be able to provide shelter from the dying planet beyond the stars. This is basically how he’s been campaigning for his new electoral position. He declares that he will offer employment on the spaceship—irrespective of the class divide—provided the person applying is ‘healthy’. Since there’s no hiding space left for Mickey and Timo, they decide to leave the planet where Darius Blank won’t be able to find them. Lo and behold, Timo gets employed as a flitter pilot (with only a learner’s permit), and with no skills whatsoever. Mickey, on the other hand, picks up the job of an ‘expendable’ without reading what the job entails.
How does Mickey get printed out each time he dies?
Soon after, Mickey gets a proper introduction to his job description by a red-haired woman. She scans his body on a ‘printer’ that uses human waste and other disposable things from a giant tank called the ‘cycler’. Using all the organic waste (including dead bodies) from the spaceship and combining all of it, the cycler refines and recycles the waste and sends it through the printer to produce a brand-new human body. The printer also has a program that allows it to scan Mickey’s memories, and each time he is ‘birthed’, he wakes up with all his memories intact—that also includes the memories of him dying numerous times in different ways. However, before embarking on a 4-year journey as an expendable worker, Mickey has to complete the final step of the program. He has to die first, which is the critical part of his job description.
The spaceship includes very specific quotas for everything, including how many calories one intakes, and since food is the most important resource of all time—Commander Marshall has banned fornication. In one of the community meetings, Mickey meets Nasha Barridge—an all-in-one agent (combining the strength and requirements of a soldier, police officer, and firefighter)—on the first day, and since then, they’ve been inseparable. Both of them share a similar sense of humor as they use their tabs to create sketches of sexual positions for each other’s amusement. For Mickey, Nasha is his pillar of strength and weakness. She has been with him in all the experiments he has to endure.
What did Mickey had to endure before becoming Mickey 17?
After landing on the ice planet, Niflheim, Mickey undergoes various death-defying experiments to find an immune solution that allows everyone to breathe on the planet. All the Mickeys have to be stabbed, gassed, dumped, burned, and whatnot in order to get the right vaccine for mankind meant to colonize the planet. After a victory, they stop experiments on Mickey 17.
Soon after, a team of five—including the expendable—is sent out to scout the place to find any threats around, and unfortunately, one of them dies when a strange creature attacks them. Commander Marshall loses his shit over losing a soldier, as the ship has limited members and Mickey’s job entails safety for all.
In the meantime, Marshall and his wife name the creature ‘creeper’ and want a sample of it so Ylfa can curate a ‘special sauce’ that can help with the scarcity of food on the ship. This is when the opening shot of the movie connects—where the creepers save Mickey instead of eating him alive.
What happens when Mickey 17 gets back to the base?
Thought to be dead—taking Timo’s word for it—Mickey 17 somehow manages to get back to the base after a strange encounter with the creepers. However, as he enters his dorm, right before crashing, he finds another version of himself—a freshly printed Mickey 18—on his bed. This shocks both of them because ‘multiples’ (an occurrence when two expendables exist at the same time) is condoned as a sin, and Mickey 17 will be in deep trouble if Commander Marshall finds out. Mickey 18 is hell-bent on killing Mickey 17 because he has already been printed for 2 hours and is live on the system, whereas Mickey 17 is trying to figure out how to find a way out of this deep mess.
Why is being ‘multiple’ a sin?
A backstory shows that a certified psychopath, Alan Manikova, literally abused the science of the ‘printer’ technology. He uses the method to create his multiples in order to commit multiple forgeries and crimes, while the original man lives a well-accomplished, comfortable life somewhere in seclusion. This leads to disciplinary action and a religious script put into effect, declaring multiples as satan’s act that must not be tolerated at any cost.
What is the difference between Mickey 17 and 18?
Coming back to Mickey’s multiples, the two get into a fight where Mickey 18 is adamant about throwing Mickey 17 into the cycler to clean up the mess on his own. However, Mickey 17 suggests rationing their calorie intake and sharing all the workload, taking turns dying.
An interesting scene between the two points out that, despite dying so many times before, why is Mickey 17 still afraid of dying?
Mickey 17 is a harmless, cowardly, timid personality, whereas Mickey 18 is not ready to take anyone’s shit. Due to the reprinting technology, Mickey 17 knows that despite coming back to life after his death, he is still himself—and he aims to stick to just that. He accepts living his life the way he has always been. However, Mickey 18 is more aggressive in his approach. He doesn’t want to live a meek life. He is full of vengeance—questioning why he has to endure pain and death, and why his life isn’t as important as others’, despite holding such a fatal and death-defying job position.
