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** TheLoad[=/=][[spoiler: EleventhHourRanger]]: Mr. Meeks. Meeks wants to get out, but he's a bit of a loon and doesn't do much. [[spoiler: Until they get to the bar and he helps enlist the patrons to save them from Noakes.]]
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** TheLoad[=/=][[spoiler: EleventhHourRanger]]: TheLoad[=/=][[spoiler:EleventhHourRanger]]: Mr. Meeks. Meeks wants to get out, but he's a bit of a loon and doesn't do much. [[spoiler: Until they get to the bar and he helps enlist the patrons to save them from Noakes.]]
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** The Hero[=/=]TheSmartGuy: Erine comes up with the plans to break out and Cavendish calls him "ruddy ruddy Genius" in a moment of panic.
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** The Hero[=/=]TheSmartGuy: TheHero[=/=]TheSmartGuy: Erine comes up with the plans to break out and Cavendish calls him "ruddy ruddy Genius" in a moment of panic.
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* FiveManBand: Cavendish is a part of one in his story to break out of Aurora House, though its more like a Four Man Band.
** The Hero[=/=]TheSmartGuy: Erine comes up with the plans to break out and Cavendish calls him "ruddy ruddy Genius" in a moment of panic.
** TheLancer: Timothy Cavendish helps put Noakes at bay and drives the getaway car.
** TheChick: Veronica is the only lady of group and fits TheSmurfettePrinciple, though she helps in taking the phone they need to kickstart their escape.
** TheLoad[=/=][[spoiler: EleventhHourRanger]]: Mr. Meeks. Meeks wants to get out, but he's a bit of a loon and doesn't do much. [[spoiler: Until they get to the bar and he helps enlist the patrons to save them from Noakes.]]
** The Hero[=/=]TheSmartGuy: Erine comes up with the plans to break out and Cavendish calls him "ruddy ruddy Genius" in a moment of panic.
** TheLancer: Timothy Cavendish helps put Noakes at bay and drives the getaway car.
** TheChick: Veronica is the only lady of group and fits TheSmurfettePrinciple, though she helps in taking the phone they need to kickstart their escape.
** TheLoad[=/=][[spoiler: EleventhHourRanger]]: Mr. Meeks. Meeks wants to get out, but he's a bit of a loon and doesn't do much. [[spoiler: Until they get to the bar and he helps enlist the patrons to save them from Noakes.]]
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* WhoWearsShortShorts: The Fabricants do.
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Yeah that quote sounded much less sweet and much more \"oh FROBISCHER, you ass\" in its context in the book.
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* DepravedBisexual: Robert Frobisher -- charming, hedonistic, manipulative, thieving, sees no problem with cheating, freely admits he'll never truly love anyone but himself ([[spoiler:though in the end, he almost admits he loves Sixsmith]]) and leaps easily from one conquest to the next. He's a true self-absorbed sensualist and opportunist.
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* DepravedBisexual: Robert Frobisher -- charming, hedonistic, manipulative, thieving, sees no problem with cheating, freely admits he'll never truly love anyone but himself ([[spoiler:though in the end, he almost admits he loves Sixsmith]]) Sixsmith... unless the "sole love of [his] short, bright life" he refers to is actually ''music''.]]) and leaps easily from one conquest to the next. He's a true self-absorbed sensualist and opportunist.
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* {{Reincarnation}}: A recurring theme in the novel (though it is left ambiguous whether it is real). Also an explicit belief of the Valleysmen in "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After", of the Buddhists in Sonmi's era and of the Moriori. Luisa doesn't believe in it at all.
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* {{Reincarnation}}: A recurring theme in the novel (though it is left ambiguous whether it is real). Also an explicit belief of the Valleysmen in "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After", of the Buddhists Buddhist priests in Sonmi's era and of the Moriori. Luisa doesn't believe in it at all.
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* TheSecretofLongPorkPies: [[spoiler: The soap that the Fabricants drink? It's made from them. And if we are also going by the book as well, the food at Papa-Song's as well.]]
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* BittersweetEnding: They each story ends ranges from [[DownerEnding tragic]] to [[EarnYourHappyEnding uplifting]], so in the end, the story as a whole is bittersweet. The very last chronological story involves [[spoiler:civilization fleeing Earth and moving off-world toward an unknown but hopeful future, with Meronym and Zachry HappilyMarried.]].
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* BittersweetEnding: They each Each story ends ranges from [[DownerEnding tragic]] to [[EarnYourHappyEnding uplifting]], so in the end, the story as a whole is bittersweet. The very last chronological story involves [[spoiler:civilization fleeing Earth and moving off-world toward an unknown but hopeful future, with Meronym and Zachry HappilyMarried.]].
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Changed line(s) 42 (click to see context) from:
* BittersweetEnding: They each story ends ranges from tragic to uplifting, so in the end, the story as a whole is bittersweet. The very last chronological story involves [[spoiler:civilization fleeing Earth and moving off-world toward an unknown but hopeful future.]].
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* BittersweetEnding: They each story ends ranges from tragic [[DownerEnding tragic]] to uplifting, [[EarnYourHappyEnding uplifting]], so in the end, the story as a whole is bittersweet. The very last chronological story involves [[spoiler:civilization fleeing Earth and moving off-world toward an unknown but hopeful future.future, with Meronym and Zachry HappilyMarried.]].
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* MercyKill: Hae-Joo Im shoots [[spoiler: Xi-Li]] in the head when the latter is hit by a government weapon that causes agonizing pain while keeping the victim conscious. Similar mercy kills are accepted practice among [[LaResistance Union]].
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* {{Yellowface}}: All the non-Asian main cast members (including the black actors) except for Hanks and Whishaw appear in yellowface in the movie version of "An Orison of Sonmi~451". Bae Doona also inverts the trope by playing white women in two stories.
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* {{Yellowface}}: All the non-Asian main cast members (including the black actors) except for Hanks and Whishaw appear in yellowface in the movie version of "An Orison of Sonmi~451". Bae Doona and Zhou Xun also inverts invert the trope by playing white women in two stories.
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Changed line(s) 92 (click to see context) from:
* {{Gorn}}: Yoona's slave collar slits her throat pretty grahpically.
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* {{Gorn}}: While there is quite a bit of blood in the film, it's much more restrained than one would think.
** Yoona's slave collar slits her throat prettygrahpically.graphically.
** [[spoiler: The fabricant slaughterhouse.]]
** [[spoiler: Frobisher]]'s suicide is very bloody.
** [[spoiler: The Kona Chief]]'s death has a lot of blood spewing out of his throat.
** Yoona's slave collar slits her throat pretty
** [[spoiler: The fabricant slaughterhouse.]]
** [[spoiler: Frobisher]]'s suicide is very bloody.
** [[spoiler: The Kona Chief]]'s death has a lot of blood spewing out of his throat.
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Don\'t list aversions.
Deleted line(s) 143 (click to see context) :
* NoNewFashionsInTheFuture: Averted. While the fashion changes between 1974 and 2012 aren't much, 2144 is another matter altogether. Apart from some working overalls, virtually ''nothing'' is recognizable.
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* ComicBookFantasyCasting: In-universe. When Cavendish is planning the escape with his compatriots, he imagines that a film adaptation should have the hero be "[[Creator/LaurenceOlivier Sir Laurence Olivier]] with a dash of Creator/Michael Caine."
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* ComicBookFantasyCasting: In-universe. When Cavendish is planning the escape with his compatriots, he imagines that a film adaptation should have the hero be "[[Creator/LaurenceOlivier Sir Laurence Olivier]] with a dash of Creator/Michael Caine.Creator/MichaelCaine."
