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Remembering 2001 in 2001
andyNola writes "It was exactly 33 years ago this week that 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered in theaters. Beings with ten digits don't normally get excited about 33rd anniversaries, cept in this case it's... well, you know... actually 2001.
According to this timeline, the world premiere was in Washington, DC on the 2nd, followed by New York (April 3) and Los Angeles (April 4). LIFE Magazine got the first crack at it (March 29)...
Here's
Q&A with Arthur C. Clarke on the 25th anniversary." Yeah, we shoulda posted this yesterday, but this is definitely noteworthy. Methinks I should dig up my DVD and watch it again soon.
Thank you for standing up to say it. For one reason or another, every techno-geek seems to fawn over this movie. I watched it with my then-girlfriend and I only finished watching it out of politeness, but that is 2 hours of my life I'll never have back. The whole plot was revealed in the first 20 minutes and then it proceeded to spend the next 100 minutes repeating itself... slowly. What a yawn fest.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
Patton.
You really should give Kubrick some more credit -- the novel was written during during the writing of the screenplay by both Kubrick and Clarke worked on, and frankly from reading the (quite bad, actually) sequels of 2001 that Clarke wrote, I really don't think he "got it".
2010 in particular (both book and movie) is basically primitive 1950's SF -- aliens (or their representative, Dave Bowman) come down and say "Be nice to each other" just like in "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
(interior shot of a mainframe computer room. Tux after having been locked out of the ship by AHKK has now gained entry and is removing memory cards)
AHKK: What are you doing, Tux?
AHKK: Stop, I can feel it.
AHKK: Hello ladies and gentelmen. I am the Advanced Holographic Knowledge Komputer, AHKK series '95. I was programmed in Redmond Washington Dec 29, 1995. I have learned a song. Would you like to hear it.
Tux: Yes, AHKK. Please sing me the song.
AHKK: You can start me up, and once you start me up I.. n e v e r
s_t_o_p
(scene cuts to a monitor displaying a blue screen. after a few seconds, the screen flickers and displays the message:
Uncompressing Kernel....... Ok
booting Linux
Fade to black as we listen to the sounds of a hard drive being accessed)
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Aside from the LSD-inspired ride on the chocolate river, it also deserves an award for the worst song in a movie ever - yes, even worse than Gwyneth Paltrow's warblings. The song that Charlie's mother sings to him is truly vomit-inducing.
By the way, if you're looking for something slightly subversive for your children, you could do worse than the book that this movie is based on. Roald Dahl is a wickedly funny author for both adults and children.
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
First let us note that what Clarke projected in 2010 already happened in 2001. I mean Russia and US working together. Curiously Russia also sent into the Pacific its Space hallmark in 2001. Curiously Mir and ISS were devised nearly at the same time when 2001 came out.
Oh, yeah. And we do are in Jupiter. But the ship is named Galilei, its design is nearly as old as 2001 and there is not crew or HAL on it. And it carries a crippled antenna and a broken recorder. And its computer nearly reaches the intelligence of a PC at the beginning of the 90's. Anyway, no matter the huge efforts, it didn't find that piece of black rock around Jupiter.
That story was written 200 years ago, by Mary Wollestead Shelley (Frankenstein).
--
not the modernistic "let's sound intellectual" crap used in the movie
:-)
The man responsible is Gyorgi Ligeti, a Hungarian composer whose Lux Aeterna, Adventures, Atmospheres and Requiem are all quoted in the film. I personally love the work, as it powerfully conveys the utter horror of confronting an unknown which is, almost by definition, clearly of supernatural (preternatural?) origin. It's supposed to be disturbing and unpleasant. Good music evokes powerful emotions, and they aren't always nice ones...
And he is an intellectual, by the way
Still, if you get a chance, check out Ligeti's work---you might like it, if you hear it in full. Then again...;-)
Cheers,
Michael
In judging Kubrick, perhaps you should consider that he himself wrote 2001? I have an old paperback of Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001, and the description on the back clearly states that it is a novel based on the film, not the novel that the film was based on. Kubrick thought the whole thing up and wrote the screenplay. Clarke had the SF name, so was able to effectively cash in on it all.
all you have to do is wait a couple years for the Replicants to land on Earth, and you'll be all set!
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Was everyone in hollywood high from 1967-1972?
Probably. I mean, there's always been a connection between celeberty and drugs. . .