Their interaction gets interrupted by Timo’s entry into the cycler area, and the two Mickeys quickly hide. It turns out that Timo has been smuggling a rare drug called ‘uncut pure oxy’—a.k.a. Oxozofol—which comes from a flamethrower (possibly the one he obtained from Mickey 17 earlier). These Oxozofol capsules have hallucinatory effects, and Timo has been selling them illegally as a side hustle.
Since Mickey 18 remembers all the times Timo landed Mickey in trouble, he wants to kill him right away. Mickey 17 is uncertain about the idea, and before he can process anything, Mickey 18 is already trying to shove Timo down the cycler. However, Nasha and Agent Zeke enter the picture, and Mickey 18 gets Timo out just in time before turning him into a paste.
What happens at the private dinner with the Marshalls?
With Mickey 17 still in hiding, Nasha and Mickey 18 take their romance back to their dorm. As Mickey 17 follows them, he is taken to a special private dinner invitation with the Commander and his wife. At the dinner table, Mickey is served a full plate, topped with Ylfa’s special sauce for the meat. As Mickey gorges on the tasty food, Agent Kai (Anamaria Vartolomei) also joins the dinner setting. Soon, we find out that the Marshalls consider Kai a perfect candidate to begin colonizing the new planet, given her ‘pure white race’ genetics. Kai is not pleased with the approach.
Soon after, Mickey begins to throw up. A group of doctors and scientists enter the scene, and we learn that Mickey was fed artificial meat as an experiment. As Mickey undergoes the turmoil of the test, he begins blaming his background and life, both of which he feels have punished him. As everyone watches him wither in pain, the chief scientist pulls out a special injection—‘Purple Joe’—to test for immunization against any poison from artificial meat intake.
At first, the serum doesn’t seem to work. Mickey groans louder in pain, so much so that Commander Marshall is ready to shoot him. Right before Marshall pulls the trigger, Mickey warns him not to, claiming he is starting to feel better. Kai steps forward and takes Mickey to her dorm, as he is unable to walk on his own.
Back at Kai’s dorm, she offers Mickey a special tea from Earth that helps with relaxation. The agent who died earlier, Jennifer, was Kai’s girlfriend, and she has been grieving her sudden loss since then. Mickey, as an expendable, has always been a subject of discussion when it comes to the experience of dying. Although he doesn’t have a concrete way to articulate the feeling, he shares that even though he knows he will wake up again—no matter how many times he dies—it is still a terrifying experience.
Why does Mickey 18 want to kill the Marshall?
Kai, finding solace in Mickey’s presence, leans in to kiss him, but he runs away because he loves Nasha. The idea of Mickey 18 making love to Nasha creeps Mickey 17 out, and when he enters his dorm, he finds the two high on Oxozofol capsules. After a brief confrontation, the three end up indulging in fornication. However, chaos erupts when Kai walks in on them. Nasha follows Kai out, but back inside, Mickey 18 loses his temper again when he learns that Marshall had just tried to shoot him dead during another experiment. He decides that since Mickey isn’t to blame for his suffering, he will kill Marshall instead—because all their miseries trace back to the madness of the politician.
As Mickey 18 runs out with a gun, Nasha and Kai’s confrontation over which Mickey “belongs” to each of them is interrupted by Mickey 17 falling down the stairs while running after his multiple. Meanwhile, we see Marshall conducting a special meeting where everyone witnesses a cave rock found during the last expedition. Without thinking, Marshall orders it to be cut open. A mini creeper inside causes mayhem when Marshall commands his agents to find it—because his wife needs it to create the perfect ‘meat sauce.’
What does Marshall do after learning about Mickey’s multiples?
While everyone, including Mickey 17, tries to find the mini creeper, Mickey 18 takes aim at Marshall—but Nasha and Kai catch him in time. As he’s done before, Marshall considers himself and people like Kai the true descendants of a “pure breed,” while labeling people like Mickey—a multiple now—as lowlife scum. As he begins another self-righteous speech, another mini creeper, hidden inside the giant rock, jumps on his face. Marshall orders his agents to kill it immediately.
Why does Timo want his friend Mickey to die?
Nasha and the two Mickeys are jailed, and as they discuss ways to escape, Mickey 17 shares his experience of the creepers being more helpful than harmful. Nasha suggests this should be reported to the science team. Just then, Timo sneaks in through a vent. It turns out that Darius Blank has found Timo and Mickey’s location, and Timo, desperate to save himself, decides to record a video of Mickey dying and send it to Earth to get their debt nullified.
