I rarely post any comments whatsoever, but just had notice how I appreciate the fact young generations still watch and love old movies, especially this one. You're a breath of fresh and your comments and conclusions were spot on, intelligent and literate. Keep them coming!
This is one of THE GREAT MOVIES OF ALL TIME ... because it is stunning in its visuals (due to them being PRACTICAL, even though the whole "rotating camera to simulate different orientation in zero gravity" thing looks a bit off) and the "message" - combined with the sequel 2010 - will always be relevant.
I have to agree, I really enjoyed this, their "Wow!"'s were genuine and even though, yes, there is outstanding FX's/Sets you have to give a massive big nod to the sound design given this masterpiece was made in 1968.
I agree! I saw this at 14 years old with my cousin in 1968. At that age you know I must have been totally mystified. As I got older I kind of got the hit on a lot of things. But you guys were very insightful with your reaction.
Often regarded as one of the one of the finest films ever and made by one of the most accomplished film directors ever (Kubrick). And it was made in advanced film technology we no longer use (Cinerama) too, like watching 3 films on one huge screen patched together seamlessly on a curved screen for a 3D effect. I saw this film in London a few weeks after it came out in 1968 and as a 14 year old was blown away by it.
Yes on the deeply curved screen, but 2001 is a "single strip" Cinerama film, shot on 65mm film stock, and projected in 70mm with a single projector (spherical optics on both camera and projector). There's only seven feature films shot in true 3 strip Cinerama, and 2001 isn't one of them.
I'm just 51 years old but I felt like 90 😂 When I was a kid there were intermissions in the cinema! And you're right, that was pissing time! 😅 It was also done in the "rotativas" here in Chile, you paid for two movies, around three hours, and had an intermission to pee and buy candy. This was way before multiroom cinemas, at least here in my country. Great time with you Guys!
The movie itself is based on the short story "The Sentinel" by Arthur C. Clarke, who in wrote the book during the movie script development with Kubrick. There are 3 sequels to the book and 1 sequel to the movie. Another movie with an intermission: 'Lawrence of Arabia'
Clarke had three stories that feed into 2001. 'Encounter in the Dawn' for the dawn of man, 'The Sentinel' / 'The Sentinel of Eternity' for the discovery of the monolith on the moon, and 'Take a Deep Breath' for the sequence where Dave Bowman gets back into the Discovery. Another book, 'The Lost Worlds of 2001' is worth reading for several story elements dropped and some alternate endings .
That set design! All those instruments on the ship not just blinking lights the screens and switches all looked like they had a purpose, such detail like you mentioned in your analysis, thanks guys!
Dudes: brilliant and spot-on analysis, on-the-fly while you're watching this movie for the very first time......and cracking hilarious jokes and one-liners at the same time! Fantastic. Coming with some great theories of your own, noticing great stuff, including he trippy section and the enigmatic ending...... you guys "got it" as good as ANYONE. Kubrick himself would have loved all your thoughts about it. I'm SO relieved in your intro that you knew going in that you're going to end up with questions! The intermission ain't Kubrick's fault; it's the DVD that makes you sit through an "overture" and an "intermission". Zay is correct: In a movie theatre, during "epic" long movies, it's fair to give people a bathroom break and, more importantly, stimulate the local economy by getting snacks at the concession stand! When you watch it on cable or on the original videotape release, the intermission isn't there, they just stuck it there to be "complete", it's ridiculous. Whenever you put on a movie and there's an "Overture", just fast-forward through it./ Not only did Kubrick predict evil A.I. but at 29:51 Kubrick predicts tablets! :D / Every time you see it, you'll see something new in it. Here's something for you: HAL (and also the apes) are the most "human" characters in this movie. The humans themselves are almost always bland and emotionless! / His NEXT movie, "A Clockwork Orange" (which is also set in the future), is CRAZY, intense.....as fast paced as this is (deliberately) slow paced. "A Clockwork Orange" is definitely from the same director of "The Shining" and "2001"!. Mind-blowing and dazzling (and super disturbing!). That movie is practically a rite of passage! He did "2001", then he did "A Clockwork Orange", an amazing two-punch. Actually three-punch, because before "2001" he did the comedy-satire "Dr. Strangelove", which is ALSO worth watching, that is hilarious. It's about global nuclear war.....perfect material for a Kubrick comedy! THANKS, MY BROTHERS!!!!!! This was a REALLY special reaction video!!!!
