The possibility of a billionaire chartering a spaceship in order to colonize another planet doesn’t read as fantasy, especially on the heels of Jeff Bezos’ rocket completing its first successful launch in January and Elon Musk’s continued ambitions for SpaceX to eventually colonize Mars. In Mickey 17, one such self-titled expedition commander, is the coiffed, tanned, and guffawing Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo). Between his failed runs for the presidency and loud proclamations, Kenneth clearly shares qualities with President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. The megalomaniac, gene-obsessed billionaire with far-right beliefs wishes to start a colony on a new planet—not for the betterment of humanity, but merely to stroke his insatiable ego and run without opposition. His dream is to take over a “pure white planet” inhabited by a “superior species” with “impeccable genetics”—rhetoric that echoes previous eugenicist statements of Musk and Trump.
With the exception of Kenneth and his wife Gwen Marshall (Toni Collette), who live in a luxurious and opulently-decorated wing of the spacecraft, living conditions shatter any dreams those on board might have had about interstellar immigration.
The reality is significantly worse than that on Earth. Food is inedible, calories are counted, and extracurricular activities are limited, including sex, which is deemed too calorie-intensive and is therefore prohibited to “maximise our survival rate.” The ship itself is far from the sleek modernist designs that have become a regular occurrence in science fiction since 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Nor does it host the lush green spaces of other long-haul crafts as witnessed in Frankie Boyle’s Sunshine (2007) or Claire Denis’s High Life (2019). It is, in fact, closer to an airborne mass incarceration facility.
Things don’t get better when the spaceship reaches its destination. Niflheim is brutally cold with no visible vegetation. This destination is a fiscal decision made out of convenience, rather than in search of the perfect settlement. Kenneth selects Niflheim safe in the knowledge that his financial resources will enable him to continue his opulent existence, while the settlers suffer under the harsh, icy conditions of the new planet.
Mickey 17 draws on fascist and colonial history, combining it with the alt-right values of the present day. The film features countless references to Nazi-era policies, such as a natural birthing plan that encourages settlers to create a pure race on Niflheim, while the clinical trials Mickey is forced to endure harken back to the medical torture inflicted on concentration camp detainees. But while a clear reminder of our violent past, Mickey 17 also sets out the possibilities for a cruel future in which colonialism doubles down on present-day exploitation and expands it past the limitations of Earth.