# What Are Your Thoughts on the Films  2001 and 2010 A Space Odyssey ?



## BAYLOR (May 1, 2017)

2001  done  by Stanley Kubrick 1968 was unlike anything done before in both look and story telling.  2010 done  by Peter Hyams  1984 was the follow up which answered some the questions from the first film and had a fantastic ending.

What do you think of both films.


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## Rodders (May 1, 2017)

I have only seen 2001 once. I loved the visuals, which really made an impression, but I didn't understand it fully. I read somewhere ACC said that if you understood it, we've not done our job properly. What a pretentious git. I've been meaning to add it to my Bluray library, but haven't quite got around to it. Soon. My overall impression is that it's a great movie, but perhaps a little overrated. Discovery One has to be one of my favourite spaceships. 

2010 I enjoyed. It wasn't as cerebral as 2001, but still a great movie imo.


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## HanaBi (May 1, 2017)

2001 reminds me of a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle but you don't have a picture to help you fit the pieces together; whereas 2010, is a 100 piece jigsaw, with a picture and every piece is individually numbered so that you more or less know what fits where.

That said, 2010 had some really terrific sfx for its time, and Roy Scheider (and director, Peter Hyams) did an admirable job. And obviously with the Cold War backstory still a reality back in the early 80s when the film was made, it made rather sobering viewing.

I also enjoyed 2010 for focusing on the fairly routine narrative, unlike 2001, which was more engaging one's brain to actually think about what the hell is going on!

I have to be in the right mood to sit through the cerebral 2001; whereas 2010 has far more of the pop-culture about it, and is therefore an easier choice of viewing.


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## Vertigo (May 1, 2017)

I thought 2001 was a ground breaking piece of cinematography that completely lost the plot at the end, at least as far as engaging the audience goes. Storywise 2001 was excellent except the later half of the film was _all_ about the failure of Hal and, apart from the psychedelics at the end, completely dropped the core story of the film. So I would say that as a piece of ground breaking cinematography 2001 was astounding but \s a piece of story telling it was very much lacking. It was by a long way the most convincing piece of science fiction that had ever appeared on our screens to that date. Much of its special effects still hold up just as well today. And that gave it an enormous amount of 'wow' factor.

2010, was I thought, a much blander affair. As has been mentioned above it was of its day with its emphasis on the cold warm, but I felt it lacked all the 'wow' factor that 2001 had so much of. On the other hand it told a much better and more coherent story.


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## Boneman (May 1, 2017)

I remember being blown away by 2001 at the cinema, and haven't seen it since. Would I be disappointed now with the special effects, with all the advances in cgi since then? If the story stands up, probably not. Weirdly, I can't recall anything of 2010... I'll have to watch them both again!


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## Lumens (May 1, 2017)

2001 stands up fine today, apart from the psychedelic bit, some of which is a bit naff even for that era IMO. The other effects are fine. One of the few movies where vacuum is actually silent. It is painfully slow though, for those used to today's pace and incessant cutting. 

2010 is a good movie too I thought. I wish real history would catch up with the advancements a little.


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## Vertigo (May 2, 2017)

Lumens said:


> 2001 stands up fine today, apart from the psychedelic bit, some of which is a bit naff even for that era IMO. The other effects are fine. *One of the few movies where vacuum is actually silent*. It is painfully slow though, for those used to today's pace and incessant cutting.
> 
> 2010 is a good movie too I thought. I wish real history would catch up with the advancements a little.


I always liked the realistic silence of vacuum especially the way they deliberately cut the sound abruptly between in and out of vacuum. Very effective. You are right though it was painfully slow. I think it was nearly 30 mins before the first dialogue.


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## Danny McG (May 4, 2017)

There was a long sequence, single viewpoint fixed camera, just before Hal went a killing.
Two astronauts having a paranoid discussion and hoping Hal couldn't pick up what they were saying.
I saw the same thing many years later when reading V Vinge 'A Fire upon the deep' when the archeologists were desperately trying to get their families away from the consciousness they'd awoken


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## HanaBi (May 6, 2017)

It's been awhile since I watched either film; so this evening I think I will indulge in both back2back.


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## Victoria Silverwolf (May 6, 2017)

I first saw *2001: A Space Odyssey* when it first came out.  I was fourteen years old, already a science fiction fan, so it was perfect for me.  I have seen it about two dozen times since.  It was at that time, and remains today, my favorite film of all time.  (I have also been a fervent Kubrick fan, seeking out all of his films, which range, for my taste, from "very good" to "brilliant.")   It had a profound impact on me, which I cannot fully explain to this day.

