Topical ! Any fans of Kubrick's 2001 here?

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metavehicle

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Hi again,

In the light of recent news about “2001” monoliths being torn down - by Christians no less (in the States) - I was wondering if among the Catholics here there were any fans of what was ostensibly an atheistic movie.

In fact it’s a film I made a YouTube video about extolling its merits from the angle of a theistic interpretation.

Anyhow if you just want to discuss the movie here that’d be cool, and if you want to rip apart my pretentious video, equally good.

Here it is -

Mild peril warning - features an amateurs understanding of Nietzsche.
 
Here’s something I posted on another thread a couple of years ago:
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Your LEAST favorite movies... time for a little levity I think Popular Media
At the risk of incurring intense hatred, the dullest movie I ever sat through in a theater was 2001 A Space Odyssey. I tried to watch it again, just a year or two ago. No good. I just don’t have the patience for that kind of thing. And yet there are other Kubrick pictures I like a lot, particularly Barry Lyndon and A Clockwork Orange.
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metavehicle said:
Mild peril warning - features an amateurs understanding of Nietzsche.
Click to expand...
Let me just add this to my previous post: I’ve never had the patience to read anything by Nietzsche, either.
 
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I saw it as a kid when it first came out - I wasn’t impressed. To be honest I haven’t saw it as an adult, so at this point I might have a different opinion of it.
 
Ellison said it better than I: “Boring, but, not uninteresting”.
 
Peter Hyams’s 2010 is much better
(Probably because the book was written first – My understanding is that 2001 the book was written simultaneously with the film’s production(!))

(ETA: 2️⃣ ©️ ©️ on the subsequent books:
2060 was meh.
3001 was an interesting premise, but I do not recall the particular plot)
 
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I had to do a project/presentation about it back when I was in school, used the internet (which I now think was probably illegal), and I thought maybe it was part of the movie but it just sounded like heavy breathing/ape sounds. Like there wasn’t really any audio. So I didn’t really like it as I missed out on so much.
 
I’ve seen the movie twice now, once in IMAX, so I’ve had multiple chances to clarify my thoughts. I really enjoy the middle section with HAL, but the rest of the movie is more enjoyable for me just out of spectacle. It’s one of my lesser favorite Kubrick films, above Barry Lyndon but not close to Full Metal Jacket, Paths of Glory, or The Shining. I respect it, I’m just not at a point where I’m crazy about it, at least not now.
 
Titivillus said:
(Probably because the book was written first – My understanding is that 2001 the book was written simultaneously with the film’s production(!))
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Arthur C. Clarke accused Kubrick of going back on his word, when the movie was released ahead of the planned date, which was also the publication date for the book.
 
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They had an agreement and Kubrick broke it. That’s what Clarke said.
 
I saw it for the first time on a huge cinerama screen, and loved it. But my younger brother whom I took with me, hated it. But he was never a science fiction fan anyway. The ending struck me as a sort of celestial rebirth. I think that the movie “Planet of the Apes” won the Oscar that year for Best Costume design, or something like that. Kubrick complained: “What? Did they think we used real apes?”
 
I’ve never read the book, but I didn’t like the movie. From a story telling stand point, it’s very poor.
 
It must be nearly a quarter of an hour before the first line of dialog is spoken. And when, at long last, we think our patience is going to be rewarded, it’s something utterly trite. I don’t recall the exact words, but it’s more or less like this:

Passenger who has just landed on moon, to receptionist: “Good morning. I have an appointment with Dr. Mackenzie for ten o’clock.”
Receptionist, picking up phone: “Yes, sir, I’ll see if he’s in his office.”
 
Saw it for the first time in college with my friends and a couple times thereafter. As someone else said, to me it was just a somewhat entertaining space opera, nothing more, and seemingly evoking the psychedelic drug experience like most films of its time.

I enjoyed Kubrick’s concept of how furniture, communications etc. would look in the future. Since I was watching it for the first time in the 80s, it came off as fun retro nostalgia from the 1960s rather than anything truly futuristic.

Also enjoyed the storyline with HAL and the astronauts. Keir Dullea is one of those actors who’s been forgotten over time, but in the 1960s he was very handsome and turned in some good performances, including “2001” and “Bunny Lake is Missing”. This thread just reminded me he was in another more obscure movie called “Hoodlum Priest” which I still need to see.

I thought the plotline about the monolith and the starchild was pretty dumb though. One of my college friends thought it was just mindbendingly deep and had to spend time after the movie discussing and processing what he’d just seen. I was just shaking my head at that, because to me it was just a sci-fi/ entertainment film, nothing deep.
 
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Solaris had a remake starring George Clooney. I vaguely remember the original, not as impactful to me as the Kubrick film. I’m much more a fan of the enigmatic “Stalker” though.

Funny thing, Tarkovsky has some very harsh things to say about 2001, even though that and his movie were compared for their slow-pacing and profound ideas.
 
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