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The Agonizer is a special section of the Agony Booth devoted to brief reviews of films that don't warrant a full-length recap and analysis, but yet are still painful in their own special ways. Also in this section, you might find the occasional article or interview if the mood strikes me.

Movie Review: The Island (2005)
Posted on 1/10/2006 by Albert Walker

This will be a little bit more than my usual movie review. Due to the controversy that erupted over the similarities between The Island and the film Parts: The Clonus Horror, and the special place that Clonus occupies here at the Agony Booth, I've got a whole lot of ground to cover this time around. Feel free to jump to the section of the review that interests you most:

The History — The Review — Similarities to Parts: The Clonus Horror — Lowlights from Michael Bay's Commentary Track

THE HISTORY:

About a year ago, I got an email from Robert S. Fiveson, director of Parts: The Clonus Horror. It was his response (a positive one, thankfully) to my lengthy recap of his film, a low budget 1979 horror flick about a colony of people unaware that they're clones, created solely to provide spare organs to the rich and powerful.

At the time, there were rumblings about a 2005 DreamWorks release called The Island, being filmed by Armageddon director and famed Hollywood antichrist Michael Bay, that some believed to be an official remake of Clonus. The IMDb plot synopsis of The Island, at least, seemed stunningly familiar. So I wrote back to Mr. Fiveson, inviting him to answer a few questions about Clonus, and along the way, I asked if The Island was an official adaptation of Clonus.

He wrote back to vehemently deny that The Island was in any way authorized by him or his Clonus co-producer Myrl A. Schreibman. (You can read the full interview with Robert Fiveson here.) In addition, he forwarded me an angry letter of defiance about the situation, and asked me to pass it along. I decided to do him one better—I posted the letter on this site.

The Agony Booth wasn't the first website to post the letter, but I'd like to think this site in particular helped attract mainstream attention to the situation. What followed shortly after were a number of write-ups on websites and in local newspapers, culminating with an Entertainment Weekly article comparing the two films. The EW article was tongue in cheek, to be sure, but the fact that a major publication would even mention an obscure B-movie like Clonus was pretty amazing. (Especially considering this came just a month after their article about "Manos" The Hands of Fate.) But most amazing of all, EW was openly acknowledging what everyone was saying: These films were too much alike for it to be coincidence.

I was always a little apprehensive about championing the cause of Clonus as being ripped off by The Island, because basically, I hadn't seen The Island. Anyone could look at the plot outlines and see the obvious resemblance, of course, but I could never really be sure. At least, not until now.

The Island is finally out on DVD, complete with a commentary track from Michael Bay. After watching the movie twice and listening to Bay's commentary, I'm more convinced than ever that The Island is directly based on Parts: The Clonus Horror. In fact, there are several details and plot points in The Island that make absolutely no sense except as an homage to Clonus.

The closest analogy I can draw is with the movie Airplane! Most people think of it as a generic spoof of airport disaster movies, without knowing that it carefully follows the story of the 1952 film Zero Hour!, right down to the exclamation point in the title, a hero named Stryker, the captain getting sick from eating the fish, and lines like "I picked the wrong day to quit smoking!" That's pretty much what we have here with Clonus and The Island. The big difference, from a creative as well as a legal standpoint, is that The Island is clearly not meant to be parody. (Regardless, it should be noted that the producers of Airplane! did make sure to secure the rights to Zero Hour! before making their film.)

Late last summer, Fiveson and Schreibman took the debate one step further, bringing DreamWorks and Warner Brothers to court. Their production company, Clonus Associates, filed a copyright infringement suit outlining ninety similarities between the two films, and seeking unspecified damages. (As part of the filing, Fiveson's attorneys included several articles pointing out similarities between the two films. One of those articles was the angry letter posted here at the Agony Booth. Yes, the Agony Booth is mentioned in a court document, and thus is now part of the public record. Clonus Associates v. DreamWorks LLC, et al. Look it up.)

The Clonus producers also moved for a preliminary injunction against The Island to block any further release. In a mild blow to Fiveson's case, the judge refused the motion, pointing out that the existence of The Island hadn't harmed the Clonus copyright at all; In fact, sales of the Clonus DVD were brisk in the wake of the controversy. But it's important to note that the actual infringement case has yet to go to trial.