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* ComicBookFantasyCasting: In-universe. When Cavendish is planning the escape with his compatriots, he imagines that a film adaptation should have the hero be "[[Creator/LaurenceOlivier Sir Laurence Olivier]] with a dash of Creator/Michael Caine."
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* GunKata
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* GunKata{{Gorn}}: Yoona's slave collar slits her throat pretty grahpically.
* GunKata: Hae-Joo Chang is pretty well trained in this, judging how easily defeats multiple {{Mooks}} in the movie.
* GunKata: Hae-Joo Chang is pretty well trained in this, judging how easily defeats multiple {{Mooks}} in the movie.
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* WorldOfBadass: Not to the extremes of other works, but there are a lot of courageous characters in the story. Everybody pulls off risky schemes to either save their skin or save others.
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* LargeHam: Tom Hanks really gets to let loose in several of his roles.
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* LargeHam: Several actors get to have a lot of fun.
** Tom Hanks really gets to let loose in several of hisroles.roles, especially with Dr. Henry Goose and Dermont.
** Jim Broadbent as Cavendish is very fun to watch and his narration is the most playful than any of the other ones.
** Most of Hugo Weaving's performances are pretty restrained, but he completely gobbles the [[ChewingTheScenery scenery]] as Old Georgie.
** Tom Hanks really gets to let loose in several of his
** Jim Broadbent as Cavendish is very fun to watch and his narration is the most playful than any of the other ones.
** Most of Hugo Weaving's performances are pretty restrained, but he completely gobbles the [[ChewingTheScenery scenery]] as Old Georgie.
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* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Averted with Isaac and Zachry (both played by TomHanks), who are significantly less attractive in the film than in the novel.
* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler: The Union is actually a true rebellion in the film, in comparison to the book in which it is just a fake.]]
** Cavendish's more racist and misogynistic aspects of his personality aren't even brought in the film.
** Cavendish's more racist and misogynistic aspects of his personality aren't even brought in the film.
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* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Averted with Isaac and Zachry (both played by TomHanks), who are significantly less attractive in the film than in the novel.
* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler: The Union is actually a true rebellion in the film, in comparison to the book in which it is just a fake.]]
** Cavendish's more racist and misogynistic aspects of his personality aren't even brought in the film.
* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler: The Union is actually a true rebellion in the film, in comparison to the book in which it is just a fake.]]
** Cavendish's more racist and misogynistic aspects of his personality aren't even brought in the film.
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* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler: The Union is actually a true rebellion in the film, in comparison to the book in which it is just a fake.]]
** Cavendish's more racist and misogynistic aspects of his personality aren't even brought in the film.
** Cavendish's more racist and misogynistic aspects of his personality aren't even brought in the film.
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----
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----
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And another!
Deleted line(s) 155,161 (click to see context) :
* ShoutOut: Many and varied, since Mitchell writes in just about every genre going. Each genre is more or less explicitly compared to what inspired it:
*** In the film, Cavendish compares Knuckle Sandwich to Moby Dick, an attempt to pacify Dermot about the former's lagging sales.
** In one story, ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'', the protagonist quotes [[spoiler:''Film/SoylentGreen'', which becomes horribly relevant in the next story]].
** The name of one story's title character, Luisa Rey, is an apparent [[ShoutOut reference]] to the book ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' by Thornton Wilder.
** Sonmi~[[Literature/{{Fahrenheit451}} 451]]'s number.
** Fabricants? Disposable clones employed for inhuman tasks without regard for their dignity? Sounds like [[BladeRunner Replicants]].
** Sonmi mentions reading the works of "optimists" Huxley and Orwell. This is a reference to Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, best remembered for their respective dystopian novels ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' and ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]''
*** In the film, Cavendish compares Knuckle Sandwich to Moby Dick, an attempt to pacify Dermot about the former's lagging sales.
** In one story, ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'', the protagonist quotes [[spoiler:''Film/SoylentGreen'', which becomes horribly relevant in the next story]].
** The name of one story's title character, Luisa Rey, is an apparent [[ShoutOut reference]] to the book ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' by Thornton Wilder.
** Sonmi~[[Literature/{{Fahrenheit451}} 451]]'s number.
** Fabricants? Disposable clones employed for inhuman tasks without regard for their dignity? Sounds like [[BladeRunner Replicants]].
** Sonmi mentions reading the works of "optimists" Huxley and Orwell. This is a reference to Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, best remembered for their respective dystopian novels ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' and ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]''
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Moving to triiivvvvviiaaaaaaaaa
Deleted line(s) 141 (click to see context) :
* PlayingAgainstType: You could make arguments for a lot of parts actors play in the movie. Seeing Tom Hanks playing characters as sleazy, or downright villainous, as the Hotel Manager, Dr. Henry Goose and Dermot Hoggins is a delightful surprise. Hugh Grant plays both a CorruptCorporateExecutive and a ''cannibal tribesman''.
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* MindScrew: Each story initially appears to be set in the same universe as its predecessor. This is toyed with when Frobisher questions the veracity of Ewing's journal, then completely undermined when Cavendish receives Rey's story as a the manuscript for a fictional novel. Yet connections between the characters seem to bridge this fiction-reality divide, such as the shared birthmark of Frobisher, Rey, Sonmi, and Meronym. Similarly, the reader is led to believe that all of the protagonists are one reincarnated soul, marked by the distinctive birthmark, but this is disputed since the lifespans of Luisa Rey and Timothy Cavendish should overlap... ''unless'' [[FridgeBrilliance they're two aspects of the same person, since they're the exact same age]]. Her being a fictional character in his universe might be a more significant barrier, unless she was real and "Half-Lives" is a story based on her adventures -- which is entirely possible.
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* MindScrew: Each story initially appears to be set in the same universe as its predecessor. This is toyed with when Frobisher questions the veracity of Ewing's journal, then completely undermined when Cavendish receives Rey's story as a the manuscript for a fictional novel. Yet connections between the characters seem to bridge this fiction-reality divide, such as the shared birthmark of Frobisher, Rey, Sonmi, and Meronym. Similarly, the reader is led to believe that all of the protagonists are one reincarnated soul, marked by the distinctive birthmark, but this is disputed since the lifespans of Luisa Rey and Timothy Cavendish should overlap... ''unless'' [[FridgeBrilliance they're two aspects of the same person, since they're the exact same age]]. Her being a fictional character in his universe might be a more significant barrier, unless she was real and "Half-Lives" is a story based on her adventures -- which is entirely possible. [[spoiler: The film implies this possibility more heavily than the book, because in the film the "Half-Lives" manuscript is written by Javier Gomez, the same kid who routinely drops in to visit Luisa and doesn't shut up about mystery tropes.]]
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* HeartbeatSoundtrack: Though it's somewhat difficult to hear over the score, the audience finally hears Hae-Joo's heart as Sonmi~451 does [[spoiler:as it slows to a stop]].
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* MulticoloredHair: What the novel implies to be [[WhiteHairedPrettyGirl white hair]] on the fabricants is instead normal Asian black hair in the film, but with two locks of some bright color.
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* MulticoloredHair: What the novel implies to be [[WhiteHairedPrettyGirl white hair]] hair on the fabricants is instead normal Asian black hair in the film, but with two locks of some bright color.
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* MagicalNegro: shown as the technologically advanced elites in the far future setting. Notably, the white characters live a primitive, tribal lifestyle. In many ways this comes off as a satirical inversion of the classic Victorian WhiteMansBurden setup.