The sequel was a pretty good SF movie, but it did not change my life the way the first one did.


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## J Riff (May 7, 2017)

Long stretches of minimal dialogue, fx that hold up, still a great watch.


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## Stuart Suffel (May 7, 2017)

Two entirely different movies.

2001 was an abstract reflection on the origins of man, of time, the meaning of existence, the nature of consciousness.
It suggested an eternal loop of existence, repeated eternally.

The Hal thingy was really a second movie, focusing on one thing, the nature of self awareness.

A work of immense skill, vision, and importance .

2010 misunderstood 2001.

The 'gaps' of 2001 were the spaces a viewer could live in, imagine in.


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## Galactic Journey (Jul 3, 2017)

Victoria Silverwolf said:


> I first saw *2001: A Space Odyssey* when it first came out.  I was fourteen years old, already a science fiction fan, so it was perfect for me.  I have seen it about two dozen times since.  It was at that time, and remains today, my favorite film of all time.  (I have also been a fervent Kubrick fan, seeking out all of his films, which range, for my taste, from "very good" to "brilliant.")   It had a profound impact on me, which I cannot fully explain to this day.
> 
> The sequel was a pretty good SF movie, but it did not change my life the way the first one did.



I am kind of the other way around.

I go back and forth on 2001.  I have seen it and been awed, and I've seen it and been bored.  Someday, I will rent out a theater and watch it properly.

I first saw 2010 in 1984, and it is a very gritty, plausible picture of "the future."  I watched it again seven years ago (I wonder why!  ) and felt it had held up.  Plus John Lithgow.


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## Frost Giant (Jul 11, 2017)

Like most Kubrick films it could be much shorter. I liked both films, but had some problems with the plot. 
In 2001, if the 9000 computer series are indeed the most advanced machines on Earth, it seems likely that they would have been used in a security capacity prior to the Jupiter mission. If computers like HAL have safeguarded government and/or corporate secrets, it seems odd that HAL would have a problem keeping certain mission aspects secret. It seems even more nonsensical that HAL would show no problem keeping these secrets - "lying to the crew" as they put it in 2010 - and wait until they got all the way out to Jupiter before he turns on the crew. It seemed ridiculous to me that HAL would take the course of murdering the crew. If he wanted to reveal the classified information so badly, why not simply do so? It would be more logical than the extreme of killing everyone. 

In 2010, I thought the transformation of Jupiter into a second star was implausible for a number of reasons, but I guess we can chalk that one up to Monolith Magic. I liked William Sylvester better than Roy Schneider as Heywood Floyd. 

All told, they are enjoyable films. Seeing them now evokes a feeling of disappointment, it's too bad real human space travel in 2017 lags behind fiction from the 1960s.


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## psikeyhackr (Jul 11, 2017)

I saw 2001 in the theater in 1968.

UTTERLY MINDBLOWING!

There are things that you can never experience again and come anywhere near the same reaction.

I have seen it on the small screen a number of times since then and now know it too well to be impressed.  To watch it now would be just for the visuals and not the story.

I took my first computer course months after seeing the movie.  The evolution of computing and what most people think about it has been interesting to observe.

I have only seen 2010 on the small screen.  As an old time SF reader I was just never impressed with it.  It was OK.

psik


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## J Riff (Jul 11, 2017)

Computers weren't as smart back then, the silicon was lower quality... but spaceships were better because they just built things to last, not like he cheap throwaway deliberate built-in obsolescent NASA rubbish of today.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 31, 2017)

Hal was heroic and self sacrificing  in 2010 . In the book Hal got to live.


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## BAYLOR (Jun 3, 2019)

They still entertain


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## Rodders (Jun 3, 2019)

2001 has been on TV recently and I watched it for the first time in maybe 30 years. 

Watching it as an adult was very different and I found Kubrick's attention to detail was quite incredible. For a movie that is fifty years old, the effects have stood the test of time. 

I have a new appreciation for the soundtrack too.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 11, 2019)

Rodders said:


> 2001 has been on TV recently and I watched it for the first time in maybe 30 years.
> 
> Watching it as an adult was very different and I found Kubrick's attention to detail was quite incredible. For a movie that is fifty years old, the effects have stood the test of time.
> 
> I have a new appreciation for the soundtrack too.



2001  wasn't a profitable film at the box office .


