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Warner Bros. | 1968 | 149 mins | Rated G | Oct 23, 2007
A space mission that could reveal man?s destiny is jeopardized by a malfunctioning shipboard computer. A dazzling journey that tops them all ? and showed the way for other effects-packed films that followed. In this surreal sci-fi classic by Stanley Kubrick, adapted from the Arthur C. Clarke novel, a mysterious black monolith appears on Earth in prehistoric times, changing the course of human evolution. When it reappears on the Moon in 2001, astronauts embark on an ill-fated interplanetary voyage to discover.
When Stanley Kubrick recruited Arthur C. Clarke to collaborate on “the proverbial intelligent science fiction film,” it’s a safe bet neither the maverick auteur nor the great science fiction writer knew they would virtually redefine the parameters of the cinema experience.
A daring experiment in unconventional narrative inspired by Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel,” 2001 is a visual tone poem (barely 40 minutes of dialogue in a 139-minute film) that charts a phenomenal history of human evolution. From the dawn-of-man discovery of crude but deadly tools in the film’s opening sequence to the journey of the spaceship Discovery and metaphysical birth of the “star child” at film’s end, Kubrick’s vision is meticulous and precise. In keeping with the director’s underlying theme of dehumanization by technology, the notorious, seemingly omniscient computer HAL 9000 has more warmth and personality than the human astronauts it supposedly is serving. (The director also leaves the meaning of the black, rectangular alien monoliths open for discussion.)
This theme, in part, is what makes 2001 a film like no other, though dated now that its postmillennial space exploration has proven optimistic compared to reality. Still, the film is timelessly provocative in its pioneering exploration of inner- and outer-space consciousness. With spectacular, painstakingly authentic special effects that have stood the test of time, Kubrick’s film is nothing less than a cinematic milestone–puzzling, provocative, and perfect.
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Product Details
Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Ed Bishop, Penny Brahms, Edwina Carroll
Stanley Kubrick
AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Original recording remastered, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
English
English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish
All Regions
2.20:1
1
Rated G
Warner Home Video
October 23, 2007
148 minutes
890 Customer Reviews
Customer Reviews
Still a masterpiece
By Dennis Littrell, (SoCal) - December 14, 2003
Regardless of how “bored” some (probably adolescent) viewers may become (forced to maintain their attention span over vast minutes of time on something other than sex, car chases and dripping blood), this is obviously a great movie. At least for the rest of us. Rated in the top 250 (#66) at IMDb, and the subject of innumerable articles and reviews, Stanley Kubrick’s much studied and admired visual, artistic and thematic masterpiece, based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke, is still–remarkably, after all these years–a mesmerizing motion picture experience even on a television screen.
This is no mean accomplishment when you realize that Kubrick made his film before humans actually walked on the moon in 1969, and furthermore, when you consider how much more we now know about space travel and how much more advanced special effects have become. What I think contemporary movie makers might learn from Kubrick’s work is (1) special effects without rhyme or reason may titillate first time viewers and the very young, but quickly grow meaningless; and (2) even in a movie that relies heavily upon special effects and ideas–which 2001: A Space Odyssey certainly does–it helps a whole lot to have a story to tell.
The story begins in the prehistory and ends in the future. It begins with a pre-human consciousness and ends in mystery. (Note that the last sequence in the movie is labeled in part as being “beyond the infinite”–whatever that metaphysical notion may mean.) Along the way we have a creditable hero (Astronaut Dave Bowman played by Keir Dullea, whom I also recall from David and Lisa, 1962) and a very cold and merciless villain (HAL 9000, the computer as megalomaniac–apparently his makers never heard of Issac Asimov’s rules for robots!).
Today we know more about pre-humans and more about computers, artificial intelligence and space exploration, and with such knowledge today’s movie makers would avoid some of Kubrick’s mistakes. For example, the space craft was far too roomy (ask the astronauts!). Real space ships must be as small as possible to save fuel and they are incredibly cramped. Also, the year 2001 has come and passed, and we are nowhere near the practical capability of providing artificial gravity in space. And of course computers (or robots) don’t have emotions unless such emotions are built or programmed into them.
Yet the visual sense of space and the terrible isolation of being alone in the vast vacuum has never been conveyed so well. Using music synchronized with visual effects laden with meaning for our earth-bound minds and bodies, Kubrick managed to depict the Pythagorean “music of the spheres” in a most splendiferous and awe-inspiring way.
However, the opening sequence with the hairy apes is probably what Kubrick would most like to redo if he had the opportunity. In the first place, the terrain, which is semi-arid, is all wrong. No hairy, long-armed, bent-legged creature would occupy such a landscape. The “foraging” they were supposed to be doing was ludicrous since there was obviously next to nothing to forage. The tapirs (forest-dwelling animals native to South America and Southeast Asia, by the way, and not to the savannas of Africa, which should have been the terrain depicted) were almost comedically fat for the ecosystem. And the apes themselves, looking and acting a lot like chimpanzees (no doubt the model that Kubrick used), are in conflict with the fossil record as we know it. Our primordial ancestors, the australopithecines, were upright walking apes and probably not exceedingly hairy since they needed to sweat as they walked and ran over the savannas and grasslands of East Africa.
As for using bones as weapons, yes, there can be little doubt that that is what our ancestors learned to do, followed by using hard wood and stones and then shaped stones. And the idea that a bone tool is a proto-type for all the tools to come is also correct, most saliently in the form of the space ship and HAL.
An interpretation of the ending would necessarily include the idea of time as being something other than we think it is. We see Dave as an astronaut in his thirties, and then as a middle-aged man dining in something like a very expensive Parisian apartment, and then on his death bed, and finally as a soon-to-be-born fetus returning to earth. I think it was wise of Kubrick not to attempt to explain what he clearly points to as unexplainable, as “beyond the infinite.”
Perhaps the most haunting image of all, at least for me, is the red and yellow “eye” of the HAL 9000 computer as it coldly viewed the two astronauts talking. Therein was expressed, long before it became fashionable, the coming inexorable conflict between us and our machines, between our culture and our biological nature, between natural and artificial intelligence. Never in the history of cinema has that tension been so concisely conveyed as in that scene and in this movie.
See this for Stanley Kubrick, one of the greatest film makers of all time.
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