Gattaca

Where is Gattaca overlooked and underrated? Flyoverstan? Darfur? North?

Thanks, OP, looks good.

R1 it only made 12.5M at the box office and almost 25 years later most people have never heard of it.

“North?”

Oh, Dear!

I agree, op. I remember seeing this in a theater as a teen and was totally blown away by it. I recently bought it on blu ray and fell in love with it all over again. There is something soothing about this film and, of course, it is as relevant today as it ever was. A timeless masterpiece, as far as I’m concerned.

I was one of the few introduced to it about 3 years after it came out. Beautiful, ethereal, sad film.

If you doubt Thurman can act, watch Jennifer 8.

Wonderful film, still moves me after multiple viewings. And Michael Nyman's score is just exquisite.

Agree, R5. This is how I like my science fiction.

OP, R5 here again. I just noticed your quip regarding Ms. Thurman’s acting…

HOW DARE YOU SLANDER UMA! She was perfection in both parts of Kill Bill and should’ve been nominated and won for either!

I agree, it has a soothing quality and is beautifully shot.

I watched it with my partner a few weeks ago, and since then I keep searching for another movie with similar qualities.

R11 It’s like a meditation… a rumination on life, elitism, the disconnection between humans, and death.

Empty shit.

I thought it looked great (and had some hot actors), but the plot got a little ridiculous.

I LOVE LOVE this movie, for me, it's a "modern classic" (along with the fabulous baker boys).....

everything about it i love, the storyline, the musical score is beyond melancholy and beautiful...

the lighting and costumes as well, the locales and sets....

have the movie poster and it framed..

It was the first time I saw Jude Law. Couldn't take my eyes off him because I thought he was beautiful.

I LOOOOOVE this movie. I bought it on DVD years ago. Gotta get the blu ray.

I love Gattaca, but can only watch it every few years.

Everyone, including Uma, was beautiful.

I can't exactly remember the ending, but it had me tearing up, and that doesn't happen often!

Gorgeous movie. Loren Dean was particularly beautiful. The score was so moving.

It's okay.

The only problem with the ending of Gattaca was the claim that only men who are righthanded do aim with their right hand while urinating - which was a giveaway that Ethan Hawke wasn't who he claimed to be.

The thing you don't realize until a rewatch is that Ethan Hawke knows that he won't survive the trip due to his heart condition. It seems so hopeful, but between Jude's suicide in a furnace and Ethan's effective suicide to achieve his space dream, it's a downer all around.

And is his dick a big flopping downer?

R22... why would ethan hawk's character's heart not survive a mission in space? considering all he had already put his heart thru? having seen this movie countless times i never got that impression..

I have only seen this once, when it first came out on dvd. I loved it but don’t remember a lot about it. I need to see if it’s streaming somewhere.

R25 Prime and Hulu, I believe.

This movie starred two of my pet peeve actors with Hawke and Thurman, and I still loved it. Gattaca and The Talented Mr Ripley, what a time for Jude Law. Gattaca is my type of sci-fi, set in the near future with sci-fi trappings, but very action, special affects and gadgets.

...but very LITTLE action, special effects and gadgets...

Love Michael Nyman’s soundtrack.

A woke critique.

I watched Gattaca on opening weekend at the Beverly Center. I always liked Ethan Hawke and Loren Dean, and they were nice to watch. Jude Law is not my type, but he looked good, too.

More attractive to me was seeing various Los Angeles area landmarks in the film, like the Sepulveda Dam, LA City Hall, Cal Poly Pomona, Second Street tunnel.

Ethan Hawke's jacked teeth would be the first tip off that he's not genetically engineered.

Yes, discrimination and elitism are definitely central themes in this movie.

I get the superficial point of the movie: human will and passion, not mere genetics, underlie greatness. Something like that.

I just don’t wholly believe it. It needlessly discounts the power and potential of eugenics and gene editing.

The score was incredible as was my acting.

[quote]why would ethan hawk's character's heart not survive a mission in space? considering all he had already put his heart thru? having seen this movie countless times i never got that impression..

He had a weak heart. Flying through space is not like Star Wars.

- Watch the final scene with Jude. While Jude set aside samples to last a while, he apologizes that he couldn't set aside more. Ethan tells him that he won't need it...why do you suppose he wouldn't need it?

- When Ethan's brother asks how he won the swim, he says that he won by not saving anything for the return trip. He only made it to this point because he wasn't saving anything for coming back from space.

- Also, the way the scene is cut between Ethan leaving and Jude incinerating himself. He says "For someone who wasn't meant for this world, I must confess, I'm having a hard time leaving it" - double meaning, both literal and figuratively leaving this world.

I’ve loved this movie...it is a Sci Fi classic

R36 Love it!

“Dark City” is another underrated sci-fi masterpiece. I started a thread about it a few years ago but it never took off. It came out a year later.

r36. I never thought of this! What a depressing ending!!

I love your interpretation R36.

R39 I liked it, too.

Uma was good in Kill Bill.

R36... guess will have to agree to disagree..

1) from the way it looked it DID look like going into space was like riding in a car... no space suits, simple but futuristic capsule, etc. as you seem them in outer space they are STILL wearing their suits, no masks, and no violent jarring as they fly upwards leaving earth...

2) i suppose he wouldn't need those samples when he got back, because he had already achieved his goal in life, he was okay with going away and living a quiet life forever with uma thurman's character Iris...he wouldn't need to stay in the space program and life a life...

