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2001: A Space Odyssey

10/8/2016

10 Comments

 

B+
3.24

Primate progress is tracked from tool use to interplanetary travel.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, and Douglas Rain
​Initial Review by Bobby Schmidt

Picture
​I need to stop picking Kubrick movies that I rate so highly. I'm never quite sure how to review them without just simply gushing and rambling. But, if any Kubrick flick deserves that... it's 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

I like to think that there's no such thing as a perfect movie, that there has to be some flaw, be it technical, plot based, directing, acting... something. But, 2001 may be as close to perfection as there is, at least in my likely biased eyes. I'm not going to go on as long as I probably could here, but want to simply touch on a few things that make the movie so worthy of praise. When I get to the plot, I will absolutely be leaving a ton out, as there is just a ton to unpack... even if the movie wasn't two and a half hours! 

I'll start where 2001 does... with music. I love the overture intro, as it essentially prepares you for what's to come (more on that later). I won't pretend to know much at all about classical music, but the importance and fit of 2001's score is undeniable. The music always worked along side the visuals, adding to the immersion in any given scene. Since most of the film goes without dialogue, it's vital to have such a powerful score. The film won a well deserved BAFTA for best Soundtrack

Beyond anything else, for me, 2001 is a visual experience. It's an absolute work of moving art. From beginning to end, the film looks phenomenal. The first scenes of the horizon and the landscape of roughly 4 million years ago are beautiful. It's also now a sort of jolting reminder of how clean and gorgeous the world was before our current evolution. Even more impressive are the space visuals. This was an easy Academy Award win for Best Visual Effects, as it actually still holds up relatively well. It's worth looking up how much of it was done, especially wormhole/star-gate at Jupiter and beyond. Considering how advanced Kubrick and his team were with 2001, it will always leave me wondering what he wanted for Artificial Intelligence when he said the special effects at the time weren't advanced enough to bring his vision to life. It definitely would have been interesting to see how Kubrick used CGI and other modern SFX techniques. 

I like to assume he would have done some amazing things, considering how deliberate and on point he usually was. His stylistic choices and general vision and attention to detail for 2001 is the other main thing I want to mention. The sets were impressive, especially the ships being sleek and clean, with an insightful view of computer systems and space aged communications. We get a look at flat screen TVs, tablets, video chat ($1.70 for an earth to space call seems more than reasonable!), etc that are things that eventually came to be, much like the images we see in 2001. Kubrick made sure to work with consultants to get things as right as possible, including people from NASA. One great example of detail is the silence when Dave reenters the ship from his pod. We don't hear the exploding bolts or Dave being shot into the chamber, as there is no air for the sounds to travel upon. I think there's a lot to like about Kubrick's direction, especially when it came to pacing (I'm sure some would argue it's too slow and long), precise cuts, and divisive plot/message of the movie. 

Is there even a plot or message in this movie!? Of course there is, but it seems to be one of the most divisive aspects of 2001. Kubrick, per usual, never really wanted to explain what everything was or what any of it meant. It's mainly a story of evolution and, more so, survival, but with a possibly extra terrestrial influence sparking major turns. Many may say the evolution story starts with the Dawn of Man and the man-apes, but I think the overture is the literal beginning. What we see is nothingness, what we hear is creation.. building up, violently erupting. It's even possible that this is our first glimpse of the monolith, a completely smooth and black rectangle that starts the process, and then triggers key evolutionary moments, such as our ancestors' ability to use tools. One of the more well known scenes cuts us directly from one tool/weapon, to another... a space craft (or bomb as originally planed before Kubrick decided he was done with movie bombs). As our tools advance, the more helpful they are toward our survival... but also more dangerous as well. We see from the bone being used to kill a member of the same species to HAL finding Dave and the crew unnecessary and even dangerous for the mission. But still, we survive and we evolve. At the center of it all, seems to be the aforementioned monolith. We never get an explanation, so just as command's message says, "Its origin and purpose still a total mystery." I like to think that it's no less a tool as all the others. Be it a tool of some other being or consciousness that decided to intervene, or a tool of our own making in order to preserve and repeat the process of creation, evolution and survival from the ascended/starchild state or beyond. I think one of the best things about a film like 2001 is how it isn't directly self-explanatory. I'm guessing we'll see a few different views from the group.