My own personal theory is that writer Caspian Tredwell-Owen, who wrote the first draft of the Island screenplay (and was paid one million dollars for it!), probably saw Parts: The Clonus Horror during one of its many Mystery Science Theater 3000 showings. It's one of the few movies that the Sci Fi Channel held the rights to air until MST3k's bitter end, so it's safe to say the movie aired a fair amount of times over the years. I can easily imagine Tredwell-Owen seeing this obscure sci-fi film from the '70s one early Saturday morning on basic cable, and simply assuming that no one would know or care that he copied most of its ideas into his script.

Another theory is that Tredwell-Owen believed his script was a perfectly fair and legal homage to Clonus. Yet another theory I have is that his plagiarism of most of the movie's elements wasn't deliberate, and mostly done unconsciously. But as cases like Bright Tunes Music Corp. v. Harrisongs Music, Ltd. et al (the "He's So Fine/My Sweet Lord" case) established, unconscious plagiarism is still plagiarism.

Whether or not any of these theories are true is for the courts to decide (and it could take a while; The "My Sweet Lord" suit was first filed in 1971, and was still before the courts as late as 1993 [!]). But that doesn't mean those of us here in Internetland can't speculate, and to that end I've compiled a list of what I believe are the most suspicious similarities between the two films. But first, for context, here's my (relatively) quick take on The Island.

THE REVIEW [Spoilers a-plenty]:

"The US government just asked us to save the world. Anybody wanna say no?"

The year is 2019. Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) is a man living an empty existence in a futuristic, enclosed colony. He has a mundane job that he doesn't understand, and there's not much to do outside of work besides exercise. His activities and meals are rigorously monitored (a computer even scans his urine when he goes to the bathroom in the morning, and limits his diet because of a "sodium excess"). We quickly learn he's but one of many individuals living this same humdrum existence, watched over by "censors" who control everything they do. They all remember a vague environmental catastrophe that contaminated most of the world, and new survivors, slow-witted and childlike, are found all the time and integrated into their society.

The one bright spot in their lives is a regular lottery where winners get to go to "the Island", supposedly the "last remaining pathogen-free zone" on the planet. As Lincoln takes an elevator to work, a video screen comes to life and a beautiful woman reminds them of the latest lottery winner, Starkweather Two Delta (Armageddon's Michael Clarke Duncan), who shows up on the screen, grinning from ear to ear. His glee is so manic that I half-expected Duncan to start dancing the Cabbage Patch here.

Hope you guys aren't investing too much in your 401K plans.

At work, Lincoln has a conversation with his co-worker Jones Three Echo (Ethan Phillips, Neelix from Voyager), where he openly questions the way things operate. Regardless, Jones is full of hope that he'll get to go to the Island soon. Just then, a pregnant co-worker goes into labor, which I think means she and her baby automatically get to go to the Island (the film doesn't really take great pains to explain this).

But Lincoln knows how to work the system a little bit, and manages to acquire a special key that allows him into the back area of the facility, a damp, dark place that looks like an old power plant, filled with rusty pipes and steam. There he meets up with Steve Buscemi, who plays a techie handyman of sorts who works for the colony. (Other than his job description, he's the exact same sleazeball that Buscemi played in Armageddon.)

"You made three Michael Bay films? You gotta be shittin' me!"

While behind the scenes, Lincoln captures a butterfly, and he tells his best friend Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) all about it. The two secretly wonder how it could survive outside in the contaminated areas. After a lame, frenetically-edited virtual boxing match between the two (with a giant X-BOX logo behind them), the whole colony gathers around to find out who the next lottery winner is. Surprise! It's Jordan.

Provoked by this development, Lincoln sneaks out of his room that night. He follows the butterfly up a ladder, and eventually comes up through the floor tiles of a hospital with long white corridors. He disguises himself as an orderly and goes poking around, and predictably, he witnesses horrible things. The pregnant woman has given birth, but she's killed immediately afterwards. Her baby is taken away and handed over to a woman who curiously looks exactly like her.

Scarlett's range: everything from innocent childishness to childlike innocence.

In another room, Lincoln sees them operate on Michael Clarke Duncan. They're just about to cut him open and take his liver, but at the last moment he fights through the anesthesia and goes screaming through the corridors. He's eventually subdued, and Lincoln watches the guy sob and beg for his life as he's dragged back into the operating room.

