While watching “Mickey 17,” it’s impossible not to make connections to current events. Mark Ruffalo’s Kenneth Marshall character, a flamboyant and flailing politician leading the sci-fi film’s space expedition toward colonizing an ice planet, has distinctly Trumpian qualities in the way his thin skin manifests itself.

Audiences will also naturally draw a direct connection to the billionaire space exploration of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, with the film’s central conceit that corporations are prepared to look to life beyond Earth as its environment deteriorates. While a guest on an upcoming episode of IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, writer/director Bong Joon Ho admitted via translator that current events did seep their way into “Mickey 17,” just not in the way some are thinking.

“I think probably the pandemic was flowing into this adaptation process,” said Bong, who adapted the screenplay from Edward Ashton’s sci-fi novel...