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## CupofJoe (Nov 11, 2019)

I'm proud to say that _*2001*_ was the first film I saw in the cinema. As a birthday treat my mother took me to see it when it was re-run at a local flea-pit. She hated all fantasy and Sci-fi, so sitting in the dark with me for two and a half hours was heroic of her. Even though I think I loved _*2001*_, I'm sure it went straight passed me at the time. The next film I saw on a big screen was _*The Aristocats*_...much more suitable for my age...


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## BAYLOR (Nov 11, 2019)

CupofJoe said:


> I'm proud to say that _*2001*_ was the first film I saw in the cinema. As a birthday treat my mother took me to see it when it was re-run at a local flea-pit. She hated all fantasy and Sci-fi, so sitting in the dark with me for two and a half hours was heroic of her. Even though I think I loved _*2001*_, I'm sure it went straight passed me at the time. The next film I saw on a big screen was _*The Aristocats*_...much more suitable for my age...



It must of have looked really great on the Big screen.  It was reissued to theaters in the early 1970's I remember seeing it advised at the local theater.


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## CupofJoe (Nov 11, 2019)

BAYLOR said:


> It must of have looked really great on the Big screen.  It was reissued to theaters in the early 1970's I remember seeing advised at the local theater.


Oh it did. I have three great cinema memories/feeling. There is seeing _*2001*_ as a young child, the first time I saw _*Star Wars*_ in the cinema [and the X-wing slips in to the trench] and watching _*Lawrence of Arabia*_ off a 70mm print [that scene in the Desert make so much more sense when the blob in the middle looks like Omar Sharif!].


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## BAYLOR (Nov 11, 2019)

CupofJoe said:


> Oh it did. I have three great cinema memories/feeling. There is seeing _*2001*_ as a young child, the first time I saw _*Star Wars*_ in the cinema [and the X-wing slips in to the trench] and watching _*Lawrence of Arabia*_ off a 70mm print [that scene in the Desert make so much more sense when the blob in the middle looks like Omar Sharif!].



They still had wide screen back in those days and that really made those  films seem larger then life .


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## Star-child (Nov 11, 2019)

BAYLOR said:


> 2001  wasn't a profitable film at the box office .


On first release, but it was profitable by 1971 and stands at over $130 million in profit today.


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## psikeyhackr (Nov 12, 2019)

I suppose the impressive thing watching it now is to remember that it was shot before the Moon landing and we still don't have a Moon base.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 12, 2019)

psikeyhackr said:


> I suppose the impressive thing watching it now is toe remember that it was shot before the Moon landing and we still don't have a Moon base.



It looked pretty good then, it still looks pretty good now.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 12, 2019)

I recall seeing it rereleased  in the early 1970's . I never saw it in the theater, I wish I had.

This film was based off of his story *The Sentinel *which was published in 1951. It differs substantially from the movie . The novel that he did was based off Kubricks movie script, I think 

There was book  called *The Lost Worlds of 2001 * published in the  mid to late 1970's , I had a copy of it at one time.  It was a series of stories which were different  incarnations of the 2001  story.  its long out of print  but I found to be  a quite a good and interesting  read.


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## Rodders (Nov 13, 2019)

There was a beautiful Taschen book about the making of 2001 that I wanted to get, but didn't.

It featured this wonderful Cutaway art by Oliver Rennert which was commissioned for the book. I keep meaning to get one of the prints.




I remember 2010 being very enjoyable. It featured a good cast, well acted and the Alexei Leonov being quite a good ship.


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## KGeo777 (Nov 13, 2019)

2001 was visually impressive with good music selection--the monolith was an interesting visual representation of an alien. I had to watch it a few times to notice certain patterns like the opening with the watering hole is echoed in the space station scene with the Americans and Russians sitting around the table.
One could even suggest the bone is foreshadowing Hal-human relationships with tools.
However, I see the film as comedic in message now-I think the ending with the starchild basically means "here we go again folks!"
There is so little dramatic connective tissue in the film it doesn't have much to analyze beyond the basic plot.

As for 2010--it is more of a bubblegum dramatic movie with a sympathetic Hal, there are some suspenseful ideas like the probe disappearing. But Hyams has a tendency for quirky dialogue-- discussing hot dogs is so eccentric. Lithgow says "It's important."
No it isn't!
They did a great job recreating the ships and sets-as I understand Kubrick had all the blueprints and props destroyed so they had to use photos from the film.

The 1960s film THE BAMBOO SAUCER is similar to the gist of this film--US and Soviet scientists joining forces to confront a spacecraft and learning about each other, ultimately seeing the ship as a means to achieve world peace.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 11, 2020)

2001, the trip down the gateway and the light show .

2010  Jupiter becoming a second sun.


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