Lincoln is confused, but he knows one thing for sure: there is no Island. He goes to Jordan and tells her what he saw, and the two immediately flee the colony. After racing along catwalks, climbing ladders, and running through drainage pipes for what feels like forever, they ultimately find themselves out in the deserts of Nevada. They track down Steve Buscemi at a bar, and he finally tells reveals the truth, which is profoundly shocking to anyone who didn't see the trailer or any of the TV spots: They're clones. People out in the real world paid big bucks to have them made for replacement body parts.

"Noooooooo! Don't put me back in the gorilla makeup!"

Meanwhile, the head of the facility, a man named Merrick (Sean Bean), sends bounty hunters out to retrieve Lincoln and Jordan. In doing so, Merrick has to reveal the true nature of the facility to the main bounty hunter, played by Djimon Hounsou. Merrick says that the people buying the clones believe they're empty shells who never achieve consciousness, but without consciousness and life, the clones don't survive. They're born fully grown (which we actually get to see in an icky birth scene, where a clone is pulled out of a gel-filled plastic bag), and they've all been imprinted with memories of fake childhoods and a global catastrophe.

From there, it's non-stop chases and explosions and chaos as Djimon's men tail the two clones all the way back to Los Angeles. There's an extended freeway chase involving men on futuristic jet bikes and a driverless semi carrying train wheels, which you'll know because it was replayed endlessly in the TV spots. After Lincoln commandeers one of the jet bikes, the clones end up crashing through a skyscraper, literally destroying an entire floor. And after hanging on a giant "R" corporate logo twenty stories up, they tumble to ground, miraculously unharmed [!].

Having eluded the bounty hunters, the two clones decide to seek help from Lincoln's sponsor, Tom Lincoln, the guy who paid to have himself cloned. (In case you really wanted to know, the clones' names are a combination of the last name of their sponsor, a number indicating the sponsor's geographical area, and a code to indicate the clone's generation.)

"So, which one of us is to blame for Eye of the Beholder?"

Ewan McGregor plays against himself relatively well in these scenes, as both the naïve Lincoln Six Echo and the jerky, lecherous Tom Lincoln. Tom turns out to be from Scotland, meaning McGregor uses both a fake accent and his real accent in the same scene, which admittedly was a clever touch.

Tom reveals he needs a new liver because of his hepatitis, which he got from sleeping around. Despite this, Lincoln and Jordan are all too willing to believe Tom will help them. They want to go to the media and expose Merrick's facility, but naturally, Tom tips off the bounty hunters instead. This leads to more mayhem and explosions, and ultimately a de rigueur scene where both Lincoln and Tom are held at gunpoint, both shouting, "No, I'm Tom Lincoln!" Predictably, Tom is killed, and Lincoln is free to assume Tom's identity.

"I get to go to the Island! So eat my ass, Mister Vulcan!"

It should have ended there, but unfortunately, it doesn't. Lincoln gets a call from Merrick's associate, and learns the defiance that caused Tom Lincoln's clone to break out of the facility was a genetic defect. Several generations will have to be "recalled", meaning a massive amount of Lincoln's friends are about to be slaughtered. So Lincoln and Jordan race back to the facility to free the rest of the clones. Can you take a wild guess as to whether they succeed or not?

Despite some fun moments and witty lines, The Island just didn't work for me. I was never invested much on any level, emotional or otherwise, in the plight of these clones. Lincoln and Jordan are bred to be total blank slates, and that's what they remain for most of the movie. Both leads are widely respected as talented actors, but here McGregor is reduced to yelling "Let's go!" nine million times, while Johansson does virtually nothing besides looking like her manager forced her to take this part. Girls with pearl earrings may be fine and dandy, but people need to pay the rent.

The matrix what now?

The movie never truly delves into how it would feel to know your entire life, everything you know and everything you've been taught, is one big lie. A couple of lines are thrown in to that effect, but then it's right back to explosions, explosions, and more explosions. What could have been thought-provoking sci-fi instead turns into an excuse for Michael Bay to ramp up overly loud, non-stop action set pieces, each one bigger and more ludicrous than the last.

It's the height of silliness that two simple clones, with no special powers or unique abilities, could somehow bring about the destruction of several city blocks. And it's even more ridiculous that Merrick's idea of keeping the clone operation hush-hush is to blow up everything in sight. I know that Michael Bay movies are nothing if not over the top, but at least in the context of Japanese sneak attacks, or a planet-killing asteroid, the huge scale of destruction made some sense. Here it's completely out of scale with the small human drama we were watching in the film's first half.