P.S. - The same day this opened, "Planet Of The Apes" also opened. Totally different but also fantastic, profound sci-fi movie.....that involves apes and space travel! PSS: If you see the new Richard Linklater animated movie, "Apollo 10 1/2", there's a scene where they go see "2001" and he recreates part of the movie in animation!
The 'A Clockwork Orange' movie is set in 1995 or 1996, in an alternative future where the Britain has been very socialist for a while, then reverted to authoritarian as a backlash.
It was fun to watch along with you guys. I have seen 2001 a LOT of times. And I love some of the ideas you guys are discussing about how the fact that Kubrick leaves it up to us IS what keeps the story alive and keeps people watching and talking and hopefully doing beautiful works of their own. I also love the notion of the lack of dialogue being a means by which to emphasize the environment of space - how it is quiet inhospitable... and even lonely and full of mysteries.
Guy who did effects on this (especially the trippy sequence), Douglas Trumbull, also worked on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, first Star Trek film, and Blade Runner. Each highly recommended if you guys haven't seen them yet.
Several British effects men worked on this film. In Britain, where it was almost all made. They would go on to make TV series like Space:1999, and movies like Krull, Superman, and many others, not least 'The Empire Strikes Back'.
I watched this in a theater on a wide screen when I was 10 and the anxiety I felt was intense. The grandness of the music magnified the intimacy of the quiet scenes in comparison. The "quiet" of Dave and Hal's confrontation is not really that quiet. The difference in the hum of the ship when Hal is speaking and the tone of Dave's voice inside his helmet draws you into the growing tension. Hal's voice is the friendliest sounding psychopath ever.
Douglas Rain was a Canadian actor who narrated an excellent film called I believe 'Universe', a black and white exploration of what was then known about the universe. This film was screened for Kubrick as one of the films to help get an idea of the subject and what audiences would expect: Kubrick employed the voice actor for HAL.
the centrifugal forces, the spinning of the interior of The Discovery (the long spaceship) and the Space Station, generates artificial gravity by drawing things to the rotating external surface, like how holding a bucket of water and spinning that bucket very fast enough around in a circle, will keep the water to the bottom of the bucket through the same centrifugal forces.
This is 1968….. keep in mind, it was a year before Neil Armstrong, the first human ever, had touched the moon….. it was before The Exorcist came out, which is 50 years old already, and the practical effects were mind boggling already….. this movie is shocking in almost every way, it won a best effects Oscar also, along with Kubrick’s nomination for best director, which he sadly didn’t win; never won one in his entire career…..
I have three little bits of trivia about this film. 1. The part of “squirt“ (The little girl in the video call) was Stanley Kubrick‘s daughter Vivian Kubrick. 2. The actor Anthony Hopkins used the voice of “HAL” as the inspiration for the voice of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. 3. The part of HAL and the problems he caused were parodied in the film “Airplane“
Something I noticed when Dave is switching Hal off, Dave's helmet has roundels on it that looks like eyes, and the reflection on the front of the helmet look like teeth, and also the helmet is green. No way is that a coincidence.
Just discovered your channel and so very glad I did. You make a great team and I have thoroughly enjoyed the reactions that I have seen already. Your insight shows me that you are both very bright and insightful. Keep up the good content guys.
would love to see you guys react to Interstellar (2014) by Christopher Nolan, which is basically his take on space realism and his nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which uses real science regarding time dilation, wormholes and string theory and M-theory from physicist Kip Thorne
It was released in 1968 and with that in mind...from Wikipedia..."The psychedelic lifestyle had already developed in California, particularly in San Francisco, by the mid-1960s, with the first major underground LSD factory established..." You can now imagine how many people were watching this on the big screen while under the influence, so when you said trippy, you were on the money. Have you not watched Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange" yet? Now that's another wild ride. And if you watch his film "Barry Lyndon", you will really marvel at the way he set up each shot as if it were a classic painting.
Intermissions were sometimes common (before my time in the theatre business.) Films with long runtimes had a built-in intermission, and sometimes you will find films that had an Overture -sometimes referred to as "walk-in music" that played for several minutes before the feature that set the tone and gave moviegoers in the lobby a chance to settle in and get seated before the feature started.
