Gattaca Ending Explained: The Movie’s Meaning Explained

Do you want Gattaca Ending Explained? ‘Gattaca’ promises to be a one-of-a-kind experience from the start. Despite its attractiveness, I have always preferred unpolished sci-fi films having something new to say; something pertinent, even mirroring the world in which we currently live, over perfectly polished ones. ‘Gattaca’ may not have the biggest budgets or the flashiest set pieces, but it nails one thing: a solid human storey, which is, in my opinion, the foundation of a good sci-fi experience.

Despite all of the technical science stuff about time travel, different dimensions and worlds, and space and its vast, infinite multitude, which excites and fascinates me beyond belief, the experience is only complete for me when there is a compelling human storey at its core. That is where ‘Gattaca’ shines, depicting the storey of an unyielding soul trapped by the forces and structures of the man-made world, and its quest to rise above them, literally. In addition to the indestructible human spirit, ‘Gattaca’ features a scenario that may be described as a genetic interpretation of today’s society state of things projected into the future, another dramatic move that characterises the film as a relevant sci-fi film. These are only a few of the things that this film decides to dabble in and yet succeeds as a film on its own merits, some of which we’ll discuss in the sections that follow. Continue reading to learn more.

Gattaca: Summary of the Plot:

Do you want Gattaca Ending Explained? According to the film’s storyline, which is set in the “not too distant future,” the world has come to accept artificial delivery treatments, as well as eugenics, the science of selective genetic proliferation and birthing, and genetic discrimination. Valids are children born as a result of profiling and eliminating genetic disorders while maintaining only favourable genetic traits, while invalids are children born as a result of what we consider normal birthing without genetic pre-emption or selection, highlighting the schism between these two groups of citizens inhabiting the future world and how society treats them. Biometric identification is used to differentiate and discriminate amongst people.

Aside from the fact that ‘invalids’ lack desirable genetic characteristics, which leads to discrimination in employment opportunities, they also have a higher chance of hereditary disorders and a lower life expectancy than valids, thus compounding the discrimination. As a result, valids have more professional opportunities and greater job prospects, whilst invalids are consigned to lower-paying, low-skilled jobs.

Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) is born naturally and grows up to be one of the invalids, with a profile that predicts various frailties throughout his life and a life expectancy of 30 years, 30.2 to be exact. His parents, too, perceive him as an outlier, and plan to have a second child, Anton, by genetic selection. They’re inherently competitive, and they frequently play “chicken” at the beach, in which the first person back to shore after swimming in the ocean loses. Vincent is usually a loser in the game, but on one rare occasion, he wins and saves Anton from drowning. Vincent has a strong desire to travel to space, which he is told he would never be able to do due to his invalid status, but his dedication is unwavering, and he decides to leave his home to pursue his dream.

Do you want Gattaca Ending Explained? Vincent does a variety of lowly jobs in order to achieve his objective, until he is ultimately given the opportunity to put himself in the shoes of a valid and pretend to be him in order to participate in the space training programme. Jerome Morrow is a star swimmer and valid who had a bright career before becoming paralysed in an accident: a rare occurrence for valids, who have a better survival rate on average.

The 1% of the population known as “borrowed ladders” or “de-gene-rates” survive by absorbing the DNA and identity of a fallen valid. Vincent becomes a borrowed ladder, obtaining access to the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation by supplying Jerome Morrow’s urine, blood, skin, and hair samples on a daily basis. To pass himself off as Jerome for the daily biometric identification procedure at Gattaca, he scrapes off and incinerates any of his own body hair or nails, anything that could be used to track back to his original faulty DNA. The opening montage, in truth, is entirely made up of exaggerated, blown-up duplicates of Vincent’s daily scourings that fall to the ground.

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Vincent is scheduled to fly to Saturn in a week as a result of his excellent work performance, but his years-long plan is jeopardised when one of Gattaca’s administrators is murdered, and Vincent ends up leaving one of his own original eyelashes at work, prompting the police to launch a search for the ‘invalid’ Vincent, now working in Gattaca under the guise of Jerome. Vincent narrowly avoids the police’s attempts to pin him as the murderer due to an eyelash found at the crime scene, despite a budding romance with Irene (Uma Thurman), a coworker who is at a higher risk for heart failure despite being a valid, and the real Jerome becoming increasingly erratic as the launch day approaches. He even learns that Jerome is to blame for his current state: he threw himself in front of a car after realising that despite being “built” to be the best, he couldn’t always win.

When it is found that the murderer was the programme director of Gattaca, who was scared of his show being cancelled, the investigation bears results. Vincent is exonerated, but he soon learns that the investigating officer is none other than his brother, Anton, who confronts him about the illegality of his actions after discovering what Vincent was up to using Jerome’s fictitious name.

Did you get Gattaca Ending Explained? Despite the heated debate, Vincent claims that he got where he is on his own merits, regardless of whether his fate is set by genetic profiling, and the two decide to compete in one final ‘chicken’ competition on the beach. After a lengthy and gruelling struggle, Vincent defeats Anton, shocking Anton with his talent and stamina, while Vincent acknowledges that he won because he didn’t save any energy for the swim back, which is a brilliant allegory that will be revealed later in the section. Vincent saves Anton from drowning and uses the stars to help him find his way back to land.

Gattaca Ending Explained:

Do you want Gattaca Ending Explained? Even though it frequently shifts back and forth between the past and the present to reveal more about what the planet has become in the not-too-distant future, and what got Vincent to where he is now, ‘Gattaca’ is essentially a storey about the seven days leading up to Vincent’s first manned mission to Titan, Saturn’s moon, after years of toil. To put it another way, the conclusion might be seen as embodied in the final day: the launch day.

