Best Sci-Fi film ever and in my all time top ten.

A film that grows with age. When you break it down to raw form its a simple detective story wrapped up in interesting sci-fi concepts. But when its pulled off this well it ends up being more then the sum of its parts.

A

Gotta agree with dv on this one - - I didn't see it in it's original theatrical run, and had heard the world about it, but ended up disappointed. Great idea/good movie.

Quite over-rated.

3 out of 5.

still not very good

Human aspirations take on two forms: the desire for the physical (that which we can perceive with our senses), and the desire for the spiritual (dreams, hope, love, faith).Science has always been forced to fight to make sure that it does not entirely dispense with the spiritual, and art has strained to incorporate the material as part of itself. At the extreme of each, we get stunning failures. We have art that is meaningless because it does not speak to us in any meaningful way, music and cinema that has no grounding in reality and cannot be understood by us because there is nothing about it worth understanding. And we get science at the service of ideas that dehumanize us, that disregard our spirit and dreams.

Gattaca gives us an example of something that has already happened many times before: the desire for the perfect physical entity, whose existence is preferred to that of the 'normal' human being. The interesting thing about such ideas is that they start off with a concept of a perfect human being, which is nonsense, and apply this concept to reality, which cannot accommodate such an idea. Moreover, the idea of perfection is a dream. Science, when it aims for perfection without considering the imperfect subject, is dangerously removed from reality and too reliant on its own dreams.

The only difference between the film and reality is that, in the film, that dream of science appears to come closer to reality. But of course it's not. Hawke's character, citing Jerome's accident, states that you cannot control fate. Precisely. Reality will not accommodate any dreams wholly, and will always provide proof of their invalidity. When you meddle with genes, you are not creating a new society; you are creating the appearance of a new society. When, before, segregation and prejudice occurred along racial or ethnic lines, in Gattaca, it is along genetic lines. Hawke's character states that prejudice has been made a science. Exactly: science has given into a false dream, and has decided to operate within that parameter. And within that context, it is not a matter of serving humanity, but of bending humanity to serve science's own dream. If that can only happen in a few cases, then prejudice in favour of those who come closest to the dream is legitimate.

At its core, Gattaca looks back to the racialist science of 18th and 19th century Europe and America, which insisted on classifying human beings along racial lines, with the white man at the top, and everyone else progressively below him. Above all, we have the crimes of the Nazis as an example of how science can be bent to conform to fundamentally prejudice notions about humanity. The black doctor in Gattaca smiles when he reads that the couple wants a "fair-skinned" boy. As hard as the film tries to show us all the different races, given humanity's racist past and present, it is safe to assume that in a world such as Gattaca's, within a few generations, the majority of humanity would probably be white, and majority male.

Vincent, Hawke's character, demolishes the entire scientific structure of his society by possessing a dream. Given that Gattaca's society is based on a scientific dream, the presence of another dream becomes a threat to its hegemony, and indeed, is essentially a "why". Why can't someone travel to space if they want to, and if they have the wits about them? Vincent displays a great deal of cunning and wit in making his way through life to achieve his goal; his success is as legitimate as anyone else's, and in fact, much more praiseworthy, because he ran against the odds. This should not make us think that he is weak: he is absolutely not weak. This is not an underdog winning the big fight. From his society's perspective, he is weak, but that's only because his society emphasizes the material and physical. But that's only part of being human; as human beings, we have our hopes and fears, dreams and loves and faiths. Those things are at least as powerful, and in significant ways, more so, than the material and the physical. That does not mean that the physical and the material are not important, but they are important in a different way. We need both to function as full human beings. Consider a painting: the artist needs to be aware of the physical environment that he or she is drawing, as well as of the physical apparatus he or she needs to draw with (the paints, the canvas, the brush, his or her own eyes and fingers). But the artist cannot free the physical object from its physical constraints and imbue it with something more unless he or she uses his or her imagination. Most of the people in Gattaca look at their world as it is, and accept it. Vincent (the name means 'victor' or 'conqueror') triumphs because he combines the world he sees around him with the world of his imagination, and in doing so, brings about the creation of a new world, namely, one in which someone like him can travel to space. Jerome is lifted up by Vincent's dream because it realizes his dream as well, namely, that of reaching his potential. In a significant way, Jerome becomes fully Jerome through Vincent, because their dreams are made to become the same. Irene (Thurman's character) is also lifted up by Vincent, because in him, she has an example of someone who, like her, is weak, but who has triumphed in spite of the limitations imposed upon him. And on a broader level, we are all lifted up by his dream, because in making his dream real, he makes real that which we all aspire to: the actualization of our dreams and the triumph of our hopes over despair.

This is one of the best science-fiction films I have ever seen.

Read the last two posts.

I love the look of the film.

The futuristic yet classy look of the film, is just superb.

A-

The characters also show this as well.

This is really good. And about to become extremely relevant. Genetics, not robotics or space travel, will be the next step in the technological revolution IMO.

A lot of the films strengths have already been covered, particularly by Box, so yeah I'll just say this is top notch. As happens often in sci-fi, the meat of the film is in the background and setting rather than the plot, but for reasons mentioned Jerome and Eugene's character arcs also play out very well into the themes.

Just a few questions though...

a) How did they fake the piss samples? Did they stick a tube in his dong? I must've missed that part

b) Vincent keeping up and surpassing all the "genetically superior" people through the athletic and mental tests and beating his brother swimming... I dunno. You'd think it'd be impossible for a "normal" human to reach those levels if they designed it to be that way.

c) There's a bit too much Clark Kent in glasses stretching with nobody putting together Vincent and Vincent-Jerome's faces, and then Eugine-Jerome's. Eugine's line about them only seeing their specimen was good, but I dunno... Jude Law and Hawke look pretty different.

But I'll give the film a pass for those things I guess

Vincent's brother has a better starting position, but Vincent, through training and will, can reach that too. I mean he IS inferior physically (as seen by his super-high heartrate during the training in one scene), but all it means is that it costs him more strength and will power.

I think the tube was attached to it along with a bag that he kept hidden. A piss bag, that is.

Gattaca

I appreciated this film. I've heard so much praise for it that I started watching it thinking it could be a true science-fiction masterpiece. Well, it's not. But that's not its fault. When you watch a futuristic vision 18-years after it was conceived, it's bound to somewhat disappoint. But the film does still hold up well, it's just that there have been films since to use similar themes, gadgets, tools, and ideas so as to make Gattaca feel less innovative than it probably was. That being said, the overriding moral is still apparent, and while not as forceful as its believes, it is prominent enough to make an impact. The film is also an indirect motivational piece, raising questions of societal elitism and predestined fortunes.

The film's principal aesthetic is sterile and cold, and while that is necessary to push the notion of a utopian regime, it does not make for an accessible visual style, especially to someone that is far more impressionable to visual art than overriding proverbs. None of the acting talent on display particularly impresses, despite having Jude Law in the cast. Ethan Hawke has an irritating and smug grin at times, and while he is perfect to portray a lesser and conniving human being, he's difficult to warm to. Law is much more charismatic, but relegated to a smaller role. Uma Thurman plays the pure Aryan well, I suppose.

B

Just saw this for the first time. I thought it was great. One of the best science fiction films I've seen. Smart, classy, and thought-provoking.

8/10 (A-)