Evan: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,

Evan: back again with another film discussion from the left.

Evan: You can follow the show on all platforms at leftoftheprojector.com.

Evan: The year was 1997. We had sci-fi like Fifth Element, Contact,

Evan: Event Horizon, Face Off, Jurassic Park, the second one.

Evan: But down at the bottom of the office box office charts was Gattaca.

Evan: Directed by Andrew Nicole, starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman,

Evan: Jude Law, Alan Arkin, and others.

Evan: We have maybe this wasn't on your radar.

Evan: Yes, Sonja Lube. The others.

Chris: Gore Vidal.

Evan: I know, Gore Vidal. And there's actually another classic actor that I'm blanking

Evan: on at the moment who's in it. Oh, fuck.

Evan: Oh, Ernest Borgnine.

Chris: Ernest Borgnine? Wait, what? What is he in the movie?

Evan: He is the the like the older cleaner guy.

Chris: The older avuncular yeah don't clean the glass too well there kid.

Evan: Yes yes exactly this

Evan: was probably a film that maybe kind of fell off most people's radar

Evan: just didn't do well in the box office you know

Evan: it only netted a uh 12 and a half million dollars on its 36 million dollar budget

Evan: you know not good as as they might say but to discuss this forgotten although

Evan: now you'll remember it sci-fi film from 1997 we have the hosts of why we roll

Evan: podcast wife marshall and chris pickett thank you both for being here today.

Wythe: Hey thanks for having us.

Chris: Yeah salutana mikoi.

Evan: It's a little little.

Chris: Esperanto for you.

Evan: That's that's perfect uh but before we jump into the film at hand i thought

Evan: you might both introduce yourselves further tell us about your podcast still

Evan: fleet studio which i didn't even mention until now but anything that uh the

Evan: listeners may not be aware of.

Wythe: Yeah uh chris do you want to you want to kick us off.

Chris: Hey what's up everybody i am christopher pickett i'm a multidisciplinary

Chris: artist living in brooklyn new york and uh yeah i make i make lots of stuff i

Chris: make tattoos that's my kind of day job and how i know our wonderful host evan

Chris: here um and i also make tabletop role-playing games um with still fleet studio

Chris: with my wonderful friend wife marshall here.

Wythe: Hey uh and i'm wife marshall i'm a writer and i live in queens now i used to

Wythe: live in brooklyn for a super long time um and i'm a science writer and science

Wythe: fiction writer uh which are a little bit different things so by day i write

Wythe: about food and medicine in the future um and by night i run this game company

Wythe: and we make weird sci-fi and sort of a fantasy,

Wythe: I'd say a lot of it's like sort of historical re-imagining type games,

Wythe: all coming from a leftist perspective.

Wythe: Uh, and yeah, I'm a fan of the show. So it was super exciting that,

Wythe: uh, randomly, um, you know, was connected, uh, through Chris.

Wythe: So, you know, I'm excited Evan to, to meet and chat about a,

Wythe: yeah, forgotten gem in a way, especially in the, uh, the tradition of like very

Wythe: specifically like biotech, um, nerded nerding out, you know, movies.

Evan: So, yeah, it was, it all came together very oddly. Like I was literally getting

Evan: a tattoo and we, I don't, I don't even know exactly how came up we often talk

Evan: about like books and sci-fi and these things and it's just yeah.

Chris: I i feel like uh we were what

Chris: we were talking about i i think when i last saw you in person evan um i was

Chris: in the middle of a spate of uh biopunk novels that i was reading and i feel

Chris: like we talked about that quite a bit um and then uh i think maybe i told you

Chris: about why we roll which um By the way,

Chris: my wife and I have a podcast called Why We Roll for those listening.

Chris: It's a chat show where we talk to other tabletop role-playing game designers.

Chris: We talk to them about their games, the things they're making,

Chris: why they make it, and we also try to get into the politics of the game at hand,

Chris: one of the ludonarrative politics.

Chris: We always approach it from a leftist perspective, and yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Chris: But yeah, we were talking about

Chris: that, and then you brought up Left of the projector and now stars aligned.

Evan: And so I guess that leads me to why you chose this film, which I mean,

Evan: actually, after describing all of what you just said, it seems maybe obvious.

Evan: But, you know, picking, you know, it was on my list of films and no one has

Evan: been like, oh, yeah, I want to do Gattaca. Or maybe it was on my list.

Evan: I think it was on your list. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was. And so,

Evan: but what, I mean, given both your, your interests, I mean, maybe it's obvious,

Evan: but what maybe grabs you about this film now it's, you know,

Evan: we're talking it's 28 years ago, still, as we'll get into, you know,

Evan: relevant and very interesting.

Wythe: Yeah.

Evan: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. Very, very prescient in a lot of ways.

Wythe: Well, I mean, I know from my perspective, I, I was, uh, intrigued, uh,

Wythe: to know if you had done um boots riley

Wythe: sorry to bother you and then you had and i just hadn't listened

Wythe: to the episode so i was like ah damn it of course um speaking of you

Wythe: know other great biopunk adjacent you know movies about

Wythe: sort of genetic engineering of people and um culture and that's almost the opposite

Wythe: of this movie which we'll discuss sort of one is from a very much like a black

Wythe: perspective and one is like the whitest movie ever in some ways which i is very

Wythe: creepy and adds to the sort of retro future um weird timeliness of it given

Wythe: we're recording this you know in april 2025 and And, you know,

Wythe: white supremacists have ascended to the highest offices of the United States openly,

Wythe: right? Like it's mask off time.

Wythe: So I think it's sort of timely. But, yeah, I think it comes out of also just

Wythe: Chris and I both read a lot of biopunk sci-fi.

Wythe: And we work on games that are about imagining other futures through this kind of lens of being other.

Wythe: And I think that comes out of imagination-based games in the,

Wythe: you know, if you don't know what tabletop role-playing games are,

Wythe: kind of the Dungeons and Dragons tradition, it comes out of it very naturally

Wythe: because it's a kind of game where you imagine in your mind, you have a different body.

Chris: Right.

Wythe: And I think that essential insight drives, um, I don't want to speak for you,

Wythe: Chris, but I kind of feel like for both of us, all of the art we make is like,

Wythe: well, what if bodies were just different and how would we, how would that change society?

Wythe: And like, maybe we wouldn't be such dirtbags to each other, you know,

Wythe: like maybe, or, you know, things could be better or worse, whatever.

Wythe: So I think Attica as a weird uh you know it's it's in classes about this kind

Wythe: of science it's like people show it as like oh look it's the only movie about this.

Chris: Yeah it's.

Wythe: Got a weird sort of ambivalence a moral ambivalence at its core so i mean i'm

Wythe: excited to unpack that with y'all what it's really saying.

Chris: I think it has a i agree it has a moral ambivalence at its core it's it's like this this,

Chris: astonishingly um liberal movie which like

Chris: re-watching it i watched it twice um since

Chris: we decided to do it and yeah re-watching it again

Chris: the second time i was just like i was floored by how ambivalent

Chris: it is about actual economics and about race and

Chris: about actual class and yeah it's amazing um but yeah i think for my part i wanted

Chris: to do existens um and i think you already did existens so i was like well what's

Chris: another biopunk movie i can think of off the top of my head and lo and behold

Chris: gattaca was in front of me on the list.

Evan: I actually haven't done Existence.

Chris: Oh, you haven't. I thought you did.

Evan: No, was it? I'm trying to... Maybe it just wasn't. It might have just not been on my list.

Wythe: You've done a lot.

Evan: Cronenberg is like someone that I actually haven't covered at all,

Evan: which is shocking. I know.

Chris: That is surprising. Well, I guess we'll just... We'll have to come back.

Chris: We'll just have to watch Existence together now.

Wythe: We'll have to pitch you. Yeah.

Evan: I'll happily...

Chris: Yeah, we'll pitch you on a Flesh Gun episode.

Evan: Episode yeah maybe i'll

Evan: give like everyone like the very the quickest snapshot

Evan: of the film and then i'm gonna ask you sort of how this kind of like the technology

Evan: of this film might kind of like look in sort of real life as you know how realistic

Evan: it is or you know the science behind it but for anyone who hasn't seen it or

Evan: hasn't seen in a long time this is first your chance to pause and then go watch the movie.

Evan: And now that you've watched it, you can come back and hear we describe what happens.

Evan: And it's sort of this weird, not too distant future kind of movie where we'll

Evan: also talk about kind of like the technology and the way that things look is

Evan: it makes it feel very, you know, mid-century, despite the fact that it's this,

Evan: you know, futuristic film where people now are all registered in databases.

Evan: And rather than having regular births the way, you know, we have them now,

Evan: it's all done through genetics where you can use all the things you want in

Evan: a person, in your child, and avoid disorders and all these different things that plague society.

Evan: You know, I say in scare quotes.

Evan: And we have our protagonist, played by Ethan Hawke, who is a natural birth,

Evan: and then his brother is this sort of futuristic birth.

Evan: And we see how much Ethan Hawke wants to move and go to the stars and be kind

Evan: of a cosmonaut or an astronaut or whatever. They don't even really use that terminology.

Evan: And slowly we see his attempt to use a person's genetics, in this case Jude

Evan: Law, to achieve his goal.

Evan: And we'll get into further how that works.

Evan: Ends up working out for him or not. And so that's a, you know, very limited,

Evan: short, short synopsis, but I don't know how you want to, if you want to describe

Evan: why it's sort of, there's like a very early, early scene in this where his parent,

Evan: Ethan Hawke's parents are,

Evan: you know, bring him to the doctor and they're basically creating the plan for his brother,

Evan: you know, and like, he wants to have this colored, what colors,

Evan: you know, what color eyes does he wants you know the getting rid of diseases

Evan: and it's just it's kind of a it's very creepy.

Chris: It's super creepy that.

Wythe: There's.

Chris: A moment where the doctor is going through the list of like the things that

Chris: the parents have specified that they want and the last thing that he lists is

Chris: fair skin and this is the only speaking role for a black person in the entire

Chris: movie which is of note and when he says fair skin he's like ah yes and fair

Chris: skin of course there's this like weird.

Wythe: Attitude to.

Chris: It where like the delivery is is extremely scary and yeah it's it's uh it's chilling.

Wythe: Yeah re-watching it made me think of almost like you

Wythe: know man in the high castle like like how intentional was nickel

Wythe: and i don't know i haven't read enough around his his work

Wythe: to say um if this is meant to be a common on race when

Wythe: i watched it as a kid i thought it was more just about sci-fi and re-watching

Wythe: it you know i was thinking okay it'll be you know

Wythe: a chance to kind of unpack how this has or hasn't aged well

Wythe: in terms of you know in science fiction studies talk about the

Wythe: novum like the core idea um and there's a tradition

Wythe: of classifying them what you know what if like a novum a new

Wythe: thing that we can't possibly imagine versus like a if left

Wythe: alone a current trend will lead to right um and that's something like heineland

Wythe: talked about octavia butler talked about that and this is definitely in the

Wythe: tradition of if lift left alone the science is headed in this direction so um

Wythe: you know you know gattaca is not real science in any way it's meant to be this kind of silly,

Wythe: summery, squish-down version, but it is based on real science, which is.

Wythe: We can get all into the acronyms, they're really fun, but there's things called

Wythe: genome-wide association studies that look at different areas,

Wythe: lots of genetic regions, and how they might relate to traits,

Wythe: like not just, you know, okay, something physical, but also how people behave.

Wythe: And so there's a whole science called behavioral genomics that looks at different

Wythe: regions and they calculate scores, polygenic indices or polygenic scores,

Wythe: which basically say this person is likely to have this trait or not and be good

Wythe: at this type of behavior or not.

Wythe: Um a lot of this is coming out of medicine but you

Wythe: can imagine right away right your mind jumps to well can this

Wythe: have other uses and yes i mean this is real science that has other

Wythe: uses and is very controversial within biology because people can say on the

Wythe: one hand you know well yeah i mean studying um how genetics relates to behavior

Wythe: is very old it goes back to looking at fruit flies and things but uh the origins

Wythe: of modern molecular biology but like it also gets into this creepy I think of

Wythe: it as Gattaca territory, where it's like, well,

Wythe: if you believe these things, that a certain polygenic index will lead to a certain

Wythe: behavior, then could you control for that? Could you select for that?

Wythe: Could you engineer that?

Wythe: Theory um i mean the answer is yes

Wythe: right like as far as i know no one's doing this currently but in

Wythe: theory um the more that we build up the this information this

Wythe: database of kind of these regions of genomes seem

Wythe: to lead to control for these behaviors

Wythe: so we're talking about lots and lots of genes in different states

Wythe: different alleles so different ways that the gene is

Wythe: is written and you know in theory

Wythe: once you have enough of that information it's just in a computer you could design

Wythe: right we can basically 3d print um dna

Wythe: so you could like go in there you know you'd use crisper and change

Wythe: what what's happening um now again we don't

Wythe: as far as i know no one's doing this but gattaca assumes in the near future

Wythe: this becomes like trivially cheap and easy and everyone basically has what's

Wythe: called in science fiction often designer babies they design all the traits um

Wythe: and our hero vincent is like the last he's the og like kid who didn't get the

Wythe: designer treatment He's just a norm core.

