MovieChat Forums > Multiplicity (1996) Discussion > Fun film, but that opening premise is ju...

Fun film, but that opening premise is just idiotic.


"Hello, Doug. I'm your friendly neighborhood mad scientist. I see you have family trouble! Guess what, I happen to have a freely accessible clone machine here and I can use it to clone people! How about me cloning you in, say, one day?"

That's an example of some of the laziest writing I can remember.

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Not so sure...the cloning company was perhaps in their beginning stages, maybe they didn't have enough testing to go public so the doctor himself had to go scout for recruits- and what better recruit than an overworked father!? Anyways I think it's one of the best qualities in a fictional movie like this- that there is someone out there who purposely seeks out the main character and brings him into a great adventure. Of course the movie isn't supposed to be realistic...after all, the gaps in memory would have totally given everything away to the wife in a day- we rely too much on day to day info to be able to switch with someone else who hasn't experienced it. Idiotic perhaps, but I still love the film!

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Yes it seemed like it was written in ten minutes lol.

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its a strange one - the actual premise is good and well executed but the opening is too rushed.

The build up is not big enough and your right the opening is lazy

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Technically I agree with you. I mean the "science" is never explored in the slightest and yeah, the scientist just happens to be standing near by. And of course later other Dougs just appear out of nowhere.

Practically though, the film almost goes for 2 hours. My guess is that they couldn't really figure how to make the science funny and fit it contextually into the movie, so they just passed on it.

I agree; lazy writing , but it didn't worry me too much. It's clearly a fantasy.

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I feel like the scientist used Doug as much as Doug used the scientist.
"Do you even remember what you came here to find?"

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The premise is stupid, the solution is stupid, Doug's immediate acceptance is stupid, what they do with the story is stupid, how nothing makes sense is stupid.

But at least nothing makes sense, from the kid's black belt to the other kid's lackluster 'excitement pretension' about the SIMPLEST, most BASIC Yo-Yo-'trick' you can do (can you GET more basic? At least show me level 2 trick if you're gonna be THAT excited about it, not that the kid CONVEYS the excitement believably)..

Doug would've been better off just hiring a nurse to take care of the kids (and maybe teach him about child psychology so he could've learned proper discipline instead of screaming or getting angry - you don't need anger to control kids or dogs, you need calm and assertive energy), hiring some assistant to handle his work problems, hiring some kind of 'life coach' to make him able to arrange his life more efficiently and then taking a couple of weeks off.

But sure, let's go with the INSANE 'let's bring slave-lookalikes into my house that I don't let have any kind of life of their own'.

Think about if the clones DIDN'T do his bidding, or WEREN'T enthusiastic about helping him for food salary. Think if the clones wanted to have their own life and didn't care AT ALL what Doug wanted.

SO much could've gone wrong in so many ways this movie is even afraid to show us.

It's not just the opening premise that is idiotic. This whole movie is idiotic, but that's why so many people of this planet find it good. Perfect movie for this planet's audiences..

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seeing how violent doug was is also a red flag not to clone him.

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