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Changed line(s) 4,5 (click to see context) from:
A film based on DavidMitchell's 2004 novel, '''''Cloud Atlas''''' is a sweeping epic that connects wildly different genres and writing styles into a single narrative. The film consists of six nested stories, each set in a different place and era, moving forwards in time from the 19th century all the way to the future AfterTheEnd. Each story and style is a {{pastiche}} of the most recognizable examples of the genre, and lovingly combines old clichés with new twists. A comet-shaped birthmark appears in each story on the protagonist, and the characters reference names, places, and experiences from other stories. In order of introduction, the six stories are:
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A film based on DavidMitchell's 2004 novel, '''''Cloud Atlas''''' ''Literature/CloudAtlas'' is a sweeping epic that connects wildly different genres and writing styles into a single narrative. The film consists of six nested stories, each set in a different place and era, moving forwards in time from the 19th century all the way to the future AfterTheEnd. Each story and style is a {{pastiche}} of the most recognizable examples of the genre, and lovingly combines old clichés with new twists. A comet-shaped birthmark appears in each story on the protagonist, and the characters reference names, places, and experiences from other stories. In order of introduction, the six stories are:
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removing book tropes that aren\'t present in the film, along with other minor edits
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* AlienSky: It's revealed at the end of the film that an aging Zachry is narrating his tale [[spoiler:from one of the off-world colonies long after being rescued]].
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* AlienSky: It's revealed This trope appears at the end of the film to show that an aging Zachry is narrating his tale [[spoiler:from one of the off-world colonies long after being rescued]].
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* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Hae-Joo and Sonmi have this trope going on... [[spoiler: Although Sonmi is convinced he was in on the GovernmentConspiracy in the end]].
to:
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Hae-Joo and Sonmi have this trope going on... [[spoiler: Although Sonmi is convinced he was in on the GovernmentConspiracy in the end]].on.
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* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:Sonmi was knowingly cooperating with Unanimity the entire time to have the opportunity to spread her message.]]
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* BreatherEpisode: ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'', while creepy in places, is funnier and more light-hearted than the other segments. Especially noticeable since it comes right before/after the very depressing ''An Orison of Sonmi~451''.
to:
* BreatherEpisode: ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'', while creepy in places, is funnier and more light-hearted than the other segments. Especially noticeable since it comes right before/after the very depressing ''An Orison of Sonmi~451''.
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* CallForward: There's also the opposite -- Frobisher, when presented with the opportunity to [[spoiler:slit Ayrs's throat]], has a sort of reverse deja vu calling forward to [[spoiler:Zachry slitting a Kona's throat]].
to:
* CallForward: There's also the opposite -- Frobisher, when presented with the opportunity to [[spoiler:slit Ayrs's throat]], has a sort of reverse deja vu calling forward to [[spoiler:Zachry slitting a Kona's throat]].
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* GenreBusting / GenreRoulette: Each story is a completely different genre and written in a different format, from letters to semi-screenplay to interview transcription. Genres include PeriodDrama, HistoricalFiction, SeaStory, {{Cyberpunk}}, FilmNoir, {{Adventure}}, {{Satire}}, {{Comedy}}, {{Dystopia}}, ScienceFantasy, SpaceOpera, RomanticComedy, {{Romance}}, SpyFiction, MysteryFiction, {{Tragedy}}, and about [[{{Troperiffic}} everything inbetween]].
to:
* GenreBusting / GenreRoulette: Each story is a completely different genre and written in a different format, from letters to semi-screenplay to interview transcription. Genres include genre, including PeriodDrama, HistoricalFiction, SeaStory, {{Cyberpunk}}, FilmNoir, {{Adventure}}, {{Satire}}, {{Comedy}}, {{Dystopia}}, ScienceFantasy, SpaceOpera, RomanticComedy, {{Romance}}, SpyFiction, MysteryFiction, {{Tragedy}}, and about [[{{Troperiffic}} everything inbetween]].
Changed line(s) 89,92 (click to see context) from:
* GladToBeAliveSex: [[spoiler:Between Sonmi and Hae-Joo after witnessing the fabricant recycling plant.
* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler: [[OneWorldOrder The Corporacy]] organizing Sonmi's ascencion in order to radicalize public opinion against fabricants and distract from the system's real problems. Sonmi realised it very early on, and decided to play along anyway, since it gave her a chance to start a revolution even if the revolution was engineered.]]
** This was left out in the movie.
* GreatOffscreenWar: "An Orison of Sonmi~451"'s Skirmishes.
* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler: [[OneWorldOrder The Corporacy]] organizing Sonmi's ascencion in order to radicalize public opinion against fabricants and distract from the system's real problems. Sonmi realised it very early on, and decided to play along anyway, since it gave her a chance to start a revolution even if the revolution was engineered.]]
** This was left out in the movie.
* GreatOffscreenWar: "An Orison of Sonmi~451"'s Skirmishes.
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* GladToBeAliveSex: [[spoiler:Between Sonmi and Hae-Joo after witnessing the fabricant recycling plant.
* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler: [[OneWorldOrder The Corporacy]] organizing Sonmi's ascencion in order to radicalize public opinion against fabricants and distract from the system's real problems. Sonmi realised it very early on, and decided to play along anyway, since it gave her a chance to start a revolution even if the revolution was engineered.]]
** This was left out in the movie.
* GreatOffscreenWar: "An Orison of Sonmi~451"'s Skirmishes.plant.]]
* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler: [[OneWorldOrder The Corporacy]] organizing Sonmi's ascencion in order to radicalize public opinion against fabricants and distract from the system's real problems. Sonmi realised it very early on, and decided to play along anyway, since it gave her a chance to start a revolution even if the revolution was engineered.]]
** This was left out in the movie.
* GreatOffscreenWar: "An Orison of Sonmi~451"'s Skirmishes.
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* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: Played with. Despite the characters apparently being reincarnations or something similar of each other, some of the stories are presented as fiction when they appear in another story. Lampshaded by Frobisher, who points out to Sixsmith in his letters that ''The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing'' feels a bit too well-structured to be a true diary. The logical overlap between the lives of Rey and Cavendish only makes things more confusing. The novel lampshades this when Cavendish outright rejects the idea of his birthmark being similar to a comet; the film does away with this angle by never calling attention to any ambiguous fictitiousness.
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* StylisticSuck:
** The film that Sonmi-451 watches based on Cavendish's life is campy, over-acted (by an obviously made-up Tom Hanks) and bears only the loosest resemblance to the actual Cavendish we see in the film.
** Cavendish's story in the book is far worse written than the other storylines, with intrusive similes, plenty of tangents, and stylistic levels swinging wildly between the pompous and the slangy.
** Luisa Rey's story is written in the present tense, and intentionally feels like a somewhat clumsy imitation of mystery novels, which Cavendish (ironically) decides to edit into something better.
** The film that Sonmi-451 watches based on Cavendish's life is campy, over-acted (by an obviously made-up Tom Hanks) and bears only the loosest resemblance to the actual Cavendish we see in the film.
** Cavendish's story in the book is far worse written than the other storylines, with intrusive similes, plenty of tangents, and stylistic levels swinging wildly between the pompous and the slangy.
** Luisa Rey's story is written in the present tense, and intentionally feels like a somewhat clumsy imitation of mystery novels, which Cavendish (ironically) decides to edit into something better.
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* StylisticSuck:
**StylisticSuck: The film that Sonmi-451 watches based on Cavendish's life is campy, over-acted (by an obviously made-up Tom Hanks) and bears only the loosest resemblance to the actual Cavendish we see in the film.
** Cavendish's story in the book is far worse written than the other storylines, with intrusive similes, plenty of tangents, and stylistic levels swinging wildly between the pompous and the slangy.