Wythe: I think they call them godchildren or godbirths in the movie.

Chris: Yeah, there's a bunch of different names for them. Yeah, there's godbirths.

Chris: There's, I think they call them a luck child at one point.

Wythe: Oh, luck child. Yeah, that's really good.

Chris: Yeah, but yeah, godchild, godbirth, invalid. There's another one.

Chris: Degenerate. There's a lot of, Andrew Nichols uses a lot of these like very ham-fisted,

Chris: I think intentionally ham-fisted, you know,

Chris: know portmanteaus of stuff um which i think to your point earlier white is it's

Chris: a way of like compressing um the world building down and kind of like making

Chris: it like serving it to you on a platter which you know i don't think is necessarily

Chris: a bad thing or a good thing but it is a thing and it does make you roll your

Chris: eyes a few times in the movie and.

Wythe: It represents like just to finish in the science part a weird like end of it

Wythe: it represents where behavioral genomics stops and a new field called,

Wythe: sociogenomics starts, which is basically saying, wait a second,

Wythe: even if you have all that data, the way those things are expressed has everything

Wythe: to do with how you're raised and how you develop,

Wythe: you know at the level of mind body everything so it's like nowadays it's studied

Wythe: very differently and it's not like gattaca in real science um but this movie

Wythe: assumes none of that nurture stuff ever enters the conversation it's just nature

Wythe: it's just like programming um except it it then under.

Chris: It does come in it.

Wythe: Undercuts it because vincent is this god child luck baby whatever

Wythe: so so it's interesting tension about what is the real science and what is the

Wythe: movie arguing i don't think it necessarily is i don't know how much nickel at

Wythe: all cared about that but it has kind of the seeds of you could read it as like

Wythe: you know hard nature or like oh no there's actually this argument that like

Wythe: you can overcome nature um to to you know astonishing degree there's.

Evan: Like several times in the film when people are questioned for the murder later

Evan: on of the of the the head of the of.

Chris: Gattaca and.

Evan: They're like oh i don't have a violent bone in my body like you can like go.

Chris: Check it look.

Evan: It up and so it's very clearly they're trying to almost like weed out the potential

Evan: for crime you know from these people in addition to the traits i think that

Evan: also plainly fits into the idea that there's no people of color in this film.

Chris: Yeah so yeah for sure but yeah

Chris: go ahead it's interesting to see it's interesting i was gonna say it's interesting

Chris: to see how the nature nurture stuff comes up um

Chris: i was gonna bring up uh gorf doll's banger line

Chris: of i don't have a violent bone in my body and then spoiler alert

Chris: hopefully you watch the movie during the very quick break that

Chris: evan gave us uh but spoiler alert gorvidal fucking

Chris: kills a guy in the movie uh violently i might

Chris: say so he certainly does have a few violent bones but it's

Chris: also true for um eugene which

Chris: again until the rewatch i didn't catch this eugene

Chris: good genes you gen like yeah it's just so fuck it's so dead there in your face

Chris: it's so good um but even his like malaise that he gets to because he's like

Chris: oh well i got second place i was supposed to have the world handed to me on

Chris: a platter because of my perfect genetic profile, but I still got second place.

Chris: And that makes him commit suicide because it

Chris: fragility that comes with that but um you do see these instances of you know

Chris: with sociogenomics where where you can't you don't live in a vacuum you know

Chris: like our genes don't live in

Chris: a vacuum there are still outside influences that you cannot edit for but.

Evan: They're very clearly trying to create this society of i mean we also can talk

Evan: about you know like the very clear caste system that you kind of have.

Chris: Created where.

Evan: You have these people who are working for these you know for gattaca this you

Evan: know this uh company that's sending

Evan: people to the you know to various moon saturn and all these places and.

Chris: All this technology for.

Evan: Some reason like it's never really nothing ever of that's

Evan: ever really explained i guess i guess that's kind of immaterial in

Evan: some sense but then you also have the underclass of people

Evan: who are just i guess you could just call them service workers you know

Evan: the people who work as waiters at the fancy clubs the people who

Evan: clean gattaca and they have special places

Evan: they live too it's very clear that they live in you know probably what

Evan: you would consider a project or you know a housing you know a public housing

Evan: kind of situation and it's very much that they've attempted to i don't know

Evan: i guess with these people that they weren't couldn't their families couldn't

Evan: afford to get their get fancy jeans like do you think that all these people also are natural births.

Chris: Well that's that's something that's another like weirdly

Chris: ambivalent thing in the movie is that there's they don't talk about

Chris: the the economics or accessibility of the

Chris: gene editing and having a vitro or

Chris: made man babies or whatever they call them i remember

Chris: that's another one they call the natural births is

Chris: uh uteros you're right you're a fucking you fucking

Chris: utero like imagine saying that as an insult to somebody

Chris: um but yeah yeah

Chris: no they're they're super uh there's there's no

Chris: information about like accessibility to the gene editing about

Chris: like what it costs any of that stuff like there's an assumption

Chris: that vincent's parents are able to afford it and they're kind

Chris: of shown as like very middle class like a

Chris: very 1950s atomic family middle class thing um

Chris: but then they don't touch it again so like you know it it does make sense that

Chris: a lot of the men that vinson has shown with working the cleaning crew at gattaca

Chris: are older men i think they're trying to account for that but then it is left

Chris: up in the air where it's like well what does accessibility to this look like

Chris: and does it really matter and.

Wythe: I think that's The strength and weakness of the movie is it's really weirdly

Wythe: tight on the one novum of like designer babies.

Wythe: So it kind of ignores like all of the other what ifs that would go along with

Wythe: that like you're bringing up around what kind of economic world is this like

Wythe: what is the makeup of it feels like Los Angeles it looks like JPL skin bringing up you know.

Wythe: Butler it's it feels like it yeah the gattaca is the.

Chris: Marin county civic center.

Wythe: Okay there you go so it it feels like a place we've

Wythe: known in a kind of sci-fi we should be familiar with but it

Wythe: sort of cuts away so much of the world and has these retro

Wythe: future choices around like everyone's listening to jazz and

Wythe: driving old school cars and it just feels like they did

Wythe: you know there's no attempt to have futuristic computers everything looks

Wythe: sleek but not really thought through in terms

Wythe: of the sci-fi it's just kind of clean and generic with the

Wythe: one exception that designer babies and all we're going to talk about is designer babies

Wythe: and you know so in a weird way it holds up because like it's focused and it

Wythe: doesn't have like things that have aged badly but it also to your point it just

Wythe: leaves a lot of mystery around like yeah what is everybody else doing why why

Wythe: are so many people hired to wash the windows at gattaca all the time it's like

Wythe: the clean it's the cleanest place everyone's just the window vipers are just always you know No.

Chris: But again, but again, you know, don't clean the windows too well,

Chris: kid. You might get ideas.

Wythe: Right, right, right.

Chris: That's why they need so many people to clean the windows because nobody's doing their job.

Evan: It reminds me a lot of like the technology that you see in Fallout with sort

Evan: of like the like the retro vibe, but it's also the future, you know,

Evan: and it's I don't know if maybe I tried to look up a little bit about that.

Evan: I couldn't find too much, even in the way of like interviews from Nicole about it.

Evan: And it seems, I don't know, maybe just like they thought it looked cool.

Evan: It just kind of, you know, electric. I don't know. Oh, your theory.

Chris: Yeah, I have a theory. I've got a theory on it. And a part of it is that,

Chris: I mean, they do use a lot of, so again, Gattaca, the building that they use

Chris: to shoot Gattaca, the site is the Marin Civic Center, which was built by Frank

Chris: Lloyd Wright at the end of his life.

Chris: He didn't even, he died before the project was finished. But it was meant to

Chris: be a building with a lifespan of over 300 years and meant to be futuristic.

Chris: But it's also like this very, especially for Frank Lloyd Wright,

Chris: like later in his life, it's this kind of pure expression of brutalism and like

Chris: this trend that you see in architecture, both in the US and in the USSR with

Chris: like these brutalist, brutalist architecture scapes,

Chris: which are kind of taking focus away from humanism and more towards just like pure progressivism.

Chris: Like everything is clean, everything is efficient, everything is scientific,

Chris: you know, all of the angles, you know, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.

Chris: So I think, you know, they make a lot of use of that in the movie.

Chris: The other thing too is just like boomers or like, sorry, not boomers.

Chris: Like Nichols is just in that age range where like his conception of science

Chris: fiction is still within a retrofuturist framework.

Chris: And I think like in the late 90s, well, throughout all the 90s,

Chris: really culturally in the United States, we were referencing the 50s so much

Chris: because... the people that were producing...

Chris: Television and movies and things of that time grew up in that era so i think

Chris: that there's a little bit of that in there there's a little bit of like what

Chris: does utopian sci-fi look like well it looks like the jetsons so we're going

Chris: to go with this kind of like modernist sheen on everything if that makes sense no i.

Wythe: Think yeah that.

Evan: Makes sense to me.

Wythe: Yeah it's like referencing um you know 2001 which

Wythe: is referencing the bow house and it's sort of like sleek design as a

Wythe: as a kind of filler that just says don't think too much about it which

Wythe: again i think is really effective if you look at star trek which was

Wythe: a really like popular show and not in some

Wythe: ways like um not high concept but to but now

Wythe: we can look back and say oh wow it broke all these barriers and was really smart and kind of

Wythe: kind of left us right but like a lot of that was just you know make it

Wythe: sleek like make it so that your brain turns off like how

Wythe: would that work and i think gattaca weirdly achieves

Wythe: that well where like even though a lot of these choices like

Wythe: the jazz club is so corny in some ways it's also

Wythe: like okay i get it this is a stand-in for whatever

Wythe: music is popular at this time like it kind of doesn't really matter right

Wythe: it's not about the music it's only about will uma

Wythe: thurman who by the way is the love interest this movie is full of like a-listers

Wythe: uh you know will she fall for uh vincent ethan hawk's character you know the

Wythe: our degenerate uh utero which every time i hear utero i hear kurt cobain screaming

Wythe: lyrics in utero in my head it's great so it's yeah fair enough a lot of musical associations um.

Evan: Yeah and one of the the things like separate from the kind of like the

Evan: setting too well actually this is one other thing i'll mention because i think

Evan: maybe you may put it in your note just because we're talking about the aesthetics

Evan: and the the the set design and all of the things the choices there is the the

Evan: apartment where both you know where uh,

Evan: ethan hawk and jude law share to you know prepare all their blood samples and

Evan: fingerprints and all these things they have to do which is also worth talking about too.

Wythe: Is the.

Evan: The staircase in there is like just the dna

Evan: strand which i think is it's just a double helix yeah yeah

Evan: like it just like looks cool and and also for anyone who doesn't know that the

Evan: title of the film is also the g-a-t-c which is the different you know nucleo

Evan: nucleo bases of dna which again you know it's all it wasn't the original title

Evan: i saw on wikipedia it was supposed to be called the eighth day referring to the day they created.

Wythe: The bible and.

Evan: That would have been i don't know somehow just that title change,

Evan: almost would like change the idea of the film in my head somehow,

Evan: like making it religious.

Chris: It would recontextualize a lot of the film, which I think there's notes of that

Chris: in there, like calling them godchildren and like there's these echoes of religion

Chris: throughout the movie, but it is largely done away with.

Chris: Although isn't there like an Ecclesiastes quote that the movie opens with?

Wythe: Yeah, it opens with a sick quote, Ecclesiastes 713, and a quote from William Galen and it's...

Wythe: It's interesting to think about specifically the eighth day.

Wythe: I mean, you know, I think that the idea, again, of the ambivalence of like,

Wythe: it's a critique of this, right?

Wythe: Clearly, I mean, Vincent wins in a sense, but it's not of great critique in

Wythe: the sense we're identifying of.

Wythe: It doesn't really look at the systems, the structures in which Vincent prevails.

Wythe: It's just one person's triumph of nurture allowed his imperfect nature.

Wythe: It basically is a movie that assumes the premise will sort of happen, right?

Wythe: It's like, yeah, eventually we'll have designer babies and you'll be shit out

Wythe: of luck if you don't have the designer genes, but maybe if you work hard, you can be like Vincent.

Wythe: I think the real hero is Tony Shalhoub is the lumpen bad guy mobster who sells

Wythe: him like the ability to what they call in the movie, borrow a ladder, right?

Wythe: Like become a fake, um, designer person, uh, with Jude law, right?

Wythe: So Jude laws, um, lost the ability.

Wythe: He's been paralyzed. He can't, he can't walk. so he's kind of given up his whole

Wythe: thing was he was really good at swimming and he liked you know physical stuff so

Wythe: he's kind of given up on life and he basically is trading you know

Wythe: he needs money um and he's given up

Wythe: so he allows you know vincent um ethan hawk's

Wythe: character vincent to kind of take on his persona and i think

Wythe: i think there's something interesting about the fact that um you know

Wythe: to your point like gattaca makes it about the fake jpl like research

Wythe: institute where they're also constantly sending astronauts to

Wythe: different moons of the outer planets um for

Wythe: no overstated reason for no for like how does the

Wythe: economics work i don't know and they speak esperanto but like it moves it away

Wythe: makes me so mad the like biblical the critique of like man's hubris and redesigning

Wythe: things like taking over the role of god you know which i think the movie is

Wythe: sort of it's a critique but also sort of like it's not that it's not that worried

Wythe: about it feel it feels like you know well.

