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.
That has always been my interpretation.
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.
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.
Other Advanced Civilizations...
We’re They shown in the film?
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Great comments on an incredible movie.