MTV spoke with NCIS producer Gil Grant on his plans for the new Gattaca TV series, which was announced a few weeks ago. While he still doesn't have a script for the proposed idea, he does have a lot of ideas.

"I came up with a world which is populated with Valids and Invalids, the same premise [as the movie], but taken into a police department where we're… integrating, using the analogy of the ‘60s Civil Rights struggle...Even though it's technically illegal to discriminate against Invalids, just like in the ‘60s, people did," Grant continued. "So it's come to pass that [the government has] ordered the police department to hire their first token Invalid into the detective department. What we're doing is we're taking an Invalid and teaming him up with a Valid, a seasoned officer. You know, it's oil and water."

Sadly, he doesn't think any of the original characters will be returning, and this project is wholly on his own, so no help from the original producers or directors of Gattaca. Still, I like the idea of watching a police procedural set in a civil rights movement in the future. It's like Life on Mars, only in reverse. And odd-couple buddy-cop shows are always a good thing.

The news was hidden in a longer article about Leary's post-Rescue Me future by Variety, but it was /Film who brought it to most people's attention. Details are still scarce, but according to the trade paper, the series is being developed by NCIS and producer (and one of the people behind Syfy's short-lived Painkiller Jane series) Gil Grant as "a one-hour police procedural set in the future." Sounds to us like they're missing almost everything that made the 1997 movie worth watching, but we're withholding judgment until we know that the project has been picked up, at least.

Apostle preps for post-'Rescue' life [Variety]

We reviewed Meyer's novel, The Host, when it came out a year or so ago. And we were pleasantly surprised: It's a cheesy beach read, to be sure, but it's also a genuinely thought-provoking, fairly original science fiction story that manages to ask some questions about what it means to be human. So we're cautiously optimistic about Niccol's adaptation, to be produced by the people behind The Road.

There aren't that many stories which start with the Earth already having been vanquished totally by alien invaders — I can think of a few, most notably William Barton's When Heaven Felll — and Meyer has a neat twist on this premise. The Earth has been peacefully overtaken by parasites that control human host bodies. They're more peaceful and mellow than we are, and Earth under their rule has become a placid, rational place — it's not unlike if the pod people from Invasion Of The Body Snatchers had won.

But Meyer adds another twist on top of that — which is really where The Host gets interesting. The alien parasites are "going native," and they're being influenced by their host bodies' desires and habits and ideas. It's not unlike the relationship between the Trills and their host bodies in Star Trek, except that the creatures in The Host are accustomed to taking over bodies that are more docile and easier to control, unlike our belligerent, adrenaline-and-hormone-ruled selves. The central love story in The Host is actually just our way into thinking about what it means for the alien invaders to go native — the invader known as Wanderer falls for the man her host body, Melanie, loves, and finds herself being subsumed into Melanie's identity rather than the other way around. She becomes a passenger in Melanie's body rather than the controller.

So... you have a story about a voyeur who lives inside a woman's body. You have a world where people are all controlled by creatures, but the boundary between controller and controlled is getting increasingly blurry. And you have a paranoid thriller about a seemingly perfect society that has cracks. It's not hard to imagine the man who brought us the panopticon nightmare of The Truman Show, the man-controlling-ideal-woman story of S1m0ne and the flawed-utopia of Gattaca making The Host into a great film. I'm actually eager to see what he does with it.

The only downside to a Niccol-directed The Host would be if it delays The Cross, the dystopian future movie he's already working on, which we ran some concept art from the other day. Here's hoping he finishes The Cross, and then creates a smarter, sharper version of Meyer's admittedly schlocky novel. It could be that rare movie adaptation that outshines the book. [Variety]

 
 
Meg Ryan And Dennis Quaid:
The two met on the set of Innerspace, the movie about shrinking down a man so he can pilot a teeny tiny plane through Martin Short's body. Nothing says romance like piloted colonoscopy. Unfortunately, after a round of he-cheated-then-she-cheated, the two called it quits, thus ruining my chances for an Innerspace sequel with the original cast.

Tom Baker And Lalla Ward:
Ah, the lovely Lalla, otherwise known as Romana from the late 70s Doctor Who. She eventually married the Doctor (Tom Baker), but they separated after a short period. But the crazy genius fetish was never far from her heart, because she eventually married evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

David Tennant and Sophia Myles:
Poor Sophia Myles, she fell hard for David Tennant's manic Doctor Who acting. Her role on the episode "The Girl In The Fireplace" set everyone's hearts ablaze and the chemistry was undeniable. Plus you got to hear the Doctor say, "I just snogged Madame de Pompadour." These two would date for few years before he dumped her flat, upgrading to his own TV offspring.