Some have said it's Bay's most thoughtful work yet, but when the competition includes Bad Boys II, is that really saying much? But yet, I have to agree. It is his best film, in that I'm actually able to sit through more than twenty minutes of it at a time. Nevertheless, it's still the same old crappy Michael Bay film we've seen half a dozen times, with all the dumb plot holes, the cars that flip over at the slightest breeze, the same damn orange/yellow filter on every other shot, and comical levels of directorial excess. I think there are a number of scenes included just to show off what Michael Bay must think is a kickass speedboat.

This is a movie where guards get clones to blindly walk into a big room with INCINERATOR on the door. Maybe they thought they were going to an awesome transgender nightclub. And lame lines abound. When the clones see a motorcycle for the first time, Jordan asks what it is. "I don't know," Lincoln replies. "But I want one!" Oh, brother. "Chicks dig the car," anyone?

But for all the dopey dialogue, there's occasionally a gem of a line buried in all the crap. Like this one, when Lincoln asks Steve Buscemi to explain God:

A better explanation for the career of Michael Bay, you will not find.

SIMILARITIES TO PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR:

As someone who's seen Parts: The Clonus Horror more times than I care to count, I was trying my best not to deliberately look for similarities between Clonus and The Island. For the sake of fairness, I wanted to imagine two writers working independently, both beginning with the same basic concept of "a clone farm for the rich and powerful". Given that, could they conceivably have come up with two scripts this similar?

Probably not. In fact, the plot outline of The Island is identical to Clonus, except with a few key scenes rearranged. And there may be a number of plot points that are new to The Island, but as I learned from the DVD commentary, almost every scene without a Clonus counterpart was the idea of Michael Bay. So Tredwell-Owen's original script was probably even more like Clonus than the finished film. I won't go through all ninety points of contention from Fiveson's complaint, but here's what I think are the key similarities between the two movies.

This is the biggie. In both films, all the clones want is to reach a magical place where they're promised happiness and fulfillment. It is their only goal in life. But it turns out to be a cover-up for when clones are killed and harvested for their organs. Frankly, I don't see how this idea logically flows from the basic clone farm concept. In 1971's The Resurrection Of Zachary Wheeler, for instance, the clones in the "clone farm" never achieve consciousness. In Kazuo Ishiguro's recent cloning novel Never Let Me Go, clones are fully aware of what their true purpose is, and accept their life lots as organ donors. Granted, if this were the only similarity between the two films then I could possibly accept it as coincidence, but there's a whole lot more.

I'll admit, in a clone farm, obviously a common activity would be exercise. The people in charge would want to keep those clones in shape, after all. So I suppose it could naturally follow that clones would frequently wear track clothes. But where did The Island get the idea that clones would always wear track clothes, even when relaxing, if not from Clonus? Worse yet, in both films the track clothes are used as obnoxious product placement (for Adidas in Clonus, for Puma in The Island).

In Clonus, the clones are closely monitored by guards who talk on earpieces. At one point, they have to separate the two leads, Richard and Lena. In The Island, clones are monitored by "censors" who talk into earpieces. At two points in the movie, censors receive "proximity warnings" and have to move in to prevent Lincoln and Jordan from actually touching. This part didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I understand the clones in The Island weren't aware of sex, and perhaps touching could lead to sex, but what exactly was the reasoning behind preventing sex in the first place? It's never really explained, and as such it just stands out as another Clonus reference. The censors even wear black track suits, echoing the dark blue running suits of the Clonus guards.

On the commentary track, Bay describes telling his actors that they were to act "like children", and talks about a "childish innocence" to the clones that was "fun for the actors to play". I immediately flashed back to Robert Fiveson's commentary for Clonus, where he remembers instructing his cast to act mentally challenged, including the infamous "clone blink" where they had to hold their eyes closed for a beat on each blink. I can appreciate that in this situation, you wouldn't breed clones to be very smart, but that fact that it becomes a plot point in The Island is what makes it suspicious to me. There's even a scene where Lincoln sees new arrivals reciting Fun with Dick and Jane in unison, and it's very similar to the clones in the auditorium saying "Lesson Ten!" in unison in Clonus.

In Clonus, we're told Richard and Lena have been deliberately bred to be smarter than the average clone. This abnormal intelligence eventually leads Richard to escape from Clonus. It's the same situation for the main characters in The Island, with the only difference being Lincoln's intelligence is an accidental defect in the Echo generation of clones. In both films, we see these "smarter than average" clones questioning authority. (Richard angrily wonders aloud who the guards talk to on their earpieces, while Lincoln angrily wonders aloud who cleans his clothes and puts them in his dresser every night.) Lincoln raises these questions in a workplace conversation with Jones, which echoes (no pun intended) a lunchroom scene between Richard and a clone I called "Fred" in my review of Clonus.

