2001: A Space Odyssey

ok this is the 2nd time i've seen it, the 1st time i really didn't care about it. This time i am watching it and paying attention to see what all the hype is about. Now mind you I'm 29 and have never really watched the old classics, for one reason them seem boring to me. Well I watched 2001 again and I have to say it's a very stunning movie for the visuals and the cinematograrphy, but the story.
WHAT THE HELL WAS KUBRICK AND CLARKE ON????

I was fine with the flick all the way up to the point where everything lines up and Dave goes flying thru space, which i found to be kinda cool. What happen to the rest of it tho, maybe I don't understand what was being said by the movie, but it was just damn weird.

what did yall think of it?
the next movie I'm going to watch is Apocalypse Now

Just to show you are not alone, I have watched this movie every ten years or so, at ages of 10, 20 and 30 approximately, and can't "understand" it too, but it becomes cooler every time I watch (at 10 it was the longest and most boring movie ever). I hope to understand it when I'm 60 or 70 LOL.

Actually I guess one point of the movie is that you can't understand everything, there are some artefacts and things that we are not supposed to understand, because they are put in place by some higher level beings.

And you might find some answers from the sequel, 2010: Odyssey Two (aka 2010: The Year We Made Contact or sth). There is ten times more text in the sequel, but it's visually cool too.

yeah that one is on it's way
i haven't seen it so hopefully it may help

funny story too, about the sametime i watched 2001 the 1st time I watched "The Wall" with my now ex-wife. i didn't understand it or like it and it made her mad. this was back in 96 when i was 21.

Read the book.

The book is very dry, slightly technical, but very well written, and does an excellent job of explaining the story.

The Movie is quite the opposite, full of wild images, very little dialoge and lots of hinted at alternative ideals.


Consumed seperatly they are both good, and interesting, but seem to be missing somthing.
Consumed together, they become something that is IMO quite special.


Don't waste your time on the movie sequals though, both movies were IMO very bad. Both attempt to follow Kubricks style, but fail miserably. Only Kubrick could do Kubrick.

The sequal books arn't much better, altough the story is explained in a lot more detail, however they are IMO strictly sci fi fan material only (and the only A.C.Clark books I consider worthy of reading, the rest are crap, but what else do you expect from child mollestor).

Get the DVD, and watch it twice, the second time with the Rodger Waters commentry on. Then watch the interviews.
It will make sense, possibly to much sense.
It will also go someway to explaining why Pink Floyd broke up, and show that The Wall is one of the greatest examples of ironys in the modern age.


Altough just one warning, I have a friend who loved the album, then he saw the movie, understood it, and now can't listen to the album, as it reminds of how disturbed he was by the movie.

I agree about reading the books. Kubrick was great, but his interpretations of books aren't always accurate. I hated Kubrick's version of the Shining because the book was so great. Then again, I always think that the book is better than the movie. The only one that came closer was The Godfather. Great book, great movie. (Well I and II were great.)


When the Wall - the album - first came out it stayed on my turntable for something like 40 days. I listened to it - actually seriously listened to it on headphones - 12 or 15 times. I understood it all, but it probably helped that Pink Floyd was one of my favorite bands and I was extremely familiar with all their albums, and quite knowledgable about Syd Barrett.

Don't get me started on Rodger Waters.

Movies rarely equal or top the books.. another exception.. Blade Runner.. understand.. I am a "Dick" fan (go ahead.. laugh) and have read tons of his work.. (I'd llike to say "most" but the guy wrote so much I doubt thats true)

Anyway.. "Do Andoids Dream of Electric Sheep" is NOT one of his better novels.. and the Movie is in reality barely based on the book.. and the movie is well frankly.. MUCH better than the book


Back to 2001.. the "psychedelic light show" at the end was a victim of the times for two reasons.

1> Everyone was doing that kind of drug back then.. so light shows were part of the culture.

2> At the time.. all that flashy hocus pocus was probably consider cutting edge where as now (and even in 1977 when I first saw it) it all seemed pretty "hokey"

Great movie though.. to bad about the hokey light show at the end.

i do plan on reading the book one day, right now i'm working on LORT(lord of the rings) and Stephen Hawkings The Theory of Everything and don't really want to take on another book at the moment.

I do agree with yall that the books are usally better than the movie, but don't forget the movie only takes up about 2 hours, so you have to condence the book down.

I will get the DVD to the wall and see whats up with that. thanks


the 'lightshow' was a cool part of the movie and like yall are saying it seems 'hokey', and that's kinda of the release i don't go back and watch old flicks, besides like the old Star Wars.

There are two schools of thought on 2001: A Space Odyssey. One is that it's a fantastic cinematic achievment and one of the greatest films of all time. The other is that it's pretentious drivel too obsessed by it's "state of the art" special effects which have aged really badly. I'm in the "pretentious drivel" camp.

Incidently, it was based on an Arthur C. Clarke short story called "The Sentinel" which isn't bad. The 2001 book was released after the movie to try and cash in on it's success.

2001 was meant to leave the audience questing answers. So if you feel lost, your right on target!

2010 will fill in most of the blanks for you though.

Far from being the best movie of it's genre, 2001 is a great movie. (Though I agree that the space "trip" with the coloured lights is overdone and could easily have been trimmed down to 1/4 of it's length)

As for The Shining. The made for TV movie is much much better, though it still lacked a few great bits from the book. Kubriks version just misses the mark...