If you are diving into Bong Joon-ho’s latest sci-fi dark comedy, you are likely asking: how does Mickey 17 reprinting work? In the film, reprinting is a grim but efficient process. When an "Expendable" dies on the ice planet Niflheim, an MRI-like 3D bioprinter generates a fresh biological body. The deceased worker's memories—stored securely in a digital device known simply as a "brick"—are then uploaded into the new clone. Because this cloning technology was banned on Earth following a series of gruesome murders, it is only legally utilized on deep-space colonization missions where human life is treated as a disposable corporate asset.
Bong Joon-ho’s adaptation of Edward Ashton’s novel Mickey7 transforms a high-concept sci-fi premise into a biting critique of the gig economy. For Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), death is not an escape from his debts; it is just a brief interruption in his shift. Here is a deep dive into the technical, legal, and psychological mechanics of the Expendable program.
Step-by-Step: How Does Mickey 17 Reprinting Work on Niflheim?
The mechanics of the Expendable program are deliberately stripped of any futuristic glamour. The colony ship bound for Niflheim is not a utopia; it is a hyper-capitalist nightmare governed by severe rationing. Sex is banned because it burns too many calories, and food is strictly monitored. In this environment, the reprinting process is treated as an industrial necessity rather than a medical miracle.
When Mickey Barnes perishes—whether by freezing in an icy crevasse, asphyxiating in the vacuum of space, or being deliberately poisoned during the Niflheim virus trials—his biological data is sent to the ship's lab. The physical reconstruction relies on an advanced human bioprinter. Visually resembling a claustrophobic MRI machine, the printer extrudes a fresh, fully formed adult body using a raw protein paste.
The process is not instantaneous. The biological printer takes time to knit bone, muscle, and tissue together from the raw protein paste, leaving the newly minted clone in a state of disorienting vulnerability. The fresh body is physically flawless but entirely naked, dropping unceremoniously onto the cold laboratory floor. There is no gentle awakening or medical aftercare; the new Mickey is expected to suit up and immediately report for duty. This lack of basic empathy from the medical staff further highlights the transactional nature of his existence.
But a body is useless without the mind. This is where the memory backup system comes into play. Every Expendable is assigned a digital storage drive, bluntly referred to as a "brick" because of its heavy, utilitarian design. This brick houses the continuous backup of Mickey’s consciousness. Once the physical body is printed, the data from the brick is flashed into the clone's brain, effectively waking up the new Mickey with the accumulated knowledge (and trauma) of his predecessors. The system is designed to provide the Niflheim expedition with an unlimited body count, ensuring the safety of the "real" human colonists at the expense of one disposable worker.
Memory Backups and Trauma: How Does Mickey 17 Reprinting Work Mentally?
A common question among viewers—and indeed, among the characters in the film—is whether Mickey actually experiences his own deaths. Before leaving him at the bottom of a crevasse, his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) bluntly asks him what it feels like to die.
The answer highlights the sheer cruelty of the Expendable program. Mickey does not skip the pain. The telemetry in his space suit helmet, combined with the lab equipment he is hooked up to during scientific experiments, records his brainwaves in real-time right up until the moment of clinical death. He feels the agonizing burn of the incinerator, the choking desperation of asphyxiation, and the freezing numbness of the ice planet. The data transfer only stops when his brain permanently shuts down.
The psychological weight of these memories creates a unique form of PTSD. Because the telemetry captures the exact moment of clinical death, Mickey’s brain is constantly flooded with the sensory input of his own demise. When he is burned, he remembers the smell of his own charring flesh; when he is exposed to the vacuum of space, he remembers the horrific sensation of his blood boiling. The film uses this mechanic to inject a dark, morbid humor into the narrative, as Mickey casually discusses his various traumatic ends with the nonchalance of a worker complaining about a bad commute.
Because the new Mickey wakes up with the most recent backup, he remembers the exact sensation of dying. This creates a compounding psychological toll. Mickey 17 is not a fresh-faced recruit; he is a man carrying the visceral memory of being killed sixteen different ways. The colony leaders, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), view this trauma as a feature, not a bug. They require the Expendable to remember which alien flora is toxic or which atmospheric condition is lethal so the rest of the crew can avoid it.
The Multiples Law: How Does Mickey 17 Reprinting Work When It Fails?
The structural integrity of the Expendable program relies on one absolute rule: there can only ever be one iteration of a person alive at a time. So, how does Mickey 17 reprinting work when the system glitches? The answer is the "Multiples Law," a draconian legal statute enforced with religious fervor by Kenneth Marshall.
The inciting incident of the film occurs when Mickey 17 survives a fall into a crevasse and a subsequent encounter with Niflheim's native species, the "Creepers." Believed dead, his telemetry cuts out long enough for the colony to authorize a reprint. When Mickey 17 finally limps back to base, he discovers Mickey 18 already occupying his bunk.