In both films, an object from the outside world is discovered, eventually provoking the main character to question the truth. In Richard's case, it's a can of Old Milwaukee that washes up in the river. In Lincoln's case, it's a butterfly (though it looks more like a moth to me). I'll admit, the butterfly is a far classier plot device than a can of cheap beer, and I did like the added layer of the clones being told the outside world was contaminated. But whereas Clonus at least has a little bit of resolution (when Richard finds Milwaukee on a map and realizes he's been lied to), the butterfly thing seems somewhat superfluous to the happenings in The Island.

In both films, there's lots of physical sparring going on, usually with an audience of other clones. In Clonus, George wrestles with another clone, and has a push-up contest with Richard. The Island's version has Lincoln and Jordan standing near a cage where their virtual clones (hah!) have a fight. (I'm not sure of the sport, but it sure isn't boxing. It seemed more like ultimate fighting... of the future!) At best, this would be a mildly conspicuous similarity, except for one thing: In both films, the lead's best friend is told right after the match that they're going to the Island/America. See what I mean when I said the plot outlines match almost exactly?

In both films, the lead clone sneaks out of bed at night and ends up in a building resembling a hospital, with long white corridors (in Clonus, the "Main Building" or "Round Building"; in The Island, a nameless facility). In this building, the lead clone learns all the secrets of the colony. In both films, green fluid is injected to kill a clone here. In both films, the dead clone is then covered with a plastic tarp. I have to say, it's this last point that gets me. I guess both movies wanted to play up how the clones were treated as garbage, but a clear plastic tarp in both movies?

And if that's not enough, in both films a "dead" clone wakes up at the very last moment to scream and struggle before finally meeting his fate (George in Clonus, Michael Clarke Duncan in The Island). The only difference between the two is that what happens to George is split across two characters in The Island.

Also seen in Michael Clarke Duncan's surgery is a bone saw, used prominently in Clonus lobotomies.

Both films have their leads escaping through corridors of pipes and across catwalks, occasionally meeting and scuffling with guards/censors on their way out. In The Island, Lincoln and Jordan run through a dark, steam-filled corridor, and the camera is titled at the exact same angle (albeit reversed) used to show Richard running through corridors in Clonus. (Perhaps this is what Fiveson referred to in the interview when he claimed Bay had copied shots from Clonus.) I doesn't seem like Caspian Tredwell-Owen would have been in a position to suggest camera angles, but who knows? Perhaps a description in his screenplay inspired Bay in that direction.

Ah, but there's more. In both films, the escape ends with the leads running through a drainage pipe, and then ending up out in the remote desert. To cap off the chase, Lincoln and Jordan stand atop a tall rocky bluff and survey their surroundings, just like Richard did in Clonus.

In both movies, the lead clone goes directly to the person he's a copy of. Rather stupidly, one would think, they both appeal for help from the one person who most wants to see them dead. And in both movies the sponsor agrees to help, but ultimately turns on the clone. The only real difference is that in Clonus, Older Richard honestly wants to help Younger Richard at first, but has a major change of heart after talking to his brother. Whereas Tom Lincoln appears to have been a jerk from day one. Another conspicuous similarity is that in both films, everyone decides that going to reporters (instead of, say, a government or law enforcement agency) would be the best thing to do.

In Clonus, Older Richard's brother is a senator running for President of the United States. In The Island, Lincoln notices that the President of the United States looks exactly like one of his friends back at the facility. This is so totally random and unnecessary that I can't think of any reason it's in there, other than as some sort of homage to Clonus.

In both films, the movie ends when the lead returns to the clone colony. At least in The Island it makes some sort of sense, because the movie actually gives them a reason to go back. In Clonus, all we're told is Richard "misses his girl". But of course, the downbeat ending of Clonus has been replaced with a happy ending that includes a fistfight to the death between Lincoln and Dr. Merrick. I think I prefer the Clonus ending, though seeing Tim Donnelly smack Dick Sargent around might have been interesting.