Timo gets his associate to tie up Mickey 17, following Darius Blank’s instructions. But Nasha and Mickey 18 outsmart them and get hold of Timo. Just as Nasha is about to cut Timo’s head off with a chainsaw, Agent Zeke enters, and the situation turns. Nasha updates Zeke with everything. Along with the two Mickeys, they all head to the committee common room.
Outside in the Niflheim environment, the mother creeper—the same one who saved Mickey 17 earlier—realizes that the humans have killed one of her own and are torturing another baby creeper. In response, the entire creeper colony gathers around the spaceship.
Mickey 17 (2025) Movie Ending Explained:
Are the creepers an ally or an enemy?
While Ylfa is excited about the potential of creating different sauces from the baby creeper, Marshall is still pissed about having a disgraceful multiple on his spaceship. So he decides to permanently delete Mickey’s memories. However, Nasha stands up for the Mickeys, suggesting their actions were meant for Marshall’s safety. Marshall doesn’t buy the reasoning and threatens her instead—but Nasha, a true soldier, spits facts to minimize the looming threat that Marshall is recklessly heading toward.
She explains that the creepers have not engaged in any war tactics; instead, they are patiently waiting for the return of the captured ones. Peacefully talking to Marshall is not an easy business—especially for hot-tempered, tactical Nasha, who believes in humanity above everything. Challenged and threatened by Nasha’s intelligence, Marshall resorts to one of his dumb tactics to silence rebellion.
Meanwhile, the chief scientist suggests to Marshall that they should kill the creepers using a deadly gas that acts as a repellent to the planet’s toxicity. As Nasha is left holding the rope tied to the baby creeper—preventing it from being dropped into the cycler—the Mickeys are sent out to blow up the creeper colony using the same gas. The cruel twist: whichever Mickey survives the ‘warfront’ will be allowed to live.
How does Mickey 17 save baby creeper Zuco?
Mickey has been blaming himself for his mother’s death and carrying the guilt for all the bad times in his life. But Mickey 18 reminds Mickey 17 that it’s not his fault—and that regardless of anyone’s actions, people die when they are meant to.
Dorothy, a young scientist, runs to Mickey 17 and gives him a translator device after discovering he can communicate with the creepers by imitating them. Though still a prototype, she believes it’s worth a shot.
Using the device, both Mickeys reach the mother creeper and explain the situation. However, the mother creeper tells them that humans are stupid—despite the kindness shown to them, they always go for the kill. Even after she saved Mickey, the humans still killed a baby creeper named Luco. If they also kill the other baby creeper, Zuco, the creepers will wipe out all humans instantly with their supersonic sound.
Mickey 17 understands the situation and runs back toward the ship. Looking at the camera, he signals C3—a sign language between Mickey and Nasha (a sketch drawing of a couple making a baby). Meanwhile, Marshall’s right-hand man suggests that the commander himself should be negotiating with the boss of the creepers instead of leaving it to “two loser lowlifes.” So, in full theatrical fashion, Marshall gets ready to go out with his full-blown team, documenting every moment with cameras.
How does Mickey 18 take down Commander Keneth Marshall?
Since baby Luco was sacrificed, the mother creeper demands a human sacrifice in return to even out the loss. Mickey 18 picks up on this and asks for a distraction. All the baby creepers transform into mother creepers, hiding the actual matriarch among them. Using the distraction, Mickey 18 aims to jump onto the truck carrying Marshall. Nasha at the same time safely hands over Zuco to the mother creeper and as a treaty, Mickey 18 presses the bomb and takes down Marshall with him as the human sacrifice.
Back at the base, Ylfa is arrested for breaking protocol by attacking one of the agents and is jailed. The ending of Mickey 17 shows Nasha as the newly appointed member of the committee, where she declares that the expendables program will be abolished. The printing technology is placed far from humankind—now settled in Niflheim—ready to be bombed and completely wiped out from the system.
The creepers are in a peace treaty with humankind, and we see one of the baby creepers resting on Dorothy’s lap. Mickey 17 is handed the remote controller for the bomb that will destroy the printing tech.
What happens to all the major characters in Mickey 17?
After Marshall and Mickey 18 die as a human sacrifice to the matriarch creeper, we find out that Timo—despite being hunted down by Darius Blank’s agent—gets out of jail on grounds of self-defense after killing the man. There is a warfare between pro- and anti-Marshall factions regarding the fate of Mickey, Nasha, and her troop. However, Nasha overhauls the committee, and after getting out of jail, she runs for election and wins—changing everything about how the committee is run.
Is Ylfa Marshall still alive?