Under Earth law—and the specific charter of the Niflheim colony—Multiples are classified as an illegal abomination. If the colony leadership discovers that two Mickeys exist simultaneously, the punishment is absolute eradication. Both copies must be executed and thrown into the colony's industrial incinerator. More devastatingly, the memory backup brick is permanently deleted. The individual is erased from existence, ending the cloning cycle forever.
The dynamic between Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 is the emotional core of the film's second act. Because 18 was brought online without the traumatic memory of surviving the crevasse and the Creepers, he is slightly more arrogant, less cautious, and entirely unwilling to sacrifice himself for his predecessor. They are forced into a bizarre roommate situation, sleeping in shifts and trying to cover each other's tracks. If they are caught, Kenneth Marshall will not hesitate to enact the incinerator protocol. Marshall’s fanatical hatred of Multiples stems from his own pompous, quasi-religious belief in the sanctity of the individual—a deeply hypocritical stance for a man who uses clones as cannon fodder.
Book vs. Film: How Does Mickey 17 Reprinting Work Differently Than the Novel?
Bong Joon-ho is notorious for taking liberties with his source material, and his adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey7 is no exception. The changes are not merely cosmetic; they fundamentally alter the thematic weight of the story.
First is the sheer volume of death. Ashton’s novel features Mickey on his seventh iteration. Bong increased the number to seventeen, amplifying the misery and highlighting the casual cruelty of the colony's leadership. The higher iteration count allows Robert Pattinson to play a character who is significantly more broken and cynical than his literary counterpart.
Mickey's backstory also received a major rewrite. In the novel, Mickey is an academic and a historian from the planet Midgard—one of the few people who still cares about Earth's ancient history. In the film, Mickey is a self-described "sniveling lowlife" who joins the Niflheim expedition to escape a murderous loan shark after failing at a macaron shop pyramid scheme. This shift grounds the film in Bong's trademark class critique; movie Mickey is not an intellectual explorer, but a desperate working-class gig worker with zero leverage.
Furthermore, the native species of Niflheim, the Creepers, undergo a radical transformation. In the book, they are somewhat menacing alien antagonists. In the film, they are sentient, largely peaceful creatures resembling giant tardigrade-beetles. The real monsters in Mickey 17 are not the aliens, but the human colonizers led by the pompous, Trumpian Kenneth Marshall, who is eager to exterminate the indigenous life forms despite their sentience.
The Philosophy of Niflheim's Expendable Program
Ultimately, the mechanics of reprinting in Mickey 17 serve as a vehicle for Bong Joon-ho’s exploration of labor and disposability. Dystopia, as framed by the film, is not just about oppressive architecture or totalitarian police states; it is what happens when a society stops viewing its bottom-tier workers as human beings.
The cloning technology was originally created by a psychopathic killer and banned on Earth due to a series of high-profile murders. It was only legally repurposed for space exploration because the elite recognized its economic value. Why spend billions engineering safe equipment when you can simply print a disposable human to test the hazards for free? Mickey is the ultimate embodiment of the modern gig worker—denied worker's compensation, denied basic dignity, and literally worked to death, only to be resurrected for his next shift.
During the voyage and the initial settlement on Niflheim, the social hierarchy is rigidly enforced. The elite class, represented by Marshall and his inner circle, enjoy whatever meager luxuries the colony can afford. Meanwhile, the Expendables and lower-tier workers like the shuttle pilot Timo are treated with open contempt. The Niflheim virus trials are a prime example: rather than investing time in computer modeling or animal testing, the scientists simply infect Mickey with the local pathogens, watch him die in agony, print a new one, and repeat the process until a vaccine is formulated. This brutal efficiency underscores the film's core thesis: in a purely capitalist expansion, human life is the cheapest resource available.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Does Mickey feel the pain of dying every time?
Yes. His suit telemetry and the lab equipment record his brainwaves right up until clinical death. The memory backup ensures the new clone remembers the exact sensation of burning, freezing, or suffocating.
Why is human printing banned on Earth?
The technology was originally developed by a serial killer and led to a string of murders. It was outlawed on Earth for ethical and religious reasons, but Kenneth Marshall exploited a legal loophole to use it for deep-space colonization.
What happens if two Mickeys are alive at the same time?
According to the Multiples Law, if two clones exist simultaneously, both must be executed in the incinerator, and their memory backup "brick" must be permanently deleted, erasing the Expendable from existence.
Are the Creepers on Niflheim dangerous?
While initially feared, the Creepers (giant tardigrade-beetle aliens) are actually sentient and largely peaceful. The true threat to the colony is the incompetence and cruelty of its human leadership.
Sources
- Ashton, Edward. Mickey7. St. Martin's Press, 2022.
- Bong Joon-ho (Director). Mickey 17. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2025.
- "Mickey 17: SHOCKING Differences Between Book & Movie." Collider, March 2025.
- "Creepers, Colonies, and Clones: The Philosophy of Mickey 17." Seen & Unseen, March 2025.