"2001 - A Space Odessy"

didnt really explain myself the book that is based on the film came after the film before that was just a short story that why film much better
 
i think embryo is just arty directors coblers but the idea that the monoliths multiply adding gravity to a gas giant and then in turn making it collapse fuse and start to shine is a fair idea
 
its as u say like any great film but u have too have the imaginaition to appreciate it just leaving the camera on the red diode after hal says something drastic in a computer matter of fact voice is pure class the guy directed the shining for fucks sake he knows or knew what hes doing
 
i always thought the idea of the monolith half in and half phased out of our reality was a great idea the fact that beings bolt through our galaxy millions of years ago setting up observation posts seems like utter fantasy too most people but where just one planet and space is bigger than our tiny minds could ever comprehend all we know is what we tell our selves in our train track consciousness
 
i know what ur saying but the books are limited because it was a short story that he wrote and then kubrick got hold of it and expanded it until he got the film which wether u like or hate it is a ground breaking peice of cinematogrophy no one had put classic music with anything visual like that before clark has wrote some good sci fi but he is by no stretch of the imagination the best banks reynolds and harrison and wossis name wrote do androids dream of electric sheep got it philip k dick thats how u write sci fi
 
Neal, buddy ... great thoughts, certainly a good viewpoint, but use that "Quote" button, man. Your thoughts are posted entirely without context and look like random musings rather than responses to the specific thoughts of others. It's very difficult to follow a discussion that way.

(And as a side note, it's not too difficult to type out "you" and "you're" and "your", is it? That's a habit some people have I'll never understand ...)
 
Man, there was a lot in this thread and it left me with three points.
1)I saw the movie a couple of years after it came out, loved it but didn't understand the ending. I read the book and then understood the ending. I saw the movie again and lost the ending.
2)I'd read they were written simultaneously with consultations back and forth but not completely.
3) This movie came out before Star Wars. There had never been special effects of this type before. It may lose some by today's CG standards but considering there were no computeroperated cameras in 1968, it was wonderful. The most impressive part for me was the use of a Strauss waltz in place of rocket noises in a vacuum. Require just a little less suspension of disbelief.
 
I haven't read the book, but I have seen the film and thought it very good. One question: Did the film differ greatly from the book?
 
Yes, there are considerable differences. While the plotline is pretty much the same, there are wide divergences in incident (and even, to some degree, in implications of the action). However, I recommend reading the book, as it is quite a good read, and I must say that I continue to find the film very impressive... it also seems to me to be much more approachable with each viewing... especially the stargate sequence on...
 
Excellent film. Can watch it again and again. The book, while good, I don't remember proving so open to repeated viewings/readings...

The sequel, 2010, perversely, I remember as a better book than a film. And the third book, 3001, was terrible.
 
iansales said:
Excellent film. Can watch it again and again. The book, while good, I don't remember proving so open to repeated viewings/readings...

The sequel, 2010, perversely, I remember as a better book than a film. And the third book, 3001, was terrible.
Click to expand...

Wasn't the third 2061?:confused: It's been a looong time, but that's what I recall... At any rate, as I recall... yes, it was... gawdawful, in fact...
 
I stand corrected :) Yes, 3rd was 2061, 4th was 3001.

And if you thought 2061 was bad, 3001 was much worse...
 
The movie's certainly amazing for its time, although sometimes I wonder what substance Kubrick was on when he invented the ending sequence. That's enough to give epileptics a photosensitive seizure.

Looking back, the thing that jars me most is the 1960s conception of "futuristic" furniture. Looks like leftovers from the early 1970s...

There's quite amazing cinematography in the movie. I especially remember the centrifuge running sequence and the discussion between the two crewmen in the spacepod, with HAL's malevolent red eye looking at them through the porthole.

The book is a good read too, and apparently they were written more or less in tandem, with some modifications made even after scenes were shot. A rather expensive way of writing a novel if you ask me!

