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Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

nature.com

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Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#61

Post by whatshisface »

Vecr wrote: post #44

One thing I don't understand about the movie, even after reading the screenplay etc. is why does Vincent claim the doctors knew the exact time of his death just seconds after he was born? They clearly don't and can't, given the entire rest of the movie. Are the doctors just reading out the exact middle of the probability distribution (or the time with the absolute highest probability), to way more precision than actu…

I always took it as implied that, although the 99% chance was their real knowledge of the distribution, this was a story about the one guy that ended up flying to space.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#62

Post by agumonkey »

anderber wrote: post #3

Gattaca was so ahead of its time, reminds me I should re-watch it again.

Rewatched it not long ago, was still a great watch, the pacing, the characters, the narration. Not as grandiose as it used to feel but still touching and worth every second.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#63

Post by misnome »

ericmcer wrote: post #16
DoctorDabadedoo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mike Judge with his Idiocracy and Office Space is almost like someone had a crystal ball for early 21st century.

How did he get away with Idiocracy? I thought it was a good movie and somewhat prescient, but if you peel back the layers it is basically advocating some kind of population control or eugenics policy. Or it is just a comedy, but I hear it frequently cited as a dramatized version of a plausible future.

> it is basically advocating some kind of population control or eugenics policy

I think this says more about the viewer than the film.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#64

Post by lifeisstillgood »

agumonkey wrote: post #56
duxup wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was watching an Industrial Light And Magic documentary on Disney+ and it had Spielberg talking about the transition to digital, and he goes out of his way to make the point that effects are great but if you're not presenting it right and telling a story that is worthwhile the film just won't last.

Last time I watch Terminator 2, I stopped frame by frame during the mall shooting scene, and I realized how cheap some effects were, but how editing made it subtly perfect. It just conveys the blow to represent the T1000 liquid metal visually. No need to do more. I think today's era is obese.. too much power, too available .. no constraint.. the movie gets lost in the technology.

I believe there is one shot in the final steelworks where Arnie is wrestling with a guy wrapped in tinfoil. But it's quick, not obvious and you just accept it as part of "metal dude killing people". It's only in freeze frame that you go - oh yeah.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#65

Post by andruby »

Gattaca is my favorite movie. Brotherly feud, science, genetics, space. I enjoy movies when there’s one theme I can relate to, this movie has four.

The style, human spirit and perseverance are a bonus. I rewatch it when I need to put things and life in perspective.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#66

Post by jimbob45 »

agumonkey wrote: post #56
duxup wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was watching an Industrial Light And Magic documentary on Disney+ and it had Spielberg talking about the transition to digital, and he goes out of his way to make the point that effects are great but if you're not presenting it right and telling a story that is worthwhile the film just won't last.

Last time I watch Terminator 2, I stopped frame by frame during the mall shooting scene, and I realized how cheap some effects were, but how editing made it subtly perfect. It just conveys the blow to represent the T1000 liquid metal visually. No need to do more. I think today's era is obese.. too much power, too available .. no constraint.. the movie gets lost in the technology.

I know exactly which scene you’re talking about and I haven’t seen that movie in decades. I thought the point was to subvert audience expectations though. Cameron would have the first real SFX on screen be practical so that you think you’re going to see something fairly run-of-the-mill. Then, the shrapnel shrinks digitally and you realize T2 is like nothing you’ve seen.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#67

Post by skeeter2020 »

fallingknife wrote: post #19
rzzzt wrote: post #5

I understand this article appeared in Nature Genetics and so explores the genetics aspect of the movie (which is admittedly heavily emphasized, starting with the G-A-T-C letters highlighted in the title and opening credits), but I always thought it is about the practice of discrimination in general, regardless of what "quality" is chosen to put people in sets of "A" and "B". How literally should the audience take thi…

The part that I could never get over is that the discrimination against the main character actually made sense. He's trying to hide his heart condition to go in an important space mission. edit: HN is rate limiting me so I can't reply, but to davesque's comment below: > no one wants to live in a world where their life and capabilities are pre-determined But we do live in that world. It was determined that I would nev…

I think this is just the plot device to explore the broader questions around scienetific progress, the hubris of a society that increases their knowledge and the general idea of fate. It's kind of "cool/scary" IMO that we can start with a pretty universally agreed-upon statement like "People going into space should be screened for health issues" and end up with the dystopian world explored in GATTACA.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#68

Post by fallingknife »

naasking wrote: post #52
fallingknife wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We explicitly discriminate by intelligence, which is mostly genetic. How is that different than Gattaca? One must assume that the genetically enhanced in the movie are actually enhanced after all. And we implicitly discriminate by height, which shows a strong correlation with income. That one doesn't even have utility like discrimination based on intelligence does.

> We explicitly discriminate by intelligence, which is mostly genetic. How is that different than Gattaca? We discriminate on intelligence when it's important for the job at hand . The bad kind of discrimination is the kind that considers irrelevant factors. I agree implicit discrimination based on height and attractiveness exists in our culture. This movie is a searing criticism of exactly that kind of discriminatio…

We do our college admissions by SAT score. If we did them by genetic test for intelligence (Gattaca style), the classes would be mostly the same minus some dumb rich kids. And since social class and income is heavily determined by where you go to school, it's a similar situation to Gattaca.

In the movie, if the genetic enhancements work, then it's basically meritocracy, and not that different than what we have today. If they don't work, like you seem to imply in your comment, then it's arbitrary discrimination, which isn't a particularly interesting or unique concept for a movie.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#69

Post by whatshisface »

curiousgal wrote: post #53
beebmam wrote: post #25

I found it really hard to relate to any of the characters in the film, to the point where they were barely recognizable as humans. Does it make sense, in a world like the one in Gattaca, for a person that is part of a discriminated class, to go into space, instead of trying to change the society around him to be less discriminatory? It seemed to me like the whole effort was a self-motivated, flaccid revenge fantasy t…

lol how exactly do you expect him to change things if he stayed? Once he's back he'll be able to actually make a difference with the status/resources he got by leaving.

It tells you something about HN that there are like ten replies arguing that he should have the right to be selfish, and only one that recognizes that he was doing exactly what people from minorities did in the past to overturn the belief that they couldn't do anything.

Re: Gattaca is still pertinent 25 years later

#70

Post by landryraccoon »

Vecr wrote: post #44

One thing I don't understand about the movie, even after reading the screenplay etc. is why does Vincent claim the doctors knew the exact time of his death just seconds after he was born? They clearly don't and can't, given the entire rest of the movie. Are the doctors just reading out the exact middle of the probability distribution (or the time with the absolute highest probability), to way more precision than actu…

That part of the movie actually makes perfect sense to me.

In the real world, the vast majority of people are quick to misinterpret scientific findings to reinforce their own biases. Gattaca is the story of a world where the "Others" in that society are those who are not genetically engineered to culturally acceptable standards.

IMHO it is a very human and believable part of the story that most of society will simply choose to go along with being bigoted against the out group, and not spend the extra time and effort to figure out if their biases are actually correct. In the story, Anton tells Vincent his parents died assuming that he had died young, because the doctors told them he would.

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