Lord_M and I just watched this in BluRay and I must say, it is still one of the most wonderful movies I've ever seen. The picture quality was incredible, but better than that, the movie has held up very, very well. Far better than Close Encounters, which we watched a few weeks ago.
Great movie. Some silly bits, and the end is awfully trippy, but still, very very worth watching.
2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey
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I could do with the dated "trippy" effects section being a good deal shorter but otherwise: 
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Primula Baggins
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I saw 2001 four times in theaters when I was twelve. 
The trippy bits were OK, but what transported me was the realism of the space travel sequences. Considering what technology was available to Kubrick, it amazes me still. The sequence where Dave is disconnecting Hal's "brain" got that marvelous zero-g effect because the actor was hanging from a rope and being filmed from below, so he appeared to be floating in midair. Just amazing ingenuity throughout.
The trippy bits were OK, but what transported me was the realism of the space travel sequences. Considering what technology was available to Kubrick, it amazes me still. The sequence where Dave is disconnecting Hal's "brain" got that marvelous zero-g effect because the actor was hanging from a rope and being filmed from below, so he appeared to be floating in midair. Just amazing ingenuity throughout.“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
I think one of the reasons it has held up so well is that the sets were so clean and spare. No panels of blinking red lights, that sort of thing. HAL was perfect. When we were watching it, I told Lord_M that I still, after all this time, find it hard to watch the parts where HAL tries to take over and then Dave has to kill HAL. Watching the life signs panels by the sleeping men, watching them flatline, that's awful. Watching poor Frank drift off forever, surely the loneliest death that could be?
The one thing I would definitely change is the chanting and generally annoying noise when the Slab appears and they approach it. The first time, we all thought it was the Slab making all that racket! There should have been silence.
The one thing I would definitely change is the chanting and generally annoying noise when the Slab appears and they approach it. The first time, we all thought it was the Slab making all that racket! There should have been silence.
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Well personally, I love it where it is. Then again, I'm a huge Ligeti fan...
You see, it's the Kyrie from the Requiem, and to me, that implies that the Slab is either offering some form of redemption (as, indeed, it sort of does), or that the music is reflecting the innermost thoughts of every man and woman who knows of its existence.
Similarly, the use of Ligeti's Lux Aeterna (Eternal Light), at the point where Bowman is going into the Slab, and literally, through eternal light, is a touch on the nose to the few Ligeti fanatics like me, but more than apt. Aside from anything else, even today, 9 years after the film is set, Ligeti's music is regarded as highly influential, progressive, and music of the future. Imagine what people hearing it for the first time would have thought!
You see, it's the Kyrie from the Requiem, and to me, that implies that the Slab is either offering some form of redemption (as, indeed, it sort of does), or that the music is reflecting the innermost thoughts of every man and woman who knows of its existence.
Similarly, the use of Ligeti's Lux Aeterna (Eternal Light), at the point where Bowman is going into the Slab, and literally, through eternal light, is a touch on the nose to the few Ligeti fanatics like me, but more than apt. Aside from anything else, even today, 9 years after the film is set, Ligeti's music is regarded as highly influential, progressive, and music of the future. Imagine what people hearing it for the first time would have thought!
Why is the duck billed platypus?
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Primula Baggins
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At 12, it blew me away. I had never listened in any sustained way to music like that; films weren't scored with serious music, and they tended then as now to be conventional. It had never occurred to me that people wrote music like that, or formally performed it; it seemed more like some kind of outburst.
I was confused, too, the first time, about the music when the early humans find the slab. But I liked the effect.
My favorite then was Khachaturian's Gayane Ballet Suite, played when the craft is in deep space on its way to Jupiter. With the cold, clear images of space, the music gave such an eerie, alone feeling.
Incidentally, all that music was "filler" to give Alex North, the composer of the score, an idea what Kubrick wanted. But in the end Kubrick decided he wanted the filler pieces to stay, and North's score was never used. It has since been recovered and restored, and there's a CD on Amazon.
Edited for typo
I was confused, too, the first time, about the music when the early humans find the slab. But I liked the effect.
My favorite then was Khachaturian's Gayane Ballet Suite, played when the craft is in deep space on its way to Jupiter. With the cold, clear images of space, the music gave such an eerie, alone feeling.
Incidentally, all that music was "filler" to give Alex North, the composer of the score, an idea what Kubrick wanted. But in the end Kubrick decided he wanted the filler pieces to stay, and North's score was never used. It has since been recovered and restored, and there's a CD on Amazon.
Edited for typo
Last edited by Primula Baggins on Wed Dec 29, 2010 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
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Primula Baggins
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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Oh, I liked the music in general. Loved the waltz, for instance. But the slab required silence.
Crucifer, what on earth did the apemen need with redemption? Jeez. JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Don't get me started.
Whatever the slab "offered", it wasn't redemption.
As a matter of fact, the whole slab thing bothered me, it was hinting at something that irritates the bejeezus out of me, but that's a topic for another thread.
Crucifer, what on earth did the apemen need with redemption? Jeez. JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Don't get me started.Whatever the slab "offered", it wasn't redemption.
As a matter of fact, the whole slab thing bothered me, it was hinting at something that irritates the bejeezus out of me, but that's a topic for another thread.
Dig deeper.
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Primula Baggins
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Do tell!
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Ah, I thought you were referring to when they find the slab on the moon! I need to watch it again, I don't remember the context of the one that teaches the apemen to use tools...
vison, if I recall the book correctly, the slabs were literally massive computers, spaceships, homes and everything else to the lifeforms that built them. The lifeforms had transcended all physical bodies and so were able to be their own supercomputers, contained in these massive slabs.
Or something...
I need to read the books again too!!!
vison, if I recall the book correctly, the slabs were literally massive computers, spaceships, homes and everything else to the lifeforms that built them. The lifeforms had transcended all physical bodies and so were able to be their own supercomputers, contained in these massive slabs.
Or something...
I need to read the books again too!!!
Why is the duck billed platypus?
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Primula Baggins
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Clarke had stunning ideas. I loved his books as a teen, just for the "sense of wonder" factor. But the characters are so flat. . . .
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
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Primula Baggins
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Made more than forty years ago, Mahima. Freaky was in, and IIRC it makes sense in the context of the book. The movie just doesn't bother to take the explanation that far.
And, the way it looks, considering how limited their resources were. . . . It's still stunning.
And, the way it looks, considering how limited their resources were. . . . It's still stunning.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King