Gattaca

FADE IN:

A white title appears on a black screen.

"As night-fall does not come at once, neither

does oppression...It is in such twilight that

we all must be aware of change in the air

- however slight - lest we become victims of

the darkness."

Justice William O. Douglas

The title fades off, replaced by a second title.

"I not only think that we will tamper with

Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to."

William Gaylin

The second title fades off, leaving a dark screen.

The darkness gradually gives way to a dawning light.

We are confronted with sight of a barren, empty landscape. A

wide expanse of wasteland.

Suddenly, without warning, an elephant tusk falls from the sky

and crashes onto the parched ground. The earth-shuddering

impact causes the tusk to rebound once in slow motion before

finally settling to the desert floor in a cloud of dust.

The first tusk is quickly followed by a second, also dropping

from the heavens. It lands near the first. Another tusk

smashes to earth several yards away. Yet another comes crashing

into the foreground.

Finally the dust settles upon a graveyard of tusks.

DISSOLVE TO:

A BARREN, EMPTY LANDSCAPE

In another region of the wasteland, a forest of tree trunks

suddenly rains down from the sky. The trunks thump to the hard

ground, also rebounding in slow motion. Cleanly sawn,

branchless, palm-like trunks, they come to rest in the dust only

to be followed by a second cascade of lumber.

When the dust finally clears. the felled tree trunks lie in a

huge, log-jam in the desert.

DISSOLVE TO:

A BARREN, EMPTY LANDSCAPE

Next to descend from the sky, a torrent of firewood. One shower

after another, crashing to the plain. Enough chopped lumber to

fuel a thousand hearths.

DISSOLVE TO:

A BARREN, EMPTY LANDSCAPE

Joining the rest of the debris is a deluge of slate - sheets

of shale from a great unseen quarry in the sky come slamming to

earth. Some of the pieces shattering, some rebounding into the

air until the granite litters acres of landscape as far as the

eye can see.

TITLES ARE SPACED APPROPRIATELY THROUGHOUT THE PRECEDING

SEQUENCE. THE FINAL TITLE READS:

T H E N O T - T O O - D I S T A N T F U T U R E

The camera commences a long, slow pull-back from the pile of

elephant tusks. Gradually they are revealed as human

fingernails magnified many hundreds of times.

The tree trunks are mere hair follicles. The firewood,

whiskers. The slate, flakes of skin.

INT. INCINERATOR. EARLY MORNING.

A naked MAN, thirties, seen in profile, is crouched upon a metal

floor inside a small, brushed stainless steel tank, rubbing his

skin raw with a wire brush. JEROME MORROW.

Having completed his scrupulous ablutions, Jerome arches his

lean frame through the small, oval door of the metal room

with practised ease.

Securing the thick, fireproof windowed door behind himself, he

turns a switch to release gas into the vacated chamber. The gas

instantly ignites in what is now revealed to be a gleaming

modern stainless-steel custom-made incinerator.

We refocus on a MAGNIFIED CLOSE UP of his exfoliated flesh in

the incinerator as it blackens, curls and burns.

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