HAL stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, according to the books. There is an urban legend that the letters H, A, and L immediately precede the letters I, B, and M, and this was supposed to be a slap towards IBM Computers, perhaps to indicate that HAL came first and IBM was just a ripoff of the original.
Some big movies at that time with Intermissions had music composed for the break instead of generic theater house music. They also had music for entering the theater as well as exit music. And yes. The monolith is like a burglar alarm. Once we reach the moon and discover the second one, the aliens know we’re advanced enough to meet them.
Kubrick had a pretty big budget for this film co funded by NASA, the budget was so high and it wasn't quite the anticipated financial success that Warner were reluctant to keep funding him, he ended up filming A Clockwork Orange on a shoestring to prove he could work to a budget and secure funding for his later project Barry Lyndon. The Monolith....rotate it 90 degrees and think of it as a teaching device. There's an underlying theme in this film about film being a teaching tool and to shift your perspective to see things differently. There's multiple valid interpretations to sequences in this film, from the surface story, nuanced understory which puts a different light on characters and their motivations, and more abstract commentary on society and life. This was the first of Kubricks films to do this, but each of the following ones have this format of seeing the surface narrative and a different or contradictory under story following background cues, repeated shot framing, blatant continuity errors. It's one of the reasons i enjoy his films, as they're kind of puzzles that get you thinking tangentially, making watching them again a new experience
Yes, many of the longer films of the time and from decades earlier, had intermissions, often with specially designed music. Intermissions were usually 10 minutes maximum.
38:38 - Zay is correct about intermissions. That was a thing. People need to take a pee and have a drink halfway. The movie projection would be stopped, the screen turned black. The lights would come on, so people could rise from their seats and walk out to the toilets and catering counter. The curtains stayed open, but sometimes were used to size-down the projection area. To project slides with commercials from local shops and businesses during the intermission. If there was music during an intermission, it would be some soft background muzak played by the cinema itself. When movies were transferred to VHS-tapes in the 80s, later to DVD's in the 90s and now streaming, the intermissions were of course not included because there was nothing. Plus no need for a pre-programmed intermission, since now you could pause at any time when you wanted. Still, most movies-stories have a natural 'pause'-moment halfway. Stanley Kubrick was different because he used the Intermission to play a musical piece that fitted in the style of the rest of the movie. Therefor it was included on all media releases. Now, let's shake that thing, finish our drinks, and get back in our seats and watch the second half. 😀
At the end he got sucked into a wormhole. We pretty much already have an idea on how wormholes may act if we were to go through it and this was Kubrick’s visual representation of going through a wormhole. Remember, there was no CGI at the time so representing going through a wormhole in film wouldn’t be what we are able to pull now if this was done in CGI. We know he went through a wormhole because at the end, he was older and he ends up in caged/imprisoned by the alien race for observation, described by Kubrick as the alien’s zoo.
Dave and Frank were planning to, in affect, kill HAL because they thought his mistakes could endanger the mission. Knowing that, it would be an example to HAL. If the humans feel it's reasonable to kill a crew member to complete the mission....
You don't watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, you experience it. The impetus of the movie is man's contact with alien intelligence (via the monolith) and the next step in his evolution. This film is a masterpiece of movie making from Kubrick and sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote the screenplay. I'm glad you enjoyed the film and the phenomenal effort to bring it to the screen. But I wouldn't try to overthink What It's All About. Sometimes it's best to simply enjoy the journey. But if you insist on answers, Clarke offered the best suggestion: Watch the movie. Read the book. Repeat as needed.