Of particular interest are the elements of The Island that were more or less the idea of Michael Bay: Showing clones being born, showing new "survivors" being introduced to the colony, showing the clones get their memory imprints from video screens, these were all things we never saw in Clonus, and Michael Bay takes full credit for all of them appearing in The Island. In fact, it became something of a running joke as I listened to the commentary, because I was able to predict with amazing accuracy whenever Bay would take credit for a scene or idea.

And this list, if you can believe it, contains just the obvious similarities. It could be argued (and I'm sure it will be argued) that a lot of this is coincidence. And it's true; I could buy most of these similarities naturally flowing from the basic idea of a "clone farm". But when you've got dozens of them, all occurring at exactly the same moments in their respective movies, it really does beggar belief.

The sad part is that people (myself included) have been saying for years that Clonus could have been a great movie, if only it had had a bigger budget. And essentially, that's what he have here in The Island: a big budget remake of Clonus. And yet, people are still complaining.

The plagiarism stuff is probably what's most bothersome, but even ignoring all that, The Island is far from what it could have been. It's a better movie than Clonus, to be sure, but it's apparent that a great clone movie is still out there, waiting to be made. Hopefully, when that movie does get made, it'll be a lot more original than The Island.

LOWLIGHTS FROM MICHAEL BAY'S COMMENTARY TRACK:

Michael Bay

This might come as a shock, but Michael Bay is kind of a self-centered dick. From the very first moment of the commentary, he's already talking about how "adamant" he was about including an opening dream sequence over the objections of DreamWorks studio heads. A dream sequence that has little to do with the movie, of course, other than introducing the kickass speedboat and providing another similarity to Clonus. Appropriately, this rant sets the tone for the commentary to follow.

When Michael Clarke Duncan first makes his appearance, Bay immediately pimps how he "discovered" Duncan at a gym. He says he convinced him to take the part in Armageddon by telling him he'd be "the first black man who does not die first". Apparently, that was the big "twist" in Armageddon. And we all missed it!

During the scene were a clone is birthed and cut out of a large clear plastic pod, Bay explains how these pods were full of "154 gallons of KY Jelly", of all things. To communicate his ideas to the visual effects department, he told them to "imagine a breast implant, but adult-sized!" I'm told Michael Bay imagines breast implants that large every waking hour of his life.

Can you spot the product placement in this shot?

At the Virtual Ultimate Fighting match, the big X-BOX logo behind Scarlett Johansson prompts Bay to launch into a tirade against those who would dare criticize this film's staggering amount of product placement (In addition to Puma and X-Box, Aquafina, MSN, Ben & Jerry's, and Cadillac all figure prominently). He rails against critics who accuse him of "whoring out the movie" and making "a big advertisement", and levels with us thusly: "Let's face it, guys. The world is focused on products. Products surround us. And for us to think, in the year 2019, that we're not gonna still be focused, and still have products and labels flying at us from every different vantage point, is just unreal. It's just not a true world." Michael Bay, master of cinéma vérité.

Not quite the Confessional, unfortunately.

In another scene, one of Lincoln's friends learns the word "dude" from the censors and repeats it over and over. Bay improvised this scene on the spot, he tells us, because he likes to say "dude" a lot. He imparts this insightful tip: "You can use 'dude' in thirteen different ways."

Michael Bay's assessment of Scarlett Johansson: "Pain in the ass to work with. But I mean that in the best way." Immediate ass-kissing of Scarlett Johansson follows.

During Lincoln's escape, Bay explains why he decided to cast Ewan McGregor, who according to him (and anyone who didn't see the Star Wars prequels) was not much of an action star. Bay says, "I figured if I can make Martin Lawrence an action hero in Bad Boys, I can make anyone one." Immediate ass-kissing of Martin Lawrence follows.

Bay tells us that Tredwell-Owen's script was originally set 100 years in the future, but due to budgetary reasons, the setting had to keep being moved closer to the present. Well, at the very least, we don't have that ridiculous "clones in 1931" deal from Clonus.

The scene were the pregnant woman gives birth and is killed afterwards "is the movie," according to Bay. It's the scene that convinced him to do the film, and he even fought to keep it in the "airline version". For some reason, the airline censors had a big problem with showing the woman's feet in stirrups [??] so they had to blur them out. Go figure.

After Michael Clarke Duncan is killed, we see his liver get vacuum packed and tossed into a cooler. Bay enlightens us: "Believe it or not, that's how they transport organs, in coolers." Gee whiz, Professor Bay, I had no idea!