The launch time comes, as Vincent prepares himself for the realisation of a lifelong desire, while Jerome and Vincent reminisce about their voyage together and Vincent confronts Irene with his reality. Despite Vincent’s protests that he won’t need it where he’s going, Jerome demonstrates that he has enough blood and urine samples to use when he returns. He typicaally hands him an envelope and tells him not to open it more than once while he’s up there. Just before boarding, he is asked to do another screening test, which he knows he will fail because he does not have any of Jerome’s samples with him at the moment.

Vincent gives a urine sample to Dr. Lamar, who subsequently discloses that he had known Vincent was posing as a doctor the entire time. He tells Vincent that his kid looked up to him because he, too, hoped to be someone larger, and that despite being valid, he wasn’t “all that they had promised.”

Vincent and his fellow astronauts board the spacecraft, but Jerome commits himself by self-immolating in the incinerator while wearing his silver swimming medal, leaving only one Jerome, just as he had planned – for his name to live on via Vincent. Vincent finds a lock of Jerome’s hair attached to the package as proof of his DNA identification in case he needs it when he ultimately reaches space. “I must confess, for someone who was never suited for this world, I’m having a terrible difficulty leaving it,” Vincent observes after seeing the selfless gesture. According to common belief, every atom in our bodies was once a component of a star. “Perhaps I’m not going somewhere; perhaps I’m coming home.”

As previously said, the ending also serves as a great allegory for Jerome and Vincent’s personalities. Vincent, like his brother in the “chicken” races, was obsessed with his dream of travelling to space: we see him rarely falter in his pursuit and his demanding daily regime of embodying Jerome in almost every way possible for years on end, while Jerome frequently acted erratically and irresponsibly, having exact nothing to lose, and yet showing the ultimate act of selflessness towards the end. It’s almost as if Vincent holds a personal grudge against the system for failing him for all these years, as if he feels compelled to prove something to himself and to everyone else who has been hamstrung by the inadequacy of the genetic system that has labelled them as ‘invalids.’

Despite his dedication to a cause, Vincent shows something significant about his character development in the last scenes of the film, particularly while playing one more game of chicken with his brother. He admits that the key to his triumph in that fight was not storing any for the return trip. I wouldn’t call it short-sightedness, but he was so focused on achieving his goal that he gave it his all in winning it, without much thought or consideration for how he’d get back, whether it was realising his dream of travelling to space or simply playing a game of chicken with his brother, both of whom had a tense relationship with each other from the start due to the other’s genetic superiority.

Victory had always been a one-way trip for him, as indicated by his description of his journey to space as a one-way voyage for his new home. Apart from providing him a new lease on life, Jerome broadens his view of it as a two-way journey by equipping him with the abilities to do so as well, although through a heartbreaking act of sacrifice. I see it as Jerome’s redemption after a difficult existence as a result of his realisation: the fulfilment of Vincent’s life’s purpose gives HIM purpose after he realised his predestined one wasn’t any good. A great allegory, to be sure.

Gattaca Themes:

We have seen Gattaca Ending Explained. In my perspective, no great science fiction film has ever existed just on the basis of fantastic concepts, because they only achieve true momentum when they begin to mirror or twist existing social situations. A dystopian future novel, for example, would never be as interesting unless it enlarged on a contemporary reality. Similarly, ‘Gattaca’ won because of its societal importance, which arises mostly from the film’s high concept of genetic profiling and identification, which is used to dominate practically the entire universe. In a society where discrimination is rampant on a number of grounds, ‘Gattaca’ takes it a step farther into the future, when prejudice is based on the most fundamental components of what makes us beings in the first place – ancestry. What could be more wicked than treating someone with a supposedly inferior set of cells as a second-class citizen? It’s oddly amusing and yet disturbing, because it didn’t seem too far-fetched in the first place.

To top it off, it’s eerily similar to another wonderful Ethan Hawke picture, ‘Predestination.’ ‘Gattaca’ is also interested in the concept of everything being predestined and its importance. While the former despised not being able to offer a clear answer, ‘Gattaca’ seemed to do so, with Vincent smashing the wheel while Jerome is imprisoned beneath it. Despite all of the talk about valids and invalids, and Vincent’s lifespan being limited to roughly 30 years at the time of his birth, he defies those notions and achieves what he set out to do through sheer tenacity of vision, leaving nothing to the viewers’ imagination in terms of how predestined his fate was.

Finally, I find ‘Gattaca’ to be a film that inspires me. It’s chock-full of emotional moments, the most of which come from Vincent, the central character. The old adage about stubborn souls falling in love with the universe is true. Jerome, Irene, Dr. Lamar, even his kid, and practically everything in the cosmos aligned perfectly to make his dream of space flight a reality.

Conclusion: Final Thoughts

Now that we have taken a look at Gattaca Ending Explained. Despite a multitude of subplots that all contribute to the basic storey, ‘Gattaca’ is one of the few sci-fi films from the 1990s that still holds up, not to mention is consistently entertaining. Its premise may not have been groundbreaking at the time, but it certainly is now, when films about genetic profiling and determinism that negate free will abound. In contrast, ‘Gattaca’ finds value in conveying a human storey first, with sci-fi as a backdrop. I can see why it has such a cult following, and while it’s a shame it bombed on release, it’ll always have a special place in my DVD collection, as it should in yours. So we have Gattaca Ending Explained now.

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