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Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

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Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#261

Post by roflyear »

ihatepython wrote: post #259
wonderwonder wrote: post #172

Gattaca is one of my favorite movies, mainly because of how believable the concept is. Lets say tomorrow they create a commercially available means of ensuring a child is physically and intellectually superior. Once people start availing themselves of this service anyone with the means almost has to do it as well simply as a kindness to their unborn child to ensure they don't end up as a subspecies to the new genetic…

Do you mean like vaxxed vs unvaxxed?

Oh yeah because unvaxxed people are treated differently.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#262

Post by an_aparallel »

GuB-42 wrote: post #92
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.

Generally, movies that focus on set design age much better than movies that focus on effects. If you make a good set, it will look good no matter how technically advanced your setup is. It may look better when filmed using the latest cameras, but it will never look wrong when it isn't, because it is the real thing. Effects are not the real thing, and as technology improved people have gotten better at noticing and ar…

on that - i was flabbergasted at how dated LOTR looked...couldnt believe it!

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#263

Post by jacquesm »

js2 wrote: post #20
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.

Despite Gattaca being one of my favorite movies for years I only recently learned, right here on HN, that the cinematographer is Sławomir Idziak, frequent collaborator of Krzysztof Kieślowski, which explains why Gattaca looks so much like one of my other favorites, The Double Life of Veronique . > create a minimalist future environment that still looks beautiful 25 years later. See also: Dark City

Dark City is one of my favorite movies.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#264

Post by jacquesm »

voytec wrote: post #23
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 lot of great sci-fi is marred by cheap effects that look incredibly dated only a decade later. I, for one, enjoy low-budget scifi very much. Crappy CGI has it's charm but CGI aside, I have the feeling that actors in lower-budget shows were more involved than those in shows written to be ratings winners. It's kind of like with websites created with passion and websites created for SEO.

If you haven't seen it yet: Primer.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#265

Post by LarryMullins »

GuB-42 wrote: post #92
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.

Generally, movies that focus on set design age much better than movies that focus on effects. If you make a good set, it will look good no matter how technically advanced your setup is. It may look better when filmed using the latest cameras, but it will never look wrong when it isn't, because it is the real thing. Effects are not the real thing, and as technology improved people have gotten better at noticing and ar…

If the plot is good, then dated effects don't matter. Both the 1916 and 1954 versions of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea hold up today.

I guess some people just can't cope with anything but the most cutting edge effects. If they notice something is fake the movie experience is ruined for them or something. I'm glad I'm not afflicted with this.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#266

Post by bena »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #225
forgotpwd16 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason director's cut is recommended for first-time viewers is theatrical version having an intro that reveals many elements. That said the list of all the differences is quite extensive: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/alternateversions/ .

A general rule of thumb that I've adopted is to intentionally skip the first 10 minutes of any movie. This happened accidentally with Memento [0], it it became an incredible film. Without all that setup in the first scene, you exist with the protagonist as he discovers his world. I've tried it with other films and they give away too much information, you the viewer are practically handed the whole script. Give it a s…

I really don’t see how that changes Memento.

Part of the tension is knowing Leonard is going to kill Teddy, we just don’t know why.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#267

Post by Aeolun »

LarryMullins wrote: post #265
GuB-42 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, movies that focus on set design age much better than movies that focus on effects. If you make a good set, it will look good no matter how technically advanced your setup is. It may look better when filmed using the latest cameras, but it will never look wrong when it isn't, because it is the real thing. Effects are not the real thing, and as technology improved people have gotten better at noticing and ar…

If the plot is good, then dated effects don't matter. Both the 1916 and 1954 versions of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea hold up today. I guess some people just can't cope with anything but the most cutting edge effects. If they notice something is fake the movie experience is ruined for them or something. I'm glad I'm not afflicted with this.

It’s not a problem as long as the experience is consistent. If you have an otherwise beautiful movie that suddenly comes out with a terrible effect they would have been better off without it.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#268

Post by AussieWog93 »

flavius29663 wrote: post #174
cm2187 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure why you would associate eugenics with genocide. As the article mentions, today you can promote or suppress a gene by simply patching the genome. And frankly I am not sure which is more dystopian: a future where none of the kids are born with genetic diseases, predisposition to be obese, or simply stupid or ugly, vs the present where a kid has to live with those things he can do nothing about.

> a future where none of the kids are born with genetic diseases, predisposition to be obese, or simply stupid or ugly But we're all defective today, one way or another. It's incredibly rare for someone to be "perfect" genetically speaking, and a lot of those people will have a bad upbringing or something else to hold them back. It's true that being beautiful and above average smart will get you through life so much…

>Anyway, have you seem Gattaca? It shows how this can become dystopian very quickly.

The main problem in Gattaca wasn't that some people were genetically superior, it was that they were marked as superior and others were discriminated against.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#270

Post by lmm »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #244
lmm wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no guarantee the aspects two people find attractive in each other are genetically heritable. Evolution naturally tends in that direction. > 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 a…

> Evolution naturally tends in that direction. A lot of what people find attractive about each other are personalities (and only some traits are heritable, not entire types), and artifacts of how people were raised or adapted to how they were raised. > Up to a point. There's still a pretty strong correlation between what different people find attractive, and there are certainly things that almost everyone agrees are…

> Eugenics, as a term, to have meaning, is an extreme of breeding behavior. It isn't just regular assortative mating among local populations.

That's circular logic. The whole point of the argument is that eugenics (as it is normally understood) is of a piece with regular assortive mating; people look for good aspects in a partner all the time, and there's no clear sharp line between that and what we normally call eugenics.

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