2001 - A Space Odyssey: Crash Course Film Criticism #15
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Date: 2022-04-04
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Comments and reviews: 10
Iguana93
Interesting, yet the story is Clarke's and his novel has a very precise explanation of everything. For example the whole thing with HAL has almost nothing to do with the central story, it's just a malfunction due to conflicting programming, since the computer was supposed to be truthful, yet was given a secret mission which it could not disclose. The fact that this part of the story is given so much prominence in the movie actually shows they needed to give more space to something thriller-like. And the marketing department used it to attract viewers to the -rogue computer- story, even though it's the least thought provoking idea from the whole story. I think saying -nothing here is an accident, everything was intentional- might be overstating it. Saying that bad dialogue is intentional because of some deep reason is just alibism. I think the choice to display technology instead of developing characters was because they simply wanted to make a visually stunning movie and wanted to showcase technological visions. Besides, Clarke generally leaned more to world-building or -technology-building- in his books and his characters seemed to get somewhat less important and repetitive. Anyway, I have no doubt the story is predominantly Clarke's and I don't think Kubrick did it justice in the movie. I think that with some of the scenes being very protracted, there was enough space to give more attention to the story and its cohesion while still keeping the overall artistic impact. Lastly - if you say you think it's perfect and exactly as intended, I think you're wrong. I don't believe it happens often that a movie director says their movie came out exactly as they wanted. Or they may say that for publicity purposes, but think differently. I'm not in film, but I'm pretty sure compromises have to be made, shots don't work out the way they ideally should, something has to be edited out etc. etc. That makes reading meaning into every little detail somewhat pointless, because some of those details must be completely unintentional.
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Interesting, yet the story is Clarke's and his novel has a very precise explanation of everything. For example the whole thing with HAL has almost nothing to do with the central story, it's just a malfunction due to conflicting programming, since the computer was supposed to be truthful, yet was given a secret mission which it could not disclose. The fact that this part of the story is given so much prominence in the movie actually shows they needed to give more space to something thriller-like. And the marketing department used it to attract viewers to the -rogue computer- story, even though it's the least thought provoking idea from the whole story. I think saying -nothing here is an accident, everything was intentional- might be overstating it. Saying that bad dialogue is intentional because of some deep reason is just alibism. I think the choice to display technology instead of developing characters was because they simply wanted to make a visually stunning movie and wanted to showcase technological visions. Besides, Clarke generally leaned more to world-building or -technology-building- in his books and his characters seemed to get somewhat less important and repetitive. Anyway, I have no doubt the story is predominantly Clarke's and I don't think Kubrick did it justice in the movie. I think that with some of the scenes being very protracted, there was enough space to give more attention to the story and its cohesion while still keeping the overall artistic impact. Lastly - if you say you think it's perfect and exactly as intended, I think you're wrong. I don't believe it happens often that a movie director says their movie came out exactly as they wanted. Or they may say that for publicity purposes, but think differently. I'm not in film, but I'm pretty sure compromises have to be made, shots don't work out the way they ideally should, something has to be edited out etc. etc. That makes reading meaning into every little detail somewhat pointless, because some of those details must be completely unintentional.
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zardox78
Most of the questions you bring up are answered pretty blatantly (even repeatedly) in the book. Unlike Kubrick, Clarke seems not at all interested in his readers scratching their heads not understanding what just happened in the story they read. You can say -The movie isn't the book! - but in this case, it kind of is. Despite any discrepancies (such as Saturn vs. Jupiter) the basic events and themes are the same. They even developed the story together, and tried to coordinate the 2 so the book would come out slightly earlier. But then Kubrick changed his mind (back and forth) about some stuff and couldn't figure out how to do other stuff without making it look like sci-fi schlock. So the movie came out first, and the book was treated as a novelization of a movie instead of the other way around.
For instance: The Dawn of Man monolith was basically a transparent teaching machine in the book. It was not there to bear witness to human evolution, but to fast forward it. There were -scores- of them all over the planet while their makers (who were still -flesh and blood- at that point) hovered in orbit for years. They consider intelligence the one _truly_ valuable commodity in the universe, so they set out to advance it in every place they thought they could, cultivating it like a crop. And these teaching machines didn't single out the primates because they thought they were super special. it's just that they happen to be the subjects who performed the most promisingly on this particular life-breeding planet.
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Most of the questions you bring up are answered pretty blatantly (even repeatedly) in the book. Unlike Kubrick, Clarke seems not at all interested in his readers scratching their heads not understanding what just happened in the story they read. You can say -The movie isn't the book! - but in this case, it kind of is. Despite any discrepancies (such as Saturn vs. Jupiter) the basic events and themes are the same. They even developed the story together, and tried to coordinate the 2 so the book would come out slightly earlier. But then Kubrick changed his mind (back and forth) about some stuff and couldn't figure out how to do other stuff without making it look like sci-fi schlock. So the movie came out first, and the book was treated as a novelization of a movie instead of the other way around.
For instance: The Dawn of Man monolith was basically a transparent teaching machine in the book. It was not there to bear witness to human evolution, but to fast forward it. There were -scores- of them all over the planet while their makers (who were still -flesh and blood- at that point) hovered in orbit for years. They consider intelligence the one _truly_ valuable commodity in the universe, so they set out to advance it in every place they thought they could, cultivating it like a crop. And these teaching machines didn't single out the primates because they thought they were super special. it's just that they happen to be the subjects who performed the most promisingly on this particular life-breeding planet.