The closest 4 legged ancestor of man disappeared for thousands of years from the fossil record where they were living. The fossil record shows that area had a long drought at the time. When the drought ended our ancestors returned but had evolved to be walking upright. A large marsh adjacent to the drought stricken area on the African shore of the Indian Ocean is thought to be where some of our ancestors may have been, and survived the drought there. We can't know they were there because the marsh sank under the ocean since then, and it's hard to do archeology under water. Even on land fossils of our ancestors from that time, 4 million years ago, are rare, and hard to find. There is a theory that the ones that lived in the marsh went in the water standing on 2 legs like we see many primates do in the water. They may have held onto reeds, and sticks to help support them in the water. The theory is they used the sticks to help them stand, and walk 2 legged on land too. There are a number of pieces of convincing evidence that support the theory. Our hair grows down our body in a streamlined way same as other mammals that live in water. No other primates have this kind of fur. Fossils of our ancestors from the time of walking on hind legs to today have longer hair on the head than on the rest of the body unlike other primates. Primate young grasp the hair on their parent's bodies to be carried. More hair on the head would allow our ancestor's young to grasp it in the water of the marsh. The fossils we find of our ancestors that were deliberately buried had sticks, and spears deliberately buried with them. The simplest, and earliest difference between us, and all other animals that use tools is we carried our sticks with us. Because they had this theoretical habit of carrying a stick with them some used it as a weapon to survive attack. They passed on the habit, and that led to the advance of man after that.
Lack of dialogue is a problem for some people. I've heard a quote that was attributed to Kubrick "they're called ' motion pictures ' not ' talking pictures ' ..."
Absolutely correct, which is why THIS reaction was so great! These two gents immediately embraced the movie for what it is, embraced the lack of dialog, embraced the mysteries, even the "frustrating" element of it. Kubrick also said that the young got it more than the old, they understood what was going on because they SAW it. And 50 years later, these two young men just proved his point all over again. These two guys were picking up on stuff right from the beginning.....and making jokes and goofing around and having fun all at the same time!
27:49 It's easy to miss this, but there were no flat screens then. Any TV screen was really bulky. Yet we see them watch TV on tablets. What's more they are in portrait not landscape. Kind of like tik tok. This is one of this film's best predictions of the future. LOVING your reactions by the way. This film is SLOW for any generation, let alone yours. I was 1 when this was released. We first landed on the Moon a year later. What a film!
When they talk about how infallible HAL is, my mind screams: Remember the Titanic! Movies used to have intermissions so you could use the restroom, but more importantly, spend money at the snack bar.
With regard to your question about gravity, they mostly live in that cylindrical section behind spherical command module. Basically, it's the top of the neck if you think of the spherical part to be the head. You can see it at about 25:42, although it doesn't appear to be rotating in the film. (I suspect that was a limit to the filming of the time.) That section rotates to simulate gravity towards the outside of the cylinder approximately about the same as on the moon which they believed to be enough to allow the human body to function normally (minimize muscle atrophy and allow blood to coagulate etc.) That how he is running on the outside of the cylinder. Couple of other things to help you out. HAL stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. The Monolith on Earth at the beginning of the movie is not the same as the one on the Moon. Humans don't know that there is a monolith on Earth. It's likely exactly where it was in Africa when humanity's ancestors encountered it but is now buried by time over the hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.
Kubrick wanted to use the name IBM 9000 for the computer but IBM didn't want to allow it because of the actions it takes in the movie, so they just backed up one letter from I-B-M and ended up with H-A-L 9000.
The original monolith set humans on an evolutionary path to intelligence. When we uncovered the monolith on the moon, it confirmed that we knew how to leave our planet and sent the signal to the monolith at Jupiter. As to what happens at the final monolith you can look up Kubrik's explanation from an interview he did, or go with your own explanation.
I really enjoyed this, the "Wow!"'s were genuine (equal to present day reaction to the black hole scenes in 'Interstellar') and even though, yes, there is outstanding FX's/Sets you have to give a massive big nod to the sound design given this masterpiece was made in 1968. Look forward to your reaction to the sequel made in 1984 - 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
I saw this movie in a Cinerama theater back in the day. It is/was an Experience on so many levels. "2001" has been the subject of discussions and generated a forest's worth of books and articles about "The FTL Trip.";) What, this 1968 movie is the Oldest movie you've seen so far? Such a tyro, Georges Melies' "A Trip To the Moon" (1902) is the second oldest movie I've seen. 5:12 Stanley Kubrick used Classical music pieces as place holders until the composer finished the score. They fit so well that they became the OST and briefly, a Pop music phenomenon. 6:08 It is a travesty that the actors playing "Chimps" didn't get AMPAS attention. (How did the academy think that Stanley Kubrick got mute animals to do his bidding?) 10:30 The Monolith was such an icon that there used to be one behind the University of Hawaii Chemistry building. It emitted a low hum, in keeping with it's mysterious origin. 12:02 Yes, this scene illustrates Hominids starting to use tools. An Anthropologist noticed that the knob end of a sturdy bone fit the cracked skull of an Antelope and the Killer Ape theory was born. 19:10 Yep, early "Astronaut food" in the 1960's was in semisolid form like toothpaste. Before "2001," science fiction movies were sub-B grade movies with cardboard sets, low level plots, past-their-prime actors, and tiny budgets. After this, SF movies became larger budget Space Operas like "Star Wars" (1977) or "Alien" (1979). 26:21 This scene continues the "there is no 'Up' or 'Down' in outer space" theme seen on the Pan Am "Spaceliner" and the "Moon Shuttle." Your insights and fresh approach to this movie are unique. Commentary ended.;)
O and yes growing up in the 60s if the movie was long there was always an intermission which was great to go potty and get more snacks , nowadays they don’t care even with 3 hour movies and it makes people like myself say nah I’ll wait and watch at home, thanks again
There is a sequel called 2010. Made many years later. You guys gotta see that to finish the story. The room sequence was him experiencing all phases of life at the same time. Wash, Rinse, and Repeat.
