There may be the sci-fi angle, but there is the director angle as well.
Kubrick put his flair onto all his movies. Barry Lyndon with its use of camera, special lenses. Dr. Strangelove...
I thought I was the only person in the world who remembered "Silent Running". Despite the tree-hugger mindset of the movie, I quite enjoyed Bruce Dern's portrayal and the subject matter. I usually re-watch it at least once a year.
The title of this article should be: “Why 2001 A Space Odyssey is still BORING after 50 years.”
2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the worst movies ever made.
It is also one of the most overrated. I remember seeing it the first time and being completely bored. The story made little sense, the pacing was slow and disconnected.
People tended to watch it stoned. It was the only way to sit through it.
I watched 2001 all the way through for the first time when they released the high definition disk. I was stunned to find it was a cinematic treatise of the classical Greek vision of time (eternal return).
Well OK, that made the movie understandable, but it was still boring.
Breaks my heart.
I remember a friend and I arguing theories of why HAL wouldn't open the door... this was 2nd grade...seems like yesterday.
The lady in Arizona being killed by the car happened just a few weeks ago. That actually has a lot to do with this movie, too, in a strange way.
The AI, communications, computer, etc., predictions made by Arthur Clarke and Kubrick in the movie were uncanny.
But, my wife thinks this movie was ridiculous and boring too.
Oh, well.
No CGI back then. They had to have micro light bulbs made and intricate models for many sequences. Amazing movie.
2001 is a great movie on so many levels but it must be understood in its own time. This was just before the moon landings when we were seeing manned space expeditions in reality on TV every few months. There was an awe and expectation for what we would find once we as a species left our own planet for the first time. The movie was the first to try to convey the actual physics of weightlessness in space, the ballet of relative motion between vehicles and planets, and the almost comic banality of the highly trained scientists and astronauts whose professional affect was so detached from the profound evolutionary step that we were about to take. It was highly prescient in showing the inherent conflict between our human consciousness and the then emerging concepts of self aware artificial intelligence. These are technologies that are only now being explored in reality. The enigmatic finale even tried to depict the reality of transport between distant galaxies and civilizations via a “worm hole” that was based on advanced concepts in quantum physics. This was the inspiration for the movie Interstellar by Chris Nolan. Its most profound notion was that we were about to be reborn (the star baby) as a new species capable of leaving our cradle planet and joining other advanced civilizations across the universe that had been waiting for us for millions of years. Star Wars is just the mythology of knights in shining rocket ships by comparison.
Rebuttal: the last half hour is still only for druggies 50 years later.
It has one of the best depictions liberals reacting to the Trump Tower ever seen in a movie...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHWs3c3YNs4
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.
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.
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.