** Luisa Rey's story is written in the present tense, and intentionally feels like a somewhat clumsy imitation of mystery novels, which Cavendish (ironically) decides to edit into something better.film.
**
** Cavendish's story in the book is far worse written than the other storylines, with intrusive similes, plenty of tangents, and stylistic levels swinging wildly between the pompous and the slangy.
** Luisa Rey's story is written in the present tense, and intentionally feels like a somewhat clumsy imitation of mystery novels, which Cavendish (ironically) decides to edit into something better.
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* TechnicolorEyes: Sonmis have white irises in the novel. The Abbess' eyes flash various colours while she is trying to learn the meaning of Zachry's dream in the film.
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* TechnicolorEyes: Sonmis have white irises in the novel. The Abbess' eyes flash various colours while she is trying to learn the meaning of Zachry's dream in the film.
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* TranslationConvention: "An Orison of Sonmi~451" is presumably actually in a future version of Korean.
** Although, in the film, the archivist comments on how Sonmi speaks good "consumer", and she replies in what sounds like futuristic Korean. Thus, we can infer that "Korean" exists but is viewed as the common people's parlance, whereas English is what all the higher-class people and/or the government speak. This is akin to how Latin was used historically throughout much of Europe.
** Although, in the film, the archivist comments on how Sonmi speaks good "consumer", and she replies in what sounds like futuristic Korean. Thus, we can infer that "Korean" exists but is viewed as the common people's parlance, whereas English is what all the higher-class people and/or the government speak. This is akin to how Latin was used historically throughout much of Europe.
to:
* TranslationConvention: Possible aversion in "An Orison of Sonmi~451" is presumably actually in a future version of Korean.
** Although, in the film,Sonmi~451": the archivist comments on how Sonmi speaks good "consumer", "Consumer", and she replies in what sounds like futuristic Korean. Thus, we can infer that "Korean" exists but is viewed as the common people's parlance, whereas English (or Consumer, if English simply serves as a stand-in for the sake of storytelling) is what all the higher-class people and/or the government speak. This is akin to how Latin was used historically throughout much of Europe.
** Although, in the film,
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** Adam Ewing's plot to ''Literature/MobyDick'' (with Melville and whales being mentioned frequently), and Cavendish's story to ''OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'' (he saw the film once).
* WilliamTelling: Boom-Sook Kim and his friends get drunk and use Sonmi for this. This is what convinces Mephi to get her away from Boom-Sook as soon as possible.
* WilliamTelling: Boom-Sook Kim and his friends get drunk and use Sonmi for this. This is what convinces Mephi to get her away from Boom-Sook as soon as possible.
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** Adam Ewing's plot to ''Literature/MobyDick'' (with Melville and whales being mentioned frequently), and Cavendish's story to ''OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'' (he saw the film once). \n* WilliamTelling: Boom-Sook Kim and his friends get drunk and use Sonmi for this. This is what convinces Mephi to get her away from Boom-Sook as soon as possible.
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* {{Bookends}}: The film starts and ends with Zachry telling a story.
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* RedHerring: Adam Ewing wears a top hat. So does Ol' Georgie in Zachry's time. There's no connection, but early on in the film to a first-timer the possibility is there.
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Moving tropes over from Literature/CloudAtlas to film page before moving header.
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[[caption-width-right:295:Trust us--there are [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters far more characters]].]]
A film
* ''The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing'' (1859): An American notary, returning by ship from the Chatham Islands of New Zealand, keeps a journal of his journey through the Pacific Ocean accompanied by a Moriori stowaway. Ewing has been infected with a parasitic worm, of which Dr. Henry Goose is trying to cure him. A partial copy of the edited and published journal is found and read by Robert Frobisher....
* ''Letters from Zedelghem'' (1931): Robert Frobisher is a tremendously snarky English musician and aspiring composer, formerly [[RichInDollarsPoorInSense Rich In Pounds, Poor In Sense]] and now penniless after a bad game. On the run, he charms his way into a job as an assistant to a retired composer, settling with his employer in Zedelghem, Belgium. He records his experiences in a series of letters, which he sends to his friend and lover Rufus Sixsmith. Much later in life, the letters are read by Luisa Rey...
* ''Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery'' (1973): Luisa Rey is a reporter for a fluffy media magazine in Northern California, when she crosses paths with the old Dr. Sixsmith. She starts investigating reports of ongoing corruption connected to the local nuclear power plant, and winds up with Sixsmith's collection of letters. Her story is presented as a mystery novel manuscript, submitted to Timothy Cavendish...
* ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'' (2012): Cavendish is an old, glum British vanity press publisher who gets in trouble with a client and ends up trapped by his brother in a retirement home in a rather undignified KafkaKomedy. His experience forms the basis of a film, which is later seen by Sonmi~451...
* ''An Orison of Sonmi~451'' (2144): Sonmi is a fabricant, a genetically-engineered clone, employed at the Papa Song's diner chain. She lives in Nea So Copros (formerly Korea, named Neo Seoul in the film adaptation) in a dystopian near future. Fabricants have been created as slaves to a capitalist, totalitarian society -- and Sonmi had the misfortune of developing intelligence far beyond the limits of her genetic engineering. Her story is told in a final interview, during which she's allowed to tell an uncensored account of her entire life. The recording of this interview, called an orison, is viewed by Zachry...
* ''Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After'' (106 years [[AfterTheEnd after the Fall]]): Zachry, an elder of a tribe in post-apocalyptic Hawaii that regards Sonmi as their god, meets Meronym, a member of Earth's last advanced civilization. His story is set in a distant future, where most of humanity has died out. In his old age, he narrates his experiences around a camp-fire.
Instead of being completely sequential, the film continually leaps back and forth between stories.
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** Frobisher compares Adam Ewing's diary to HermanMelville
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* StepfordSmiler: The fabricant waitresses are genetically engineered to always smile. Even if they wish they could kill themselves.
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* StepfordSmiler: The fabricant waitresses are genetically engineered to always smile. Even if they wish they could kill themselves.
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* WhiteHairedPrettyGirl: Implied for Sonmi in the novel; during her facescaping it's mentioned that her follicles were "ebonized".
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[[redirect:Literature/CloudAtlas]]
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!This film contains examples of the following tropes:
* ActingForTwo: In the movie, the AllStarCast plays one role in almost every timeline, in a type of invocation of NarrowedItDownToTheGuyIRecognize. It would probably be easier to list who ''doesn't'' play multiple roles.
* AdaptationDyeJob: Sonmi-model fabricants are implied to have white hair in the novel; in the film they have black hair with a few streaks of bright color.
* AdaptationNameChange: Nea So Copros (which presumably refers to ''all'' of Korea) becomes Neo Seoul. While the book makes it clear that none of the names he goes by are real, Hae-Joo Im is named Hae-Joo Chang in the film, as his film version is a CompositeCharacter of Im and Chang.
* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Averted with Isaac and Zachry (both played by TomHanks), who are significantly less attractive in the film than in the novel.
* AfterTheEnd: Zachry's era.
* AgeLift: In the book, Zachry is a young man who lives with his mother and siblings. In the film, he's a middle-aged man with a wife and children. The change was necessary for Tom Hanks to play the part.
* AlienNonInterferenceClause: Meronym in the final segment is from a more advanced Earth civilization, not an alien, but this still applies to her. [[spoiler: Zachry manages to convince her to use her medical equipment to save Zachry's sister. To avoid potential problems, they inject her secretly, so she just appears to have a miraculous recovery.]]
