BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | The Island 'faces copyright case'

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | The Island 'faces copyright case': "The producers of Parts: The Clonus Horror, asked a New York court for the sci-fi thriller to be withdrawn from cinemas, according to Variety magazine."

This is not a joke. Apparently, not one single person who worked on the new Michael Bay box office disappointment The Island thought to check if, oh, I don't know, maybe Peter Graves hadn't been in the exact same film decades earlier. It was an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for God's sake. The plot of Parts is thus: people live a life of ease and ignorance on a reservation. Occasionally, one will be selected to leave and go to "America", a fantastic land that is somehow even better than where they are already. Turns out they are all clones, and the ultra-rich cell donors use them as needed for young replacement organs with no chance of immunological rejection. There is no "America". That's just a code-word for "get ready for surgery, meat puppet."

Perhaps Michael Bay will take the basic plot of his next film and Google it before production starts: A search for clone movie harvest organs -"michael bay" -"the island" returns a Parts reference on the very first page.

The 1979 film is rather bland: its MST3K episode largely consists of Mike and the Bots making fun of Peter Graves by injecting a mention of his stint as host of A&E's Biography anywhere they can. The highlight is when Mike summarizes a scene of the main character, a clone with big feathered hair, walking along a shore deep in contemplation as "I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna start a band called Air Supply." I parrot this line often, even to this day.

If only Michael Bay had asked me to help him, I could have avoided this lawsuit. That would have been my advice to him: "Mikey," I'd say, "you can't make a movie about clones used as spare parts for people. It's been done. Also, whatever it's about, you must make sure that it features Scarlett Johansson's big titties flappin' around like there's no tomorrow. You owe it to mankind as penance for making Pearl Harbor."