Can someone "spoil this movie" for me?? I hate to say it, but I was too bored to pay close enough attention and really understand what was going on (who was whom of the pairs of Identicals, who worked for The Company and who did not, who was "original" and who was an "Identical Replacement", etc.) and that contributed heavily to my lack of enjoyment while watching this movie.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!
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Spoilers:
1). Was Original Nadia (N-Prime) a purposeful and knowing Volunteer to the Identicals Program from the very beginning? (Seems odd, in that she was so happy & in love with Slater.....although in the very-hard-to-make-out voice recording message to Slater on that old iPod she makes reference to how things had been rough over the last months).
2). Who was Original Slater (S-Prime) in relation to Ultimate Slater in the End (Slater-Omega)?
3). Who was Slater-Omega, where did he come from, and what was his goal/purpose/role? It was so convoluted I had trouble following it.
4). What was the TRUE goal/purpose of the Identicals Program, other than the tag line as stated and replacing/killing other people?
5). What was the moral/goal of the story within the film.....because it COULD have been great, but it seemed to go off the rails about halfway through.
6). Was Blonde Nadia "in on it"? Was she actually Nadia-Prime, hiding out?
Grrrrr....this film fascinated and frustrated me equally.
More questions:
SPOILERS!!!
** Why does Nadia #2 remember the Polaroid, that it was of an old boyfriend and that it was taken on his birthday, but NOT that Slater is the same guy (she says, "No, that was someone else") WITH THE SAME NAME and SAME FACE!
This is a PERFECT example of the reason this film frustrates me like crazy -- because it violates common sense, its own rules, and is just all over the place.
Because if they memory-wiped the Identicals, then Nadia would remember Nothing. But she remembers everything but the boyfriend's name and face. (???? Whaaat??)
Additionally, why would Slater remember EVERYTHING but Nadia remembers very little? They went through the same induction process.
And was Nadia #2 the ORIGINAL Nadia? Nadia-Prime? Or was she a different Nadia....and if so, how could she remember the photo/boyfriend? Are the other Nadia's all different people or are there only 2, 3, or 4 Nadia's (and who was the Dead Nadia?)
Finally, WHY DO THEY ALL HAVE THE SAME NAME?? Nadia, Slater, etc.??
("That NADIA is not YOUR NADIA") - How is that possible unless we're dealing with Alternate Universes/Parallel Lives ....and if so, what is the mechanism of jumping/moving from one to the next especially when all Slater does is get on an airplane and fly ftom place to place.
This is why it makes no sense to me and I really want to figure it out.
The main thing I think you missed is that the identicals already exist. They're part of that world and the main premise. They aren't created by Brand New-U. Kind of like identical twins seperated at birth. Once you understand that in the fictional world identicals are a thing, it becomes a lot clearer.
shareThank you for taking the time to reply - I really do appreciate it.
I did understand that in the fictional world of the film, that "identicals" are a "thing".
It still leaves me with all the questions I listed above, starting with the shared memories and the fact that the film seemed to contradict itself right from the beginning when.....[SPOILERS follow]]
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SPOILERS!!!
..... Nadia-Prime is kidnapped, with the dead-on-the-floor kidnapper-attacker unmasked and revealed to be Nadia-Alt1/DOA .....yet the mysterious caller (? kidnapper? Identicals Employee? Arms-Dealing Santa?) makes it abundantly clear that "the 'Nadia' dead on the floor is not 'YOUR Nadia' .... this is Not YOUR Nadia" and the female Identicals Induction Rep explained that if Nadia-Prime had answered the door, then no one would be the wiser and the DOA-Nadia would've seamlessly replaced Nadia-Prime and go on to live as her."
The discrepancies are:
1). How are the memories handled?
--- since we are told from the beginning that DOA-Nadia would've just stepped into and assumed Nadia-Prime's life and not even her boyfriend/lover would've noticed/questioned it,
--- yet all of the subsequent Nadia's (and we are led to believe that one of them is Nadia-Prime) have memories of "having a boyfriend IN THE PAST" but don't recognize his face or name...even when no one is changing names--which is the strangest, most-difficult-to-resolve aspects of the storyline/concept/rules-of-the-universe.