* AlienSky: It's revealed at the end of the film that an aging Zachry is narrating his tale [[spoiler:from one of the off-world colonies long after being rescued]].
* AllStarCast: The movie, which is helpful for keeping characters straight.
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Hae-Joo and Sonmi have this trope going on... [[spoiler: Although Sonmi is convinced he was in on the GovernmentConspiracy in the end]].
* AmbiguousDisorder: Frobisher suffers tremendously from bipolar disorder, but being from 1931, he has no idea that anything's wrong with him.
* AnAesop: Freedom is the most important thing anyone can have.
** In the film adaptation at least, it is probably best summarized by Sonmi's Orison: "Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. To be is to be observed, so it is only possible to know oneself through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and actions, which ripple across space and time for all eternity. With each cruelty and every kindness we birth our future."
* ArcWords: There are all kinds of repeated references across the six eras. Hydras, feeding ducks, a "crocodile" of people, eating soap, cannibalism, etc. Frobisher's "Cloud Atlas Sextet" follows the same pattern the novel does, and he associates each of the six movements of his piece with an instrument.
** "I will not be subjected to criminal abuse!"
** "The weak are meat the strong do eat."
* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Given that California was admitted to the Union as a free state, it's highly unlikely that a family who works in the slave trade would have put down roots there.
* AteHisGun: [[spoiler: Frobisher:]]
* {{Badass}}: Hae-Joo Im in the 2100s, bordering on OneManArmy levels. And Zachry when he has to fight Kona cannibals.
* BarBrawl: At the end of the 2012 story.
* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:Sonmi was knowingly cooperating with Unanimity the entire time to have the opportunity to spread her message.]]
* BattleaxeNurse: A scary one runs the nursing home where Cavendish is confined.
* BavarianFireDrill: Involving the BarBrawl above (also see ViolentGlaswegian below).
* BerserkButton: The Mexican woman [[spoiler:kills the assassin after he shoots her dog and calls her a wetback]].
* BirthmarkOfDestiny: Ewing, Frobisher, Rey, Cavendish, Sonmi, and Meronym (or Zachry in the film) all have the exact same birthmark, in exactly the same place (although in the film the birthmark is instead placed in various dramatically appropriate locations for each character); this birthmark is one of the main manifestations of the {{reincarnation}} theme.
* BittersweetEnding: They each story ends ranges from tragic to uplifting, so in the end, the story as a whole is bittersweet. The very last chronological story involves [[spoiler:civilization fleeing Earth and moving off-world toward an unknown but hopeful future.]].
* ABloodyMess: [[spoiler:Frobisher]] does his best to avoid making a mess, but it leads to this trope regardless in the film, when [[spoiler: Sixsmith clings to his lifeless body]].
* BodyHorror: Ewing's parasite.
* BreatherEpisode: ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'', while creepy in places, is funnier and more light-hearted than the other segments. Especially noticeable since it comes right before/after the very depressing ''An Orison of Sonmi~451''.
* {{Brownface}}: Bae Doona plays a Mexican woman in one storyline. Jim Broadbent also shows up as a brown-skinned prescient.
* BurgerFool: Papa Song's Dinery where Sonmi~451 and her fellow clones work is a nightmare version of a fast food restaurant. In the novel, it's strongly implied to literally just be {{McDonalds}}, with multiple references to its "Golden Arches", the red and yellow colour scheme, and the Papa Song mascot resembling a clown. The film (very likely to avoid getting sued into oblivion) avoids this, having Papa Song look like an obese, smiling yellow Buddha-like figure, which is strongly thematically relevant on its own, given that Sonmi eventually becomes a REAL Buddha-like being in history herself and Buddha is mentioned very prominently in her story in the novel.
* CallForward: There's also the opposite -- Frobisher, when presented with the opportunity to [[spoiler:slit Ayrs's throat]], has a sort of reverse deja vu calling forward to [[spoiler:Zachry slitting a Kona's throat]].
* CantStopTheSignal: Sonmi's revelations somehow escape to reach all of Neo Seoul / Nea So Copros, and are passed down word-for-word until they are regarded as sacred texts.
* CloningBlues: Various types of fabricants are mass-produced to perform all sorts of tasks in Sonmi's era. As a result, human society has become dependant on the fabricants never questioning their lot in life. Indeed, fabricants are created specifically to be incapable of questioning their lot. How and why Sonmi (and her predecessor and friend Yoona) are different is an important plot point.
* CompositeCharacter: The film pragmatically combines some characters, like Noakes and Deirdre, Hae-Joo Im and Chang, Lloyd and Grimaldi, etc.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Grimaldi and Lloyd in the 1975 storyline.
* TheCorrupter: Old Georgie, the future Hawaiian imagery of the devil. Zachry's tribe have a strong storytelling culture and smoke a ''whole'' lot of weed, so for them, seeing and hearing Old Georgie is as normal as anything. He very appropriately looks like a Hawaiian witch doctor in the film version.
* CrossThrough: Basically ''Cross Through: TheMovie''.
* CrucifiedHeroShot: In the film, [[spoiler:the way the mechanisms of the fabricant recycling plant drag bodies along ends up with a different Sonmi (designated ''3''51 in the credits, just to make it seem even more like our Sonmi) speared through the ankles with her arms spread-eagle]].
* CultClassic: InUniverse, ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'' is considered something like this by 2144. A scene from the movie also plays a role in Sonmi's revelation in the film version.
* CyberPunk: Neo Seoul in the film is this crossed with CrapsaccharineWorld.
* DeadlyDoctor: Henry Goose, though [[spoiler:Ewing eventually doubts that he was anything more than a murderous confidence trickster]].
* {{Deconstruction}}: Of a large number of tropes (see the entire page), but according to some Tropers, the film deconstructs ''storytelling itself'', using [[CrossThrough Cross Throughs]] and ActingForTwo to demonstrate the presence of the same tropes in six rather different stories.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance:
** Ewing is very progressive for his time period, but still a product of his age. He's initially frightened that a Moriori stowaway will eat him.
** Frobisher is antisemitic and looks down on the working classes, as a typical son of wealthy British gentry of his period would.
** Timothy Cavendish has the lingering racism and disgust for youth culture that you might expect a bitter old man to have in modern times.
** Future Korea is a {{dystopia}} filled with deliberate values dissonance
** In future Hawaii, Zachry has a child at a very young age with a girl he barely knows. This doesn't seem to be considered abnormal, probably because life expectancies are so short.
* DepravedBisexual: Robert Frobisher -- charming, hedonistic, manipulative, thieving, sees no problem with cheating, freely admits he'll never truly love anyone but himself ([[spoiler:though in the end, he almost admits he loves Sixsmith]]) and leaps easily from one conquest to the next. He's a true self-absorbed sensualist and opportunist.
* DiesWideOpen: More than once in the film.
* DoesntLikeGuns: Luisa says that guns make her sick. This might tie her story in with the pacifist Moriori tribe in the Adam Ewing storyline, and more prominently with Robert Frobisher's story.
* DoomedMoralVictor: Sonmi. To the point that she's worshipped as a god in the future.
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Frobisher.]]
* {{Dystopia}}: Nea So Copros/Neo Seoul. How dystopic? Sonmi refers to other dystopian authors as "optimists."
* EternalEnglish: Averted. Ewing's and Frobisher's writing perfectly evokes the English of their eras. In 2144, many spellings are truncated (particularly, "gh" seems to have been dropped entirely, resulting in "lite" and "thoro", etc.; additionally, "exactly" has become "xactly", etc.) and brand names have substituted several everyday terms ("disney" versus "film"). Both spelling and grammar have changed a good deal [[AfterTheEnd after the Fall]], although Meronym speaks it in a more twentieth century form in her communication with her ship's captain.