There are also some significant differences, in the movie and in the sequels, the events happen in the orbit of Jupiter, with Io being the moon where the Stargate is located. In 2001, Discovery uses the slingshot effect off Jupiter to get to Saturn, and there the moon of choice is the two-faced Iapetus (Japetus), so named after the Roman (or ancient Greek?) god with two faces. On Iapetus, one face is much darker than the other, hence the name.
 
manephelien said:
Looking back, the thing that jars me most is the 1960s conception of "futuristic" furniture. Looks like leftovers from the early 1970s...
Click to expand...
Thats nothing, the Kaminoans from 'Star Wars: Attack of the Clones' shop at IKEA! Straight out of the catalogue!

The single most hardest thing about SF for film and TV must be designing the sets and props. Anything that looks futuristic very quickly looks dated. Even letter fonts date; in the late sixties everyone thought those OCR fonts such as those you still get on cheques were futuristic.

Music is another bugbear. All of that early seventies futuristic synthesiser music just seems out of place. I've just been re-watching the 'Planet of the Apes' series and those use it way too much. Much better to go retro and have the characters listen to some old fashioned soul, or rock and roll, or classical music.

One of the reasons that 'Star Trek' the original series (of a similar age) has not dated as much as it could have (compare it with the silver suits in 'Lost in Space') is that the costumes and sets were not built on an extrapolation of the current trends, or made particularly futuristic. Theiss, the costumer designer actually designed those short skirts before the mini-skirt was a fashion icon.

The computers don't have reels of magnetic tape going around, but for memory, instead use a small square disc, long before a floppy disc or CD was imagined. Contrast that with later series of 'Star Trek' when in 'Voyager' Captain Janeway in the 24th Century has this huge enormous PC and monitor on her office desk when you can already get laptops the size of a keyboard now.

That period of the late sixties was one of tremendous change and I find it hard to criticise those things. I think the ending sequence of 2001 still holds up today, even against what could be done with modern graphics.
 
manephelien said:
The movie's certainly amazing for its time, although sometimes I wonder what substance Kubrick was on when he invented the ending sequence. That's enough to give epileptics a photosensitive seizure.

Looking back, the thing that jars me most is the 1960s conception of "futuristic" furniture. Looks like leftovers from the early 1970s...

There's quite amazing cinematography in the movie. I especially remember the centrifuge running sequence and the discussion between the two crewmen in the spacepod, with HAL's malevolent red eye looking at them through the porthole.

The book is a good read too, and apparently they were written more or less in tandem, with some modifications made even after scenes were shot. A rather expensive way of writing a novel if you ask me!

There are also some significant differences, in the movie and in the sequels, the events happen in the orbit of Jupiter, with Io being the moon where the Stargate is located. In 2001, Discovery uses the slingshot effect off Jupiter to get to Saturn, and there the moon of choice is the two-faced Iapetus (Japetus), so named after the Roman (or ancient Greek?) god with two faces. On Iapetus, one face is much darker than the other, hence the name.
Click to expand...

Hard to say whether Kubrick was on anything or not with that. It could simply be an attempt to capture such an alien experience as going through the Stargate and then through the experiences on the other side, and convey it to the viewer in such a way that they'd get a certain amount of disorientation and alienation themselves. That's how it's always struck me, anyway.

Yes, those are among the more interesting differences between the two. It is interesting to read and compare them, as they each complement the other, I think.

One detail, though: Iapetus was not the god of the threshold -- that was the Roman deity Janus (who had two faces: for the rising and setting suns; he was "the doorkeeper of heaven, and patron of the beginning and ending of things"); Iapetus was one of the Titans, and very little is known about his attributes or role, except that he was the "son of Uranus and Ge or Gaia, father of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheu, and Menoetius, and that Jupiter threw him into Tartarus" (from Bulfinch, The Age of Fable). So Clarke may have intended a mythological reference here nonetheless; in fact I'd be strongly inclined to agree with you on the intent; the only difference being the identification of the deity.
 
Thanks for the correction on the mythos. I do know that Iapetus is brighter on the trailing side and darker on the leading, as it picks up material in orbit.
 
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