David Tennant and Georgia Moffett:
The real-life daughter of 1980s Doctor Peter Davison, Moffett played Tennant's blonde bubbly daughter and this relationship makes us all a little woozy. After watching the Doctor shed tears over his fake daughter's supposed demise, it's a little off-putting to see them hitting the town together. Granted, they're not actually related but still, come on. No worries — we can only assume once she turns 30 she'll be upgraded as well.

Ben Browder and Francesca Buller
Sexy science fiction geekery at its best. He's known for steaming up the screen in Farscape and Stargate (SG-1), and she's known for playing hella crazy war monger Ahkna. Buller also played M'Lee, Ro-NA, and Raxil. The two are still happily married, because Browder is a fox and from watching years of him having almost-sex in Farscape's puppet world, I think we can all assume he knows what he's doing.

Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman:
In 1998, these two were married, a year after they stared in Gattaca, but were splitsville in 2004. I blame their genes. It's too bad because while her career has soared with ass kicking films like Kill Bill, his has taken a turn for the so-so, apart from Training Day.

Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly:
Who could forget the 12-year age gap in the relationship between Alba and Weatherly? For four years, Dark Angel viewers didn't know whether to be excited or uneasy that Weatherly was taking out someone 12 years his junior. When she was 20 years old, he proposed. Their four-year relationship eventually ended, but not without making Dark Angel just a little bit creepy for the audience.

Jennifer Garner And Michael Vartan:
Jennifer Garner's resume kind of reads like her love life until she started getting better movie deals. This one breaks my heart, because I was all in favor of the wig-rocking Garner, until she dumped poor Scott Foley from Felicity (my high school crush) for Michael Vartan of Alias (my college crush), only to break his heart too, for Daredevil star Ben Affleck. Leaving two lovely men in her wake. I'll pick up the pieces of your hearts, boys.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie:
Argue all you want that Mr. And Mrs. Smith isn't science fiction, but I believe there's enough wild gadgetry and crazy "Father" corporations to make it either a strange not-too-distant future or the seedy scifi underbelly of the present. Either way something about beating the hell out of each other turned on Brad Pitt enough to cast of everyone's favorite Friend for a sexy seductress. As of right now they are still together and popping out Earthlings as fast as they can with a brood of six.
 
 
 

Hayden Christensen And Rachel Bilson:
Perhaps this relationship is the one good thing that came out of the movie Jumper. They are both indie-adorable and if it's her love keeps him from making more scifi films then more power to this fedora favoring couple.

Geena Davis And Jeff Goldblum:
Their love made Earth Girls Are Easy and The Fly even better than they already would have been. While it's hard for me to imagine Goldblum having chemistry with anyone (he's such a strange bird, that Jeff) watching these two hook up on Earth Girls was incredibly sweet. The two were married for a few years and separated. The separation lead to another genre-based hook-up (and later engagement) for Goldblum, with Jurassic Park hottie Laura Dern.

Helena Bonham Carter And Tim Burton:
If there was an award for possibly the craziest couple of them all it's the Carter Burton clan hands down. They met on the set of his remake of Planet of The Apes in 2001, and from then on it was dark and gloomy love all around (the two have two children now).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Rose McGowen And Robert Rodriguez:
I think everyone knows our opinion of the McGowin Rodriguez pairing, but ever since they were brought together on film and in real life with Planet Terror, they've decided to remake all genre films including my sacred Barbarella and for that reason alone, they scare me.

Milo Ventimiglia And Hayden Panettiere:
Ah, young love — okay, half-young love, because Panettiere is 19 years old and Ventimiglia is 31. But hey, Heroes loves knows no bounds, and the Cheerleader and her emo uncle should live happily ever after, until the show in which they met gets canceled at least.

1. Mystery Ball - Firefly:

It gets boring in the dead of space, and if you had a giant cargo bay, you'd probably be playing some weird version of basketball in it too.

2. Boxing - Battlestar Galactica:

Okay, so by the end of the clip, it's unclear whether this is more about boxing or sex, but I'm happy either way.

3. Salute of the Jugger - The Blood of Heroes:

I would probably have been a much scarier field hockey opponent if my coach was Rutger Hauer.

4. Good old-fashioned dueling - Star Trek: The Original Series:

Yes, T'Pring was clearly not eager to marry either of these men, but can you blame her when Spock is so quick to slash open his captain's shirt to reveal the rippling flesh underneath?

5. Kung fu - The Matrix:

Even a computer nerd like Neo would download kung fu knowledge before, say, quantum mechanics or gas turbine propulsion. I guess that's fair.

6. Swimming - Gattaca:

We may have advanced far enough in society to genetically engineer people for specific tasks, but there's no point in moving beyond the vindictive deliciousness of sibling rivalry.

