Gattaca - Deluxe Edition product reviews

Film tagline: "There is no gene for the human spirit."

In our library of around 700+ DVDs (and climbing), Gattaca is one of a handful that stand out from the rest.

This a great SciFi story of personal challenge, commitment to believing in yourself, and daring to reach beyond 'impossible' obstacles to own your dream. But it is also a vivid glimpse of a plausable future, where man's lust for perfection, power and control reaches to manipulation of the code of life with darker social consequences.

For a SciFi enthusiast - this is a must see, and an extremely highly recommended for anyone regardless of preferred genre.

Gattaca will inspire you, it might scare you, and it will make you think!

Produced 1997, this was the first movie written and directed by New Zealander Andrew Niccol, who went on the write some other exceptional screenplays including The Truman Show, S1mone, and The Terminal.

Back in '97 when this movie first came out, I was well into my studies on genetics, and as a side-issue arose the concept of "genetic discrimination as a side-effect of genetic engineering" - the concept that those with 'tidied up' genomes would become an elite group, more fit and enduring, generic abnormalities erased, stronger gene telomeres (the things that stop DNA chains from 'fraying at the ends' and thus spontaneously mutating in a bad way), and most importantly, resistant to pretty much all disease and infirmity not caused by a physical injury.

That's where this movie made it all so clear for me how bad it could get, and the timing was incredible. In this movie we meet a genetic 'Valid' - DNA tweaked while still just a blastocyst (fertilised ovum barely past the second or third division) and thus automatically a member of a growing elite group of humans... those with all the bad bits editted out. Problem is, no amount of genetic tweaking can prtect a person from a purely physical accident... they may be tough enough to climb a mountain, but not tough enough to walk away from a major fall.

In this position, we find the seedy underbelly of humanity thrives, selling the genetic signatures of those with all the right genes, but none of the abilities to make it in an increasingly genetist world. To maintain the lifestyle they are accostimed to, they must live as donors of genetic material to those less genetically fortunate than themselves, who in turn live as parasites, and risk extreme punishments if they are caught, since they are committing the ultimate fraud by the societies standards... and known as de-gene-erates.

Overall, this movie utterly blew me away 12 years ago, and it still does today... as we rapidly appraoch an era in which this kind of mentaility is all too plausible... and realistic.