MovieChat Forums > The Island (2005) Discussion > The biggest plothole, someone explain to...

The biggest plothole, someone explain to me please if I missed something


There are different generations of clones right, thats what the names mean right. So if a person uses one of their clones, that person gets "sent to the island". Then what happens when they make another generation of the same clone, how do they reintroduce it back to the other clones???? Wouldn't the other clones wonder why the same person is back after being sent to the island?

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They have different populations.




There's a rock song playing over the credits. It's not that the score isn't memorable.

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Uh, I don't think so. What scene did they state this? They do say that they have different "generations", but they all live within the same population, in the same giant bunker in the middle of the desert. I didn't see (or hear) anything to imply that they lived in separate groupings, other than that they sleep in male/female dormitories. In fact, it seems like they go out of their way to show the large group in many scenes congregating together in the enormous "lobby".

This seemed to me a huge plot hole. When they get rid of, and regrow four generations of their population, where are they going to house them where no one will recognize them? Get a new building? This was never explained, nor were we ever told that they had more than one place to house agnates. I have seen this movie at least 20 times, so if I missed this information, please tell me where it is explained in the movie, I would like to know.

To each their own...opinion

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Just logic. No one is going to come back from the island and rejoin the population because the policy holder needs a new policy. They'd have to join a new population.




If you pirate media, you do not get to have an opinion on it.

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Yeah, that's what I would think. They do show a few buildings as part of the facility. It's likely there are at least 2 separate populations.

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This seemed to me a huge plot hole. When they get rid of, and regrow four generations of their population, where are they going to house them where no one will recognize them?
I really don't understand the OP's question. If someone from a specific generation goes to "the island" wouldn't they be gone. Why would anyone recognize another agnate since the "sponsers" contract had been fufilled. They wouldn't come back.

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I am in a car crash. Need a new liver and a kidney. My clone is harvested and killed. Now I am without clone, I want a clone, what happens if I come down with Cancer? IF, as far as people know, Clones are just sacks of meat then why not order another one. However in the underground bunker there are people who will recognise my 'new' clone.... so what do they do?

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I don't think they ever regrew clones for multiple 'policies' , I thought the generation marker was just given to everyone in a batch, not newer versions of the same people. I thought the 'generations' were like car years , 2005 Ford , 2006 Chevy. They have only made a batch of clones 12 (or whatever ) times since the whole thing began.

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^ this

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At the end they have a mass lottery selection with the stated goal to regrow the clones. How would they reintegrate those clones?

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It wasnt stated if they allowed the buyers to buy more clones after they used the first one. And they never discussed other populations in the movie either. But if you go to around 49 minutes in when they escape the silo and enters the desert, you see they come out of a hatch labeled "SILO 3". That points to that there are other super mega big building like that in other places. Its very likely, even. So in theory the customers could buy more clones. I mean, why wouldnt they allow it, seen from the customers perspective in the movie. The customers think the clones are in a veggie state and that everything is fine. They make more money selling clones several times too, to returning customers, so my guess is they do provide that service, and that they do have more than one "silo" with diffrent populations at the same time.

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It wasnt stated if they allowed the buyers to buy more clones after they used the first one.
It's implied that they do because they ask Lincoln to come in to be "re-scanned" for a replacement clone suggesting there is a procedure for this..

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Pretty simple. Just tell the population that the previous people were recontaminated and had to go back. They lost their memories to contamination.

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The OP does have a point which is only really explainable by segregated populations or numerous facilities...neither of which are explicitly mentioned in the film as far as I can remember.

I think a few are missing the point being made too. Take the Michael Clarke Duncan (RIP) character, there's no mistaking this guy, his real world 'owner' the MCD football player needs organs/parts from the clone MCD...so we see this, the clone is killed to get the 'parts' and the population is fed the story he's off to the island...that's fine, but what happens when the MCD real world football player recovers and decides he wants to pay £5m or whatever it was for a new clone...it is a business after all...and if there's only one facility and no segregation then how would this new clone be introduced back into the clone population, as I said there's no mistaking MCD is there?!

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They appear to have separate populations that did not interact with each other. This was alluded to in so far as they referred to where they lived and worked as sectors. It appears that there were 3 towers in the visible complex referred to as sector 1,2 and 3 from what I could glean by examining the monitors in the security centre. Lincoln and Jordan lived and worked in what appeared to be sector 3 as the areas were all prefixed with the number 3. Lincoln appeared not to know anything about the other sectors as he believed McCord lived in Sector 5 and asked him what it was like in that sector. It is reasonable to assume that they believed there was more than one complex also seeing that Lincoln believed McCord lived in Sector 5.

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I'd probably need to re-watch the movie, but I always had the impression the 'sectors' were merely part of the story fed to the clones, which in reality were only the inner workings of the facility. The areas where the clones were imprinted, the medical area, the engineering 'sector' where McCord worked..., I certainly don't remember another sector where another clone populace existed.

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We never see another clone sector but it's possible. However, I think it's more likely that the writers just didn't think it through properly.

To take another problematic example: A presumably barren woman pays for a surrogate clone to have her baby. The clone is killed immediately after it is born so what happens if she wants another one? This also brings another question, which is why is her clone not barren too?

Also, what happens if you loose an ear or finger to dog/frost bite and want your "insurance policy" to replace it?
It seems wasteful to dispose of a whole human body just to replace a small appendage...but then that's why the policy costs $5 million.

The premise of this film was copied from a book called SPARES by Michael Marshall Smith which is much better (as is usually the case). In the book the "spares" are held captive on secret "farms" so the public doesn't know about them but they're well aware of their predicament. Recommended!

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21010.Spares

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There must be otherwise how would they have handled the "mass winnings" the plan was to dispose of all them and create new clones. If everyone in their sector thought they won once re grown they must have to be introduced somewhere new.

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