Bay tried to make Scarlett "likable", and while Lincoln is scuffling with the guards, she gets involved in the fight, "and her picking up this wrench here, is the first sign of her doing something badass!" He even claims that audiences would "applaud" at this moment. So, I guess a woman doing something besides moping around and staring at her engagement ring is what Bay considers "badass". Interesting.

When they call it the City of New Orleans, they aren't screwing around.

At one point the clones board an Amtrak train, and Bay points out how the scale on the train is way off, and it looks at least thirty feet high. He says he wanted to go back and fix it, but apparently there's this new thing called "overbudget penalties", where if a film goes over budget, "it comes out of the director's pocket". And according to the IMDb, he ended up making $25 million for directing Pearl Harbor, so boo-fucking-hoo.

Bay reveals his belief that parts of this film are like, deep commentary, dude. There's a scene where we learn Jordan's sponsor is in a coma, and has a small child. In Bay's mind, this inconsequential tidbit dares the audience to wonder who has more right to live, a woman with a small child, or her clone who doesn't have a child. If the intent was to provoke thought, it didn't quite work out. Then he completely blows off all the moral issues by pointing out the kid would probably have some other family to go to. Well then, that cleans all that up, nice and tidy. Hey Mike, don't forget the big red bow!

After a scene where a cop car gets split in half by an armored truck, and somehow the two clones in the back survive [!], Bay goes into how shooting this scene caused him to break a megaphone. It seems he breaks several megaphones on each movie, and as you probably guessed, it's not accidental. "There's something about a megaphone," he reflects. "It's got the extra added value [that] if you snap it on the ground, it's got batteries that will fly out." Ah, he must be a joy to work with.

I think Ewan took on a little too much at this year's Clean and Jerk finals.

During the extended freeway chase with the train wheels and the cars flipping over, Bay addresses critics who said he ripped off his own movie Bad Boys II with this scene. That's all complete and utter claptrap, of course. You see, he actually "improved upon it" with this scene. So there you go.

Michael Bay claims that during filming of the freeway chase, "I almost lost my life". There was a pole attached to one of the jet bike props, and apparently this pole flew past his head at 40 MPH. He describes how this same pole destroyed a $600,000 camera, and there's actually footage of the camera getting smashed in the "making of" featurette, so I have a feeling he's not kidding. I'll leave it to you to come up with your own joke, because this website has yet to stoop to the level of actually wishing death upon someone. (Unless they show me a tombstone with the person's name on it, in which case they're just asking for it.)

After the preposterous moment where the two clones tumble down a skyscraper and survive, Bay says, "Now, the thing that saves the absurdity of them living is the line from this construction worker." That line? "Jesus must love you!" Totally. Good save, Mike.

Bay admits that a scene at the facility contains a "logic problem", because Lincoln said he was five at some point, I guess, and Steve Buscemi later said he was three, or something, and it makes no sense that he's talking about it here, because neither of them are in this scene. I think this commentary track contains a logic problem.

For those hoping for The Island 2, your hopes have been dashed. Bay says, "I will never do another clone movie as long as I live." But it isn't because of the subject matter, but rather the headache of split-screen technology, and waiting for a "forty-minute makeup job" that was required to change Ewan back and forth between the two characters. It took forty minutes to apply one face scar? No wonder this movie cost 125 million goddamn dollars to make.

Buy the Clonus DVD or we'll shoot this versatile Scottish actor.

During the scene with the two Ewans, Bay suddenly gets weirdly confessional, and it's completely unexpected, and he starts talking about how this movie totally bombed. He says it was the "lowest opening in [his] career", and it made a "pitiful" $35 million at the box office.

For those curious about these sorts of things, here's what Michael Bay blames for the failure of The Island:

• "a very big summer" [huh?]
• the marketing
• the marketing
• the marketing
• the marketing

He says that ultimately, the movie was saddled with a "very complicated title" that was "hard to market", because "you're thinking something that is not". This same idea was floated by the producers, that basically The Island flopped because there really was no island. But as some forum members pointed out, the king doesn't actually return in The Return of the King, but that didn't seem to present much of a marketing challenge.

Bay admits they "never nailed it" on the marketing. He describes at length how DreamWorks handled the domestic distribution and Warner Brothers handled the international, and the Warners campaign sold it as more of an action film. As a result, the movie was "number one in France for three weeks", and "in Korea, it's—believe it or not—one of top ten highest grossing movies of all time!" He thinks this is "because Korea's so tied into cloning!" (So was it because of the marketing or not, Michael?) And the whole time, all I can think of is Michael Lehmann on the Hudson Hawk commentary track saying, "Did I mention it was big in Europe?" (At least there, you had a director who was trying to be tongue in cheek.)