44:47 Sorry to disappoint you guys, but it probably wasn't a "peaceful death." Kubrick thought of that one. If you watch the central nervous system activity trace as HAL cuts life support, it goes haywire right at the last moment as all the other vitals go flat.
Great reaction guys! I saw this movie during it's first theatrical run in the 60's....my dad took us all to the drive in, it was part of a double feature...this one and Planet of the Apes. Been one of my favorite movies ever since. Watched it over a hundred times, and each time I get something more out of it. AND BY THE WAY.....the sequence where the falling bone transitions to a satellite has a continuity message to it....the satellites depicted are orbiting nuclear weapons...I'm sure you can figure it out from there.
Another movie with a similar theme of AI going rogue, you might enjoy, "Colossus: The Forbin Project" (1970). It's totally grounded, and there are no aliens, but for its time, it was bloody brilliant! It's about a Defense Dept. scientist who must attempt to outthink his creation when it starts becoming more than he ever intended. Computers were very mysterious and scary things for those who didn't understand them, back then... and some would say, for those who understood them, as well. Indeed, I remember reading about the CEO of one of the big tech companies from the 80's who was scared shitless of AI eventually developing sentience! The industry now refers to that seemingly inevitable point as The Technological Singularity. It'll change everything! But what you are seeing today is nowhere near that. We're just getting very good at making AI capable of _emulating_ sentience. We still have a few years... ;-]
You guys did the best reaction to 2001 I have scene. You reacted the same way those of us who watched it when it came out reacted. The novel the movie was based on is easier to understand, if you care to have your headaches cleared up. A little. I really wish you would react to the movies I mentioned in my previous comments. As a retired person living on a fixed income in Uruguay, don't have the money to subscribe to anything.I
For those who don't believe that the first moon landing was real, Stanley Kubrick was supposed to have built the set and filmed it - that was a year after this movie - I always name my phones Hal They did intermissions for changing the film reels - Dave had to kill HAL - he was sentient therefore alive : (
Those who don't believe that the Moon landing was real are exclusively people who weren't alive and old enough to observe projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.