3) as far as the swim, his character was talking about how he won previously when they were children and he saved his brother... because there was another island or land that only he knew about and in the last race at night, he mentions how they were now closer to that area than to the shore they started their race at..

4) he was having a hard time leaving "this world" because he had fallen in love with Iris and wouldn't see her for a year and of course he was already missing jude law's character..

Joe Morganstern of WSJ called it a “crypto-gay fantasy”. He was complimentary is his review. I still remember that phrase.

Designer Genes Run Amok

By Joe Morgenstern

Oct. 24, 1997 11:59 pm ET

The stylishly morose sci-fi fantasy "Gattaca ," a debut feature written and directed by Andrew Niccol, tells a cautionary tale about the evils of genoism. In case you're not up on the latest isms, this has nothing to do with people from Genoa. It's genetic discrimination, or the cellular-biological equivalent of kicking sand in the face of 98-pound weaklings. Ethan Hawke plays a handsome "in-valid" named Vincent Freeman, a member of the genetic underclass at a time--the not-too-distant future, we're told--when good looks alone get you nowhere. (That proves it's a fantasy.)

Where Vincent wants to get is the stars. He's had his sights set on intergalactic exploration since childhood, so he hustles himself a desk job with the Gattaca Corporation, which has a global lock on space travel. But Gattaca won't let the likes of him anywhere near their rockets, so Vincent devises a scheme to circumvent the company's scrupulously efficient personnel screening: buy better genetic material on the black market and pass it off as his own.

So far so good--a plot with all the makings of a thriller. Also a subplot that promises romance, with Uma Thurman as the sleekly beautiful Irene, a genetically elite co-worker who also suffers from physical problems. (It's her heart.) But "Gattaca" has another agenda, for the source of Vincent's high-octane DNA, urine and blood--lots of blood--is another hunky guy, Jerome (Jude Law), a superior specimen who's been paralyzed in an accident. (In other words, a valid invalid.) With what may have been invalid naiveti, I kept looking for real heat between Mr. Hawke and Ms. Thurman, but the movie's heart lies in the solemn, murky relationship between the two men. I'm not making moral judgments, mind you, only dramatic ones. Given the movie's sci-fi premise, I wasn't expecting a crypto-gay romance in a not-too-distant future when it's OK once again to exchange bodily fluids.

…

Oh that’s the entire review.

“Crypto-gay romance”.

It's just uncanny how everyone seems to know and like and write praise about this overlooked and underrated film.

Apart from The Truman Show, Andrew Niccols’s movies have such a distinct retro-futuristic style.

There was one that kind of imitated Gattaca recently, with the same look and vaguely similar story. With that guy from A Simple Man and that actress who recently has a sex change. Lemme see…

Equals with Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart — not Ellen Page.

R48 has Aspergers

R39 Dark City did double the box office of Gattaca. I think they didn’t know how to market Gattaca properly and it was too high-brow for the Midwest.

Gattaca was just released on 4K a few weeks ago It looks incandescently beautiful in that format Here’s the steelbook from BestBuy

R53 Thanks!

The 4K steel book sold out and people are selling it for up to $250 on eBay MSRP 38

Love that Gattaca is getting so much love. One of all time favorites.

Probably the biggest compliment I ever received was when I was at a co-workers apartment and his new roommate walked in while my friend was upstairs getting ready for us to go out. I exchanged hellos with the new roommate. Then she went upstairs.

I overheard her tell my friend: Who the hell is that guy in our living room? It's like Jude Law from Gattaca is in our house...

I could have died very happy that day!

^ Were you in a wheelchair?

R58 beat me to it

Astounding SONY released a 4K of this overlooked and underrated film. And then to top it off, it sold out. What is going on?

R60 rumor is only 3 people that are obsessed fan girls bought all the copies.

R56 Copies are still available at Best Buy.

R62 Amazon is out except 3rd party

I tried posting a link for the film’s Best Buy page, but Muriel isn’t letting me.

It’s selling for $27.99. I just bought one.

Best Buy easy to Google

Did you ever see a movie called "Blade Runner"? There are 4 beautiful actors in it. One is Harrison Ford, and you all know him. And there is Shauna Young who was a cult actress and said to have gone crazy. Plus Uma Thurman and Klaus Kinski. Gattaca kind of reminds me of Blade Runner. It's an obscure art movie and deserves to be seen. It's ravishing with a haunting soundtrack by Kraftwerk.

Recent poll shows that only 0.0008% of Americans have heard of the movie Gattaca.

Oh hell no, R68.

R67 it’s Sean Young

OP I'm not a Scifi fan, but I remember liking Gattaca though I haven't seen it in a long time. It was more cerebral than most Scifi as I remember and if you think Uma can't act watch Hysterical Blindness (2002) A TV movie for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress

silly question, but if you have a 4k dvd does that mean you have to watch it on a 4k dvd player and 4k TV?

R72 Yes. Now, most 4K blu rays bring a regular blu ray disc, as is the case with this edition. Also, most tv’s are 4K now, too. However, you do need to make sure you have a 4K compatible blu ray player, i.e., not just one that “upgrades” to 4K.

R73... got it, my tv is 4k, but my dvd player is only "regular".. i know i need to at least upgrade to a blue ray player so i can watch 4k and normal dvd's on it!...however, my normal dvd player also is a dvd/vcr player AND RECORDER, so i can record stuff and transfer stuff from vcr to dvd and vice versa, so i'll never part with that!

R74 Chile, get a blu ray.