Posted on 04/03/2018 6:01:25 AM PDT by C19fan
Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of the original release of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," a seminal film in motion picture history and one that has awed — and confused — thousands over the years.
"2001" is often credited with paving the way for science-fiction films that took a realistic approach to depicting the future. A few decent sci-fi dramas were made before Kubrick's space exploration story — "Forbidden Planet" and "The Incredible Shrinking Man" come to mind — but most were strictly B-movie pulp with low production values. After "2001" came "Silent Running," "Star Wars", "Alien" and "Aliens", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "E.T", "The Fly" (1986) and other well-received films of the genre.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The lesson of the movie was. Don’t trust AI.
Because fifty years later people are still trying to figure that ending out?
A Space ...
Oh Well.
THE BOOK is best to understand the story.
The idea is Earth was visited and altered by intelligence from outside Solar System to cultivate the human species which succeed to the point to find the monolith on the Moon that passed the test to go to the next step...Hal was flawed thinking he should contact the aliens not man. Dave reached them and they made him into the Star Child sent back to Earth to guide humankind forward to the stars etc etc.
Very new agey and humanistic flick but still preety neat.
That is indeed the key to appreciating the movie. I saw it with my father (when he was still around) at the tender young age of eight. It inspired my quest for science knowledge, although I found the end to be confusing and unsettling. That desire to learn and expand my horizons has never left me, and I'm now 58. It also gave me a healthy concern about where artificial intelligence might lead if left unchecked. Before Skynet, there was HAL.
The video telephone call, which has just recently become a common thing, the transition from primitive man learning to use a tool to the space station, showing the results of that knowledge across the millennia. All of it was awe inspiring and led to an understanding of how long our journey has been.
We had just begun learning to leave our planet and explore the universe beyond. This movie showed us the possibilities in a manner that held true to actual physics and engineering. It was not Star Wars, it was not Lost in Space, it was something just around the corner that could actually happen.
History of Videotelephony - Wiki
Working limited system was inaugurated in Berlin 1936.
AT&T's Video Telephone had a brief life as America's first videotelephone system begun in 1964. One of the few stations was in the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, DC. Others were in NYC and Chicago. My HS physics class had a field trip to view the set up. One had to make an appointment so that both parties could be at their respective "telephone studios" at the appointed hour for the call. By that date most of the class was so jaded by exposure to TV and movie sci-fi that the grainy low contrast images were old hat...yawn.
So "2001 - A Space Odessey" really took existing tech, refined it a bit and presented it as established commonplace commercial products. The Pan Am space ship, the bush baby telephone call, etc.
CGI, digital effects, along with everything you mentioned didn't exist. Taking this into consideration the visual effects in 2001 are absolutely stunning and ground breaking. The kicker is they have held up for 50 years!
Having grown up with Star Wars, the later Star Trek, BSG, Babylon 5, etc... SciFy in film and on TV they have become desensitized to the herculean effort it took to imagine and accomplish what Krubric put on film. Because today CGI is the norm.
It is also a film that, like Interstellar forces its audience to THINK. It doesn't spoon feed the story to the audience, and isn't full of mindless, non stop action or endless space battles containing lots of explosions or ever weirder and weider "aliens". Hence, some viewers, especially today in our low attention span society find it "boring".
The cool news is they are releasing a genuine 4K UHD HDR Blu-ray disk of 2001 taken from the digitally restored 70mm film. It is on my "must buy list". One more thing, because there is no CGI used in 2001, it will be a genuine 4K transfer, whereas CGI and digital effects in modern films are shot in 2K as a cost saving measure and the 2K is "upconverted" to faux 4K.
Thank you. Yes, I am aware that all technology has a history.
Other Advanced Civilizations...
We’re They shown in the film?
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Great comments on an incredible movie.
The Author dismisses Forbidden Planet as a B Movie?
It was made in 1953 and the Special Effects were spectacular for the day.
The storyline, outside of the Astronauts wanting to nail Ann Francis (what guy wouldn’t), was very thought provoking.
The power of the unconscious mind given the ability to run amok and destroy thanks to technology developed to improve an entire civilization, wow. Way ahead of its time. It also had Leslie Nielsen. LOL
It’s still one of my favorite Sci Fi Movies.
4k UHD MONOLITHS !!!
I liked 2001. This is it right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(TV_series)
Which in my case means not at all.
It has space ships flying across the screen (how else do you explain the success of Star Wars despite the worst script and plot ever). The music is just icing on the cake.
But “2001: A Space Odyssey” slowly began to find an audience, especially with younger people who often would enhance their viewing experience with cannabis or psychedelics.
I don’t remember seeing Silent Running. It’s not on Netflix or DirecTV but found it at Amazon Prime for four dollars to stream.
I remember doing some Blue Cheer and thinking, “I’ve just killed myself. And now, while I’m waiting to die...”
Very new agey and humanistic flick but still pretty neat
“The Author dismisses Forbidden Planet as a B Movie? ...”
SFGate author Mike Moffitt noted “Forbidden Planet” and “The Incredible Shrinking Man” as two of the “few decent sci fi dramas” made before “2001: A Space Odyssey”. According to imdb, Forbidden Planet was released in 1956 (Anne Francis was assuredly attractive as the female lead of Forbidden Planet, but was more than mere eye candy; she was a child model at age 6, worked in TV before WW2, made her stage debut at age 11, and earned award nominations for TV work - in addition to her many films. She remained extraordinarily attractive until the end of her career in the 1980s).
Despite very early efforts by Kepler, Swift, Verne, and Welles, science fiction as a literary concept came out of the shadow world of pulp fiction only in the late 1940s. Serious film treatments lagged television, in attempts to bring it to the screen: The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Star Trek predate 2001: A Space Odyssey, which did indeed mark a departure, as author Mike Moffitt noted (Star Wars has been a step backward - George Lucas himself admitted to Gene Rodenberry it was only “space opera”).
The film makes more sense if one reads Arthur C Clarke’s book first. In his own way, Clarke was as much a quirky visionary of his genre as Stanley Kubrick was, in film. Understanding the work of either requires real thought.
I remember my Older Brother taking me to see 2001 at the Cinerama Theater in Hollywood when it first came out.
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