Things We Learned From Movie X: The 6th Day
By Tom Houseman
August 5, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Or so I thought... little did I know that one film contains all the answers to the mysteries of where the future will take us. And not way off into the future, in a couple of centuries perhaps when it won't matter to all of us wondering when the recession will end and how Sarah Palin will fare in the 2012 presidential election. There's a little Arnold Schwarzenegger masterpiece you might have heard of, called The 6th Day, which is set "in the near future...sooner than you think" (ominous, right?) In fact, considering that the film was made in 2000, they could be referring to right now! The future has arrived, people.
Yes, The 6th Day is to cloning what Time Cop is to time travel, what Minority Report is to law enforcement, and what V for Vendetta is to women's hair styles. So for those of you who haven't had time to catch this gem, I've summed up the lessons you can learn from it. Who knows how this knowledge will pay off for you in the future...
The XFL Will be Wildly Successful
Remember the Extreme Football League, AKA the XFL? It was the totally awesome to the max football league started by WWF Chairman Vince McMahon that was essentially the same as the NFL but with inferior players (with awesome names like "He Hate Me"). No? You don't remember this kickin' sports experiment that lasted an entire season before folding in a blaze of failure? Well, get with the times, people! If The 6th Day is any indication, the XFL will be huge in the near future. The opening scene takes place at a packed XFL stadium where everyone is cheering on quarterback Johnny Phoenix, the Tom Brady/Chad Ochocinco hybrid superstar of the expansion team The Roadrunners. Yeah, in the future everyone will love the XFL.
Virtual People Will Be as Fake as Arnold Schwarzenegger
Here's one thing we already know: in the future, we will have lots of virtual friends, colleagues, and even lovers. Here's one thing we didn't know until we saw The 6th Day: they will be the most disturbing creatures in existence. They will make Chucky look like a My Little Pony, and they will be so horrifyingly fake that you will beg for the relief of a scene featuring two real actors, even if both of them are Arnold Schwarzenegger. At one point, Arnold picks up a "Sim Pal" which uses the slogan "a sim pal that's fun to be with" but to an outside observer would more likely be called "a horribly deformed child that will kill you when you turn your back on it." Add to that Michael Rapaport's creepy and over-attentive virtual girlfriend and the completely oblivious virtual lawyer's and psychiatrists, and we are looking at a future that is even more awkward than the present.
The Government Will Be Powerless to Stop Big Corporations
Now, I know what you're thinking, "I totally knew all that stuff about the XFL. Tell me something I don't know." Well set your minds to blown, because in the future, international corporations will be big. I'm talking God's bread box big. So big, in fact, that the government's only way to stop them from doing whatever they want, like cloning people whenever they feel like or even giving out subprime mortgages like candy (hypothetically) will be to shove their heads into the ground, make ostrich sounds, and pretend they have no idea what's going on. This will allow the massive corporations to completely take over the world. Really, the most surprising thing about this foresight on the part of The 6th Day is that it was made before George Bush took office, at which point this prediction became extremely obvious to anyone who watches the news.
Anti-Science Fundamentalists Will Be Proven to Be the Good Guys
Yes, it's true, what you all suspected: science is evil, and anyone who is trying to stop technology from developing totally has it right. Okay, so the makers of this film try to mask this prediction by pretending to take a fair and balanced approach, most likely to appease the guys who create the special effects - the only thing that make this movie watchable (and by watchable, I mean laughable, because the special effects are awful... and by the only thing I mean one of many, many things) but it is clear that the creative forces behind The 6th Day are trying to warn us that only by embracing intelligent design and destroying every science book not written in Alabama can we save the universe. This movie is the equivalent of those guys who stand on street corners and in the New York City subway system screaming about how the world is going to end if we don't embrace Jesus, only it is much less coherent.
Women Are Still Bad at Math
Yes, former Harvard President Lawrence Summers had it right when he said that women were bad at math, and it seems like that fact isn't going to change anytime "in the near future." In a scene that really tries its darndest to be powerful and shocking, bad guy Michael Drucker explains to our man Arnold how to tell the difference between an original and a clone. As an example, he turns to his sexy blue-haired sidekick and asks her how many times she's been cloned, to the reply "I've lost count." Ooh, creepy... well, it is until we learn how many times she's actually been cloned: Four. That's right, in the future women can't even count to four. I suspect, however, that she learned to count using the number of stars that reviewers gave The 6th Day, and that this example therefore does not reflect on society as a whole. I guess you'll have to wait to find out, but don't worry, the future will come sooner than you think...