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Winston
There's a common misinterpretation of how many segments this film has. It actually only has three; The Dawn of Man, Jupiter Mission: 18 Months Later, and finally Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite. This divides the movie into three sections, not the commonly believed 4 sections. What's more important here is that Kubrick (and editor Ray Lovejoy) have told the audience that despite technological advances, the dawn of humanity and it's future self has not evolved as much as we think in those 4 million years of evolution. That hard jump-cut between bone and spacecraft compresses the ancient with the future into one section.
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There's a common misinterpretation of how many segments this film has. It actually only has three; The Dawn of Man, Jupiter Mission: 18 Months Later, and finally Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite. This divides the movie into three sections, not the commonly believed 4 sections. What's more important here is that Kubrick (and editor Ray Lovejoy) have told the audience that despite technological advances, the dawn of humanity and it's future self has not evolved as much as we think in those 4 million years of evolution. That hard jump-cut between bone and spacecraft compresses the ancient with the future into one section.
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Michael
but all this doesn't change the fact that the movie is utterly boring.
the first 20 minute makes no sense unless you read the book, and an hour in nothing has really happened.
to me all those endless scenes floating in space to classical music does nothing.
the book is great, because it takes the time to tell us why we should care, the movie is just people walking around, no dialogue no nothing, just pictures and classical music.
lazy.
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but all this doesn't change the fact that the movie is utterly boring.
the first 20 minute makes no sense unless you read the book, and an hour in nothing has really happened.
to me all those endless scenes floating in space to classical music does nothing.
the book is great, because it takes the time to tell us why we should care, the movie is just people walking around, no dialogue no nothing, just pictures and classical music.
lazy.
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Saricubra
Interstellar has three advantages over this film:
pacing, better character relationships and music.
It seems like 2001 tries to be surreal at times to convey it's message but for Interstellar, -they hired Kip Thorne- an astrophysicist and the father&daughter relationship works to stablish a more relatable story, all of this and the ambiance is amplified by Hans Zimmer's minimalistic and gorgeous score.
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Interstellar has three advantages over this film:
pacing, better character relationships and music.
It seems like 2001 tries to be surreal at times to convey it's message but for Interstellar, -they hired Kip Thorne- an astrophysicist and the father&daughter relationship works to stablish a more relatable story, all of this and the ambiance is amplified by Hans Zimmer's minimalistic and gorgeous score.
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Jeffrey
I missed the repeated birthday theme and I've seen this movie several times. Thanks for that observation. I am surprised that you made no mention about the absolute silence in the extra vehicular scenes. To my way of thinking, this one thing makes this movie stand out from all other space movies, as it is realistic about the fact that sound in not heard in the absence of atmosphere.
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I missed the repeated birthday theme and I've seen this movie several times. Thanks for that observation. I am surprised that you made no mention about the absolute silence in the extra vehicular scenes. To my way of thinking, this one thing makes this movie stand out from all other space movies, as it is realistic about the fact that sound in not heard in the absence of atmosphere.
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Light
I watched this movie with three friends in a theatre that screened the 50 years aniversary remastered version. One of them watched it before and is his prefered movie but the rest of us hasn't. I was glad I was able to watch it at such a special screening because otherwise I would have never finished it. It was so weird and scary and the long cuts were almost boring.
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I watched this movie with three friends in a theatre that screened the 50 years aniversary remastered version. One of them watched it before and is his prefered movie but the rest of us hasn't. I was glad I was able to watch it at such a special screening because otherwise I would have never finished it. It was so weird and scary and the long cuts were almost boring.
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Chris
It's funny. I found it unwatchable and drab. Unimaginative, even. Then again Arthur C Clarke has never been an Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury or Robert Heinlein. :) Damn, he's not even a Jack Vance or Iain M. Banks. I'll take anything they've slapped Roddenberry's name on over that movie any day of the week.
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It's funny. I found it unwatchable and drab. Unimaginative, even. Then again Arthur C Clarke has never been an Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury or Robert Heinlein. :) Damn, he's not even a Jack Vance or Iain M. Banks. I'll take anything they've slapped Roddenberry's name on over that movie any day of the week.
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Saricubra
2001 is the most important sci fi movie of all time but that doesn't make it flawless. The characters can be considered bland and the pacing can be extremely slow for many people when not much is happening on the screen sometimes, at least in Blade Runner it works so much better.
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2001 is the most important sci fi movie of all time but that doesn't make it flawless. The characters can be considered bland and the pacing can be extremely slow for many people when not much is happening on the screen sometimes, at least in Blade Runner it works so much better.
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Incel
Crash Course: please make a season 2 to all of the film courses. History could go over specific film periods like French New wave or new Hollywood. Production could more in depth on some of the most important jobs like how to use a camera, lighting, etc. And criticism is easy
reply
Crash Course: please make a season 2 to all of the film courses. History could go over specific film periods like French New wave or new Hollywood. Production could more in depth on some of the most important jobs like how to use a camera, lighting, etc. And criticism is easy
reply
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