Kubrick went to famous science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke and said, "I like your short story 'The Sentinel.' Can we expand the basic concept into a script for a movie?" The way they worked it out was that Clarke would write a novel which he could publish and as he wrote it, he would send Kubrick the chapters, which he would adapt into a movie. This became "2001." Clarke later wrote sequels "2010" and "3001," the first of which was made into a sequel movie (not by Kubrick). Unlike this movie, the book "2001" explains everything completely. Some of what happened in "2001" is explained in the movie sequel "2010," particularly the part about Hal. Here is an explanation of the plot. Millions of years ago, aliens passing by Earth became aware that it was inhabited by our apelike ancestors and that they were not doing very well. The aliens determined to give us a little push in the right direction to help us survive. They sent down a machine (the monolith), to the area of one tribe of apes. It is not clear everything that the machine does to them, but one thing that is clear is that it gives them the idea that objects of a certain size and shape can be used as clubs. Prior to this, the apes seem to have had no idea of using tools. The apes had been starving in the midst of food animals like wild pigs without having any tool with which to hunt and kill them. Also, they had been the prey of stronger animals like the leopard that kills one of them at the very beginning of the movie. They use the clubs to kill a wild pig for food and also to drive off another tribe that had been competing with them for a watering hole. You get the idea that the discovery of clubs, and perhaps tools in general, has changed their lives forever. On their way out of our solar system, the aliens buried a monolith on the Moon so that when the apes' descendants become advanced enough to reach their own moon, they will find it. Shortly before the year 2001, humans find it and excavate or un-bury it. Apparently its purpose is to send out a signal when the sun's rays hit it for the first time. The people looking at the monolith when this happens hear the signal as a loud burst of radio noise. The Earth's scientists ask themselves why someone would bury something designed to be activate by sunlight and decide that someone might do that if they wanted to know when it was dug up. They calculate that the signal was directed towards Jupiter and send a space mission there. In fact, the purpose of the monolith buried on the Moon is to let the monolith at Jupiter know that the apes' descendants (the human race) have achieved elementary space travel and that lesson #2 can begin. Lesson #2 is basically doing the same thing to David Bowman that it had done to the apes - take him to the next level. It turns him into a more advanced creature, essentially what it had done to the apes. Dave then returns to Earth with a single thought. The light show was just something the monolith did to distract Dave while it analyzed him to see how Earth people had changed since the apes. The hotel room is simply a traditional place of safety and comfort it had pulled out of Dave's mind so that he could be comfortable while it changed him. The more advanced Dave is often called the star child. As for Hal, NASA had made a mistake, or at least, the politicians had. He was created with programming telling him to give full and accurate explanations. They then instructed him to lie about the purpose of the mission. So, he had two parts of his programming giving him opposite and incompatible instructions. This created in him a condition similar to a neurosis in a human being. Note that the moment when he incorrectly reports that the AE-35 unit will fail is immediately after being caught lying. Also, he chooses the antenna unit to have this delusion about because in his "subconscious," it's the root of his problems - his link with Earth. The reason he kills the astronauts is quite simply because they are planning to kill him and he doesn't want to die. Remember that since he was first activated, he's never even experienced sleep.
Any movies that were longer than 90 minutes needed an intermission because everybody smoked. If you didn't give people a break to go smoke a ciggy in the lobby they'd do it while the movie played and miss things. Fire codes prohibited smoking in the theater part.
You should read the novel by Arthur C. Clarke of which this movie is based on. The novel version gives you more background and context of what is going on in each of the scenes.
Yours is about the same reaction every one watching this film for the first time has. For a low budget version of the same themes is Dark Star - recommended
They gave Kubrick a blank check to create this film, and it broke the record for the highest movie budget at that time. From that moment forward 2001: A Space Odyssey inspired directors to level up and create their own high-budget dystopian movies. Kubrick was ABSOLUTELY A GENIUS, his IQ was 200+ and he was on so many levels above the audience. This is why audiences thought "WTF did I just WATCH?!?" This is the greatest most evolved film that has ever been made, as it evolves the audience (often without them even knowing how they became evolved.) And the monolith -- you can see it in almost every facet of our modern lives -- the monolith is the same dimensions as A SMART PHONE and a MOVIE SCREEN!!! Thankyou for doing a reaction to this, and for being so inquisitive and intelligent about it. Much respect!
The shape on the monolith, laid on it's side, long side down, is the shape of a movie screen. This shape turns up in many movies, probably no more often than in The Shining, where almost every establishing shot has this shape. Mind, the shape is what the cameras sees, and what the audience is seeing the movie within... ;-)
Based on how well you guys reacted to this movie (despite the headache!), I think you might just get a philosophical blast out of watching Solaris (1972).
Hey guys! Another great reaction. However, I will say, in my experience, you still have not really seen this film because this is a film, more than any other that I know of, that DEMANDS that you see it in the theatre on the big screen with a theatre quality sound system, etc. Before I saw the film in such a way, I thought it was beautifully made and all that, but it did not do much for me. But then when I saw it in the theatre, I realised that the mistake a lot of people make is to overly intellectualize the film. I think it is more productive to take this film more as an emotional experience rather than trying to "figure out what it means." This film certainly did reshape how sci-fi film was conceived and looked like. If you want to check out another film that has more of this philosophical trippy approach to sci-fi, I would recommend SOLARIS directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. It is a Russian film from 1972. In some ways, it is very different from this film (it has its own beauty, but it does not have the complex special effects that this one does). But like this film, it is a challenging, slow, philosophical film that asks questions about what it means to be human. So if you have the patience for it (it is almost three hours long), it is very much worth your time.