* ExactWords: Zachry once gets the chance to surprise a sleeping Kona, and prepares to slit his throat. But then he remembers the seer's words, warning him never to slit the throat of a sleeping enemy. [[spoiler: So he wakes up the Kona, and ''then'' slits his throat.]]
* ExplosiveLeash: Not technically an explosion but the Fabricants' collar kills them instantly if they try to escape.
* FakeNationality: Unavoidable when all the leads play up to six individual roles. For instance, Australian Hugo Weaving plays two Americans, a German, an English[[{{Crossdresser}} woman]], a [[YellowFace Korean]], and a post-apocalyptic Hawaiian deity.
* FanserviceWithASmile: Deconstructed in the film. The fabricant servers at Papa Song's wear quite revealing shorts and heels and receive sexual harassment as a result from some customers (and because "pureblood" humans treat fabricants like dirt).
* FantasticRacism: Against fabricants -- just look at Sonmi's attempt to attend a university lecture. By her time, however, actual racism is completely gone.
* ForegoneConclusion: In the film, [[spoiler: Frobisher's suicide]].
* {{Foreshadowing}}: All over. Just a ''few'' examples:
** Ayrs talks about a dream he has in "Letters from Zedelghem" -- of a restaurant where all the waitresses have the same face, in a reference to "An Orison of Sonmi~451".
** As Cavendish travels through the countryside, he mentions one area has been turned into a facility for "cloning humans for shady Koreans". A bit later, as Cavendish escapes Aurora House, he makes a crack about [[spoiler:Soylent Green]]. The nurse also threatens to make him eat soap. These all apply to "An Orison of Sonmi~451".
** And in the film version of ''Half-Lives'', Luisa Rey and Dr. Sachs discuss the notion of past lives, and Sachs tells her about feeling the two have met before. But it turns out to be a FlashForward instead, when TomHanks' and Halle Berry's characters meet again in ''Sloosha's Crossin'''.
* FunetikAksent: Zachry's narration.
* FutureSlang:
** Sonmi's era has been hit hard by this trope. Anything that began with 'ex' now only starts with 'x', and everyday items are referred to by the brand we would most readily associate with them, only without the capital letter. Hence nikes (running shoes), sonys (computers), disneys (movies) etc. Explicitly an example of BrandNameTakeover on a global scale, as her world is run by corporations.
** The humans of Zachry's era developed their own future slang as well, though it's more primitive.
* GenreBusting / GenreRoulette: Each story is a completely different genre and written in a different format, from letters to semi-screenplay to interview transcription. Genres include PeriodDrama, HistoricalFiction, SeaStory, {{Cyberpunk}}, FilmNoir, {{Adventure}}, {{Satire}}, {{Comedy}}, {{Dystopia}}, ScienceFantasy, SpaceOpera, RomanticComedy, {{Romance}}, SpyFiction, MysteryFiction, {{Tragedy}}, and about [[{{Troperiffic}} everything inbetween]].
* GenteelInterbellumSetting: Frobisher's era. His letters read like a particularly bitter PGWodehouse novel.
* GladToBeAliveSex: [[spoiler:Between Sonmi and Hae-Joo after witnessing the fabricant recycling plant.
* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler: [[OneWorldOrder The Corporacy]] organizing Sonmi's ascencion in order to radicalize public opinion against fabricants and distract from the system's real problems. Sonmi realised it very early on, and decided to play along anyway, since it gave her a chance to start a revolution even if the revolution was engineered.]]
** This was left out in the movie.
* GreatOffscreenWar: "An Orison of Sonmi~451"'s Skirmishes.
* GunKata
* HappinessInSlavery: Pretty much the main theme of the novel and film. Slavery appears in some form or another in every story:
** Adam Ewing slowly comes to realise that social darwinism is wrong. Explicitly referenced in the film, when Reverend Horrox, to prove a point, asks the slave serving them at the time if he is happier here working on the plantation than in Africa. The slave says [[BlatantLies yes]].
** Van Ayres tries to blackmail Frobisher into remaining his assistant and supplying him with music to steal.
** Luisa and Joe stumble on a sweatshop.
** The retirement home that Cavendish is sent to is essentially a prison. Residents are expected to pretend to be happy with their "new life."
** Sonmi and her fabricant sisters are engineered to be happy in slavery.
* HiddenElfVillage: Meronym's civilization is strongly implied to be this, due to the fact that they've retained technology from Sonmi's time.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: [[ZigZaggedTrope Played straight, subverted, invoked, played straight again, and discussed at length]]. Arguably, the degree of truth to this trope is the main theme of the novel.
* HumanResources: [[spoiler:Fabricants are turned into food for new fabricants.]]
* ImAHumanitarian: Cannibalism, both literal and figurative, is a running motif through most of the stories.
* HypocriticalHumor: Timothy Cavendish initially criticises the manuscript of ''Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery'' sent to his publishing house for being badly written and obviously intended to be turned into a screenplay. His own story suffers from StylisticSuck, and he ends up putting in explicit directions for its future director (whom he imagines as a reclusive Swede named "Lars"). The film version of ''CloudAtlas'', rather fantasically, takes him up on it and actually follows his notes.
* ImpairmentShot: From the POV of a man who is being poisoned.
* IncompatibleOrientation: In the film, [[spoiler:Frobisher nurtures an affection for Ayrs that is cruelly dashed against the rocks when he tries to make an advance]].
* IntrepidReporter: Luisa Rey.
* KafkaKomedy: Cavendish' story.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler: Dr. Goose gets bludgeoned over the head with the money he was trying to steal.]]
* KickTheDog: The assassin in 1973 shoots the dog of a woman who is annoying him by not speaking English.
* KnuckleTattoos: Dermot Hoggins (Tom Hanks) in the 2012 story.
* KukrisAreKool: Autua has one in the scene where he asks Adam to kill him rather than give him up to the Captain.
* LaResistance:
** The Union in Neo Seoul.
** Cavendish mounts a minor one in the [[spoiler: retirement home]].
* LargeHam: Tom Hanks really gets to let loose in several of his roles.
* {{Leitmotif}}: The film gives one to Cavendish; the other stories utilize RecurringRiff to the fullest as opposed to using character-specific motifs.
* LighterAndSofter: Cavendish's story is the most comedic, though its narrator is also the most curmudgeonly.
* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: Played with. Despite the characters apparently being reincarnations or something similar of each other, some of the stories are presented as fiction when they appear in another story. Lampshaded by Frobisher, who points out to Sixsmith in his letters that ''The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing'' feels a bit too well-structured to be a true diary. The logical overlap between the lives of Rey and Cavendish only makes things more confusing. The novel lampshades this when Cavendish outright rejects the idea of his birthmark being similar to a comet; the film does away with this angle by never calling attention to any ambiguous fictitiousness.
* LockedIntoStrangeness: Zachry tells a story about a man named Truman, whose black hair went white from the shock of seeing Old Georgie harvesting a soul.
* LostTechnology: By the time of Zachry's era, technology has mostly devolved back to the iron age, but a small group has access to some stuff on our current level and a even a few objects more advanced than anything we currently have.
* ManipulativeBastard: Frobisher, very much so. [[NotSoDifferent As is Ayrs]].
* MayDecemberRomance: Briefly one-sided from [[spoiler:Frobisher toward Ayrs]] in the film. May also just be another manipulation tactic.
* MatterReplicator: Sophisticated 3D-printer-like devices are seen rapidly assembling fast food in Papa Song's.