Evan: That's why i think you said before chris like that it's you

Evan: you commented it's kind of a very liberal take or whatever

Evan: you know something what that means and you were just saying how

Evan: the idea that ethan hawk you know he's clearly he doesn't

Evan: have any money he like runs away from home at whenever he's

Evan: 18 or you know something like that when he's able

Evan: to to get away and he's a cleaner at gattaca eventually decides he's gonna go

Evan: through this process to you know use the borrowed ladder but you said as the

Evan: idea of like oh he could just you know if he just works really hard he could

Evan: get there and it sort of gave me the vibe of like you know pull yourself up

Evan: by your bootstraps and you can just yeah achieve anything.

Wythe: And it's sort.

Evan: Of like that it's but it only was able to do that through you know cheating

Evan: and doing these other things that really is what the what reality is this.

Chris: This is where this is where for me um the connection with andrew tate comes in,

Chris: But no, yeah, precisely what you're saying.

Chris: That's why it feels like a very, maybe not liberal, it feels like a very neoliberal

Chris: movie to me in a lot of ways. In that, like, it's not about,

Chris: Wythe, to your point, it's not about breaking down this oppressive system.

Chris: It's not about having a revolution, about banding together.

Chris: It's about one person through sheer tyranny of will and bootstrappedness achieving

Chris: his singular goal, which is still to be productive within the larger capitalist,

Chris: you know, assuming, I'm assuming, they never say otherwise.

Chris: So I'm assuming it's like a late stage capitalist kind of system that they're

Chris: in that has a new case kind of slapped on top of it.

Chris: But yeah, I mean, that's that's the whole thing is like, yeah,

Chris: if you work hard enough, you can be productive under capitalism,

Chris: too, even though you are an invalid or even if you are.

Wythe: Well, it feels to build on what you're saying, it feels very 90s and then it's

Wythe: this kind of history inability for Nickel at all because he wrote and directed the film.

Wythe: So I'm not I'm not attacking him as much as pointing out it's his vision.

Wythe: And it seems like he hasn't imagined what the society could be other than an

Wythe: extension of, okay, everything else just keeps going, right?

Wythe: Capitalism keeps going, but let's add designer babies.

Wythe: I really want to talk about, you know, advanced reproductive technologies where

Wythe: we can go in and make your baby.

Wythe: Everyone is six foot tall, has whatever eyes you want.

Wythe: And it makes this basically eugenical Uber, you know, white guy society where

Wythe: everyone is basically like Jude Law.

Wythe: Um and you know if you're poor then that's left

Wythe: you sort of in the dirt in terms of your ability to get a good job and

Wythe: all this stuff um and because he's done that and

Wythe: he's really focused on that in that time period of the 90s it just feels

Wythe: very much of of that story of well you know we've we've solved it we solved

Wythe: racism guys you know we've we like if you remember like i remember kind of jesse

Wythe: jackson and clinton declaring that that was it right um we're done and and we

Wythe: beat the communists so there's one world system it's capital it's it's not perfect

Wythe: but hey it's as fair as you're going to get, right? It's emergent fairness.

Wythe: Everyone's competing and right. Pull yourself up. If you want to,

Wythe: if you want more money, work harder.

Wythe: You know it's the american dream and of course it was all a lie but i mean i

Wythe: remember hearing that just from every commercial every tv show and there was

Wythe: very little ability growing up in that to sort of see the outside and i feel

Wythe: like this movie the fact it has no outside is it's like this is also the guy

Wythe: who did the truman show right or he wrote the truman show yeah he literally.

Evan: Took the words out of his mouth.

Wythe: You know to say there's no there's no beyond and i really want you really want

Wythe: to just punch through the wall of like okay forget even hawk he's the least

Wythe: interesting person in the movie what is going on he really is world you know yeah.

Evan: I was gonna say like i mean you want i want to know more about uma thurman and

Evan: like the fact that she somehow is able thing she also has a heart condition

Evan: how did she get into gattaca you know she's way.

Chris: More interesting and we get nothing about her.

Evan: No it's actually very other than other than.

Chris: The heart condition thing yeah it's extreme it's extremely disappointing.

Evan: And you also would love to know more just about you know jula it's like you

Evan: know clearly his family was wealthy but where did all the money go you know i'm fine not.

Chris: Knowing anything else about him.

Evan: Personally he.

Wythe: Is given kind of the most dynamic character though in terms of his ups and downs

Wythe: right he's given things to act that are like more more human than the sort of

Wythe: inhuman i'm i'm ethan hawkeye i'm just preternaturally focused on astro navigation

Wythe: or whatever you know he's always like just reading textbooks all the time.

Chris: And he's working out with astro navigation textbooks.

Wythe: Yeah yeah they're so big it's like 25 he's doing like.

Chris: It's like a 50 pound textbook that he drops on the floor.

Evan: And you i mean you look at some of the other films that you know that nickel's

Evan: nickel has done and you know a lot of them are related to like uh also even

Evan: hawk in it like i don't i haven't seen it i don't think but i was looking at

Evan: the description lord of war which is i think.

Wythe: Like 2005.

Evan: This is also like kind of that post 9 11 you know uh i don't even know that's.

Chris: The one with uh nicholas cage where he's like an arms dealer, right?

Evan: Yes.

Chris: Something like that. He also did In Time.

Wythe: Mm-hmm.

Evan: Oh, with Justin Timberlake?

Wythe: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah.

Chris: He brought sexy back, but he didn't have enough time. I haven't seen that movie.

Chris: That one looks admittedly, you know, whatever.

Chris: Andrew Nichols, you're great. I don't know about that movie. It looks real bad.

Chris: Maybe it's just the time that it was made. I don't know.

Wythe: Well, it's another like mononovum. Like in time, your lifespan is currency.

Wythe: And so you know it's time and money being the same which

Wythe: of course is both like a platitude but

Wythe: it's also something in economics that we think about especially in the

Wythe: marxist side you know how to sort of think about labor so it's

Wythe: again a mist it's like a movie that starts with a kind of marxian premise engine

Wythe: just becomes just in timberlake shooting guys and it's like not it's like again

Wythe: there's no there there even though you want there to be so it's like i feel

Wythe: like it's like gattaca in that sense of like almost really interesting i think

Wythe: gattaca is more interesting um i have not seen in time since it came out so it's been a while.

Evan: Yeah i mean the thing about i mean again this is this

Evan: comes up a lot in lots and countless number of episodes where

Evan: i we talk about sometimes like oh like do you think that the director had a

Evan: you know like was he using his his personal politics sort of playing into this

Evan: and whether it is intentional or unintentional is you know you could always

Evan: you know just be as i think you said chris like the age he is and like looking at technology and.

Wythe: How sci-fi.

Evan: Is and all of that so So it seems like a lot of those kind of played into here.

Evan: And, you know, I'm sure I don't didn't find much about his politics.

Evan: I imagine he's probably just kind of a run of the mill liberal type.

Evan: You know, that's just kind of what the film seems like it's politics are to

Evan: me. And I don't know. I was going to say something else.

Wythe: It would kind of have to be. Sorry, Evan, you should think about what you're going to say.

Wythe: I just wanted to follow up that, like, how could a communist or a fascist make

Wythe: this movie? Because a fascist would celebrate the eugenics and have no ability

Wythe: for there to be a critique of it.

Wythe: And we would have made a movie that's like, this is awful.

Wythe: Like eugenics is the worst and like have, you know, characters who are racialized

Wythe: in the movie and responding to this world and living in it.

Wythe: And instead, Nichols made a movie that just is totally, it like walks the line

Wythe: perfectly on whether this is kind of good or bad.

Wythe: I think i think it's supposed to be a critique that just doesn't feel that critical

Wythe: of like yeah basically a case like money-based cased system inscribed into your dna that like,

Wythe: I mean, they talk about the lifespans, like people, the people who do not have

Wythe: this engineering die much more easily, more often.

Wythe: You know what I mean? Like, so it would over time, you would start to see basically like speciation.

Wythe: Like this is like nightmare fuel stuff. If you think about the consequences.

Evan: Well, I think, I think it says they live 30.2 years or something like that,

Evan: you know, because you have disorders and these things that they're also,

Evan: they have the technology to do all this genetics. They have the ability to go.

Evan: There's how many rockets do they send it? Like during this film,

Evan: like 50, 100, like every day.

Chris: I think at the beginning of the movie, Uma Thurman asks, uh,

Chris: uh, Vincent Ethan Hawke's character, um, how many they launch a week.

Chris: And he's like 15, sometimes more. So at least 15 rockets shooting off a week.

Evan: Yeah per week yeah that's a

Evan: lot of rockets and and i was going to say is that it's

Evan: uh you know so they're spending all this money again this is

Evan: a private company it's not a government it's not nasa

Evan: or whatever it is so but they could spend this money on

Evan: i don't know preventing people from living only 30 years that

Evan: don't have genetic you know disorders i don't know that that would be that would

Evan: be the the thing to do and that they're not putting money into public good they're

Evan: it's all going into this private you know the only government person you really

Evan: see is the police officer which we later find out the big twist is his brother oh.

Wythe: My god i think i think that like uh that's a really good point and i i will

Wythe: say i think that it's supposed to be he would only live 30 years because he has a heart abnormality.

Evan: Right that.

Wythe: Is very likely to kill but it's supposed to be i think you know so if the lifespan

Wythe: now is petered off around 80 or whatever in the you know,

Wythe: If you're, if you're lucky enough to, you can live around 80 years, roughly.

Wythe: And then, so I think this assumes that like, we're not told explicit numbers,

Wythe: but like if with genetic engineering, the designer baby generation will live

Wythe: a lot longer and be healthier.

Wythe: And then the normal people will just die however they die. And so,

Wythe: you know, over time that would just get that the world would become so crazy

Wythe: so quickly, I think if this were widespread, but to your point,

Wythe: can't they cure every disease?

Wythe: Well, isn't that kind of the case?

Chris: Right.

Wythe: Like we have amazing medical technologies. They're just very unevenly accessible

Wythe: in the United States, like especially, but broadly in the liberal,

Wythe: right? It's because it's tied to money.

Wythe: So I actually think in that same sense, I don't think he could have sort of

Wythe: could have imagined another system maybe, or just wasn't interested in like,

Wythe: what if everyone had, you know, what if it was more fair?

Wythe: It's just not part of the world.

Evan: And it almost seems like the private, private corporations

Evan: in the way that you're describing now is like being able to

Evan: if they wanted to cure more diseases or do all

Evan: these things it's they created the technology probably

Evan: through government funding as it always is and you know

Evan: to do these genetic things and instead of that it's

Evan: almost like they drastically changed like the course

Evan: of america or society through this ability to control this i mean theoretically

Evan: you could the government could then say oh we want super soldiers who have actually

Evan: have the you know capacity for for you know a violent bone in your body or whatever

Evan: so like the technology isn't just every.

Chris: Bone is violent.

Evan: But instead they're using it for going to saturn moons like are they going to

Evan: look for resources i don't know.

Wythe: And to your point if there was a sequel implied it's like

Wythe: maybe not the gattaca institute but another job totally

Wythe: different industry how does this work and i think that's where then it

Wythe: probably would break down quickly in some ways um but in

Wythe: other ways it is a real like these are real

Wythe: fears these are things bioethicists actually talk about right is we

Wythe: can already there are various ways to screen uh fertilized

Wythe: you know embryos um and you can you know getting genetic material sequenced

Wythe: is now trivially cheap but you in the 90s it was expensive but this movie predicted

Wythe: of course it would be very cheap and now it is so like one thing that's come

Wythe: out within bioethics that's a big deal is like the concept of generalist medical

Wythe: ai i don't know if y'all have heard of this,

Wythe: but like if you fed all kinds of information, not just genomic,

Wythe: but all kinds of information into a really powerful AI in the very near future,

Wythe: companies are trying to do this. It could...

Wythe: Help you in all kinds of ways, like with very specific to your body ways to

Wythe: like live longer, treat disease, basically prevent disease, figure out what

Wythe: would likely happen to you before it happens and stop it.

Wythe: And like, who will have access to that? You know what I mean?

Wythe: Who will have the money to like pay some company for this service?

Wythe: And so it's not that far off from the things that it's, that this movie is implying

Wythe: about in the near future medicine is going to really change and it's going to

Wythe: be very uneven and terrible.

Wythe: And I feel like in that sense, it is like kind of accurate like it feels like

Wythe: creepy not because it's you know bad or something because it feels like oh yeah

Wythe: this is the america that we live in right.

Evan: I was also thinking of it i mean just kind of what we're

Evan: both saying is sort of the relevance to this like why would

Evan: you say you know if i said like why is this film relevant today

Evan: in the sense of this technology and the things that they want

Evan: to do i think there's like multiple ways of you know

Evan: as you're saying why the like technology that this is going to have that

Evan: will probably lead to more wealth inequality because

Evan: people will be able to afford this while others will not and

Evan: then you also have people like Elon Musk who want to I

Evan: say this in quotes like colonize Mars I don't think that's actually what he

Evan: wants to do exactly it's sort of you know we don't need to go down the rabbit

Evan: hole of what's in his brain and what he's actually thinking but like just the

Evan: idea that like there is this concept of shooting people into space you know

Evan: rich people into space with rockets as like space tourism and,

Evan: maybe that's in a way kind of what this is, but I don't really understand.