Anyway, Bay is totally babbling now, and admits he's "all over the place" and "talking in circles", but only because "the campaign was in circles". He claims to have really pulled for using the Warners campaign in the US, but instead, DreamWorks "tried to be too smart and too intelligent man movie [sic]" and it never "resonated" with audiences. He once again reiterates that he blames the failure entirely on the marketing, for those who missed it. He says that in early 2005, nobody even knew the movie was coming out, and it was "the lowest awareness" ever for one of his films, which really surprised him. "The ball was dropped, big time."

But in the end, he insists, "it will make some money". Don't they all? That's how stuff like Big Momma's House 2 gets made. But I find it very odd that during this entire diatribe against the marketing, at no point does he once mention the trailer that revealed the whole fucking story. Did he even wonder how The Island would have done if the trailer hadn't told us they were clones, and then made that the big secret plot twist? Apparently not.

Then Bay abruptly remembers it's a commentary track, and goes back to actually commenting on the scenes we're watching. During the love scene between Ewan and Scarlett, Ewan has a line that wasn't in the script. Bay confesses it's something he actually said to the first girl he ever french kissed. It seems "Meg" was her name, and after frenching Meg for the first time, Little Mikey said, "Wow, that tongue thing is amazing!" He adds, "Imagine what a geek I was when I said that, huh?" It's not as hard to imagine as he thinks it is. And I don't know who Meg is, but I really want to give the poor girl a hug.

I guess there are a few things better than an island.

We learn that before this scene, Scarlett "wasn't coming out of the trailer". (Yes, just like Paulette Breen before her nude scene on the set of Clonus, but a hunch tells me this is not one of the ninety points in the lawsuit.) Michael Bay, sensitive modern male that he is, thought it was just the "typical 'woman not coming out of the trailer' thing", and he had it all worked out in his head how he was going to "tell her she looks beautiful, and yadda yadda yah, kick everyone off the set, and the lighting's great, we're ready for you," but the real issue is about to win a few more fans for Scarlett Johansson, I think. This is the exchange as remembered by Bay, and the first time I've heard a commentary track get bleeped.

That was "a very funny Scarlett typical story, alright?" It figures the only thing Bay would have to say about Johansson, other than indulging in standard, knee-jerk Hollywood ass-kissing, is reminiscing about that one time she wanted to get naked. That was badass!

Then Bay decides to make fun of an extra who had the impudence to ask King Michael for screen credit. The guy plays a surgeon who's held at gunpoint by Scarlett, and the scene ends with him silently cowering on the ground. Bay openly mocks the guy's performance, and once it's over he declares, "Featuring Tad... Whatever!" Yeah, Michael Bay is kind of a dick.

Now he goes into how unhappy he is with the movie's ending. He wanted it to be "a little more mano to mano," but the ending was reshot at the last minute, and by then Ewan was busy with a play in London. So both he and Sean Bean had to be filmed separately and stitched together using special effects, meaning there's no "knife into the bad guy at the very last minute, that kind of thing you see in these type of movies." What type of movies? Michael Bay movies? No wonder he's disappointed.

Separated at Birth: Ewan McGregor and William Shatner

During the final fight, Bay admits it "could've been better", because "maybe it feels familiar to what I've done in the past". Yeah, that must be it. So just ignore everything he said earlier about "improving" on the stuff he did before.

In the final scene where the two clones are happily reunited, Bay complains about an extra who kept mugging for the camera in this shot. He recalls visiting James Cameron—speaking of dicks—on the set of Titanic and James Cameron said, "God, it's always one extra who'll fuck the whole shot up, won't it?" But lest you think he and Cameron are just assholes, Bay adds, "Directors know what I'm talking about." That's true, you know. I heard Ron Howard just loves to hurl megaphones at his crew.

I'm gonna have to call too many men on the field on this one.

As we watch the closing shot of Ewan and Scarlett on the Kickass Speedboat, Bay thanks us for listening to him as he babbled for over two hours. He adds, "I dare you to do it sometimes!" Do what? Provide extensive commentary for one of your movies? Already did it, Mikey, and I feel for you, because it was not fun.

And after all this Island and Clonus stuff (not to mention Dean Koontz's Mr. Murder), I never want to review another clone movie as long as I live.

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