Masterpiece. Enjoy watching you struggle to understand Kubrick. Try 3 Days of the Condor with Robert Redford, Max Von Sidow, Faye Dunaway, John Housman, Cliff Robertson, directed by Sydney Pollack.
Sorry took so long to comment. I remember when this movie came out and it was a warning to humans about the risk of A.I. look at the year it was made and see what is going on now.
39:04 It was an actual theatrical intermission, which meant people left the auditorium, went to the bathroom, stretched their legs, and then later in the tradition of theatre, music was played to alert audience members to return to their seats and quiet down because the program was going to start again. This is also the reason why the credit sequences at the beginning of old movies were really long. It was to give folks some time to quiet down and get to their seats. Watching movies used to work more like live theatre and was a much more social experience than it is now.
That was the use especially for longer films. I always remember Lawrence of Arabia’s lengthy beautiful symphonic ouverture by Maurice Jarre! It really sets the mood just like for operas.
Opening credits were not just to give people time. They were a contractual obligation with the directors’ guild. Opening credits were not replaced with closing credits until after some serious disputes and even legal actions involving directors like George Lucas, who refused to put opening credits at the beginning of _Star Wars_ .
Are you kidding me? I'm dropping EVERYTHING to watch this with you guys! Holy smokes, this video is almost two hours! Even if you don't like it, I am here to see your reaction to this most fundamental of all movies. For years this would sit atop many polls, with only "Citizen Kane" above it. Picking a "greatest movie" of all time or even a favorite of all time is impossible. But just for achievement and ground-breaking status, it's hard to argue with those two. Ok, super psyched! I am ready to watch this. WOW. What a surprise!!!!!! (THANKS!) (see you on the other, gents!) :D
It was actually a real “live” dead horse. They painted the stripes on it to make a dead British horse appear to be a more exotic, prehistoric African Zebra. What the paint couldn’t do was dissipate the dead horse smell over days of shooting.
HAL's breakdown might be attributed to the fact he was told to lie to the crew. Trying to hide the true reason for the Jupiter Mission caused a logic fault within HAL's personality that made him become paranoid and make false assumptions.
Also, the sequel does serve to provide some closure to the story, and is a more traditionally 'structured' 80's sci-fi movie with a more straightforward plot. But it's really not that good...
hal didn't go crazy at all, he made a logical decision: "this mission is too important to me" to let humans kill me. He knows he is incapable of mistakes, so "there is only one explanation: it can only be a human error", so I kill them before they kill me, and I finish the mission alone. logical, clear, pure
2001 is all about the stunning visuals and the sound and leaving you with a mystery. Honestly, the use of sound is truly amazing. You won't get any answers to your questions about what actually happened without seeing the sequel 2010. lol. It is a more standard movie with dialogue. It will give you some explanation on what happened with Hal and what's up with the Monoliths.
Or you could read the novelization by Arthur C. Clarke. He explains... some of this a little better in the book. EDIT: I meant the books explain better than the 2001 movie, not 2010
2010 is "another explanation" of Kubrick's movie by Clark, of the ending to 2001, but it's not Kubrick's explanation to the ending of his movie 2001. The ending to the Book and the Movie, are both different. The movie had no explanation, as to what was going on at the end. Clark's book had an explanation of what was going on in his Book ending, but it doesn't match the ending of the movie, and Kubrick died without revealing what he was trying to say in his movie.
The book and film are two separate stories. The original script for 2001 was co-written by both Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark. After the script was finished and Stanley Kubrick went on to start filming the movie, Arthur went on to take the script in his own direction and used it to write the novel under the same name. Kubrick's 2001 is a masterpiece in film making and visual story telling, and the meaning is meant to be up for interpretation. Arthur C. Clark decided to instead give direct answers for the mysteries of the film in his version of the book. 2001 is a great book and its many sequels written by Arthur C. Clark are fantastic editions to his version of the story, but they should be considered completely separate from the movie created by Stanley Kurbick. The fact that they decided to make 2010 (Arthur C. Clark's sequel to the 2001 novel) into a film is a complete disrespect towards Kubrick's version of the story, and it completely goes against his wishes of not giving any answers to the film
@@andrewparker318 I agree with you. But to me, 2010 did not give the answers to who put the Monolith on earth, who they were, where they were from, etc., etc. It was just a movie that had, "it's one explanation." I didn't WOW me, like 2001. It just looked too CGI, and didn't make me feel like I was in space. It was just a good entertainment movie for me.