In literary sf, there's always the heart-pounding wargame of Ender's Game — Orson Scott Card gleefully turned sedentary videogame tropes into a festival of zero-g adrenaline. Larry Niven's The Hunting Park, part of his Man-Kzin Wars collection, explores the nature of human hunting. And editors Jack Dann and Gardner Dozios have made it easy for sci-fi sports fans with their anthology Future Sports, which features a sailing story from Arthur C. Clarke and a look at no-contact sumo wrestling by Howard Waldrop.

What's next for sci-fi sports? Well, I'm hoping for cheerleading to make an appearance; maybe we could see what Bring It On is like when you adapt it for an alien planet. And you should find a sport to play — in case, for example, we ever have to battle aliens for world domination with baseball.

Image from Wikipedia. Special thanks to tipsters Ellen, Idella, and Jana.

1. Preserve your DNA sequence on a CD. To store the data contained in the strands of your DNA, you'd need about 750 megabytes; that's just a little larger than the average compact disc. And if you forget about introns, non-coding RNA, regulatory sequences, and the as-yet-mysterious "junk DNA," you'll see that only between 20,000 and 25,000 human genes code for the proteins that make you who you are. That might even fit on a thumb drive.
2. Tell your doctor exactly what medication you need. As Discover Magazine reported, SMRT DNA sequencing means that super-personal medical care is not too far away:

   As DNA sequencing becomes faster and more affordable, it should allow the building of a more complete database of genetic information. “Once we can build that sort of database for the human organism, it helps us much better understand disease, how to diagnose disease, how better to treat disease,” says Richard Wilson, the director of the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University in St. Louis. With that information, he says, personalized medicine will become commonplace. Visits to the doctor could then produce treatments tailored not just to your lifestyle and family history, but also to your genetic profile.

3. Befriend a fruit fly version of yourself. Creepily enough, humans and fruit flies share about 60% of their genes. Once you've got a full map of your genes, why not find a fruit fly whose genes make it 60% exactly like you? And don't stop there — you can also turn your comparative genomics approach to the honey bee, the African elephant, and the Platypus.
4. Commission a wall poster that fully encompasses your identity. You might already have the Human Genome Landmarks poster, which maps out all the traits associated with the 22 autosomal chromosome pairs in your body — and that controversial gender one, too. Now, with a SMRT sequence of your specific genome, that poster can get up-close, personal, in your face, and all through your body.
5. Send your DNA sequence into space. Okay, so maybe you're not famous enough to have a sample of yourself added to the Immortality Drive. But you can still make sure aliens will recognize you from a light-year away; just scrawl down the configuration of your base pairs on a long piece of paper, roll it up, and stick it into that rocket your aunt gave you last holiday season. If you can get your DNA details through the atmosphere, they'll drift practically forever in the vacuum surrounding the stars, just waiting to be discovered by some sexy weird-eared extraterrestrial friend.
6. Go to parties in a necklace you know no one else will be wearing. Though it's advertised for pets, Perpetua's life jewel pendant could be a great way to honor humans as well. This bit of jewelry can "purify" your DNA "into a fine, silky web that captures a luminescent color tincture of your choice." Sounds like the indispensable accessory I've always wanted.
7. Meet your children before they're born. "Mommy, What Will I Look Like?" may not have worked for Lindsay Bluth, but it sure can for you. Line up your DNA sequence next to that of your long-term significant other (or your favorite celebrity), and know immediately if your children will be attractive and non-alcoholism-prone. But remember — Ethan Hawke kicked ass in Gattaca, and his heart-disease-y astronaut was conceived in a hurry in the back of a car.
8. Figure out your ideal diet. If you can't lose weight just by avoiding carbs, perhaps there's a genetic reason for your troubles. The emerging field of nutrigenomics might have an answer for you, especially if you show up at an expert's door with your entire genetic sequence.
9. Become a killer Acrophobia challenger. This multiplayer acronym game was one of the best things about being online in the '90s, and it's long past time for Acrophobia to make a comeback. See if the other players can come up with any brilliant and hilarious expansions for the super-long string of Gs, As, Cs, and Ts that is your genetic code. You'll be testing their thesaurus prowess for sure.
10. Perform a search across Earth to find people just like you. We're already storing a wealth of information about genomes in databases like GenBank and the International HapMap Project. Once people can easily procure their own DNA sequences, it seems like just a hop, skip, and a jump to the Facebook or MySpace where your genome is your personal profile. Instead of searching for people in your high school graduating class, you could search for people whose chromosomal details match your own — I wonder how high up Sarah Palin would be on Tina Fey's similarity list. There probably isn't a gene for comedy, is there?

Gattaca image from SciFlicks.

Fact: There isn't any language in the bill covering government action to discriminate against its citizens. There are still people in this country calling for racial segregation and some of them, like Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott were in Congress until 2003! Who's to say a new breed of DNA-based eugenics supporters haven't already begun inflitrating the government?