* MeaningfulName:
** Two of the {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s of Seaboard in the Luisa Rey story have the last names "Hooks" and "Wiley".
** Sixsmith partially inspired Frobisher's creation (smithing) of the Cloud Atlas Sextet (a piece written for six players).
** Jocasta, the composer Vyvyan Ayrs's wife. In GreekMythology, the wife of King Laios of Thebes and mother of Oedipus. In the film, DepravedBisexual Robert Frobisher (son figure) makes love with Jocasta (mother figure), the wife of Vyvyan (father figure)
** A [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meronymy "meronym"]] means something that is part of a whole.
* MegaCorp: The Corpocracy in 2144. Doubles as TheGovernment and PoliceState.
* MercyKill: Hae-Joo Im shoots [[spoiler: Xi-Li]] in the head when the latter is hit by a government weapon that causes agonizing pain while keeping the victim conscious. Similar mercy kills are accepted practice among [[LaResistance Union]].
* MetaTwist: Timothy mentions [[spoiler:Soylent Green]] in connection with cloned Koreans before Sonmi's story even starts; the clones all [[spoiler: drinking the same nutrients each day]] invokes the connection very strongly. But the plot thread seemingly gets dropped very early on in Sonmi's tale, to focus on political intrigue instead. Small hints are dropped -- a reference to Malthus, for example. By the time Sonmi reaches the ship, it's of course a ForegoneConclusion that Xultation isn't real... but the sudden return of [[spoiler: the SoylentGreen theme]] is unexpected, if just because the story already includes such a large number of other famous sci-fi twists in its loving {{pastiche}}. And then it gets taken a step further when it turns out that [[spoiler:not just the Soap is made of discarded clones, but also the regular food in Papa Song's diner]].
* MindScrew: Each story initially appears to be set in the same universe as its predecessor. This is toyed with when Frobisher questions the veracity of Ewing's journal, then completely undermined when Cavendish receives Rey's story as a the manuscript for a fictional novel. Yet connections between the characters seem to bridge this fiction-reality divide, such as the shared birthmark of Frobisher, Rey, Sonmi, and Meronym. Similarly, the reader is led to believe that all of the protagonists are one reincarnated soul, marked by the distinctive birthmark, but this is disputed since the lifespans of Luisa Rey and Timothy Cavendish should overlap... ''unless'' [[FridgeBrilliance they're two aspects of the same person, since they're the exact same age]]. Her being a fictional character in his universe might be a more significant barrier, unless she was real and "Half-Lives" is a story based on her adventures -- which is entirely possible.
** Cavendish and Luisa Rey may actually be of exactly the same age: she was born in 1947 (would turn sixty-five in 2012), and Cavendish is "65 and a half" in 2012. Can one soul be divided in two?
* TheMourningAfter: It's implied Sixsmith lived forty-five more years, but never loved again after Frobisher. Ouch.
* MulticoloredHair: What the novel implies to be [[WhiteHairedPrettyGirl white hair]] on the fabricants is instead normal Asian black hair in the film, but with two locks of some bright color.
* NestedStory: With the relationship between the various narratives left deliberately unclear. Robert Frobisher thinks Adam's journal looks fake, the archivist interviewing Sonmi refuses to accept parts of her story, and Zachry's son thinks his dad probably made part of his story up. It's entirely purposeful, and it ties into what Isaac Sachs writes about virtual pasts and virtual futures.
* NextSundayAD: "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish" takes place in 2012; the novel was published in 2004. Ironically, the movie was released in 2012, so the story became a contemporary one, even though it wasn't so in the book.
* NoNewFashionsInTheFuture: Averted. While the fashion changes between 1974 and 2012 aren't much, 2144 is another matter altogether. Apart from some working overalls, virtually ''nothing'' is recognizable.
* NotQuiteDead
* OnlyAFleshWound: "The bullet went right through and killed nothing but his appetite."
* {{Pastiche}}: Every story. Most notable in Sonmi's chapters. The film even adds some wonderful GunKata straight out of ''{{Equilibrium}}'' to her story.
* PlanetOfHats: Sonmi's time period. The hat in question? Capitalism.
* PlayingAgainstType: You could make arguments for a lot of parts actors play in the movie. Seeing Tom Hanks playing characters as sleazy, or downright villainous, as the Hotel Manager, Dr. Henry Goose and Dermot Hoggins is a delightful surprise. Hugh Grant plays both a CorruptCorporateExecutive and a ''cannibal tribesman''.
* {{Postmodernism}}: Yes.
* PoweredByAForsakenChild: [[spoiler: Fabricants that serve out their time as workers are killed and recycled into Soap and food to feed fabricants and purebloods, respectively. Sonmi has the good fortune to ''watch this happen''.]]
* PragmaticAdaptation: The movie, while retaining the six-story structure and basic premise, has many differences from the novel, with several characters and plot threads, such as Ayrs's daughter or Sonmi's brief stay at a Buddhist monastery, being cut wholesale. The new medium does allow us to actually see Cavendish's stage directions and hear Frobisher's music.
* PromotedToLoveInterest:
** [[spoiler:Frobisher has a short-lived infatuation for Ayrs in the film]].
** [[spoiler:Hae-Joo and Sonmi have sex in the novel too, but the novel's incidence is emotionally sterile GladToBeAliveSex. The sexual encounter in the film is on much better terms; the film also has Sonmi declare her undying love for Hae-Joo in her orison]].
** [[spoiler:Meronym for Zachry]].
* RealisticDictionIsUnrealistic: Shown both ways in the film with "Ghastly Ordeal" and its in-universe film version. The actual scene has Cavendish splutter and trip over his own words, because he's too enraged to speak straight and is resorting to making up legislation to justify his release from Aurora House. The film-within-the-film version has Tom Hanks as Cavendish flawlessly deliver these lines, even the one about the made-up-on-the-spot "Incarceration Act".
* RecurringRiff: In the film, "The Atlas March" and the various melodies of "The Cloud Atlas Sextet".
* {{Reincarnation}}: A recurring theme in the novel (though it is left ambiguous whether it is real). Also an explicit belief of the Valleysmen in "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After", of the Buddhists in Sonmi's era and of the Moriori. Luisa doesn't believe in it at all.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath
* SecretPolice: [[spoiler: Somni [[TheReveal drops a figurative bomb]] on her archivist when she reveals that she suspected she was in their grasp almost from the beginning but played along at the end at least because the book they wanted her write would be more influential and important than they realized. Considering how she is regarded in Zachry's era, she was probably right.]]
* SelfDeprecation: Cavendish finds a manuscript of Luisa Rey's adventure and dismisses the {{Reincarnation}} angle as far too New Age-y, despite [[LampshadeHanging having a similar birthmark himself]]. He also describes the birthmark in decidedly less romantic imagery than the comet everyone else seems to see it as.
* ShoutOut: Many and varied, since Mitchell writes in just about every genre going. Each genre is more or less explicitly compared to what inspired it:
** Frobisher compares Adam Ewing's diary to HermanMelville
*** In the film, Cavendish compares Knuckle Sandwich to Moby Dick, an attempt to pacify Dermot about the former's lagging sales.
** In one story, ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'', the protagonist quotes [[spoiler:''Film/SoylentGreen'', which becomes horribly relevant in the next story]].
** The name of one story's title character, Luisa Rey, is an apparent [[ShoutOut reference]] to the book ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' by Thornton Wilder.
** Sonmi~[[Literature/{{Fahrenheit451}} 451]]'s number.
** Fabricants? Disposable clones employed for inhuman tasks without regard for their dignity? Sounds like [[BladeRunner Replicants]].
