Tiquia, James Oliver L.

1C- MT

“Gattaca Reflection Paper”

For me, this film is by far one of the most interesting. This is be cause after watching the movie,
it made me realise that, even if it was science fiction, it felt real to me because us humans can make this possible
in the near future and the scenarios portrayed in the movie were very accurate that it could be an actual
representation of what the world would be like. If genetic engineering became so advanced, we can cure vast
amount of diseases and almost eradicate all health problems. In addition all potential danger that the child could
experience is prevented.This might be compelling for some people but are we ready for the consequences of
having genetically engineered people. If this were to happen like what was highlighted in the movie, racism or
should I say genoism would be very prevalent since those people who are “valid” (genetically engineered people)
would be automatically part of the higher class of society because of their superior traits. On the other hand, those
people who are called “invalid” (those who are conceived naturally) would be part of the lower class of the society
because people have already judged them based on their genetics and the possibility of growth and overcoming
the challenges of their future is immediately denied as soon as they have been born. We should also think that if
almost all people are considered as “valids” nothing would differentiate a valid from another valid since they can
do almost anything perfectly, and when this happens individuality is lost and this individuality is what makes us
humans unique among every specie on the planet. One way of thinking about it is like this, when humans become
genetically engineered they are similar to a software program on a computer that has a specific task to do, and
when that task is over, it leaves genetically engineered humans nothing more to do with their life since they think
that they already fulfilled their destiny, just like what happened to Eugene in the movie. If we choose to create
genetically modified humans, we are ensured to have a better quality of life, but we must think to ourselves, is it
really worth it to lose our human spirit just to solve our problems. Like the central message of the film, the human
spirit is capable of overcoming everything, and it is evident on the character of Vincent (Ethan Hawke), that no
one can know the limits of a person, people can only predict on what will happen to the person. But after all, it is
all predictions and not the reality, it depends on the person himself to overcome the boundaries and push his limits
to the highest. For me the positive does not outweigh the negative, because it is in a constant state of balance,
even if there are good things that could happen, many bad implications aren’t still thought off and for me it is not
ethical to choose the path of your own children, they need to decide for themselves what they want and not be
predetermined by science or even their own parents.