Evan: Like none of the people are scientists. Like Ethan Hawke is not a scientist,

Evan: right? He's just a guy that has good genes and can run on a treadmill.

Evan: Like, you know, he actually can't, but you're supposed to be able to have like

Evan: really good fitness and good genes.

Evan: Like what is it just, they need people with good genes that can withstand living

Evan: in space for a year. Is that it?

Wythe: I think he's supposed to be an astro navigator like

Wythe: he's a scientist who would chart plots for a spaceship

Wythe: to interact with a slingshot around

Wythe: moons and get to titan and then safely get back whatever with

Wythe: this you know we actually don't have the technology to do this right

Wythe: now right but like you can imagine that because we have the technology to go

Wythe: to the moon so it's more of that um we're doing right with mars like that's

Wythe: all these rich guys want to go to mars okay so it's the same idea you have to

Wythe: slingshot around the moon go to mars whatever it is um so he's trained i think

Wythe: what's implied is He just learned that by getting textbooks from like the library,

Wythe: which is really funny to imagine he goes like the Santa Monica library and gets

Wythe: like a 25 pound textbook on like, so you want to be the greatest engineer in

Wythe: the history of NASA. And he just like reads it.

Wythe: Um, but he's so, he's so smart even without the engineering and he's,

Wythe: it's really just, he's so determined.

Wythe: It's not that he's so smart. He's so determined that he makes himself be the

Wythe: baddest ass like navigator.

Wythe: And they hire him because he has the fake, he has Jude Law's like card that

Wythe: says, I have these designer genes. I have an IQ of 300 or whatever.

Wythe: They hire him. And they hire him based on the card, assuming he'll do the job.

Wythe: He does then do the job well, and so it's all simpatico until...

Wythe: The opening of the movie right that that was my read on.

Evan: It well the thing i was going to mention before is i think it's interesting i

Evan: just just like the way they do it in the movie i think we're chris and i were

Evan: briefly just talking about it before we started recording was the like the process

Evan: that ethan hawk has to go through every day to like burn off like scrape his

Evan: his skin cells and you know apply this little special finger that has blood in it so that it can

Evan: pinprick them every day to make sure it's the same person i mean it seems like

Evan: it's just this massive amount of work that just like when do you have time to

Evan: even do anything else right that's that's.

Chris: The that's the question is like how do you have a life outside

Chris: of this and i guess the answer is that you just don't you just dedicate and

Chris: and maybe that's like a part of vincent's character is that he's just so determined

Chris: he's so dedicated and just has such a tight focus of will that it doesn't matter

Chris: to him if he's dating or going to see movies or having friends or anything, I guess. But, eesh.

Evan: Yeah, I guess that's right. I mean, the only time you see any external socializing

Evan: is when he goes with Uma Thurman to that sort of club.

Chris: He goes to one jazz bar.

Evan: Yeah, twice. They go there twice. Or I guess you see this place three times?

Wythe: He goes there with Jude Law, drinks a bottle of water.

Chris: He goes there with Jude Law. Yeah, Jude Law gets really drunk.

Chris: He goes there with Uma Thurman. And then he punches a J. Edgar,

Chris: a cop, and almost gets caught by his brother. I think it's just twice.

Chris: I think it's twice, but yeah.

Evan: Okay, just twice. Yeah, and then I guess the only other time he goes to Uma

Evan: Thurman's beautiful mansion type house.

Evan: Apartment house whatever and.

Chris: All these people have mansions it.

Evan: Does seem like that but clearly jude law and ethan hawk live in sort of normal

Evan: housing which is still very nice.

Chris: Yeah you.

Evan: Know it's clearly like multiple floors and the whole i don't know i don't know

Evan: like i lost my oh i think it's just like the whole idea of all the things he

Evan: has to do in this house of just all the materials.

Chris: And blood.

Evan: Spinners i these that's probably not what it's actually called but the blood like spins around and.

Chris: Centrifuge yes i did

Chris: i did um i came into my second rewatch

Chris: of being like you know they don't talk about the economics of just

Chris: like how do you get all this equipment how do you maintain it

Chris: all that stuff but then like actually rewatching it they do there's a

Chris: couple little bombs that they drop so like tony shalhoub's character is

Chris: like if this thing doesn't work out you have to return the equipment

Chris: within seven days so there's like this you know like hint that

Chris: this is kind of a least agreement thing um and

Chris: then another one where uh later in the movie jude law is

Chris: having a tantrum because they sent him a hair dye that's two shades lighter

Chris: than his hair color for right for ethan hawk's character so they they touch

Chris: on it a little bit but yeah i mean it's it's like hundreds of thousands of dollars

Chris: worth of equipment just to like live live your life in a shitty way you'd.

Evan: Think that when they were investigating like wouldn't it be pretty easy to track

Evan: that there's this a random guy that's ordering all this hair dye for like yeah you know they have.

Chris: They can like you.

Evan: Can get like a sequence of someone's dna by just like giving them like an eyelash

Evan: or swabbing your cheek at like a little booth like it's also weird that they

Evan: have just like booths for people to just do.

Chris: Sequencing i there was a lot of there was a lot of like uh pre or early internet

Chris: kind of imaginaries in this as well,

Chris: I think like instead of having like massive, like they have databases for like

Chris: who's a, who's valid and invalid and things like that.

Chris: But you know, there's not like a concept of like.

Chris: Just having the internet and like tracking purchases or, or cell phones even really.

Wythe: It's part of the, it's part of the retro future is, is not just design at the

Wythe: level of like the cars look old and they're listening to jazz.

Wythe: It's also at the level of the, the way that the cop and, um,

Wythe: criminal, the fact that we're rooting for the criminals and the cops are old

Wythe: school cops who knock on doors.

Wythe: They're like gum shoes who like take little notes and like,

Wythe: they don't have real computer they don't have like surveillance uh networks

Wythe: so it's a very different kind of fear from the world the way we're surveilled

Wythe: now it's nowadays actually um there's something called um environmental genomics

Wythe: which funny enough like you can.

Wythe: Get a lot of information from like just some a water

Wythe: sample from anywhere about you know what's going on there you know human

Wythe: non-human all kinds of things and so you know the in

Wythe: a weird way the movie is like super futuristic and

Wythe: also like really old school where they only have this one technology they

Wythe: only use it a certain way they have a couple they have spaceflight i guess they're really good

Wythe: at space and they're really good at yeah bioengineering in a

Wythe: limited way and then everything else is kind of stagnated and that's kind

Wythe: of like you're saying about fallout evan it reminds me of like the the

Wythe: random choice you know you have the fader of like far future sci-fi stuff and

Wythe: you like move it up for a couple things but you leave everything else kind of

Wythe: at zero at normal or whatever or even you know move them down so i don't know

Wythe: i don't know why that was a choice and if that was just a style thing about

Wythe: like wanting it to feel noir and old school or timeless but it

Wythe: definitely the coppery is like hilariously bad the cops are the most god-awful

Wythe: inept cops jude law outwits them by just being like by just being just trolling

Wythe: them yeah and they're like oh my god i have to leave.

Chris: The uh i forget the actor's name but the the the cop brother from breaking bad

Chris: is one of the j edgars in this movie has a brief.

Wythe: Scene with.

Chris: Jude law he's actually not even his character doesn't even have a name it's

Chris: he's just like cop number three or some shit like that Oh.

Evan: Dean Norris?

Wythe: Dean Norris, yeah.

Chris: Yeah, Dean Norris, thank you. But he has a brief interaction with Jude Law where he's like,

Chris: Oh, this, my Game Boy here with my green and black two-bit LED screen says that

Chris: you're not, he uses the word crippled.

Chris: And Jude Law is like, oh, I'm not crippled, you moron. And then he like chases

Chris: him down and he's like, what's your badge?

Chris: What's your badge, you fucking flat foot?

Chris: And when he called him a flat foot, I almost lost my shit. I was like, that's too much, man.

Chris: Like, that's, you're already calling him J. Edgars. You're already like, come on.

Evan: Well, another funny thing, just thinking about the technology and just what they have available,

Evan: the thing that I think is also hysterical that is never not funny to me is every

Evan: time they do the blood dropping and the screen pops up and it shows Jude Law's

Evan: face, it kind of glitches out.

Evan: And it's like, oh, they can go to the moon, but they can't fix their little

Evan: screen watches and other things.

Chris: Well, there's even, there's a point where Tony Shalhoub's character is like,

Chris: nobody looks at photographs.

Chris: Like, it doesn't matter that you don't look at him. Who looks at a photograph anymore?

Chris: And it's like, why has photography just disappeared? Like, that's a huge miss.

Evan: Yeah, that's true. That's true. And the other technology, just like thinking

Evan: about like Tony Shalhoub and like what he has to do to get Ethan Hawke to be able to do him.

Evan: He also like has to, I guess, graph bones onto his legs to make him.

Chris: Oh, no, that's a real procedure that people undergo to be taller because of masculinity grifters.

Evan: Oh, I didn't realize that was actually it.

Chris: Yeah, the idea is that you break the bone in certain places and then you keep

Chris: the bone separated using the pins and rods.

Chris: So the scene where he's laying down trying to learn how to right-handed,

Chris: trying to not be a southpaw.

Chris: You see he's got this like apparatus around his legs that's like stretching

Chris: him and holding the bones.

Chris: And then as the bone heals, it regrows into the spaces that are left behind,

Chris: which is how you can get taller.

Chris: The downside is, which they don't talk about in the movie, is that you can really

Chris: easily just break your fucking legs by like running or playing basketball or

Chris: doing anything that's like minimally active.

Evan: But he never has to run in this movie.

Chris: But he does.

Evan: He's on the treadmill.

Wythe: He's on the treadmill.

Chris: He's got to run for 20 minutes and he almost, he almost bites it from that 20 minutes.

Wythe: But Chris, that reminds me, cause you were talking about the toxic masculinity

Wythe: and that was like such a theme that, that came through really, um, evidently.

Wythe: Cause I also didn't know, I was amazed that that was a real thing.

Wythe: I was like, this has to be just like kind of sloppy sci-fi, but apparently no,

Wythe: uh, Shalhoub does not deal in sloppy sci-fi.

Chris: Shalhoub is hard sci-fi only baby.

Wythe: But, but I wanted to hear more about, cause I, not, I mean, I feel like I can

Wythe: guess, but But like, can you say more about kind of how you read it as this

Wythe: kind of like, oh, no, Andrew Tate has one kind of universe?

Chris: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it comes in. I see a lot of it in Jude Law's

Chris: character, honestly, but also in kind of the overall message of the movie where.

Chris: So like Tate, you know, he uses terms like you have to hack the Matrix,

Chris: you have to break the Matrix, which for him is like exactly what happens to

Chris: Vincent's character in the movie, where it's like.

Chris: Tate will criticize capitalism and be like, millionaires don't care about you,

Chris: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Chris: But his solution to capital is not to tear down the system and to build something better.

Chris: It's instead to hack the system and break laws and to exploit everybody around

Chris: you to make as much money as possible because that's what's going to free you from the matrix.

Chris: And it's not a one for one but I do see that in Vincent's character arc where

Chris: it's like we're not criticizing the system we don't care about that I have one

Chris: goal my goal is this thing I'm going to do whatever it takes to get there but you also see it in.

Chris: In the frankly like the the,

Chris: petulant frail masculine nihilism of

Chris: of eugene of the original uh i

Chris: forget his name in the movie whatever judah's character um

Chris: and how like you know he just kind of jerome thank

Chris: you yeah jerome eugene whatever his last name is

Chris: but yeah i also see it in the kind of like petulant nihilism that

Chris: he has um where he believes

Chris: that he was supposed to be the best at everything he

Chris: did and the fact that he got fucking silver sent him

Chris: into like a spiral of malaise that made him hate the

Chris: entire world is crazy you know

Chris: and like we could talk about sociogenomics with that as well

Chris: where it's like just a random factor could have

Chris: kept him a point of a second behind the gold winner but

Chris: like still that's enough to kind of break down the fragile masculinity that

Chris: he has built up and also just the kind of privilege and you

Chris: see that a lot with people that follow tate usually like

Chris: young angry men who feel like

Chris: they are entitled to a lot of things and their privileges have not been

Chris: met or it's getting harder just because you know

Chris: fucking tariffs and life and basic economic

Chris: shit uh the fact that we're not getting paid to keep

Chris: up with inflation yada yada yada um but instead

Chris: of but instead of you know trying to think.

Chris: About like all right well how do we collectively organize around

Chris: this how do we build a better world it's it's instead turned inward

Chris: and made extremely atomized and alienated

Chris: and individualistic and then you get these kind of

Chris: masculinity grifters like tate or you know

Chris: like joe rogan these kind of fuckers who um actually there's another tie-in

Chris: here like they push fucking supplements on people all the time so there's a

Chris: there's actually like an interesting tie-in with post-humanism with that where

Chris: they're trying to do this kind of like embodied post-humanism like i saw an ad today of.

