12 Biggest Book Changes In Mickey 17

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for Mickey 17 & Mickey 7.

There are at least a dozen major changes between Bong Joon-ho’s highly anticipated Mickey 17 and its original source material Mickey 7. Following the critical acclaim and Oscar success of Parasite, Bong Joon-ho finally released Mickey 17 on March 7, 2025, in the United States after experiencing several production delays. Ultimately, Mickey 17 is a loose adaptation at best of the 2022 sci-fi novel Mickey 7 written by Edward Ashton.

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While Mickey 17 follows the same protagonist, Robert Pattinson’s Mickey Barnes, as Mickey 7, there are several notable differences between the two formats, particularly towards each of their ends. The book’s Mickey 7 and Mickey 8 become Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 in the film, with additional iterations and deaths. The ending of Mickey 17 featured a dramatic sacrificial death and the destruction of the “human printer” that bred previous versions of Mickey like a copy machine. After reading the book, I was stunned at how different Mickey 17 was from Mickey 7 but each has its strong suits.

12

Mickey 18 Was Not Aggressive & Did Not Kill Marshall

The Personalities Of The Main Mickey’s Were Nearly Identical In The Book

The biggest difference between the two main Mickeys in the book and film is their personalities. Both Mickey 7 and Mickey 8 in the novel are essentially the same person, so much so that Mickey 7 is able to anticipate Mickey 8’s thoughts and actions in certain scenarios. Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 couldn’t be more unalike, with Mickey 17 stumbling over his words and Mickey 18 being impulsively dangerous and threatening. Because of this, Mickey 8 never tried to kill Marshall and mostly slept in Mickey’s room after he was printed due to “tank funk”.

11

Ylfa, Dorothy & Several Characters Were Added To Mickey 17

Pigeon Man Was Added To The Movie, For Some Reason

Image via WB

Ylfa, Marshall’s wife, is the biggest character invented for Mickey 17 not seen in the book. She contributes to the idiocy of Marshall with her out-of-touch opinions and snobby worldview. Dorthoty, the scientist who develops the translation device so that Mickey can communicate with the creepers, is also created for the film, as is the technology she invented. In the book, all the humans on Niflheim can communicate through a telepathic instant messenger attached to their retinas, which is how Mickey is able to talk to “Creeper Prime.”

Mickey’s red-haired trainer is named Jemma in the book. Marshall’s political strategist Preston, who is seen constantly whispering in Marshall’s ear, was added to the film. Pigeon Man, for whatever reason, was added to the film as well.

10

Kenneth Marshall Wasn’t Stupid & Didn’t Have A Camera Crew

Mickey 7’s Marshall Was Strict & Problematic But Not A Buffoon

Marshall is completely different in the movie compared to his character in the book. Mickey 7’s Marshall is strict and authoritative but sensible, concerned about keeping the struggling space colony alive and maintaining the established order through rationing and discipline. He never abolished sexual intercourse on Niflheim, never invited Mickey and Kai to dinner, and did not host a late-night show or have a camera crew constantly follow him around. Mickey 17 makes Marshall look like an incapable buffoon, while Mickey 7’s Marshall is close-minded but not stupid. Mickey 7’s Marshall was also not killed.

9

Timo Did Not Sell Oxyzoful & Has A Very Different Backstory

Timo (Berto) Was A Lucky & Successful Pog-Ball Player

Image via Warner Bros.

Timo is another character who was completely changed for Mickey 17. In the book, he was a daring and confident pilot who had a successful career playing a fictional sport called pog-ball. He never started a failed macaron business with Mickey and wasn’t in financial trouble with Darius Blank, as Mickey was. Mickey actually bet against Timo, whose name is Berto in the book, as he played in a pog-ball tournament, which is how he lost all his money. Berto was not involved in Oxyzoful smuggling whatsoever in the book because Oxyzoful was not a part of the story either.

8

Nasha Was A Pilot In Mickey 7, Not a Security Guard

Nasha Never Tried To Kill Ylfa Or Save A Baby Creeper

Image via Warner Bros. Entertainment

Mickey 17’s Nasha is more-or-less the same as her book character, staying loyal to Mickey throughout his various “lab rat” deaths. Nasha never, however, held Mickey inside an actual lab tank while he was dying from radiation, poison, or the like. Nasha was also a pilot in the book, like Berto, and asked Mickey if he wanted her to come get him after he initially fell into the creeper hole but Mickey rejected her offer. Mickey 7’s Nasha never confronted Marshall, never held a baby creeper by her teeth over a cycler, and never threatened to kill Ylfa.

7

Manikova & His Multiples Took Over A Planet In Mickey 7

There Were Thousands Of Manikova’s In The Book

Image via Warner Bros.

Alan Manikova has a more interesting backstory in Mickey 7 than he does in Mickey 17. In the movie, he is caught with two multiples and is taken into custody after committing murder to create the multiples in the first place. In the book, Manikova was incredibly wealthy and was suspected of murder but it was unable to be proven. He went on to create thousands of duplicates and actually took over an alien planet, which led to a neighboring planet firing a Death Star-esque laser beam (created by bubbles of antimatter) onto the planet, effectively destroying it and all the Manikovas.

