Because existing properties are cheaper to use than creating new ones. Wait, Danny fucking DeVito produced the original movie?
It's about an alternate reality where humans are so intelligent that Studebaker is still building cars.
It's about a not-unrealistic future in which genetics pretty much dictate what you're going to do in life.
I’ve seen it a few times over the years and still haven’t gotten it. I remember thinking to myself, “oh that’s kind of neat.”
It's funny, but I was thinking of it a few times recently because of the affirmative action/meritocracy discussions, even though I saw the movie like once decades ago. The short version is in an alt-future society has everything genetically mapped and they place people in jobs based on what their genetics say about them, and it's cool by that society's standards to use eugenics to discriminate. The protagonist is someone who has subpar genes but spunk. He arranges to hide his subpar genes by enlisting the aid of a person who has stellar genes but who was disabled because of an accident. At the end of the day, the protagonist manages to succeed at being an astronaut despite being genetically "inferior."
That reminds me of the TNG episode the Masterpiece Society. And while it was asked, I don't remember them addressing exactly what happens when there is an accident or an illness or a crime or even someone just deciding they've had enough beyond a few people leaving with the Enterprise. The one guy tells Aaron several times about the founders of that society's aims, but genetically engineered or not, shit happens and it isn't like they can just decant another Weyoun clone or something.