Chris: Pete holmes shilling for magic mind which

Chris: is like a little shot drink that you take and it's supposed to be like liquid

Chris: adderall make you more productive and smarter and whatever um anyway i'm rambling

Chris: at this point there's a connection between andrew tate selling supplements mlms

Chris: um designer babies i got the whole red red string board going.

Evan: That just makes me think more like i'm constantly thinking

Evan: about like the economics of this society and how

Evan: like is there like because we

Evan: saw originally like you're saying i think before one of you mentioned that

Evan: like vincent's parents were seemingly middle class and like how did they yeah

Evan: even afford the technology maybe it was like early on in the you know in the

Evan: in the being able to do this or something it's not really stated but like i

Evan: don't know it's this is more like us kind of just imagining what it would actually look like Like,

Evan: you know, I'm just thinking like people in, you know, MLMs,

Evan: like trying to sell the people who work at Gattaca, like things to make them

Evan: like even better or, you know, I don't know.

Evan: And clearly there's a pharmaceutical industry too, because Uma Thurman's taking,

Evan: she has her little like little pill container. So she's taking,

Evan: you know, taking some kind of drug of some sort. And I don't know, these are just.

Chris: Yeah. And there's, there's an obvious black market for things as well with Tony

Chris: Shalhoub's character representing that. Yeah.

Wythe: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it feels again like another interesting,

Wythe: like, who are the people doing the barred ladder process?

Wythe: And like, what is the sort of like lump in science serving that?

Wythe: And how does it all work economically? How do you get in the hole with the mob?

Wythe: And like, how many of these people succeed and fail?

Wythe: And like, I think that's like, to me, one of the more interesting parts of the

Wythe: movie that we really only get in the beginning.

Wythe: And then basically Vincent just take, you know, he has no, like,

Wythe: spoiler, he doesn't ever fail. You know, he just keeps going.

Wythe: Um, but you know, it does imply that like, this is, this is this vibrant market

Wythe: and it's, it's not one to one, but there is again, you know,

Wythe: in real life, there are parallels like with, uh, for example,

Wythe: um, you know, organs, right.

Wythe: Are supposed to be, um, donated and assigned by doctors by, you know,

Wythe: according to need. And people are on wait lists for years for lifesaving,

Wythe: you know, organ transplants.

Wythe: And there's also a black market and money enters into the picture.

Wythe: So it's not controlled by money, but like, if you have money,

Wythe: you might be able to get some other option depending on where you are.

Wythe: How much money and whatever and that's um you know

Wythe: we can we can again imagine like like really easily any medical technology

Wythe: having um this kind of gattaca like downside because

Wythe: we actually see it dated like it's it is our actual world it's just not quite

Wythe: like we don't as far as i know bioengineer babies at the level that is implied

Wythe: in this movie but pretty much all the other like you know parts of that sort

Wythe: of uh there's shadow economies and there's the other sort of aspects um, I think do exist.

Wythe: So in terms of the relevance, like I do think it's, it's kind of reflecting

Wythe: on, um, you know, the world today, it's, it's still kind of hits home if not,

Wythe: you know, much more now than in the 90s.

Chris: Yeah, no, I, I agree. I mean, I think there's a lot to think about with the

Chris: commodification of the body in this movie. And we see that especially with, um, with Jude Law.

Chris: Um, but I, I would be curious to explore that outside of it.

Chris: Like, Like you're saying, black markets for organs and things like that.

Chris: What does that look like? How does that kind of change?

Chris: Do you get a weird kind of gig economy?

Chris: I was thinking about another movie too, and I'm curious, Evan,

Chris: if you've seen this one. Have you seen Transfer by...

Chris: Damien Lukosevic?

Evan: No.

Chris: I might be saying that last name wrong.

Evan: I have not.

Chris: It's kind of like, it's kind of like get out in a way, but it's a little bit

Chris: more pointed in like the economics of it. And I think that's where it ties into this.

Chris: The idea is that these like rich, I believe German, white German people are old, they're dying.

Chris: And there's a program where you can transfer your mind into a younger person's

Chris: body who has rented out their body to you for all but four hours a day.

Chris: Um, and of course the people doing this are poor African folks who like need

Chris: the money to support their families back home and stuff like that.

Chris: Um, but I, you know, I would be curious if like there's, there's room for imaginaries

Chris: or narratives like that in the kind of Gattaca universe or like how far you

Chris: can kind of push the commodification of like specific body parts, um,

Chris: much in the way that they do with like pee and blood in the movie.

Wythe: Yeah yeah they do imply that really gross kind of chattel like um you know like

Wythe: they said get out and transfer looks uh it looks really interesting actually looking at the.

Evan: Yeah i just looked at the article um well and

Evan: also with like all the technology too is like clearly they have all

Evan: these devices and like fake you know

Evan: thumbs you know uh fingerprint you know i

Evan: don't know what they're like silicon or something that like that's something yeah

Evan: bioplastic glue to your like clearly if

Evan: they if they have all of this technology it's probably

Evan: not being used for good purposes it's

Evan: being used in this black so it's like there's clearly a very enormous especially

Evan: if like most of society is like these companies where you have to have a certain

Evan: gene level like it seems like you know you know that this is like a big industry

Evan: you know within the black market i mean i i don't know that would just be my opinion yeah.

Chris: I mean, someone, someone's making, I mean, you know, you don't,

Chris: you don't have demand without supply. You don't have supply without demand.

Chris: Someone's making these things.

Wythe: It also feels like an underexplored part that

Wythe: could have been explored in an alt script where there's just

Wythe: you see like i said other in this other uh places

Wythe: so it's not just gattaca because i feel like it's so monofocused on this

Wythe: one place that you don't really know what it would be

Wythe: like to work at like the equivalent of you know it's

Wythe: not because society there's always going to be sort of bell curves and stuff in

Wythe: some way with class with class society right um so

Wythe: this is taking class society and adding this kind of eugenical layer

Wythe: um but i think you still it's an

Wythe: interesting question what if you're not a gattaca but you're like the manager

Wythe: at the best by equivalent right in this world

Wythe: and so you know you maybe didn't have the same genetic score that jude law did

Wythe: but like you have you had some sort of design like how does it work you know

Wythe: to the perfect middle manager you're the perfect just passive aggressive like

Wythe: i'm really sorry you can't return this uh my genes are telling me to tell you

Wythe: the best way to get you to fuck off.

Evan: I mean it's like it's like the gene test is like you know the sats or something

Evan: like oh what did you score on your SATs you know I don't know I scored a 1200

Evan: oh well you're gonna be the best buy manager but if you score a 1600 then you

Evan: can work at Gattaca or something I don't know.

Wythe: Yeah like that's what they imply I feel like but I again I don't know how it

Wythe: would work in Nichols mind or if it if it's supposed to be like we're never

Wythe: gonna address like you know they very purposefully cut all that out and just

Wythe: tried to keep it super focused on this this one story there.

Evan: Was gonna be a tv show but it got.

Wythe: I saw.

Evan: That yeah and I think it was probably early stages in 2023 I think and it never

Evan: actually happened that would be interesting to see what they would do in a especially

Evan: doing it now like I almost picture it as like a black mirror style you know.

Wythe: Like that could be the you know.

Evan: Just dark and yeah.

Chris: Yeah that would have to be the direction yeah it's not a comedy I mean I,

Chris: I don't know why I just thought of this, but I remember, so Wythe and his partner

Chris: came over and we watched it for our first kind of rewatch together.

Chris: And something that my partner pointed out, my partner Jen De La Vega said that

Chris: was that the technology reminded her of like Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes,

Chris: which I also think is kind of an interesting thing.

Chris: It's like it's a lot of what they show is the technology in the movie for testing

Chris: DNA is extremely inefficient. Like the little thing that you put your finger

Chris: on when you walk in through the front door.

Chris: It's like, how are you not giving everybody hepatitis A through Z, you know?

Chris: And I'm sure there's a hand wavy thing for that, or it just doesn't really matter.

Chris: But it's something that just like picked out as like a real life problem in

Chris: applying that kind of technology. It felt more important probably now than it

Chris: did back then to address that.

Evan: It doesn't seem like there would have been a more efficient way for people to

Evan: be checked when they come in than like pricking their finger each time.

Evan: Also, I don't know. Can they just have like implant something in their skin?

Evan: I don't know, like a chip, you know, I don't know.

Chris: Sure.

Wythe: Well, it's kind of the problem of the mono, like one of the,

Wythe: it's like elegant to pick one thing and make your whole story and sci-fi about it.

Wythe: But one of the problems is that's just not how real life works.

Wythe: Cause it's not the most efficient, like biological stuff is often not the most efficient.

Wythe: That's why like we don't live in goop houses, which are fun to imagine like

Wythe: a world where biology is technology a hundred percent, but.

Wythe: You know, it'd be easier to, yeah, like have some sort of implant with like

Wythe: a unique signature that's very hard to hack.

Wythe: And then you could scan that like something electronic, right?

Wythe: That's not like, yeah, like opening up a wound and like passing along like tainted blood.

Wythe: You know, it's like very like it makes it Cronenbergian because it's kind of

Wythe: silly and surreal and over the top in this.

Wythe: And it is actually the dissonance between so much goopy blood stuff implied

Wythe: and like peeing. There's a lot of pissing.

Wythe: There's a lot of penis size. There's a lot of like, hey, nice penis.

Wythe: The rest of the world is so austere in this kind of 50s, creepy,

Wythe: like, white bread, you know, vision of this retrofuture, right?

Wythe: I think there is a dissonance there between the Cronenbergian and the,

Wythe: like, cleaned up 2001 A Space Odyssey sort of stuff.

Chris: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's an interesting tension between,

Chris: like, the focus on bodily fluids and bodily function, but then in an extremely

Chris: austere Spartan space like that.

Evan: This this is like a completely different topic i

Evan: think we like kind of talked a little bit about it earlier just the idea

Evan: that this society is very very

Evan: much white like you said there's only talking role

Evan: the entire film for a non-white person

Evan: was the genesis describing the procedure

Evan: and giving them like the menu you know the happy meal menu or whatever of choosing

Evan: what you want your child to be like but it also got me thinking about the just

Evan: this world of like could you view some of this as sort of like a metaphor with

Evan: the you know the borrowed ladder and these ways of,

Evan: vincent's character kind of going through society as you know just a poor person

Evan: who's a normal birth and not all these things in the same kind of way that you

Evan: would you know that maybe people

Evan: of color experience you know society of having to you know uh you know,

Evan: You know, you apply for a job and, you know, just as a digital resume,

Evan: it doesn't say like what race you are, but then you go to the interview and

Evan: then all of a sudden like, oh, well, you know, like you can be discriminated

Evan: in so many different ways.

Evan: And like within policing, obviously, is like a huge way that people are discriminated against.

Wythe: Well, that's what's weirdly, it made me think so much of Sorry to Bother You

Wythe: because of the white voice and the masking of double consciousness.

Wythe: And the fact that in this world, everyone immediately pricks your finger and

Wythe: has your genome and then like decides how smart you are based on a computer

Wythe: reading a blood sample of your DNA.

Wythe: And you know but it's it's like we know we are sympathetic to vincent because we know he's really,

Wythe: just as smart without all the design and just as hard working

Wythe: and so it's like a weird like i think it's like trying to do that but

Wythe: because it doesn't have people of color in the movie really it

Wythe: feels very weird it feels like yeah it feels

Wythe: like a the right move executed in

Wythe: the wrong way maybe is one way to but but again maybe it's just to

Wythe: what chris was saying it's just a very neoliberal take on on this we're like

Wythe: oh we're all we're all gonna you know we're all in the same boat like it's a

Wythe: kind of denial of like actual like race being part of how class plays out and

Wythe: that being a meaningful difference that you know what i mean like i i feels

Wythe: like the movie wants to reject that and just imagine this neutral future quote-unquote like neutral,

Wythe: like you know uh okay just imagine a worker who wants a better world but what

Wythe: this there's this hard science fictional what if preventing it you know and

Wythe: it yeah it's it's like it's like a um an absence that you almost immediately

Wythe: i feel like notice you know we're not watching.

Chris: Yeah and And again, I mean, you know, they state like one of the one of the

Chris: first things that adult Vincent says as the narrator of the movie is that like, no, racism's done.

Chris: We fixed racism. We just have this thing to worry about now. Yeah.

Evan: Yeah. Oh, I mean, is like, is it implication that they've just essentially used

Evan: genetics to just not have people of color?

Chris: Well, I think, yeah, I do think that that's an implication. And I think that

Chris: goes back to what Wythe was saying about like kind of rapid speciation as like

Chris: a potential kind of like logical path that you could follow to that.

Chris: I don't know if it's that intentional.

Chris: Like I would like for it to be that intentional, but I.

Wythe: Yeah i read it differently but but i could see that now it's just like it's

Wythe: so yeah it's just like it's really eugenics this is a really creepy movie and

Wythe: i think it's like very dark it's.

Chris: It's very dark um for being kind of vanilla pudding um it's got a dark center.

Evan: Well this is another thing you two i think i've noticed in

Evan: your notes we kind of like talked about this already is the the

Evan: idea that this film is like it's a sci-fi you know

Evan: dystopia i think that's what wikipedia

Evan: calls it but it's also very much like a neo-noir in some sense of like the i

Evan: think you wrote like the shadows and just like the way that you know the mid-century

Evan: vibe of the film and it like i almost wish that they leaned on that even more

Evan: somehow i don't know like.