6

A Baby Creeper Never Made It Into The Mickey 7 Dome

The Creepers Never Approached The Dome To Retrieve One Of Their Own

Creepers made it close to infiltrating the human dome on Niflheim in Mickey 7 but never did. Some creepers in the book killed a security guard on the outer preminter of the dome but that was the closest they ever got. Once the baby creeper gets into the dome in Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 tries to assassinate Marshall all in one scene, it becomes clear that the entire story is about to greatly shift. All the scenes involving the baby creeper – Nasha saving it, Ylfa cutting off its tail and making sauce, it calling out to the other creepers – are not in the book.

5

Cat Chen (Kai) Ratted Out The Mickey’s In The Book

Cat Offered To Become Mickey’s Expendable Replacement

Image via Warner Bros.

Cat Chen, renamed Kai in Mickey 17, is a trusted security guard in the book. Mickey 7 and Cat spend time together as Mickey 8 hangs out with Nasha and does some menial Expendable tasks. Both Cat and Kai walk in on Nasha with the two Mickey’s during that unusual romantic scene but Nasha doesn’t run after her like she does in the movie. Cat betrays Mickey by reporting him to Marshall, offering to become his replacement Expendable upon his permanent discontinuation. Mickey then convinces Marshall to keep him and Mickey 8 alive to make contact with the creepers.

4

The Religion Of Natalism Isn’t Mentioned In Mickey 17

Natalism Denounces Expendables As “Impure” Specimens

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While Mickey 17’s Marshall is presented as a fascist set on building an ideal race on Niflheim, Mickey 7’s Marshall has no such ambitions. The book’s version is, however, religious and belongs to the church of Natalism, which essentially means that he believes Expendables are not “pure” and are not God’s creation like human beings.

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There isn’t much more to Natalism than maintaining the distinction between Expendables and humans in a derogatory way. While there is discrimination against Mickey for being a “print job”, as seen in other sci-fi works like Blade Runner 2049, there’s no mention of Natalism in the movie.

3

Technologies & Weapons In Mickey 7 Were More Futuristic

Mickey 17 Mostly Uses Standard Modern Day Weapons

The technology in Mickey 7 is surprisingly more advanced than that in Mickey 17, which uses traditional weapons like assault rifles and bazookas. The security guards in Mickey 7 are armed with blasters and other types of futuristic weaponry and the bombs that the Mickeys carry at the end of the narrative are derived from antimatter bubbles. As mentioned previously, the telepathic instant messenger tech is not included in the movie. Additionally, Marshall threatened to have Mickey’s backup brick deleted in the book but Marshall actually does it in the movie.

2

Berto (Timo) Is Way More Of A Villain In Mickey 17

Berto Never Tried To Kill Either Mickey In The Book

Image via Warner Bros.

Berto is more of a friend to Mickey in the book than he is in the film. Berto is initially suspicious of Mickey having a duplicate but doesn’t investigate further. Berto was also in the spacecraft when Mickey fell down the creeper hole at the beginning of the film, whereas Timo clearly could have helped him but chose not to. The increased tension between Mickey and Timo in the film leads Mickey to try and throw Timo into a cycler, which never happens in the book. However, Mickey did punch Berto at the end of Mickey 7 once the truth was out. He also didn’t try to kill one of the Mickey’s while they were in jail.

1

The Ending Of Mickey 17 Is Very Different From Mickey 7

Marshall Lives & The Human Printer Is Not Destroyed

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There are so many differences between the ending of Mickey 17 and Mickey 7 that they literally end up telling different stories. The biggest one is Mickey 8’s death – both Mickey 7 and Mickey 8 were ordered by Marshall to walk back into the creepers’ den (because there was no creeper invasion). The Mickeys were armed with bubble bombs and told to kill them all by Marshall. (There was a cataclysmic Bubble War that made the Earth uninhabitable hundreds of years prior). Mickey 8 simply gets overtaken by a herd of baby creepers and dies without much build-up.

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Mickey 7 communicates with “Creeper Prime” through the telepathic instant messenger that the creepers acquired after dissecting and probing Mickey 6. Mickey 7 then returns to Marshal with his bubble bomb, claiming he gave the other one to the creepers as a show of good faith. This saves Mickey’s life since he’s the only liaison between humankind and the creepers. Marshall lives, spring comes, and Mickey reveals to Nasha that he never gave the creepers the bubble bomb but instead hid it under rocks at the top of their cave den. The human printer is not destroyed and Nasha doesn’t become a governmental figure in Mickey 17 because there is no Committee in the book.

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Mickey 17

R

Science Fiction

Comedy

Adventure

8/10

Release Date

February 28, 2025

Runtime

137 minutes

Director

Bong Joon Ho

Writers

Bong Joon Ho

Producers

Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Marianne Jenkins, Dooho Choi, Jesse Ehrman

Cast

See All

• 

  Robert Pattinson

  Mickey Barnes

• 

  Naomi Ackie

  Nasha

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Source: https://dinhtienhoang.edu.vn
Category: Entertainment