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Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

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Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#341

Post by voytec »

jacquesm wrote: post #264
voytec wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I haven't. Not available on Prime Video in my location nor on Blu-Ray but I'll try to find it elsewhere. Thanks.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#342

Post by midoridensha »

chongli wrote: post #276
nickstinemates wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never watched the directors cut of any movie. This will be my first.

Also check out the one for Bladerunner.

Arguably, the theatrical version of Blade Runner is better for first-time viewers, because the voiceover explains a lot of stuff they don't understand.

Fans almost always say they prefer the DC (or actually the "Final Cut"), but my theory is that their opinion isn't really valid because they all saw the theatrical version first, so upon viewing the later cuts, they had the benefit of already knowing the story and background, and of course they can't just forget that when watching a voiceover-less cut.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#343

Post by midoridensha »

giantrobot wrote: post #201
hgsgm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, many people then were getting color TVs. The reason the sets on ST:TOS were so colorful was to attract viewers who had spent a bunch of money for a new color TV set, and wanted to see things in vivid colors.

The modern HD scans of the original film look fantastic. They do, however, show how low-budget the sets were, but the detail of the original film is quite amazing, and these old shows look far better than most stuff produced in the 1990s which was done using videotape.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#344

Post by midoridensha »

the_af wrote: post #130
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.

I totally, 100% agree. Gattaca is amazing, and my all time favorite Blade Runner also has outstanding practical effects (flawed, sure, but you stop noticing soon enough). One of my favorites that, while very cool in general, suffers from some dodgy effects is Aliens. In general I wouldn't change a bit from it, but some of the dropship scenes are terrible and were pretty bad even back then. Then again, be careful what…

>Then again, be careful what you (um, I) wish for: if they were to touch up Aliens they wouldn't stop at the dropship and they would ruin it with unnecessary CGI.

I don't think this is fair. Not every director is George Lucas or wants to be like him.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#345

Post by midoridensha »

rasz wrote: post #331
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 (…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVLBLJOCBg8 dropship descent and crash are really bad green/blue screen jobs. Writing could also use some work "Ripley, you've blown the transaxle! You're just grinding metal!" what transaxle? M577 APC would have to have 4 independent hub motors, or else be a Tardis :) Besides who cares if you blew a motor if the thing still moves, and why abandon mobile safe house other than to segue…

To be fair, even if they had consulted mechanical and automotive engineers in 1985, I'm not sure those engineers would have had enough foresight to predict this. But then again, I think extremely large construction equipment has used hybrid-electric/diesel drives with independent wheel motors for a long time.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#346

Post by midoridensha »

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.

BSG wasn't in the future, it was in the distant past. The people there were the distant ancestors of modern humans (in combination with humans who evolved here on Earth separately from the colonists, and were magically genetically compatible, apparently due to likely divine intervention according to the characters).

So some technologies were more advanced than ours, but other technologies were very much not (such as cassette recorders, radio, etc.).

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#347

Post by midoridensha »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #268
flavius29663 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think another way of looking at it is that it showed that people who were handicapped by their parents' poor decisions had a harder time in life. For a modern-day parallel, look at parents who won't allow their kids to get vaccinated, and those unfortunate kids end up with diseases like measles or polio.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#348

Post by imtringued »

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…

It is far more likely that your "genetic upper class" will be heavily discriminated against.

Worst case would be that the world splits into countries with exclusively natural born and genetically engineered people and that those countries would enter into conflict with the goal of driving the other extinct.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#349

Post by meindnoch »

chii wrote: post #322
meindnoch wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the future the state will collect sperm and eggs from all citizens, and implant random embryos into women who want children. Natural conception will be shunned like arranged marriages today.

> implant random embryos into women who want children. so what happens to men who want children?

There will be women employed by the state whose job will be carrying the embryos for people who don't want to do it themselves. One could argue that the majority of people will choose this option, since a qualified state clerk would likely be safer for the embryo than doing it the DIY way.

This will be of course only a stopgap measure until artificial wombs become readily available.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#350

Post by caskstrength »

StillBored wrote: post #309
the_af wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally, 100% agree. Gattaca is amazing, and my all time favorite Blade Runner also has outstanding practical effects (flawed, sure, but you stop noticing soon enough). One of my favorites that, while very cool in general, suffers from some dodgy effects is Aliens. In general I wouldn't change a bit from it, but some of the dropship scenes are terrible and were pretty bad even back then. Then again, be careful what…

Its a case of "your holding it wrong". These movies (blade runner/etc) should come with screen calibrations to assure that people don't have the brightness on their TV's turned up too high. A problem that is far to prevalent, along with having the contrast set at cartoon levels to make them pop. These old movies were _DARK_. For long stretches you could barely see anything much less all the details of the ships. I re…

> These movies (blade runner/etc) should come with screen calibrations to assure that people don't have the brightness on their TV's turned up too high. A problem that is far to prevalent, along with having the contrast set at cartoon levels to make them pop.

You don't need a hardware calibrator for controlling brightness. Just enable Filmmaker mode and disable everything else like "dynamic contrast", all kinds of motion interpolation, etc.

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