Wythe: More more.

Chris: Tim burtony tim burton batman kind of or.

Wythe: Yeah i think actual noir though like um

Wythe: chinatown or sunset like i think

Wythe: in real noir like you've done something wrong and i

Wythe: think the thing that feels noir-ish is that vincent

Wythe: is a borrowed ladder but then it doesn't matter

Wythe: like he gets away with it and it sort of has nothing you

Wythe: know it sort of feels like it's close but not actually looped into like a noir

Wythe: you know narrative loop where we learn something deep about vincent's character

Wythe: i feel like it you kind of can predict the ending from the beginning you know

Wythe: um of like oh he's probably gonna succeed even though he doesn't have the designer

Wythe: genes the uh the the new eugenics you know um.

Evan: Upgrade yeah it doesn't have a lot of the other noir characteristics like yeah

Evan: you have like the dame but i don't really see like uma thurman as like that

Evan: kind of person you have the cop like the bumbling cop but in that case it would

Evan: have been the you know the cop probably would have

Evan: gotten his man i guess he does kind of but then he lets him get away with it

Evan: yeah because he beats him in a swimming it all.

Wythe: Comes down to swimming.

Evan: Yeah i was about to say it's like dude.

Chris: It's all about the swim it's all about the womb brother it's all about getting

Chris: back to the womb whether it's the ocean or outer space which again is is a specific

Chris: line in the movie getting uh being in zero gravity feels like you're back in the womb.

Evan: Well yeah i also found it i think it's when

Evan: they their final swim race like this is another

Evan: like masculinity thing right like the very for sure

Evan: i know if it's kind of like brother versus brother

Evan: kind of idea but i think in a more deeper way it's like this you can't let your

Evan: brother you're this other man beat you in this game of you know strength and

Evan: then i think he says like oh like we're closer to the other side now we like

Evan: might as well keep going it's like aren't they at the ocean i guess it's a north south thing.

Wythe: Like i don't i don't know enough you know yeah maybe they're in a sound.

Evan: Yeah i don't know yeah.

Chris: Well yeah there's there's a line too where uh you know as adults when they're

Chris: doing the the swim off where his brother is like how do you do it vincent how

Chris: do you do any of this And then Vincent says,

Chris: I never saved anything for the swim back, which again, like,

Chris: I don't know, just everything that he says feels like something that Andrew Tate would say to me.

Wythe: Also, it's also, we know categorically untrue because he had to swim back many

Wythe: times. Like he wasn't saved every time by his brother and he didn't drown to death.

Wythe: So, and he never beat his brother and went to the other side.

Wythe: So every single time up until that time, he saved something for the ride back, you know?

Wythe: So it's just one of those, like, it sounds like a 12 year old.

Wythe: Well, it's just written for like a mind that is smart enough to jump ahead and

Wythe: make the little connections in the movie, but not smart enough to see that like,

Wythe: oh, the movie is this true.

Wythe: Like we're saying it's this kind of bubble and the things around it,

Wythe: the society is the interesting part, but we kind of, that's all shut out.

Wythe: So it's a very to me like claustrophobic script in in that sense that's um.

Evan: Yeah it's just.

Wythe: Obsessed with germ choice technology you know designer babies.

Evan: This reminds me of have you seen the film equilibrium yeah.

Wythe: Oh yeah yeah.

Evan: Yeah so it reminds me not the film doesn't like necessarily remind me of like

Evan: the same plot or anything i mean i guess there is kind of this weird genetic

Evan: you know they don't have feelings they take a pill to not to prevent feelings

Evan: but But in the way that, like...

Chris: It's a different kind of bioengineering.

Evan: Much different. But in that way, too, you almost don't really learn much about,

Evan: like, the society, too, in a way that I... Like, among the things that are troubling

Evan: in that movie, like, it's almost nonsensical.

Evan: Whereas in this, like, it's not that it's nonsensical. It's just,

Evan: like, that just wasn't the focus of, you know, of Nickel to give you more about the world.

Evan: They'll like give you a little world building at the beginning and some,

Evan: you know, details. And then it's like, that's enough of that. Let's go to.

Chris: Just enough. Yeah. Just a little push.

Chris: Yeah. Well, I mean, I do think that they both kind of indulge in a kind of noir pastiche as well.

Chris: Like, aesthetically, Equilibrium does remind me of this movie and a lot of the

Chris: choices of, like, brutalist architecture and, like,

Chris: kind of, like, monochrome outfits and things like that, where,

Chris: yeah, they're, like, kind of playing in the same sandbox, but in different corners, maybe.

Wythe: Yeah yeah it feels like these movies there's a spate of them and i actually

Wythe: would really now that i think about include the matrix as well which has elements

Wythe: of body horror but it's very retro futuristic in a lot of ways and it really

Wythe: is ultimately about the limits of the human,

Wythe: the matrix is more successful because it pushes through but these other movies

Wythe: kind of hold back and they almost approach the they almost get the critique

Wythe: right where they're like oh the version of humanity you're assuming is is specific

Wythe: to like basically like um you know one one subset of humanity,

Wythe: you know, uh, like, like white guys, right. Or whatever.

Wythe: And, and sort of your vision of perfection is tied up with, you know,

Wythe: whatever American liberal capital and like the culture of that.

Wythe: Um, and there's many kinds of bodies and ways to celebrate, you know,

Wythe: and, and think about like health, um, and, and distribute resources,

Wythe: but instead you're focused on like this one guy gets to go to Titan, whatever.

Wythe: Um, but it doesn't, you know, it, that's it, there's no critique.

Wythe: It's just sort of, it, like, it almost gets there. You almost see the cracking apart.

Wythe: Like you said, Uma Thurman also has a heart condition, but then it doesn't matter.

Wythe: So it's sort of like, sets up all the.

Evan: Pieces and just doesn't.

Wythe: Quite pull the trigger on like the human and perfecting

Wythe: the human is the problem like assuming there's one correct

Wythe: like like the problem is that kind of enlightenment you know focus on like humanism

Wythe: as as like okay there's there's a kind of perfection to to humanity that's inside

Wythe: all of us and if we can all just work it out you know it's the intertate thing

Wythe: of like you're saying uh you just just be be stronger you know be smarter than the next guy um.

Evan: It's it's the it's like the very as you said like the neoliberal it's

Evan: also like the very individualistic you know

Evan: perspective of like he's basically just doing this all for himself

Evan: there's no yeah no he could like right i don't know in like the real like revolutionary

Evan: version he like blows the lid off all the things that they're doing inside of

Evan: uh of gattaca and you know uh i don't know destroys the i i don't know something cooler they.

Chris: Just stop sending people a titan for no fucking reason and redistribute the wealth.

Evan: Yeah he blows up gattaca that you know there you go he destroys gattaca and

Evan: then they you know redistribute the the money to do something actually good

Evan: for society as opposed to slingshotting people.

Chris: This is this this is hot i think we need to approach andrew nichols with gattaca too.

Evan: He fixed.

Chris: It yeah we figured out the sequel to gattaca and it's going to fucking roll.

Chris: I mean, I actually, I, I do wonder like if they had made the TV show,

Chris: would they have explored some of this stuff? Like I'm thinking about, um,

Chris: The 12 Monkeys TV show, which I think was pretty bad if I'm remembering correctly,

Chris: but it did at least like open the scope up a bit or like the Snowpiercer television show.

Chris: Not a great treatment, but it does like it at least like broadens the scope

Chris: and explores more of the world building in a way that I do think is interesting and generative.

Chris: I guess we'll never know.

Wythe: No, we'll never know.

Evan: Yeah, well, the 12 Monkeys, I feel like it started out okay,

Evan: and then it just kind of devolved into like they didn't really know what to do anymore.

Evan: And they're just like, well, what if we go back in time again? Or something.

Chris: I agree.

Wythe: There was no there, there, yeah.

Evan: But also the thing about Equilibrium and Matrix and this film that I was also

Evan: thinking about is like the Matrix, as you said, like kind of breaks through

Evan: and it's like the revolutionary version.

Evan: Equilibrium is like the conservative version and then Gattuck is like the liberal version.

Wythe: Like they're like three different versions.

Evan: Of it and guess which one actually succeeded because the matrix also is much a much better film for.

Wythe: Many reasons yeah it's.

Chris: Better written it's better directed.

Wythe: It touched on um i mean even from it had rage against the machine right it touched

Wythe: on uh you know some of these aspects in just a much more poignant way even if

Wythe: it's like not quite um coherent it's you still get the idea that like wait i

Wythe: can like that's uh you know we could talk about if you want post-humanism and

Wythe: transhumanism and these ideas,

Wythe: but like you can become information in the near future.

Wythe: Even now, like a lot of things are quantized about ourselves and we can track,

Wythe: you know, on apps, whatever our heart rate, you know, all kinds of things and

Wythe: like share that information.

Wythe: You could have, um, control over other bodies than your own.

Wythe: You can spend a lot of time on screen. Like the way we're connecting right now,

Wythe: you know, is like a very weird, like we're not face-to-face in a room.

Wythe: We're talking mediated through all these levels but it feels very organic and

Wythe: i think that the matrix took some of those insights and made

Wythe: them fucking badass and cool and like kind of queer coded and like also kind

Wythe: of ninja anime you know it made it like cool whereas i think both equilibrium

Wythe: gattaca were on that path um but don't quite know what to do you know with with

Wythe: with what's going on they're just you know one's kind of a dumb action movie

Wythe: and gattaca is this kind of like failed noir.

Wythe: Um but i think even you know jumping forward like severance right

Wythe: is also about sort of norm core workers in

Wythe: a dystopian future everything's retro futuristic super super

Wythe: retro futuristic where there is an outside but it's

Wythe: like you know we toy with how much we we need to

Wythe: know that um but it obviously it's much more of this time where it's like i

Wythe: don't i wouldn't say it's revolutionary but it's definitely this kind of nihilistic

Wythe: like capitalism is clearly the bad guy like it's it's successful because it

Wythe: sort of assumes that the viewer also thinks that i think um and treats you like

Wythe: an adult you know it treats you as such um whereas yeah like in Gattaca,

Wythe: like we were also saying, like,

Wythe: the economics are just, like, not talked about in the way that a lot of,

Wythe: to me, hard SF, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

Wythe: We're not interested in that. You know, we're interested in this what if,

Wythe: you know, okay, aliens show up.

Chris: Yeah. I'm Arthur C. Clarke and I'm only interested in the exact,

Chris: uh, the exact degree at which these thrusters are firing and how much jewel

Chris: force is coming out of them. That's all I care about.

Wythe: Yeah. How, how the berserker ships would actually like, yeah,

Wythe: how many missiles per second they would fight, you know, and it's like,

Wythe: I, you know, it's wild that that was like, that was science fiction for so long.

Wythe: I mean, you know, along with these like minoritarian strains that eventually

Wythe: now it's like the, the foreground, right? Le Guin, Butler, et cetera.

Wythe: But yeah, it's weird. It's weird how Gattaca comes close to being good to me in so many ways.

Wythe: I still selfishly enjoy it just because I saw it as a kid. I went and saw it

Wythe: and was like, oh, that's weird.

Wythe: But I completely agree. The Matrix is like the much better version of same in a way, you know?

Chris: Yeah and yeah i think the the kind of

Chris: political compassing of it also makes it like putting equilibrium

Chris: as as uh the conservative uh version of this like zeitgeist expulsion moment

Chris: is really funny to me because yeah it's just about shooting gun gun fu is that

Chris: what it gun gun gun kata yeah gun kata gun kata yeah i knew it was some horrible and.

Evan: They also like the the flag in that too was It's like, it was like very,

Evan: to me, to me, that movie, I actually did an episode of it.

Chris: He's like a, he's like a jackboot enforcer, right? Isn't that the whole,

Chris: like Christian Bale's character is just like a jackboot.

Chris: With with a with cool gun stances i guess.

Evan: And well that movie i think in my discussion of

Evan: it i think that film is like also sort of an

Evan: anti-communist like it's supposed to be like this

Evan: is like the evils of what communism would look like everyone will won't have

Evan: any feeling and everyone everything looks you know brown and dark and you know

Evan: whatever but you can go listen to the art my discussion on that whole film but

Evan: um what's that there's other questions so like Sometimes I ask towards the end, too, is,

Evan: which you both kind of already said, would you recommend this film to someone?

Evan: I mean, obviously, if someone listened to this, they probably,

Evan: if they hadn't seen the movie, they're already like, oh, well,

Evan: maybe I do want to watch it. Would you tell someone, you should watch Gattaca?

Chris: I think under very specific conversational circumstances, yes.

Wythe: If i if i knew.

Chris: Somebody was like generally interested in in biopunk or um or you know transhumanism

Chris: uh i i would i would definitely suggest watching this movie maybe it's just

Chris: a big caveat attached to it.

Wythe: Yeah yeah.

Chris: That like it kind of doesn't really go anywhere and it's just kind of a centrist muddle about um.