"But the bill's been passed," you say. "Show me even ONE of these gene-racists you speak of!"

A fair challenge...

Exhibit A: Tom Coburn, Senator from Oklahoma. Last fall both the House of Representatives and Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass GINA into law but Coburn mysteriously stymied them all, blocking the bill for eight months. He claims it was to revise the bill to make it harder for people to sue companies for discrimination, but he is a medical doctor. As a doctor he should have been 100% behind the bill, so why the opposition? We may never know until it's too late...

*This is of course, tongue-in-cheek...GINA's a great bill that should be applauded, even if it does mean we'll never get to play the role of genetically-imperfect heroes in a dystopian future.

Source: Genetics and Public Policy Center, Image: Cinezik.org

• 
  
• The film was originally supposed to the called The Eighth Day, but a Belgian film with that title forced the film-makers to change theirs. In the film, the center where Vincent's parents go to genetically engineer another baby is called "The Eighth Day." It's a reference to the biblical line "And on the Seventh Day, God rested." Presumably, on the eighth day, man started tinkering around on his own.
• 
  
• The production budget for the movie was $36 million, but it only grossed $12 million. Sadly, there is no genetic testing for a box office hit.
• 
  
• The film boasts a fairly impressive cast: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law, Alan Arkin, Ernest Borgnine, Loren Dean and Gore Vidal.
• 
  
• Jude Law's character Jerome starts referring to himself as his middle name, Eugene. Perhaps a sly reference to eugenics.
• 
  
• Uma Thurman's character is named Irene Cassini after the 17th century Italian astronomer. He discovered the gap in Saturn's rings, along with several of its moons.
• 
  
• They didn't have a large budget for the futuristic look and feel of the movie, so they modeled the "near future" after the past. Men wear dark suits with fedoras, women wear form-fitting dresses, cars are retro models, like Vincent's 1963 Studebaker Avanti, outfitted with electric engines (just an electric whine on the soundtrack).
• 
  
• The government agents/detectives in the film are called "Hoovers," not only as a nod to J. Edgar Hoover, but to the fact that they vacuum up hair and skin cells when they collect evidence.
• 
  
• When promoting the movie, Sony placed fake ads in newspapers around the country offering "Children made to order." The ads looked so real that they got thousands of phone calls, and The American Society for Reproductive Medicine asked Sony to change them to make it clear they were fake advertisements.
• 
  
• Sony knew the film would be under close scrutiny from scientists, so they hired human-gene-therapy researcher French Anderson as a science consultant, and had test screenings for The Society of Mammalian Cell Biologists.
• 
  
• Scientists seemed to love the movie for the most part. In fact molecular biologist Lee M. Silver said "Gattaca is a film that all geneticists should see if for no other reason than to understand the perception of our trade held by so many of the public-at-large." Too bad there weren't a ton of geneticists hitting the theaters back then.
• 
  
• Bioethicist James Hughes wasn't so fond of the movie, however. His book Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future railed against the genetic testing in the movie.
• 
  
• The original ending of the film featured images of people who may have never been born if we'd had genetic testing: people like Albert Einstein (dyslexia) , Abraham Lincoln (Marfan syndrome), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (asthma) and John F. Kennedy (Addison's disease) were shown over a background of stars with their afflictions listed. It then ends with the statement "Of course, the other birth that may never have taken place is your own." People in test screenings said it made them feel inadequate.
• 
  
• As a lesson in the DNA-uninformed (like me), the tile of the film comes from the four DNA bases: Adenosine, Guanosine, Thymine, and Cytosine. They sometimes line up to form GATTACA in a DNA sequence.
• 
  
• The announcements that come over the PA system in the Gattaca building are in Esperanto.
• 
  
• Frank Lloyd Wright's futuristic Marin County Civic Center was used as the exterior of the Gattaca building. It's got that sort of hipster-50s retro cool look. It was also used extensively in George Lucas' THX-1138.

You could always borrow "mundane science fiction," a term that's sweeping the literary SF world. But the word "mundane" doesn't conjure up images of a taut thriller, does it? There's also "near future," but that could encompass films set in 2027. The Village Voice has used the five-minutes-into-the-future tag to describe films as diverse as Fight Clubhttp://www.villagevoice.com/livoice/9942,movies,9396,0.html and Demonlover. So what do you think? What's a snappy term for a movie that takes place in a few minutes?

Famous names: Andrew Niccol, Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke

Crunchy goodness: 3

Design breakthrough: Filmed at futuristic-looking malls and factory farms near Los Angeles and Marin County, Gattaca offered a fascinating glimpse of city life after the genome has been throughly hacked.

Life lesson: As we always suspected, Ethan Hawke is a genetic defective.

Elevator pitch: It's like 1984 - with genetics!

Gattaca, early draft, by Andrew M Niccol