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Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

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Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#201

Post by giantrobot »

hgsgm wrote: post #184
to11mtm wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For how bad much of the computer imagery has changed, the overall bridge sets in the TOS films look a -lot- better to me than all of the fancy CGI stuff. All of that said... There's a certain correctness in my head to the idea that in a pre-replicator future [0], it would be more smart to use a bunch of physical buttons and CRT type monitors. The main reason that comes to mind, is that a simple CRT is probably easier…

TOS had famously low budget fake "high school theater" quality sets. They are only tolerated because the story is good.

Keep in mind people originally watching TOS were likely doing so on black and white TVs with a 10"-13" screen ten feet away. The sets looked no worse than Forbidden Planet, a theatrical release from a decade prior.

Modern high definition scans of the original film looks hilariously bad on modern TVs. It looked far less bad on TVs contemporary with the original broadcasts.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#202

Post by chaostheory »

the_af wrote: post #164
lancesells wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed those dropship scenes on a rewatch a couple of years ago. I think when I watched it as a kid it was on a CRT on cable television and you couldn't see the details as much. Plus, I was a kid. On that note, I just rewatched the original Alien and there's really only one or two shots that looks kind of bad or goofy. Holds up so well for a film from 1979 with what would be a lower range budget in today's money (…

Yes, and also: imagine Alien in the hands of a director with access to today's budget and CGI: it would completely ditch any ambience, pace and characterizations in favor of showing one -- nay, thousands -- of monsters and chase scenes.

This is exactly why I hated the last half of Will Smith’s I Am Legend. The first half did so well at showing a post apocalypse, and the last half ruined everything with CGI video game monsters. They also butchered the main plot.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#203

Post by Sargos »

skybrian wrote: post #131
sourcecodeplz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely on my re-watch list, together with Idiocracy.

I don't really get the love for Idiocracy. You know the amusement ride with the really obviously bad history? The whole movie is basically that. They know their audience doesn't know much history so they need to make mistakes dumb enough so everyone will get it. It's a cynical movie that knows its audience isn't so smart, so they need to make sure the idiots watching know who the real idiots are. That way the audienc…

>You know the amusement ride with the really obviously bad history?

It feels like everyone is expected to know this but what are you referencing?

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#205

Post by anonymouskimmer »

cm2187 wrote: post #147

Eugenism is inevitable. You can't stop parents trying to get the best life for their children, that's pretty much their top priority. We don't like to frame it that way but we are already there with pre-natal tests. Even the selection of mating partner is a form of eugenics. College graduates only marrying college graduates, repeat that for many generations and it is bound to have an effect.

One of the major problems with eugenics highlighted in Gattaca is that it was used to artificially pre-select who was allowed to compete and who wasn't.

> "Even the selection of mating partner is a form of eugenics."

Only when the selection is done by those who aren't the two partners (e.g. arranged marriages, theoretically rape in the absence of abortion). Otherwise it's natural selection between partners - there's no guarantee the aspects two people find attractive in each other are genetically heritable.

> "College graduates only marrying college graduates, repeat that for many generations and it is bound to have an effect."

Assortative mating per se isn't necessarily eugenics. It takes an instruction from the outside on what mating partners should consider attractive in a potential mate. Without this instruction people will find a variety of differing, and even mutually exclusive, traits attractive, and will assort on these variety of traits, not on a hierarchy of traits.

http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/topics_fs.pl?theme=3...

"Eugenicists realized that assortative mating did not always produce the best offspring, so sought ways to popularize what they considered to be good marriages. Francis Galton urged the brightest and the healthiest individuals to marry each other. He found an ideal situation in German university professors (then all male) who tended to marry the daughters of professors or their female graduate students . This positive expression of eugenics encouraged the selection of good mates through popular health books and Fitter Families Contests held at state fairs. The training of field workers at the Eugenics Record Office included exercises to help them analyze mate preferences and make better eugenic choices."

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#206

Post by bsder »

buildbot wrote: post #139
Barrin92 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's why I think the Farscape puppets were absolutely genius. They look so timeless compared to a lot of the heavy CGI use during that era of TV sci-fi.

Farscape is criminally under rated/known! It’s also amusing that SG1 ended up with two of the leads from it too for a bit.

I like Farscape very much, but, to be fair, the really good episodes were few and far between. You had to slog through a lot of sub-par episodes, and people can be forgiven for not really taking to it because of that.

It's really a shame that Farscape didn't have stronger writing because the whole puppets and minimal effects thing works pretty well. (I can forgive Season 1 a bit as the actors and the writers were still figuring out the characters. Season 2 and forward sub-par episodes were all on the writers.)

However, as I understand it, the problem with the puppets is that they are expensive.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#207

Post by giantrobot »

eternalban wrote: post #145
anonporridge wrote: post #8

The great thing about Gattaca is that the cinematography ages incredibly well on top of the amazing plot. A lot of great sci-fi is marred by cheap effects that look incredibly dated only a decade later. Gattaca chose to focus on the story and create a minimalist future environment that still looks beautiful 25 years later.

> a minimalist future environment that still looks beautiful 25 years later. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright a few decades ago, building started in 1960, so "~60 years later" /g https://franklloydwright.org/site/marin-county-civic-center/ https://secretsanfrancisco.com/marin-county-civic-center-san... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_County_Civic_Center

Hey don't forget the CLA building at Cal Poly Pomona[0]!

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLA_Building

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#208

Post by anonymouskimmer »

hgsgm wrote: post #192
cm2187 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen Gattaca (a while ago). But if anything it illustrates the point of view of the guy who has to live with a flawed genome (though in the movie a minor imperfection). Isn't it the point of view of the kid who has to live with his below average genome today?

And then the guy who had an accident gets his life ruined because only the dominant subjective "perfection" is tolerated.

It wasn't an accident. Thus the marketing line for Gattaca: "There is no gene for the human spirit.".

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#209

Post by goatlover »

Swizec wrote: post #199
cm2187 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Particularly when the supposedly futurist technology has already become obsolete since (CRT screens, rudimentary 3d animations, lack of portable communication, absence of networks, etc). Also lots of sci-fi movies underestimate how much will not change, we live today with 200yo buildings, our cities won't look that different in 200 years.

> Also lots of sci-fi movies underestimate how much will not change My favorite detail of the Battlestar Galactica reboot was how normal it all felt. For the most part your only clue that it’s The Future was that every rectangle had chopped off corners to become an octagon. They even found a clever plot-driven reason for why that’s the case. Loved it.

It also wasn’t set on Earth. It was the future of the 12 colonies.
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