Wythe: Yeah but uh yeah like evan one

Wythe: reason i like your show is i because i i liked taking you

Wythe: know i studied screenwriting in college and took all these courses where basically you

Wythe: watch movies but you're watching a very specific set of kind of weird

Wythe: random movies the professor likes but they they kind of do make sense

Wythe: in the sense of you know how they're putting them

Wythe: together and that's that's how i'd recommend watching is like if you

Wythe: watch it on its own it's kind of you know

Wythe: this weird eugenical like are like

Wythe: are you andrew nickel you're not mad at eugenics you know kind of movie with

Wythe: some moments that are interesting and it's very fast it's not a long watch

Wythe: it's not annoying to watch it's very it has no fat right it's a very like

Wythe: skinny plot um that just drives forward and ends so you

Wythe: can watch it but i would recommend watching it with um you know whether it's

Wythe: like alien resurrection the matrix sorry to bother you you know something where

Wythe: we're thinking through some of these same themes about the near future of work

Wythe: and bodies and and whose body transfer sounds awesome i think it'd be interesting

Wythe: to pair it with other visions and to think through the.

Wythe: To some degree the conversations we're having around you know how how do

Wythe: different um depictions of the near future of work interrogate you

Wythe: know society or just assume the

Wythe: worst and kind of you know hold my beer you know run with

Wythe: some plot um which you know like you meant in

Wythe: your notes like alien like probably my favorite franchise of all time like alien

Wythe: does a lot of that where just assumes the worst but i think it's it doesn't

Wythe: feel as icky because the person you're rooting for because of

Wythe: the person you're rooting for i guess you know and it's not it's nothing to

Wythe: do with like ethnox performance

Wythe: it's a good i think it's a decently made move gattaca is

Wythe: decently made it's just not put together in

Wythe: a way that that reveals a deep human truth in the way that like

Wythe: you know ellen ripley is like a character you

Wythe: want to root for in all the all the movies she's in you know i don't know i

Wythe: don't know how to say it but i think there there is a there there it's just

Wythe: not it's it's like on its own it's not as interesting as if you put it in conversation

Wythe: with other works trying to understand how bodies probably will change frankly

Wythe: to be real due to a lot of these technologies right um yeah.

Chris: I mean it's already it's already happening in a lot of ways uh.

Evan: Yeah yeah.

Chris: I think that makes a lot of sense package it together uh put it put it within

Chris: context and conversation probably the best way to do it.

Evan: Yeah i think sorry to bother would be an interesting double feature with

Evan: it and and i'm also sort of you know

Evan: looking at this film like i saw this in the theater when i was i

Evan: guess 14 or something and like probably didn't

Evan: quite get it but i'm like oh this like this film is pretty cool like

Evan: i kind of like it and then i think at some point in like college i

Evan: had it on dvd and would watch it not regularly but like i watched it a bunch

Evan: of times it was probably on tv as well and it just for me i just like the it

Evan: just yeah it's like a it's a fine movie it's not you know insanely good it's

Evan: not trash it's it's fine it's right there.

Chris: In the middle of the road.

Evan: Yeah it's it's it's perfectly acceptable and i think it's as you said like if

Evan: you also are looking at if you want to just watch this on its own i think you

Evan: just have to look at it from,

Evan: You know, probably if you're listening to this and you're hearing us say this,

Evan: you probably have a similar political mindset, most likely.

Evan: And so when you're watching this, you're going to have some of the same ideas

Evan: and like, you know, the things that are wrong with it. Liberalized version of.

Wythe: And just enjoy Tony Shalhoub and Ernst Borgnine and just these,

Wythe: you know, there's great weird little cameos that like kind of work.

Chris: I do think that's kind of the best part of the movie is like the one spot Tony

Chris: Shalhoub and Gore Vidal and Ernst Borgnine characters where it's just like, all right.

Wythe: Gore Vidal, yeah.

Evan: You know, so I was actually looking at the full cast. So Maya Rudolph was the delivery nurse.

Wythe: That's right.

Chris: That's right.

Evan: No way. Also, Ken Marino was the sequencing technician. and there was another

Evan: random uh well you said dean norris which we already mentioned like there are

Evan: a lot of people in this wait.

Chris: Wait wait ken marino from uh wet hot american summer am i thinking.

Evan: The same is the same person the state yeah i

Evan: love ken marino like he everything he's in is to

Evan: me is this funny uh well most everything but yeah like thank ernest borgnine

Evan: is just like a random character i mean just how did they get these people to

Evan: be in this movie is another question of mine like this is his first movie it's

Evan: his andrew nichol first film and he got this yeah the.

Chris: Truman show came out after this is that.

Evan: Yeah it was like a year or two but they.

Chris: Were they were like within months of each other coming out um.

Evan: I mean maybe it has the fact that danny devito was one of the producers on gattaca

Evan: which is also kind of funny it's.

Wythe: Funny to think danny devito's done this yeah like it's always sunny like you

Wythe: know it's just like such radically.

Evan: Different filmmaking can they do like an always sunny episode about gattaca yes oh.

Wythe: I'd love that yeah.

Evan: Like a gene what can i say.

Chris: I just had to make a movie about the neoliberal bioeconomics of gene sequencing um.

Evan: I'd love to hear the story about like how this movie came together yeah.

Chris: I would too i bet it's really i bet it's really interesting i kind of wonder

Chris: if just like concept alone could drive the movie. Like, right, it's 1997.

Chris: We've got like, when was Dolly? When was Dolly the Sheep? Was that 99?

Wythe: 94?

Chris: 94 was earlier than that.

Wythe: 96.

Chris: 96. Okay, so we're like hot on the tail of Dolly the Sheep, and there's a lot of...

Wythe: I think actually that's another thing. I'm really sorry, Chris,

Wythe: but I have to say Human Genome Project.

Wythe: That's what sold the movie, right? We should do a big blockbuster feature with

Wythe: A-listers about the Human Genome Project.

Wythe: Well, how are you going to make that interesting? Oh, we'll make it a noir. Sold the movie.

Evan: Yeah.

Chris: Boom. Danny DeVito signed on as producer immediately.

Evan: And so this is i don't have the dvd for this film but in the in wikipedia it

Evan: says that in the film there's deleted scenes where they talk about like famous

Evan: historical figures who were having genetically deficient including einstein which i think is oh.

Chris: Yeah because he had dyslexia.

Evan: Yeah so i mean i don't know how they describe it i will i don't really want

Evan: to own this film necessarily anymore like i don't need to if i have somewhere

Evan: i might have my old dvd from like 2000, which probably has no deleted scenes on it.

Wythe: But yeah, that's interesting to think about, again, the lack of critique,

Wythe: but it makes sense of the time because at the time,

Wythe: the Human Genome Project was the popularization of the science that had already,

Wythe: a lot of it had happened, but it was very expensive and had no practical effects yet, really.

Wythe: There were a couple of drugs, you know, it's basically the Human Genome Project

Wythe: was when it was like, let's roll out sort of genomics and how this is going

Wythe: to save medicine and change our lives.

Wythe: And I think it makes sense that like this movie has this also like the original

Wythe: HGP, like very uncritical view of like, oh, there's a gene for X,

Wythe: you know, there's a gene for this problem, that problem, quote unquote,

Wythe: without unpacking the fact that first of all, that's not rates.

Wythe: It turned out to be way more complicated.

Wythe: Like almost immediately, it just became bogged down. Like, oh,

Wythe: these are all, like I said earlier, polygenic there. They involve tons and tons of regions.

Wythe: And then they involve interactions with the environment. So it's not even obviously

Wythe: just what's printed, but like, how does that blueprint quote unquote get worked

Wythe: out and used and so you know i think in some ways it's just it is ultimately a product of its time um,

Wythe: And it's interesting for that reason. Um, and it's creepy for that reason.

Chris: Yeah.

Wythe: Because it sort of is saying like, well, people really thought that people,

Wythe: not everyone, obviously, but like a lot of people in power in the nineties in

Wythe: America thought problems had been solved.

Wythe: We've, we're pretty much living the dream. We're in the Star Trek good future

Wythe: and look, look where we are now.

Wythe: You know what I mean? So it's like, it's kind of a weird memorial in that sense

Wythe: to this, this sort of Ozymandias like hand in the desert of just like what people

Wythe: thought medicine would be like.

Wythe: And it's, it's like, nah, no, that's, it's, I mean, I get it was supposed to

Wythe: be a dystopia, but if you think of, you know, what it's assuming is,

Wythe: I don't know, all the bad stuff's come to pass.

Evan: Well, just thinking of that, so apparently NASA in 2010 released a list of films

Evan: as the most plausible science fiction movies ever made. This was number one on the list.

Wythe: Really? Number one? Wow. So they think eugenics is like the most likely outcome

Wythe: of scientific advancement.

Evan: And number two on the list was Contact.

Wythe: Contact. Okay. So, Kindly Aliens. Okay. Sure.

Chris: Kindly Aliens. Jodie Foster.

Wythe: Contact Arrival. Yeah. I'll give them that.

Evan: Well, here's the top. I'll just say the top seven just because I had it open.

Evan: It's Gattaca, Contact, Metropolis, The Day the Earth Stood Still,

Evan: Woman in the Moon, The Thing from Another World, and then Jurassic Park.

Wythe: So, this is like the Academy Awards problem. They only surveyed like NASA engineers

Wythe: who skew a certain direction demographically, I'm guessing, to get that list.

Wythe: Which is not like there's a lot of good movies on that list,

Wythe: but it's a very specific kind of, you know, old school SF.

Evan: Oh, this is this is kind of stupid. It kind of lied as to what it was.

Evan: It says scientists attending a meeting for their jet propulsion laboratory picked

Evan: their top seven best and worst science fiction films of all time. So it's not which is.

Chris: Oh, it's not most possible.

Wythe: OK. Okay.

Evan: This is just saying this is their favorite science fiction film is Gattaca.

Evan: What does that tell you? I don't know.

Wythe: Yeah. I guess they all think they're those people. I think it's a mirror,

Wythe: right? That they think they are the good gene.

Chris: Well, I mean, you see that kind of shit in Silicon Valley with like the rationalists

Chris: and stuff like that, where they believe that they have like a divine right to

Chris: rule the world because they are the smartest people on earth.

Chris: And yeah they're genetically superior like you see that kind of discourse come

Chris: up within the rationalist community of like well you know genetically superior

Chris: everybody because my iq is and i know how to program real good i can code good uh yeah.

Wythe: And they're not racist because they i'm putting in quotes they don't care about

Wythe: skin color even though the structures themselves that they prop up and take

Wythe: advantage of are deeply racist but it's you know in their little world they're

Wythe: not you know it's not all white or something in san francisco so hey we solve that too.

Wythe: I think, I think you're right. I think, I think this movie, it is like you said,

Wythe: arch neoliberal in that, in that sense. Um,

Wythe: And, uh, and yeah, it's still, you know, at the same time, I mean, art is complicated.

Wythe: I know Evan, you've, we've talked on your show, you talk about that with,

Wythe: with other movies, I believe, but like there's good and bad pieces to kind of

Wythe: pick out of, of the kind of, um, you know, the detritus of film culture, you know?

Wythe: So I think this one, like, you know, like I say, it's still,

Wythe: it's still interesting, actually, that a movie from 1997 is still kind of the,

Wythe: it's not the best in some moral ways we're saying, but it's kind of one of the

Wythe: more interesting depictions of actual biotech.

Wythe: And I love Cronenberg and I love all that stuff, but that is,

Wythe: you know, surreal body whore. It's not. Right. It's meant to be fantastic.

Wythe: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. More of the hard SF premise. So I almost just feel like,

Wythe: you know, this is, you know, somebody could do something else with, with this kind of.

Wythe: Science, basically, and make maybe...

Evan: Someone has to resurrect that TV show and have someone cool directed.

Evan: I don't know who it would be.

Chris: Dude, I'm telling you, we can make our own treatment for Gattaca 2 Eugenics

Chris: Boogaloo and make millions.

Chris: We'll all be cancelled. Rightfully so.

Wythe: But...

Evan: Well, the first one made 12.5 million. You gotta pitch it where they can top that.

Chris: Oh, easy. that's 1997 dollars that's nothing that's true that's what with our

Chris: current economy doing so well do.

Evan: You think if this came out now which i don't think it really could given just

Evan: like the environment like do you think it would do better.

Chris: Yeah oh i

Chris: think that if it came out now it would be it would it's not a stupid question

Chris: i think it would just be a radically different film if it came out now i think

Chris: it would hit a lot of the same points but in much more um maybe dangerous ways

Chris: is my assumption um i don't know if it would do better or not that's a yeah i don't know.

Wythe: Yeah i it's hard to imagine um because

Wythe: the movie is set and was created

Wythe: kind of before the modern internet in a sense of smartphones you know

Wythe: it's like it would be such a different movie like we're saying about the surveillance

Wythe: state it feels so odd that the cops can't figure out anything except by gumshoeing

Wythe: from house to house and like interviewing individual janitors throughout LA

Wythe: like did you kill a guy did you kill a guy I need a piss sample from you yeah

Wythe: every piss it is the most piss focused movie I've watched in ages that's.

Evan: Like a Tom Hanks movie.