Near the end of the movie, Mickey 17 has a dream about the expendable printer being used again. In the dream, he sees Ylfa, who tells him to try a new sauce. Then, Ylfa starts printing a new version of Marshall, and it looks like Marshall is coming back to life. However, Mickey, who knows this is his paranoia taking control of him, tells Ylfa to fuck off in the dream—just as Mickey 18 would have in the first place.
The end sequence shows Mickey 17 coming back to his present state, reminding himself that he doesn’t have to feel guilty anymore and that it’s okay to feel happy despite everything he or the other Mickeys had to endure—as we see the cloning device exploding.
The movie ends with a title card: Mickey Barnes, signifying that Mickey now has an identity.
Mickey 17 (2025) Movie Themes Explained:
The film is loaded with heavy subtext and themes that don’t just look at the socio-political elements that clue in when a person’s identity is in jeopardy, but also look at how morality and capitalism move hand in hand when you are considered to be nothing more than a mere tool.
Identity
The theme of identity is pretty darn visible from the very first sequence to the last flashing title drop “Mickey Barney.” At the heart of Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 lies the question: What makes a person truly unique?
Since Mickey is introduced to us as an expendable, after his brief fuck-up on Earth, we only know him as a disposable clone who is ‘used’ in cases where the people running the spaceship unit are unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. He dies, but then a new clone that looks exactly like him is printed out. However, when Mickey 17 and 18 happen to co-exist due to a mistake, the film starts challenging the idea of individual identity.
Given that Bong Joon-ho’s filmography often explores class and identity (Parasite, Okja for example), we get on a journey where those elements, clubbed with the idea of death, give us a fascinating look at who Mickey is.
Morality, the Illusion of Immortality, and meditation on death
Characters throughout the film keep asking Mickey what it is like to die. Even though Mickey can be reborn again, his experience of dying painfully each time makes morality a central theme.
In a way, Bong Joon-ho’s query about death thus becomes a meditation on its inevitability, and in Mickey’s case recurrence. If you can always come back, does death still matter? What does it do to your mental state when you’ve died multiple times?
In a way, Mickey 17 also revels in a sense of existential horror — living through the trauma of dying multiple times, essentially stripping away the glamor of “immortality.”
Exploitation and Capitalism in a gig-economy
Essentially, Mickey’s job can be drawn in parallel with workers in a gig economy. One day, they get to do a job and go home with good money, and the next, they are not even picked to do anything. Mickey is a disposable. He is never treated as a full human being and is exploited for the survival of the colony.
This points to a critique of capitalism and labor hierarchies, where some lives are deemed more valuable than others. The “expendables” in this world are the ultimate underclass. The theme is pretty similar to the social stratification in Parasite or Snowpiercer with a sharp commentary on how systems justify dehumanization in the name of survival or progress.
Colonisation and Human Arrogance
In the film, Kenneth Marshall — the fascist leader is hell-bent on colonizing the planet Niflheim, without caring about the indigenous creatures who resided there before the spaceship arrived. The parallels between US President Donald Trump and his latest ideologies of removing immigrants – not caring about the indigenous populations that first resided in those lands, are pretty visible if you want to look beyond the obvious.
The idea of white supremacy where one race is bigger and better than all others, making them more deserving of anything and everything that is in front of them sniffs off human arrogance. The colony that Kenneth Marshall (or to put it bluntly his Wife Ylfa) wants to establish is only able to survive because of the sacrifice of expendables like Mickey — suggesting a dark undercurrent of colonial entitlement and ethical compromise.
The ethical dilemmas of Technology:
One of my favorite aspects of Mickey 17 is just how many questions it raises beyond the obvious ones. As mentioned above, it doesn’t just question what a life is worth, it also questions: Who has the right other decide what a life is worth?
The film dives into the ethical dilemmas of technology with the process of cloning a person with their memories and pain intact but then sending them to die again, raising important ethical questions.
The machine getting destroyed gives a finality to just how wrong the entire thing is.
Loneliness and Alienation
If it wasn’t for Nasha, Mickey could be considered a deeply alienated and lonely entity. Not just because he is expendable, but because his trauma of dying again and again has made him believe that he is not worth anything.
Mickey keeps taking decisions taken by those in power as a punishment that he deserves, further alienating him from connecting with anyone beyond himself.
Rebellion and Self-Determination
When the two versions of Mickey exist simultaneously, they defy the rules of their society. While Mickey 17 is meek and fragile, Mickey 18 is angry, direct, and strong. This difference in their personalities serves as a seed for the rebellion that eventually starts building into finding agency and eventually freedom from the systemic rule that is designed to control them.
The film shows how both versions don’t just fight for their survival but for recognition as individuals.
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