I just watched Gattaca for the first time. One thing I noticed was that the styles looked extremely dated, even by 90s standards. Produced in 1997, Gattaca's dress, architecture, cars, hairstyles, and particularly music resemble those of the 1960s and sometimes even the 50s, apart from a few exceptions like a couple brutalist buildings (typical of the 70s) and a number of minor style choices that are hard to place. There are countless examples I could give, even the emphasized smoking indoors, which had already begun to be visibly castigated by the early 90s, let alone 97. Even the computers look very typical of the mid to late 90s . . . *good* computers of course, with 256 colors and maxing out VGA standard resolution, but nothing that consumers couldn't get their hands on for a couple thousand bucks or probably less. And this was in a private space agency.
Was this all a deliberate design choice? The movie claims to be in the "not so distant future," but clearly that means decades rather than years due to the enormous social changes that have occurred. Either way, stylistically this was a *substantial* regression from 90s style, and if nothing else the cars are blatantly antique by mid-21st century standards (they looked very old even by 90s standards). Was this a commentary on the racism that suffused the 50s and 60s (and of course continued very visibly through the 90s and even today)? The movie is about discrimination after all.
By the way, my brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes today. He is 26 and by now we both hoped he was past this. I was diagnosed at a young age, but now I feel like he should be on the shuttle but he's stuck on the ground. He has a deep-seated fear of needles and I think it will be much worse for him than it is for me. But the world isn't fair. He is acting tough but I have a feeling he knows this will not be easy. We may not be in a eugenic dystopia, but genes still seem to rule our fate.
Jeremiah Gomez
your bother and you both sound like fatties
Ian Parker
It's type 1, bro. Can we focus on the movie?
Cameron Johnson
Are you going to avoid spreading your diabetes 1 genes?
Jack Cruz
in my opinion the movie was too soft on invalids
people like you and your brother deserve to be culled from the gene pool, Darwin wills it
Jayden Ramirez
Yeah for sure. My kid might not have a "99 percent" chance of heart disease by 30 or whatever, but I am convinced of the genetic predisposition even so. It helps that I never wanted kids in the first place, but even if I did, there are other ways.
It's condoms, birth control, and abortions for me.
Eh, not really. We will survive just fine, which is how evolution works. Whether our genes will "help" humanity or not seems sort of irrelevant. But from an entirely personal standpoint, I would rather not raise diabetics if I could help it.
Parker Diaz
Regarding the architecture, I believe every piece shown in the film is in California. The Gattaca building itself I drive by every day (San Rafael's city hall building) and it was made in the 1960s as a potential view for what the future could hold. I think this was definitely deliberate, and a way to sort of claim upon viewings by us now in the 2010s that no one really knows what future design will hold. I'm sure Frank Lloyd Wright felt his minarets and arches could become the norm one day.
Wyatt Edwards
>WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CANT FLY THIS BILLION DOLLAR SPACECRAFT BECAUSE MY HEART COULD EXPLODE AT ANY MOMENT?
Owen Evans
That's interesting, definitely not neo-brutalism, it's actually a pretty cool piece of architecture. But still dated. I think you're right, there is hardly anything in the art direction suggestive of the future. I think they were trying to hammer home the message with the broadest mallet possible.
Congratulations at detecting the central conflict of the film.
Xavier Scott
>I beat my brother swimming, even though he is physically superior. >My strategy? I didn't hold anything back. Now to drown.
Juan Perry
It's funny because in the real world even NASA wouldn't let him in.
Brayden Davis
>Was this a commentary on the racism that suffused the 50s and 60s
yes, and also retrofuturism.
Jonathan Watson
Yet there is a lot riding on that kind of wager. Consider the chosen child, always meeting expectations and preselected for greatness. Yet he never appears when it counts. And consider the rejected child, with nothing to lose. If you were the latter, how would you behave?
The film explores the idea that we had more or less solved the genetic component to childhood but were no closer to understanding how to raise children. It is clear that the risk of actually dying in such a foolhardy swim is still very low; Vincent hardly swam any further than Anton, who would never risk his own life for pride. But, though low, the risk was nonzero, and certainly some "natural births" would die in such an attempt. If anything, this would only serve to reinforce stereotypes. Nevertheless, these people were fundamentally changed by the experience, something that really does happen in some cases. Is it so crazy? Is it absurd to think a treasured, pampered child could be outperformed by an outcast but "genetically inferior" sibling?
NASA does not perform genetic tests for admittance as far as I am aware. Vincent did not have a detectable heart murmur. But I suppose the distinction is a bit artificial; the NASA of the near future could easily make such a distinction.
Can you expand on that a bit? I am not remotely familiar with "retrofuturism".
Austin Robinson
I have both the original DVD and the Blu-Ray of Gattaca (I don't care what other may think, it is my favourite movie). On it, they clearly explain the designs where deliberate. In one hand, it is a science fiction movie human/character driven, not technologically driven, and in the other hand, we don't know how fashion will change in next decades.
Landon Wood
kind of just accepted it was playing off the race to moon and kids growing up wanting to be astronauts
Jackson Rogers
Sure, but the movie wasn't just "not futuristic," it was evocative of the past. You can't tell me at least the hair styles weren't old as fuck.
I don't know a lot about that. Everyone who went to the Moon was white. A black kid must have noticed this, right? And skin color is a genetic trait. It does seem like that was one of many traits selected in the film, and not just one they skimmed over. This kind of assumption is still in play, but does the engineering change anything? I can't help but notice all the best genetic specimens were white. I mean, if you had the choice, why choose otherwise under the circumstances, right?
It is at least a bit troubling.
Blake Myers
atom-age architecture.
Mason Davis
Retrofuturism is a style that represents how people/artists of the 1950s/60s perceived the future.
Nicholas Evans
This review may help you understand the world of "Gattaca".
