I really don’t think Roeper has a good handle on the mentalities of people born before 1910. A white woman bringing home a black man in 1968 was a real issue, even if the black man in question is a living bodhisattva.
I see on Wiki that Roeper was born in 1959. Brother’s memory isn’t doing too well.
This article? Did you even pay attention to the movie, RealityChuck? I’m not defending it, but you got some things clearly wrong.
Huh? There are many little things that just don’t work. For instance, there are records that have everyone’s genetic profile. Yet they leave out important facts like someone is paralyzed in a car accident. Why? How was that little detail missed?
It’s clearly stated his accident happens out of the country. I also think it would be in Eugene’s best interest to not officially document the accident, whether that means seeking underground medical help or whatever.
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The constant genetic testing is pointless and expensive. Why does anyone bother? It would make sense under the system to check when hiring someone, but every day? Every time someone enters the building? It takes time and costs money to make genetic tests; why bother? Because the guy who was OK yesterday might change his genes today? Spot checks, maybe, but checking every person every single day? How many people are you tying up to do all this testing? How much money do you tie up in equipment to do the testing? How often are you going to find anything from it? And, finally, what does it matter if you do, since there is no explicit ban on In-Valids? *
The blood test are simply identity tests to get into Gattaca, which probably make more sense with the janitorial staff. The urine tests are substance tests. In a way, the genetic tests weren’t testing genetics. Also, anything can be made cheaply in the “future”.
For me, the film began to fall apart in the scene where Vincent gets his job at Gattaca. He shows up, hands his faked genetic ID to the doctor. The doctor checks it, then tells him he’s hired. Vincent asks about an interview and the doctor says, “that was it.”
It was my understanding that these genetic tests show rather complete background information. Like, when a police officer genetically IDs Eugene and it lists him as working at Gattaca, despite being in a wheel chair. The doctor probably just tested him, saw he graduated from Oxford summa cum laude or whatever, saw every single place he worked at before, and also factored in his genetic profile. Seriously, there are too many other variables to just dismiss this as stupid. Gattaca could have just looked him up on the database thingy, saw his credentials, and hired him. The bigger question is whether Eugene actually had any space navigation experience. Who knows, he could have majored in it.
That article was very poorly written and reasoned. But its fundamental point, that Gattaca is a really really dumb movie that thinks it’s smart, is correct.
Here’s my big issue with it: So this dystopian future has these very accurate genetic tests which very quickly give an accurate reading of someone’s potential when it comes to things like strength, IQ, various health issues, etc.
So Our Hero (Jude Law?) would have had a reading something like this: “Super super super high IQ, might die at any moment from heart murmur”. The premise of the movie is that because of the “might die at any moment from heart murmur” part, no remotely high status employer or education institution will touch him. Which is ridiculous, because it ignores the “Super super super high IQ” part. It doesn’t take a genius employer to hire someone like that to do any of various jobs that actually require a high IQ.
However, the plot of the movie is that Our Hero wants to become… an astronaut. One of a very small number of jobs where “might die at any moment from a heart murmur” becomes a massive and honestly insurmountable obstacle. But because he’s pure of heart and full of willpower and human spirit, he succeeds anyhow… thus selfishly putting the entire mission at risk. Hurray!
I’d agree. When my sister went off to college in 1966, my mother’s sole instruction to her was, “Don’t bring home a black man.”
Think about that for a second. My mother, born in 1924, was in many ways a pioneer for what women could achieve in American mid-century society. The first-ever woman to graduate from her school with a degree in engineering, a businesswoman and entrepreneur who sent her children to progressive schools and encouraged her daughters to pursue outdoor activities and productive careers, years before such attitudes became common.
And all she thought about sending her daughter off to college was what kind of man she would find there.
Anyone who claims we have made no progress since the 50s is just plain stupid.
By the way, her first great-grandchild is half-black. She absolutely loves her. So I guess she’s made progress since the 50s, too.
He only wanted to become an astronaut to spite the unfair system. He was being very meta with his “triumph-of-the-human-spirit” thing. Had he grown up in world less tainted by geneism then he may have adopted more appropriate career goals. Think of him as Captain Ahab with a heart murmur. “Towards thee I roll . . . thou damned spaceship!”
I think the film is a mess, but questioning whether his career plans are prudent kinda misses the point.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the movie so I can’t really say how much support there is for your analysis.
But even so, that makes very little sense as a plan.
Scenario 1:
“And the winner of the nobel prize for Physics is… John Smith!”
“Guess what, I’m not really John Smith, I’m really Bob Jones, and I have a heart murmur, but I still could do this amazing research. Your system is messed up!”
“Oh wow, dude, you totally made me rethink my priorities”
Scenario 2:
“And with our first live uplink from Mars, here’s… John Smith!”
“Guess what, I’m not really John Smith, I’m really Bob Jones, and I have a heart murmur”
“You bastard! You’ve risked the lives of all your fellow astronauts! Now we hate you in-valids even more!”
The Osterman Weekend A movie so incredibly stupid I could have been convinced I hallucinated it.
The message in this serious as a heart attack movie was. . . stop watching so much TV. Many people died to make this point.
What, does no one remember Billy Jack!?
You would be right except that he isn’t interested in social justice. He doesn’t care if other people find out what he did. He doesn’t care if he dies. He doesn’t give a damn about other people either. He will knowingly place other people’s lives and livelihoods in danger. He doesn’t give a damn. It is about beating the system. At any cost. Hence the Ahab comparison. Same motivations - beating back life when it tells you no.
It hinges on (what I remember) the only really great part of that film: the metaphor about how he wins the swimming contest by being willing to drown himself. He wasn’t sacrificing his life because he dreamed of becoming an Olympic swimmer, he was willing to drown to show that he could do what life told him he couldn’t. No other reason than the defiance of the human spirit.
Welcome to everything Oliver Stone has ever done.
I’ll nominate the execrable Waking Life, a film that tried so hard to be, like, totally deep, man, but was just a nauseatingly animated montage of middle-school philosophizing.
Compare and contrast Mindwalk, which is incredibly intelligent, and really serious, and abominably boring.
“Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990)”
I thought it was supposed to be a porno-lite for porno-lite’s sake. Not that there’s anything wrong with that 
But when the finale came, the movie came across as seriously stating that a woman kidnapped and tortured will come to love her captor. BS movie.
Exactly.
The guy wanted to be an astronaut, just like Rudy wanted to play for Notre Dame. Neither belonged in the role at all, and had been told as much all their lives. Both did everything they possibly could to realize their dreams anyway; the more they heard no, the more determined they got.
To focus on the impracticality of them in outer space / on the football field so completely misses the point it boggles the mind.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. It had a serious anti-nuclear proliferation message, but the movie itself was dumber than hell and had plotholes you could drive a space shuttle through.
I’m glad no one is taking Gattaca too seriously in this thread.
I hated Law Abiding Citizen.
In the future, astronauts will fly in business suits! 
WHAT?!?!?!
I gotta go to the basement & apologize.
Hell, I thought the message was just dumb icing on a three layer cake of dumb. It’s become one of my favorite awful movies!
It’s normal to balk if you look at it hyper-literally, but you are missing the fine point that the movie is meant to be taken as an allegory about voluntarily choosing to surrender unrestricted personal autonomy in favour of forming an exclusive romantic partnership with someone.