Wythe: I think you could rework it to your I think it would be a different movie is

Wythe: all I'm saying you know what I mean it wouldn't be shot the same it wouldn't

Wythe: it would have to sort of account for that in a way that some things do like

Wythe: I don't know if y'all saw the Dead Ringers TV you know many sort of miniseries

Wythe: version that was that came out last year is really good I haven't seen it,

Wythe: Speaking of Kronenberg and whatnot, but, uh, you know, so I think it's possible

Wythe: to take older SF and like fix it up. I don't know if anyone would want to do

Wythe: that for Gattaca or should.

Chris: I mean, somebody wanted to a couple of years ago. They just couldn't get the money, I'm assuming.

Evan: Yeah. It was, uh, it didn't say, I couldn't find any reason as to why it was

Evan: ended up being canceled.

Evan: You know, I guess they have, get pitched lots of projects and they just,

Evan: you know, it was also 2023. three so maybe writer strikes potentially and like

Evan: you know forget this it's too risky you know let's just have the another marvel

Evan: show or something instead.

Chris: Yeah well i think that's a good question too would uh would anybody make this

Chris: movie uh these days would this movie be allowed to be made would there be producers

Chris: who aren't cowards who would allow for gattaca to Danny DeVito would still do it.

Chris: Yeah. He's, he's got like that old school, uh, pre, uh, uh, I guess 2020s producer kind of energy.

Chris: He's still got weight. He can throw around, you know?

Evan: Yeah. We gotta just gotta, we just gotta run into him somewhere and then we can pitch to him. Yeah.

Wythe: Him and boots Riley. I want to, I want to get them in a room and like,

Wythe: we're going to just hang out for a minute.

Wythe: We're going to be hanging out somehow. and then instead we'll just spend two

Wythe: hours writing the script for Gattaca 2 and we're going to elevate it we're going

Wythe: to bring in all the themes we want,

Wythe: so before we get to fan casting and such, I don't know, Evan was there topics you wanted to touch on?

Evan: I don't think I had any other we kind of asked whether you would watch it today

Evan: I mean, was there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to bring up

Evan: or any notes you missed? I don't think.

Wythe: I just think, you know, again, in terms of what these movies,

Wythe: like rewatch, cause I, I like you saw it in theaters when I was a little,

Wythe: little boy and, and I did watch it again in college for sure,

Wythe: but I haven't seen it in years and rewatching it. It was like exactly this.

Wythe: It was like unsurprised in a lot of ways other than just like,

Wythe: I felt ickier about it, you know?

Wythe: Um, but I do think it's, it does, the retro future thing is interesting.

Wythe: And I think says something about the inability to imagine a future,

Wythe: which I know we, we sort of hit on, but I feel like, um,

Wythe: it feels very present in that sense that, uh, like

Wythe: fallout it's like i think these point to our collective failure

Wythe: to imagine better outcomes other than we see a

Wythe: lot of apocalypse stories and a lot of these kind of retro futures which

Wythe: are almost like it's like this closed spiral of time where you just go

Wythe: back um and i bring this up just because i read this book of haiku by a guy

Wythe: named kareem rama um which is a really good haiku about sort of retro future

Wythe: apocalyptic near future science stuff um and a lot of them touch on genetic

Wythe: engineering and such but it's called we were promised flying cars and it's clearly

Wythe: it's like a hundred haiku kind of,

Wythe: basically assuming that like a lot of things could like

Wythe: science could have made the world better in all these ways and like so far has only

Wythe: made it worse or just has failed you know and i think the

Wythe: movies like this kind of really point out um that sort of ambivalence with science

Wythe: with techno science where like on the one hand yes it would be cool if we had

Wythe: more control over human bodies um in the sense of curing cancer or something

Wythe: but on the other hand like almost surely it would be used and is being used

Wythe: for like bad ends to make money um and yeah like like i said In that sense,

Wythe: it's very, you know, very present, very relevant.

Chris: Yeah. I mean, it reminds me a lot of the Le Guin quote about imagining the end

Chris: of capitalism, you know, where it's like, well, at one point we couldn't imagine

Chris: that the divine right of kings wasn't a real thing either.

Chris: So, yeah, I agree. I think it's kind of stuck in its political worldview and,

Chris: you know, can't imagine a better future.

Evan: It's one of those things like not to go down the same this

Evan: topic but like the the problem with so many films not

Evan: being able to like even if they have like a revolutionary concept

Evan: they can't like describe what would be next and i don't know if some of this

Evan: is hollywood preventing them from being able to do that or it's simply these

Evan: directors most of them can't actually they don't have a vision of what that

Evan: would be they can't understand it so just like a.

Wythe: Problem with.

Evan: Film like i think of you know like we might we're talking about the matrix earlier

Evan: like that's better than most but still.

Wythe: Yeah yeah not there anyway and and i think

Wythe: it is probably a limiting like who would who would fund that

Wythe: you know who'd invest in that movie um probably one

Wythe: of the the best versions of that i've seen is uh

Wythe: she hulk which ends with a very matrix like it's all ai

Wythe: it's all just slop it's all content slop and it's

Wythe: very like wink wink haha like you're watching it you know um but

Wythe: it feels like that ending it's it's kind of like the end of time it's just

Wythe: like okay and then what oh that's it no consume more slop

Wythe: please like it's the critique even when it's leveled plainly there's

Wythe: no next step so i think i think in some

Wythe: ways well you know um that that

Wythe: is i think one of the goals of art and one reason maybe also to

Wythe: do things like play games i still love movies but playing games with people

Wythe: is a story games you make stuff up so you can kind of imagine difference um

Wythe: that's true you know i don't know we can we can say more we can leave it there

Wythe: but um thanks evan for letting us talk about weird biotech stuff yes.

Evan: And i think we we and because you mentioned early like early at the beginning

Evan: was like a cronenberg film and also that i haven't done one but would would

Evan: the one you wanted to discuss would it be eggs and sends or do you have a different

Evan: like what's your fate i'm just this is completely i could cut that i could cut

Evan: this but what's your favorite Cronenberg film?

Evan: Do you think would be a good discussion? There's a bunch.

Chris: I mean, I think my personal favorite is Videodrome.

Evan: I had a feeling you might say that.

Chris: Yeah, yeah. But yeah, also Existenza is rad for the sheer gross biotech,

Chris: like gross fantasy biotech.

Wythe: But he's done so many cool movies. I mean, honestly I definitely want to say

Wythe: Videodrome but I would love an excuse to watch either ones I haven't watched

Wythe: or just ones I haven't watched in a while.

Evan: Yeah um i never saw like some at the end too

Evan: like that aren't the same body horror like i think of like history of violence

Evan: eastern promises like excellent movies that are like a completely different

Evan: you know side i remember seeing history of violence in the theater and hating

Evan: it and then watching it recently and being like what the hell was i thinking

Evan: and i just think i wasn't ready to appreciate it or something i don't know but yeah i.

Chris: Haven't seen that in forever um yeah no i agree I think.

Evan: Scanners is also great.

Chris: Scanners is great. I agree.

Chris: I mean, I think if it's a question of like favorite, I would,

Chris: I would have to say Videodrome, but something I would want to watch.

Chris: Um, yeah. Scanners, I would be down for, I don't know if I would want to watch

Chris: Eastern promises again.

Wythe: I think Existence would make the best episode of the ones I can think of.

Wythe: You know what I mean? In terms of just like so much weird crap to talk about.

Evan: Yeah.

Wythe: I think you could do a really good one on Dead Ringers as well and honestly

Wythe: bring in the new remake, which was so good and talk about it.

Chris: I'll have to watch that.

Wythe: It's a totally different vibe from, I mean, it has like horrific body related

Wythe: stuff, but it's not like surreal in the same way, you know? It's about gynecology and like,

Wythe: there's there's a lot of weird stuff in it but it would be more about sort of

Wythe: you know gender and bodies and

Wythe: some of the some of the themes we've been talking about um but yeah you.

Chris: See did you see the trailer for the shrouds.

Wythe: Yeah no i haven't seen i haven't seen a bunch of he has a bunch of new movies

Wythe: i think the last one i saw by him was a dangerous method i should.

Evan: The kid i think he might even have one now he's working

Evan: on it and i just read something about it but i actually have also a lot long

Evan: thought about doing where i have a month where i just cover you know just one

Evan: director for a whole month like each episode is then you could do like four

Evan: of your favorite from Cronenberg forever but sometimes for some of those it's like hard,

Evan: surprisingly harder to find people who no one's ever even asked to do a Cronenberg film let.

Wythe: Alone yeah.

Evan: I don't know maybe it's my the the people prefer other things but.

Wythe: Now we talk about Cronenberg so much I feel like we talk about him all the time

Wythe: game design I know so it's funny that uh yeah.

Evan: I don't know it's it's it's i i've done a lot of horror films where i would

Evan: say like his films like border on horror but aren't necessarily horror.

Chris: Films oh yeah that is that is actually an interesting thing about gattaca specifically

Chris: is that it's not a horror film but it is like i would say flirting with like

Chris: biopunk whereas like most like most biopunk stuff tends to be horror like a you know like um.

Wythe: Yeah existens.

Chris: Or even prometheus i would argue or the movie splice which is like not great.

Wythe: Oh yeah you know mentions crisper

Wythe: yeah yeah i think a lot of a lot

Wythe: of um that is about people fearing biotech

Wythe: which is in part because it's about blood and it's gross and it's

Wythe: also just new science and you can always say okay this new thing is going to

Wythe: kill us killer robots killer whatever but i think a lot of it is specifically american

Wythe: health care is a you know necro

Wythe: fantastic death empire and we

Wythe: all participated in enough to be grossed out not only by like literal mortality

Wythe: but also by like specifically the structure of that um so i think weirdly again

Wythe: gattaca does a weird job of like not getting into any of that and just assuming

Wythe: like yeah whatever yeah this guy has a lot of centrifuges in his basement you

Wythe: know just like accepts it and moves on uh.

Evan: Yeah that's true i don't know this this is now giving me just an excuse just

Evan: to watch a bunch of rewatch a bunch of Cronenberg films to do or not to do just to watch them.

Evan: And then if I have to watch another one again, but, uh, but wife and Chris,

Evan: it's been a pleasure to have you to talk about Gattaca.

Evan: And, uh, I think we'll probably have to talk about a Cronenberg film to be determined.

Chris: All right. I would be down. Yeah. Thanks for having us on.

Chris: Uh, super fun. Love chatting movies and, uh, hanging out with both the use goo,

Chris: use goose. I don't know what I was going for there.

Evan: And people, I think you mentioned what your games and everything,

Evan: but they can find it at stillfleet.com, is that?

Chris: Yes. Yeah. If you would like to learn more about our tabletop role-playing games,

Chris: you can always go to www.stillfleet.com.

Chris: You can learn about Stillfleet The Game, which is White's game of a very gooey

Chris: super future where you can fight space capitalists if you want to.

Wythe: Everyone should want to do that it's fun it's like dnd but you fight the capitalists

Wythe: uh it's great yeah there's a lot of yeah.

Chris: Yeah it's awesome um and yeah you can oh go ahead.

Wythe: I was just gonna say we're about to launch your game which is sort of body horror

Wythe: and medieval um so dots macabre is gonna be our third big rpg game um and yeah

Wythe: you can find out all about that at stillfie.com and chris do you want to say

Wythe: anything else about your stuff.

Chris: Uh yeah i mean if you if you're into body horror if you're into weird mutations

Chris: and um also you know randomly 14th century history check out dance macabre it's

Chris: very fun and preventing the rise.

Wythe: Of capitalism or something i mean it's cool i don't know whatever it's it's

Wythe: 1400s there's an apocalypse you know.

Chris: Yeah yeah it's it's like it's

Chris: like at the it's at the moment in time where like mercantile

Chris: capitalism really started to take off in the mediterranean so it's like this

Chris: moment where like we can imagine like history goes awry and we maybe don't end

Chris: up with capitalism or like there's this this moment where maybe we can influence

Chris: the kind of beginnings of it and nip it in the bud is how I like to think of it but um,

Chris: But yeah, stillfleet.com. We also, like we said at the top of the show,

Chris: we host a podcast called Why We Roll, where we chat ludonarrative and politics

Chris: with other tabletop game designers. It's a lot of fun.

Chris: It's pretty casual. But yeah, we get into some pretty good conversations on there.

Wythe: And Evan, if you want to play a game, let us know. We'll play some games.

Evan: It's funny you said that because during like

Evan: well i can i can cut this up like in 2020 i had

Evan: never played any like any of these kind of games like with

Evan: other people like just you know if it's a video game and

Evan: then during like the beginning of covid when everyone was like doing them on

Evan: zoom i was playing a bunch of them and it just became like i was doing too many

Evan: at once i was doing um vampire the masquerade with some people and oh wow which

Evan: we actually never finished which is also kind of a disappointing moment we didn't get to that.

Wythe: Happens that's that's everybody's campaign.

Evan: So that makes you feel better organically.

Wythe: Organized first campaigns uh yeah tend to just like someone has a kid and stops

Wythe: playing and then one other person that was their friend stops and slowly everyone

Wythe: homer simpsons into the hedges but the fun thing is now they're more popular

Wythe: it's easier to find people so you could just get right back in you know yeah

Wythe: it's just uh pop out the hedges with us.

Evan: Yeah but um we should but yeah so uh you can follow your podcast in the same

Evan: place You can follow this podcast wherever you're currently listening.

Chris: All the platforms.

Evan: All the internet places, and we will catch you all next time.