--- if the Identicals can seamlessly step into another "LifeSpace", then they MUST have identical memories....yet this is contradicted when Nadia 2.0 (or was she Nadia-Prime?) doesn't recognize her boyfriend and cannot recall his name, even when he's sitting right in front of her, and Nadia-Omega (Blonde Nadia) seems to simultaneously know "all" and yet still Nothing which is incredibly strange and confusing and absolutely frustrating.
2). If these are DIFFERENT people/living beings ("that Nadia is Not YOUR Nadia") then How and WHY do they all have the SAME NAMES??!!
--- Clones, Relicants, etc., I can understand but they use all the concepts of "Parallel Lives" while making it clear that these are NOT parallel lives/worlds/dimensions -- which is just maddening.
I could go on and on for the all the other questions I posted above as well...... I'd really welcome thoughts, ideas, intelligent theories, and any inside information that addresses these discrepancies and plot holes.
I think that in a way they are parallel worlds, that only BNU can transport you between, because the worlds are so different and because they would probably have seen their identicals otherwise. Also try to think of the logic of a film, if they all had different names and faces they wouldn´t be very identical. I think of it more like they were all a bunch of identical twins, split at birth into different `Worlds` and led different lives, but at the core they are sort of the same person. Like would you still be you if you had led a completely different life? Also we must assume that the identicals that are kidnapped have some sort of mind-wipe, otherwise they would just go back to their own lives, therefore Nadia 2.0 still has certain repressed memories of being the original Nadia.
shareWhilst I'm going to agree this movie has a LOT of problems. IE no point whatsoever, being the first and foremost one.
Slater DID have reconstructive surgery, hence the whole "this is your NEW face, get used to it" and his response "it seems familiar", which means his memory IMPLANTS (or whatever) were helping him remember his NEW face as having been his all along. I can only assume that Nadia had the same issue... BUT, she also should NOT have been able to remember anything about the picture.... BUT, it seems that all these 'clones' are able to remember their past lives, despite the memory changes/implants, and they are also somehow able to go and get items from their previous lives...
It was certainly made out that the company was a VAST conglomerate, and controlling in the extreme, why wouldn't they have just destroyed everything of his PAST life, when they gave him a new one... IE a fire or something.
Low budget behold though, almost ZERO other people in the entire fkn movie, leads to a very empty feeling world.
I also have an issue with WHY the company would clone slater at all... kill him and be done with it, surely its not a cheap process to do, I could be wrong though, it could be that far ahead that it's just a common thing... BUT if that was true, why would the company care if some random dude that they cloned, wanted to go fk his old GF, and be happy?
Thank you. Exactly.
I really wanted to love this film and it had an amazing theme full of incredible possibilities along with some truly gorgeous cinematography and sets.
But what just Ruined it was the constant set up of compelling themes and situations that were just smacked-down to the ground by contradictions and poorly thought-out consequences and vectors.
Like your point that the Company would've just killed ("erased") Slater if he was such a problem ..... and I agree - it made NO sense for the Company to force Slater to kill/assassinate numerous other "Slater" Identicals in order for Slater-Prime to live and get by in society. Common sense and Occam's Razor/the Law of Parsimony demand that the Company would have just "offed" Slater-Prime or even let the cops take him in for the death of Nadia-DOA. It makes no sense to protect him and keep putting him into new lives.
Furthermore, your other point that the Company should not have cared about Slater finding happiness with Nadia-#2 is another excellent example of the ways in which the storyline veered off into the Land of Contradiction.
Thank you for bringing up the plastic surgery and the memory implants. Those were two more examples of crazy contradictions. It made NO SENSE that the Identicals would have some memories but not others and there was never any explanation about that or the "rules" for what the Identicals carried with them and/or what changes needed to be made to them/their memories as well as what they retained from 'Life Space ' to 'Life Space'.
This film continually set up rules and parameters for its fictional universe only to immediately contradict them .... particularly when it came to elements that were critical to the plot. It was maddening as well as confusing and I'm looking for opinions and any insights into the film in an attempt to make some sort of sense out of the parts that did come together and/or were critical to the plot.
Perhaps this film simply cannot be understood because iy violates too many of its own rules and in-universe plot points ... but I keep hoping that I am wrong.
Since you are drawn to very horrible, lame, and boring movies... you should waste some more time watching ZOOMBIES (infected zoo animals escaping, etc). I saw it last night and then I watched this disaster today. :)