As I said I would, I'm leaving a ton out of this mess of a review,  which I suppose could be good for later discussion (if it happens). But really, I feel like I'm having a hard time giving a worthwhile synopsis and explanation of everything great about 2001. I didn't even touch on the many scenes to admire, such as the score driven space travel, the star-gate, HAL's conversation with Dave, HAL reading their lips, HAL's deactivation, and the wormhole bedroom Dave finds himself in, etc.  The portrayal (and voice) of functional and advanced AI, and how it goes wrong, is certainly worth noting, and always a solid topic. Anyway, I'm going to throw it to you guys... and I look forward to different takes and descriptions, and how you each grade the movie, including Drew's spiteful C or D! 

As for me, you already know this is a masterpiece and A+
10 Comments
Admin
10/8/2016 03:19:14 pm

Reserved for direct replies.

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Cooker
10/11/2016 11:56:26 am

Who will be the first to rain on Bobby’s praising parade? Well, I’ll definitely throw some raindrops out there.

I can appreciate the artistic approach to 2001: A Space Odyssey and agree with much of the initial review, but as a writer, screenwriter and a storyteller, I need more to keep my attention, especially with a two-and-a-half hour runtime. Therefore, I’ll be honest. I got the DVD at the library, threw it on my left screen at work and multi-tasked on the right.

I think one of my biggest issues is that I’m simply not a big Stanley Kubrick fan. A Clockwork Orange was okay (I gave it a B, but was probably multi-tasking while watching as well); I definitely was not a fan of Eyes Wide Shut; I only cared for the first half of Full Metal Jacket, and I prefer the made-for-TV miniseries of the Shining due to its better loyalty to the original source material. But I am glad I watched this; it was in my Netflix queue before it vanished from streaming. I knew of a lot of the scenes from 2001 from pop culture references, particularly the Simpsons.

It might have just been me, but a lot of the spaceship flying shots made me think of the Satellite of Love on MST3K.

As Bobby mentioned, the music is fantastic and the visuals are stunning, but I needed more of a concrete story. Ten minutes of watching flashing colors and landscapes to psychedelic music with no dialogue won’t cut it for me. Putting this a shade under A Clockwork Orange at a B-. Not a bad movie, but not necessarily my cup of tea.

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Bobby
10/11/2016 09:05:10 pm

I think the movie benefits greatly from a quiet, and focused watch. Multi-tasking for this one, and maybe any Kubrick, puts the views at a disadvantage already, if not already resigning to not getting the full impact of his films.

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Cooker
10/12/2016 10:00:04 am

this is where I go back to me being a storyteller. I just can't completely focus on a 2.5 hour film if there's not a solid plot, characters to follow throughout the entire thing, etc. I figure multi-tasking was better than going half an hour in and shutting it off. Of course, my love of MST3K forbids me to shut off any movie regardless of how horrible it may be.

Jon
10/12/2016 10:53:10 pm

The first time I watched 2001 in 2006 or '07, I hated it. I treated it like a bad movie group experience, laughing at it and being baffled by the choices. In fairness, I was with a high crowd of equally derisive viewers, so that's not a fair interrogation of a film that regularly tops sci-fi lists and all-around 'best movie ever' lists. I may actually have had an F grade on the spreadsheet until someone commented on it and shamed me into backing off until a true viewing. If a Kubrick film is available on streaming, there's always a good chance Bobby is going to pick it, and I was well overdue for a reevaluation. In watching the opening shots on Shane's 4K TV, I immediately knew my F was nuts. If I saw that opening shot in a theater in 1968, I would expect the greatest movie ever made.

This is a four segment film, with each segment measured against those sky-high expectations. Saving the HAL sequence for later, the first, with the hominids, is the strongest of the remaining three. We see how barren and alien the landscape looks, and we see how human ancestors are far from the top of the food chain. The costumed actors are surely going as big as possible, and while the illusion is never fully believed, the sequence ends with an all-time edit of the bone turning into the space vessel.

This gets us to the next sequence, which is a dud in my mind. Exploring the monolith on the moon is far too drawn out, with minimal editing making the inevitable into the interminable. Vessels landing or docking are shown in the entire process, which would be fine once but then it's repeated several times during this chapter. It might be a tension building trick, and if it is, it works much better in the HAL chapter, but otherwise, I felt my eyelids getting heavy watching yet another ship slowly descend to a surface. This sequence also leans heavily on the strangeness and novelty of space travel, something that's been demystified since 1968 and doesn't land like it might've for someone living in that period.

The final chapter, with the light show and the bedroom, is also fairly interminable, even as it ends on a high note with the star child and the score. For me, the imagery isn't up to the earlier level. It has a biological reminiscence, with some of the blobs having an embryological quality, and the green or blue on an odd landscape looking like bacteria attached to some organic substrate. There might be something there, in that Dave sees the origin of cellular life accumulating greater levels of complexity before seeing his own death and transformation, but it's so abstract that it's opaque, and in its opacity, it's impossible to get emotionally invested.

