I’m watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie called The 6th Day (2000). In the not too distant future, a company can illegally clone people. With a live person or fresh body, they can turn out a duplicate in a day or two. The clone is the same age, looks the same and has the memories of the original. The clone wakes up a little discombobulated, but doesn’t know he’s a clone.
The Arnold on the left is the clone, and walks up to the couch with his happy dog. The original Arnold, on the right, was hiding behind the couch. When the clone walks away, the dog is happy to play with original Arnold as he crawls out from his hiding spot.
A hundred percent, that would be Sparky. If my clone and I were sitting on opposite ends of the couch, Sparky would go to the closest version. If that me didn’t play or give him any attention, he’d try the other guy.
I can be so certain because I’ve seen how Sparky deals with Mr. Moose. From the same line of dog toys, Sparky has a gray raccoon, also called Mr. Moose. I got the raccoon, because the moose is orange and difficult to see amongst the fallen leaves in the autumn. If Sparky has a firm grip on orange moose, I can grab the gray raccoon and claim victory. Sparky falls for it every time.
Sparky might like a few clones around here. Sparky and I hang out quite a bit, but he gets bored when I’m on the computer. The ideal situation for Sparky would be enough of us so that at any given moment, one of us is eating or cooking. Probably six or eight clones would do it.
The 6th Day isn’t a very good movie. It has an IMDB rating of 5.9 and lost money at the box office. They knew that generating an identical copy of an adult in a day or two by cloning, wasn’t at all plausible. The movie gets pretty elaborate in trying to explain it. At one point, a clone is pulled out of the pod prematurely. The clone is slimy and half-baked, but fully functional and aware of the situation.
Arnold is fine in the movie, but it’s strange to seem him fight a regular guy, and not dominate. Eventually, Arnold and his clone are working together against the company. At the end, it seems like a Multiplicity situation. That’s the Michael Keaton movie where his duplicates help him get be in several places at once.
The futuristic world-building was decent, but not extensive like in Blade Runner or more ambitious science fiction movies.