October 30th, 2009
http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEH1lOIMa5mgKL
related on TrekBBS:
the Gattaca thread
Gattaca series on TV -as a dramatic police procedural
- Thread starter jefferiestubes8
- Start date
http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEH1lOIMa5mgKL
related on TrekBBS:
the Gattaca thread
spelt it wrong? i read it wrong. i thought this was about Galactica.
Dennis Leary doing something about Battlestar Galactica?
Of course that would just mean being dressed up in animal skins, clubbing cave women to copulate with, when they weren't being procedurally police-ey.
Dennis Leary doing something about Battlestar Galactica?
Of course that would just mean being dressed up in animal skins, clubbing cave women to copulate with, when they weren't being procedurally police-ey.
It's particularly funny when people misspell that particular name.
I'm sick of sci fi being sugar-coated for the masses with cop show elements being shoehorned in. Fringe, FastForward*, Warehouse 13, will it never end? But Gattaca is cool, and for it I'll make an exception.
*Yep you read that right.
"Okay, Cylon tin can, you see this? This is the last Picon cigarette in the galaxy. And I'm going to smoke it and I'm going to enjoy it. And when I'm done with it, I'm going to decapitate you and take a big steaming shit in your head. You hear me? That's what I'm going to do!"
I also misread this as Galactica, which made me think maybe Caprica had a police aspect. It has a lawyer aspect, doesn't it? And being Gattaca-esque anyway, well, confusion! Maybe these shows will be rivals?
And Gattaca was a very nice movie. I'm not sure how much flexibility the film's universe will allow for futurism in cop stories (there are only so many variations of 'he's not genetically modified!' one can tell before you give up and just do a drug-running story), but I hope the writers and showrunners come up with a suitable solution to that.
We-ell... there are cop elements to Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly also. It's always possible to tell a futuristic cop drama that manages to be a legitimately good sci-fi story.
And Gattaca was a very nice movie. I'm not sure how much flexibility the film's universe will allow for futurism in cop stories (there are only so many variations of 'he's not genetically modified!' one can tell before you give up and just do a drug-running story), but I hope the writers and showrunners come up with a suitable solution to that.
There are cop elements in Twelve Monkeys and Dark City, too. Movies pull this off better but on TV, too often it devolves into formula. And too high a proportion of sci fi on TV is cop-oriented. Even V has main characters who are cops but at least that's balanced by other types - the preacher, the TV journalist sleazeball, the horny teen.
It's particularly funny when people misspell that particular name.
I'm sick of sci fi being sugar-coated for the masses with cop show elements being shoehorned in. Fringe, FastForward*, Warehouse 13, will it never end? But Gattaca is cool, and for it I'll make an exception.
*Yep you read that right.
I can't think of a single sci-fi show from the past decade that doesn't involve the police or the military in one way or the other... except for Journeyman.... and the brother was a cop so never mind. Police and sci-fi go hand in hand apparently.
Gattaca. Two Ts, three As, and no Is.
It was this movie from the 1990s, a smart sci-fi film about a world where genetic manipulation of kids at birth meant that to succeed in life you had to be genetically superior - not just or only because they're better, but because they get preferential treatment 'cause they're better - discrimination on the basis of inherited merit, pretty much. This leads our highly ambituous norm hero to fake being a genetic superman so he could get into the space program and go to Titan.
Generally it is very much a film worth checking out and is (rather fairly) regarded as one of the best sci-fi films of the 1990s. As far as sources for a TV show go, this one is superb, though whether that'd translate well into a regular series is anyone's guess.
It's not really cyberpunk, tho', even in the looser, more esoteric meanings of the word.
Very true. But hey, it'd be nice to say there is this really awesome sci-fi TV cop show because right now I can't cite one. My only problem is the Gattaca future just seems to be clean, sterile, and genetically superior! How many stories specifically related to the Gattaca environment rather than thinly veiled normal cop stories can one actually tell? I think the universe needs to be developed further if they're going in that direction.
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There are many that are not at all dominated by cop-show procedural tropes - any Trek series, B5, Farscape, BSG, Jericho, Invasion, Surface, Lost, Heroes, all the Stargates, and I could go on but I think that makes my point well enough. The upcoming V has a law-enforcement lead character but I don't mind that at all. There is plenty else going on to provide balance.
I don't mind if they have a law-enforcement character on the show. I mind when they're a cop show procedural with sci fi window dressing, and I particularly mind when the landscape is dominated by just one narrow approach to sci fi. Whatever happened to the good ole fashioned space opera? Why don't we have more scientist characters who are leads or at least important? Why couldn't Gattaca be made from a science perspective, with scientists as leads instead of law-enforcement?
And when did I complain about the military?
Nope. Police and TV execs who are afraid to let go of the safety provided by the familiar police procedural go hand in hand. It's a sign of lack of imagination and general gutlessness in the TV biz, what a surprise, huh?
Yes, there are a lot of them and none of them are very good. I suspect it's because they were born from gutlessness and fear rather than from a sense that for this particular story, yes, it makes sense to have a law enforcement angle as the driving force behind the narrative. They're cowardly compromises, and that never results in good things.
With V, there are several angles represented by major characters: law enforcement, religion, public opinion/politics, sex. As long as it isn't only about the cops, it's not a problem. And speaking of the military, there's an angle they could add. Maybe I'm overlooking one of the main characters who does have that role.
If it's a cop-out to do sci-fi in a police context, why isn't it a cop-out to do sci-fi in a military context?
Since it's been done that way even more often, as you demonstrate with your list, wouldn't that be even more of a cop-out?
Since it's been done that way even more often, as you demonstrate with your list, wouldn't that be even more of a cop-out?
Maybe this version will fix the ludicrous concept that astronauts in space will wear ordinary business suits. 
Nothing new about that. Why do you think Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek as "Wagon Train to the stars?" It's not because it was actually inspired by Wagon Train (it was inspired by a mix of Horatio Hornblower and Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future, with some Forbidden Planet in there). It was because if you wanted to sell an unusual premise to 1960s TV executives, it helped to convince them it was a Western. (Which is also why Kung Fu was set in the Old West.)
Maybe the new Alien Nation will be that series. The old one was pretty good, at least when it came to ideas. As much as I like the feature version of Gattaca, it'll take some major re-tooling to have enough grounding for a series.
I could see a Gattaca series working. It obviously wouldn't be about any of the actual characters from Gattaca, since the two main characters are rather indisposed at the end of the film... hey, if it's a police procedural, is it gonna have Alan Arkin?
Maybe this version will fix the ludicrous concept that astronauts in space will wear ordinary business suits.
Actually, I always thought that was a neat touch. Space launches seemed to be extremely common, occurring at least daily, so I think it was meant to show that going into space is just no big deal anymore. For all we know, the launch we see at the end of the movie could have been a commuter flight to a space station, where he would transfer to the ship for the Jupiter mission.
Let's not forget, after all, that in the last 80 years, pilots have gone from wearing this to wearing this. Who's to say similar advancements in space travel can't happen?
Well, sure, they can, but the fact remains that business suits are only suitable for Earth wear. What happens if there's an emergency? Space travel requires space SUITS. Pilots on commercial airlines can get away with what they wear because, well, the planes don't go into outer space, you know? An astronaut must wear a spacesuit because that's what they need to do their work.