Gattaca's Vincent vs Scorpion's Matt

        The movie Gattica and the House of the Scorpion are very similar in some ways, yet still very different. In Gattica, genetically engineered people are high class citizens and the others are the abominations, whereas in the House of The Scorpion, the clones, who are grown in a lab, are the creatures that no one likes or trusts, and the naturally born people are superior to them. Throughout the book, Matt was trying to prove to everyone that clones can be just as good at everything as any other person by trying really hard in school, learning to play the piano, etc, and Vincent does the same, except that no one knows that he is who he is. These characters are constantly comparing themselves to the people around them to show themselves what they can accomplish even without being perfect, which motivates them even more to the point where they are much better than many people at what they do. I can only assume what Matt did when he grew up, and the clues say that he would be very successful wherever he chose to go just to show himself and others that he can do just as well as, or better than, anyone else. On the other hand in Gattica we can see Vincent rising through the ranks at Gattica and eventually going into space like he wanted to since he was little, and he had finally beaten his genetically engineered brother in one of the swimming competitions they always had to see who was braver, because he constantly persevered and kept going until after he couldn't stop.

        Opium, where Matt was "harvested" and grew up, is in the future, just as Gattica was, but these are two completely different futures. In Matt's future, Opium is a country created from drug lords needing more space to grow their opium, and there are clones (most with their minds destroyed) being used as organ donors because the organs of someones clone are almost identical to the original person's own organs. This effects Matt because of the way the other clones act, everyone hates Matt, and in the end he turns out to be just another organ donor. In Vincent's future, this has not happened (as far as I can tell) but people are still being grown in petri dishes. These people are then built with the right DNA to keep them from being too violent, make sure they are physically well built, and keep birth defects from appearing. Vincent is, because of this, Vincent is often excluded and feels that he is inferior to others because everyone around him has the most perfect genes and perfect everything, where he is just a regular person. Matt is different in this case than Vincent, because he actually has the exact same genes as someone else, but people just don't like him because he wasn't born the regular way, he was taken from specific DNA from El Patrón and grown in a cow. So in the end, these two characters are completely different genetically, but are so similar only because of the completely different social circumstances and perspectives of society.