• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

sell me :GATTICA

is it worth my time to watch GATTICA

  • Yes..this is a good movie. Well worth a Jiffy-popcorn bag, and your time.

    Votes: 49 92.5%
  • You'll have more fun watching paint dry...pass.

    Votes: 3 5.7%
  • I'm with you Scorpio; I need to be sold on this movie as well!

    Votes: 1 1.9%

  • Total voters
    53
  • Poll closed .
Allow me to be the lone dissenter, then. I hated the film's style, and from that simply wasn't able to engage with the rest of it. The flat, retro feel of it annoyed me throughout. I was actually confused at first thinking that this was supposed to be alt.-future, and still don't understand how and why (in-universe) culture regressed in such a trite manner. If you want to evoke film noir, there are better ways of doing so than uncritically duplicating the era's fashions. And, probably because the look of it got on my nerves during the whole thing, I found the movie more generally long, preachy and uncompelling.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

I always had the feeling there was a conscious effort to make sure the film didn't date by putting it in a non-specific setting, or a "timeless future" for lack of a better term. Everything is familiar enough that you can still relate to it, but also just alien enough that you know it's not the here and now. It could be 50 years from now, or 100 or even 1000. It makes no difference and so it doesn't distract you from the story and the characters.
 
One of my favourite sci-fi movies ever, you should definitely check it out. And yeah, it's out on Blu-ray. I've had my copy for a while. ;)
 
Fantastic film. Definitely not a popcorn flick though.

Hmmm...my wife is reading this, and now she thinks its a scary film. women!

Rob

It's only scary in the sense that it explores a possible (mostly negative) direction a future society could go. ;)

Yeah, I think it's only scary if subtle dystopias frighten you. :p

Seriously, though, great movie, it's one of my favourites. Much like the recent Moon, it's really "thinking person's sci-fi". There's lots of depth to it, and it does a fantastic job of exploring some fascinating and important issues. The cast and score is great as well, and I, for one, loved the production design. It is kind of retro, but it still manages to feel futuristic... it really works quite well.
 
Re: sell me :GATTACA

This film has some great ideas and one of the first films to tackle:
-genetic engineering of humans being common and DNA playing the primary role in determining social class

-a computer programmer coding office environment that is like 40 people sitting at workstations dressed in suits. Which is very stylized and not realistic (maybe in Japan it is...)

In the film the Gattaca Corp. being the major company that sends people into space reminds me of a little of Weyland-Yutani the fictional corporation in Alien that runs the human colonies outside the solar system, has a large presence on Earth.
It has some nice production design.

It may be a detective story set in the future but it has some light-to-medium science fiction in the film.
Hey then again Total Recall (1990) and Demolition Man (1993) had some interesting visions of the future too that I can appreciate on their onn and not those two films as a whole.
I bought the DVD used but it is not a film I'll watch as often as others but I would like to own it.

There is a Blu-ray that was released last year with some one new HD special feature. You really want to check out the special featurette Do Not Alter? (SD, 15 minutes)
 
Last edited:
I always had the feeling there was a conscious effort to make sure the film didn't date by putting it in a non-specific setting, or a "timeless future" for lack of a better term. Everything is familiar enough that you can still relate to it, but also just alien enough that you know it's not the here and now. It could be 50 years from now, or 100 or even 1000. It makes no difference and so it doesn't distract you from the story and the characters.

Doesn't the film open with a title card that says "in the near future--closer than you think?" I sort of fancy that. Like "A Scanner Darkly," which takes place "seven years from now," it can never date on the grounds of a title card like "Los Angeles, 2019" at the top.
 
I loved Gattaca. For me, the production design was one of the best things about it. The sets are wonderfully stylised, and the costume design is really top notch (some of the best double-breasted suits in any modern movie, for instance).

I must admit to liking it for the cars, especially the rather menacing black Rover P6s the police drove.

I think I have to watch it again. They really drove Rover P6s? Cool.
 
The lighting has a cold feel to it. Which could be an effort at a film noir look. If the look throws you out of a movie, it does. Gattaca didn't strike me as quite that retro, so I didn't have a problem with the look.

Now although I did like the movie, be warned the climax is strictly triumph of the human spirit stuff. It relies upon sentiment. If you don't feel it, the movie tanks. The thread suggests that most sf fans are uplifted.
 
The ending definitely relies on a little sentiment, but it earns most if its emotion, and I'm glad that it was tremendously toned down from the original, longer version (which can be seen as a deleted scene on the DVD). And, in the final analysis, the performances (both key and supporting) as well as the music score make it work far better than it probably reads on paper.
 
One of the most intelligent and moving sf films out there. Brilliant performances from all involved (especially Jude Law) and a fantastic score. WATCH IT.

Every time I remember that I don't own this, I feel guilty.
Jude Law is indeed incredible.

Gattaca was written by Andrew Niccols--and Niccols is a fabulist, not a realist. Like in The Truman Show and S1m0ne, the world he creates in Gattaca is contradictory and very unlikely to ever exist, but the cautionary tale he wants to get across is so compelling, the characters with whom he tells it so vivid, and the way in which he handles the narrative is so self-assured, that the flaws are recognizable only in hindsight, months or even years after you've first seen the film.

I would call Gattaca one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, possibly the greatest. Everyone should have watched it long ago. Watch it now.
 
One of the most intelligent and moving sf films out there. Brilliant performances from all involved (especially Jude Law) and a fantastic score. WATCH IT.

Every time I remember that I don't own this, I feel guilty.
Jude Law is indeed incredible.

Gattaca was written by Andrew Niccols--and Niccols is a fabulist, not a realist. Like in The Truman Show and S1m0ne, the world he creates in Gattaca is contradictory and very unlikely to ever exist, but the cautionary tale he wants to get across is so compelling, the characters with whom he tells it so vivid, and the way in which he handles the narrative is so self-assured, that the flaws are recognizable only in hindsight, months or even years after you've first seen the film.

I would call Gattaca one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, possibly the greatest. Everyone should have watched it long ago. Watch it now.

Wow..very high praise indeed. Well, the drum roll is getting louder as Friday night approaches..that is when I will be finally watching this movie. Luckily no one has spoiled it; so.....I wait with baited breath!

Rob
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top