Where there isn't a problem with investment is in the HAL sequence, which is brilliant start to finish. Even in the original viewing a decade ago, I remember the barbs becoming less pointed and frequent here. It does much of what the moon chapter does, but so much better. Space travel details like Dave listening to his parents banal catch-up messages inform the character, instead of just functioning as a glimpse to how complicated it is to use the space toilet. There is actual danger, so the travel shots actually build tension. HAL itself, voiced perfectly by Douglas Rain, is an iconic creation to match 2001's many iconic images. The unplugging sequence surprised me with how affected I was by it. HAL begs, bargains, and cajoles until his voice finally starts to slow down, giving an entity that can't modulate its voice plenty of emotional impact. It's the culmination to a flawless sequence, finally fulfilling the promise of the opening shot.

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Jon
10/12/2016 10:54:01 pm

Even during the parts of 2001 that lose my interest, the technical perfection remains. We talked a lot about Kubrick during Clockwork Orange as one of the great auteurs, someone for whom his stamp of approval is on every prop and frame. With the off-world, sterile setting, in which Kubrick can build his world like never before, he gets to be his own HAL, running everything clinically. Easily Kubrick's coldest movie, he invests little emotion in the performances and plenty of awe in the cinematography and the score. If I owned a bar, I would play movies over the TV's instead of the requisite sports, and in between terrible 80's horror movies or trippy psychodramas, 2001 would be in regular rotation. So many frames are perfect paintings, from the dead-astronaut-carrying pod supplicating in front of the HAL-controlled mother ship to the line of scientists trekking towards the moon monolith. Of course, the sound in my bar would have to be turned off, keeping patrons from getting to hear the score. Thus Spake Zarathustra is obviously the most associated with 2001, but the chorus of voices that repeatedly crops up is just as striking. Maybe an edit on the Blue Danube sequence was appropriate, though.

This isn't a perfect movie, as I agree with Cook that a more gripping story needs to be attached to some of the more drawn-out, impressionist sections. If 2001 was just HAL et al, this would be a masterpiece, but I think in the breadth of his vision, Kubrick gets a little lost along the way, especially in the corporate training video that is much of the moon sequence. The hominid section is a B, the moon sequence a C-, HAL is an A+, and the beyond sequence is a C+, averaging a B for the whole film. I'll give it a bump to a B+ based on how much I loved the HAL sequence, but I can't say I loved a movie that had me so bored during certain sections.

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Sean
10/13/2016 04:01:56 pm

2nd watch for 2001 for me. It confirms my thoughts of Kubrick from Clockwork Orange. Brilliant director, average story teller.
Beautiully shot and scored with a boring story. If he wasn't such a well-known control freak who would torture the people he worked with into getting it exactly as he imagined I'd have loved to see him as a collaborator to perfect the vision of a better story teller.

The Hal sequence could've been the whole movie. You can stretch that into 2 hours just by having more things happen. Everything before and after is mostly a waste, aside from seeing a Howard Johnson on the space station. The guy who played Dave was more robotic than Hal.

B-

ps Mindy watched about 15 minutes of it while she was working and got mostly the space docking Jon mentioned and kept saying this is stupid. D.

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Bryan
10/20/2016 12:18:56 pm

"The guy who played Dave was more robotic than Hal."

This fit for me. I can't imagine someone with the math/engineering ability to fly to Jupiter has much of a social life.

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Bryan
10/20/2016 12:08:55 pm

[Deep breathing]
Sorry I'm late. Was waiting on Chelsea for this one.

[Deep breathing]
The first 3 minutes of this are black. I thought my TV had fried itself. I loved the part about early chimps, but it seemed weird to have modern leopards and zebras.

[Deep breathing]
The looooong landing with the orchestra, the silliness when landing on Jupiter (or whatever), and the constant music in low notes (according to Chelsea) were not pleasant.

[Deep breathing]
I really could wait for HAL to show up. How he got the name HAL has stuck with me since I found out in High School.

[Deep breathing]
Final note, the speed of innovation is overestimated. However, the predictions here were mostly good as were the special effects.

[Deep breathing]
This was much too artsy for me. I would have liked to see HAL and Dave mentally battle more.

B-

Reply
Shane
10/26/2016 04:04:39 pm

Beautifully shot
But it often drags
Kubrik cant make full movie

B-

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