** Sonmi mentions reading the works of "optimists" Huxley and Orwell. This is a reference to Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, best remembered for their respective dystopian novels ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' and ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]''
* SocialDarwinist: Another running theme throughout multiple stories. In the film, Hugo Weaving's character(s) echo the phrase "There's a natural order to things" in various contexts.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler: Joe Napier from ''Half-Lives'', Timothy's brother Denny from ''The Ghastly Ordeal'', and Zachry from ''Sloosha's Crossin[='=]''.]]
* StabTheSalad: [[spoiler: Zachary looks like he's about to stab Meronym but instead stabs a weird hologram thing next to her.]]
* StepfordSmiler: The fabricant waitresses are genetically engineered to always smile. Even if they wish they could kill themselves.
* StickyBomb: Hae-Joo uses sticky bombs to dispose of some Corporacy aircrafts.
* StopOrIWillShoot: "[[NoKillLikeOverkill Excessive force authorised]]."
* StylisticSuck:
** The film that Sonmi-451 watches based on Cavendish's life is campy, over-acted (by an obviously made-up Tom Hanks) and bears only the loosest resemblance to the actual Cavendish we see in the film.
** Cavendish's story in the book is far worse written than the other storylines, with intrusive similes, plenty of tangents, and stylistic levels swinging wildly between the pompous and the slangy.
** Luisa Rey's story is written in the present tense, and intentionally feels like a somewhat clumsy imitation of mystery novels, which Cavendish (ironically) decides to edit into something better.
* SurvivorGuilt: Zachry gets this twice -- once when during his childhood a band of Kona kill his father and kidnap his brother, and again in his adulthood when the Kona destroy his camp and kill or enslave his family and people.
* TechnicolorEyes: Sonmis have white irises in the novel. The Abbess' eyes flash various colours while she is trying to learn the meaning of Zachry's dream in the film.
* TeethFlying: At the previously-mentioned BarBrawl.
* ThereAreNoTherapists: Frobisher has the bad luck of being a manic-depressive in 1931.
* TimeyWimeyBall: The narrative structure of the novel weaves together themes, ideas, and people forward and backward in time. The film takes this even further, using the medium to jump between stories several times in succession. The film's example of TogetherInDeath also only makes sense if reincarnation isn't sequential.
* TitleDrop:
** Zachry talks about wishing he had some kind of map to track souls as they move across the ages, like clouds across the sky. He calls it an "atlas o' clouds".
** Cavendish, [[OutOfCharacterMoment in an oddly poignant moment]], writes a passage about the futility of recording the ephemeral, once again referring to an "atlas of clouds".
** The title of Frobisher's masterpiece is ''The Cloud Atlas Sextet''. Its structure is described as extremely similar to that of the novel, with six individual parts slowly woven together into one greater whole. Frobisher himself isn't sure if it's clever or gimmicky.
* TogetherInDeath:
** [[spoiler: Frobisher hopes that this will be the fate of himself and Sixsmith. Considering that the entire plot is about reincarnation, not the afterlife, this may be either false hope or they could be together in another timeline. Interestingly (in the film at least), they both die the same way - with a gun in their mouth.)]]
** [[spoiler:The film has Sonmi believe that she will be reunited with Hae-Joo in another life, and immediately cuts to Ewing and his wife (the same actor and actress) being reunited at the end of Ewing's voyage. So it's more like they were ''already'' together in a different, much ''earlier'' life, unless TimeyWimeyBall applies to the reincarnation of souls]].
* TranslationConvention: "An Orison of Sonmi~451" is presumably actually in a future version of Korean.
** Although, in the film, the archivist comments on how Sonmi speaks good "consumer", and she replies in what sounds like futuristic Korean. Thus, we can infer that "Korean" exists but is viewed as the common people's parlance, whereas English is what all the higher-class people and/or the government speak. This is akin to how Latin was used historically throughout much of Europe.
* TranslatorMicrobes: In the film. When Meronym and Zachry happen upon Sonmi's orison, the computer playing it translates her Korean to English in real-time. This wasn't present in the novel; when Zachry watches the orison he can't understand what Sonmi is saying.
* TribalFacepaint: The film gives the Valleysmen facial tattoos and the Kona intimidating, skull-like warpaint. Real-world facial tattoos from Australasian tribes also appear in "Pacific Journal".
* TheUnfavorite: Robert Frobisher is this to his parents, who much prefer his older brother who died in WorldWarOne. Frobisher isn't too fond of his Mater and Pater either.
* UnreliableNarrator: Most of the stories are told in first-person perspective, and it's occasionally suggested that some of them are not being entirely honest. Zachry's narration, in particular, is heavily influenced by his tribe's superstitions and storytelling conventions (and presumably by the copious amounts of weed he smokes throughout). He freely talks about the wind and the animals whispering things to him, about his dead father appearing to him, and about corpses speaking and time freezing and the devil himself appearing before him, because that's just how his tribe traditionally experiences life.
* UnsettlingGenderReveal: Cavendish has sexual fantasies about the writer of ''Half-Lives'' (who goes by the name of [[GenderBlenderName Hilary]]), only to be put down when they finally meet and Hilary turns out to be male.
* VideoCredits: A good use of this trope in the film, showing all of the roles that each actor plays, [[PaintingTheMedium with the font changing for each era the role was in]].
* ViolentGlaswegian: Cavendish and his co-conspirators manage to [[spoiler:throw off their captors for good]] in a pub in Scotland [[ExploitedTrope by appealing to this trope]]. The Scots Rugby team have just lost a televised match against England, and the escapees turn the patrons' built-up anger against the mostly English [[spoiler:hospital staff]] (by saying that the [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical latters are trying to claim 'dominion' over them]]).
* WaistcoatOfStyle: In the film, Robert Frobisher has to give his (borrowed from Sixsmith) up when he is desperate and broke.
** Old Georgie in the film also wears an incredibly battered one, fitting as it takes place in a scavenger world.
* WhiteHairedPrettyGirl: Implied for Sonmi in the novel; during her facescaping it's mentioned that her follicles were "ebonized".
* WholePlotReference: "An Orison of Sonmi~451" has several key similarities to ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'', such as the foundation of a dystopia following a GreatOffscreenWar, mandatory consumer quotas, tailor-made clones, a populace kept happy with psychoactive drugs, and a rebellion informed by modern literature. Sonmi actually reads ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' halfway through her story.
** Adam Ewing's plot to ''Literature/MobyDick'' (with Melville and whales being mentioned frequently), and Cavendish's story to ''OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'' (he saw the film once).
* WilliamTelling: Boom-Sook Kim and his friends get drunk and use Sonmi for this. This is what convinces Mephi to get her away from Boom-Sook as soon as possible.
* {{Yellowface}}: All the non-Asian main cast members (including the black actors) except for Hanks and Whishaw appear in yellowface in the movie version of "An Orison of Sonmi~451". Bae Doona also inverts the trope by playing white women in two stories.
* YourCheatingHeart: In the film's "Ghastly Ordeal", [[spoiler:this along with all the unpaid loans is Denny's motivation for shutting up Timothy in Aurora House -- Timothy had slept with Denny's wife]]. In the book, Cavendish wonders whether this is the case, but it's left ambiguous.
* YouWouldntShootMe: In the film, Vyvyan Ayrs tries this on Frobisher when the latter decides he's not going to let Ayrs take the credit for the ''Cloud Atlas Sextet''.
** [[spoiler:And then gets shot anyway, although the bullet only "kills his appetite" by passing clean through his stomach and not fatally injuring him.]]
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