HAL = IBM subtracting one letter from the alphabet on each is a coincidence. It officially stands for (H)euristically programmed (AL)gorithmic computer. And it took Wikipedia almost 10 years to correct this.
It‘s not a coincidence. The subliminal and other hidden messages, Kubrick transported, are the exact opposite of what this film was sold for. Kubrick used Clarke as a hired writer and seller for his film. On the surface it was expected to be America‘s propaganda of the space race and in order to achieve that, it had a lot of narrative in it that explained and dumbed down everything in it. There were NASA agents present on the set, IBM supported it. But Kubrick always had his own vision and opinion: Space is extremely vast, empty and hostile. There is no place for mankind anywhere to live, AI are not to be trusted and transhumanism is an idiocy, never to be achieved. After presenting the film to the studio big wigs he completely removed all the narrative to give room for spectators to see their own truth. When IBM learned that HAL was malfunctioning and killing people, they were really pissed and demanded all logos to be removed (as far as possible), but Kubrick had this base covered long before that and hid it beneath a letter riddle. One of the very last hidden messages was: Dave Bowman ate his first real food after all technology was gone and HAL didn‘t exist anymore (in the „white room“). Before that, when mankind was still under the influence of and dominated by technocracy, everybody ate ugly mush. Another Kubrick riddle was the monolith itself, whose shape was redundantly portrayed in the movie by hundreds of rectangles of the exact same proportions. They literally were everywhere. And there were many hints that its shape has to be flipped at 90 degrees into a horizontal position to solve this riddle. These hints were for example the wormhole ride which turned from vertical to horizontal or the astronaut with his camera who took the group photo on the moon before the signal was emitted…. The shape of the monolith and its exact dimensions was the cinema screen in 70mm, in which Kubrick filmed it. The white room for example didn’t have any exit, it was a trap. The first time, an exit appeared, was the appearance of the monolith in front of Dave’s death bed. In order to realize that shot, the team had to literally break the 4th wall by removing the set wall behind the bed. The monolith stood there like an exit. And Kubrick’s message behind it was: to get out of this maze which you probably won’t understand the first time watching, don’t forget, it’s a movie, projected at a screen of these dimensions. Use it to get out into reality again. But there is a lot more hidden. Of course there is. 😉
1963: Doctor Who television series premieres. 1966: Star Trek television series premieres. 1968: 2001 - A Space Odyssey 1969: Apollo 11 and the first landing on the Moon. 1970: The year I was born. 1975: Space 1999 television series premieres. 1977: Star Wars - A New Hope 1978: Battlestar Galactica television series premieres. 1979: Alien; Star Trek - The Motion Picture 1980: Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back 1981: The Space Shuttle Columbia launches into space. 1982: Star Trek 2 - The Wrath of Khan 1983: Star Wars - Return of the Jedi For answers to some of your questions, I highly suggest that you watch the sequel: 2010 - The Year We Make Contact (1984).
It is pretty much impossible for young people to appreciate and comprehend the time this came out, no internet, no home computers as such, no satellites, no CGI and so on. You would need to transported back to 1968 as a young man to understand the awe it inspired and the technological achievement of a movie made in 1968 to portray space so well. For the record Star Wars came out almost a decade later and was itself considered a movie marvel of special effects. So what is exceptionally slow now was back then a visceral experience of majesty and awe.
The closest thing we have to this movie, today, is "Interstellar". Also, I'd LOVE to see Nolan make a movie that's a shot-for-shot, word-for-word make of the BOOK "2001"
@@jamesbobo Well yes, it was wrong to say "no satellites" Sputnik was launched in the late 50's. But the communication satellites were not for internet or cell phone as neither yet existed.
Arthur C Clarke (Involved with the story\screenplay) has said they were pleasantly surprised (Post Apollo missions) to find that their fictional moon surface was fairly accurate (Although not dusty enough) considering we hadn't been there yet.