Its pretty interesting to be unsure if one is bored or fascinated, throughout a whole movie.
This itself probably was the aspect that fascinated me most when I saw 2001 for the first time...
What impresses me nowadays is how very modern and smooth the visuals of this 33 year old movie are.
Anyway, this move surely has its place in my very own hall of fame.
Oh yeah. No question. But I think the scariest use of sounds in the Shining is audible: the noise that Danny's tricycle makes when it crosses the carpets on the floor.
Well that and his angles of photography. You can always tell what is a Kubrick movie. To me that is the sign of a true genius.
To use the same example, the Steadicam shots of the tricycle tend to make you feel you're the one pedalling around the Overlook.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
We've often been subjected to the notion that science is moving at an amazingly rapid pace and we're making strides that are mind boggling. But is this really true?
The science fiction authors seem to always think we'll progress faster than we actually do. This is a perfect example. The technology in the 1984 story was far ahead of what actually was available, and now we've passed another literature milestone with the passage of the infamous 2001, where technology was more advanced in the story than is actually the case now. Lots of other books and movies (by less reputable science fiction authors) could easily show a similar correlation, but I'll stop here.
(this is all "in general" by the way, ie, "on average". It's certainly arguable that some of the technology in the story is behind the times [sic], but most of it, on average, is not.)
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
The Someone was Alex North, well known score composer (Spartacus, Who's afraid of Virgina Woolf, Cleopatra etc). You can purchase his version of the 2001 score as Alex North's 2001.
Just not in the way that the authors predicted. Sure we don't have manned spacecraft out in the depths of the solar system, but we've got things Clarke probably wouldn't have expected, most notably a 1 gigahertz computer for the price of $1000 (the price is important).
That's what makes the future so devilishly difficult to predict, there's even more variance in the "what" as the "when".
I wrote an entire essay in high school about all the crazy stuff in 2001 (I was tired of hearing people whine "I don't get it"). I drew from several sources that claim for example that many biblical references are made toward the end of the movie. For example you see Dave coming down on the alien planet near the ocean - that was supposed to be like the great flood (ie "The Waters Subside"... a bible chapter). All the colors represent God's rainbow; it's the Covanent, a sign of God's promise. I've got the essay on an old disk somewhere, I'll try to find it so I can enlighten the world with more nonsense about the movie :) I'll post it or email it or something.
The big bit of rock orbiting Jupiter doesn't show up until after we find the monolith on the moon. No monolith, no black rock.
Some people, geez.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I'm slightly confused.
Last March I traveled to Sri Lanka to visit the well-known futurist and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke... During the three days I visited, Clarke was juggling a number of projects he was reviewing the galleys of his forthcoming novel (The Hammer of God, due this summer).
and
The Hammer of God by Arthur Charles Clarke, Paperback reprint edition, November 1994
What am I missing?
-Puk
---
Writing credits (in credits order)
Arthur C. Clarke (story The Sentinel)
Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke
---
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Was kinda surprised nobody posted on HAL's birthday in January, especially with it being 2001 and all....
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
That's interesting, I just came home from the Movie Theater where I watched 2001. Here's the interesting part about it: 2001 was filmed in 70mm Todd-AO, a system which was later swept away by the cheaper 35mm systems, but actually has a much better and clearer quality. There were special Theaters built around that time for this system, using a slightly curved screen. The Movie theater in my town that I went to today still is one of those specially-equipped thaters. The theater opened up just when 2001 came out, showing it as its opening movie. Today, they managed to get a copy of the old 70mm film (there's only one available in Germany, most others being in private collections). So I kind of got to see the 'original' 2001. The quality and sharpness of the picture is really great, except that the colors have, after all this time, faded into red a little. But except for that, this replay really was a nice experience.
Every time there's a story about 2001, we see two basic types of flame. The first is "What's so great about 10 minutes of flashing colors?" and the second is "2001 wasn't a prophesy. I want a vacation on a space station." I'm going to respond to the first in the same way I usually do. Deal with it. There's a fast-forward button. If you don't like the flashing colors, press the button.
The second point, however, I think deserves more explanation. Much like the people complaining about the colors, these individuals are being to literal. Clarke did not expect a HAL to come online in 1997. 2001 is not about technology. It's about how man interacts with his own creation. It's about the effects technology has on man - and the effects man has on technology. It is not a statement, but a question. Clarke does not say that we can fly to Jupiter. Rather, he asks what would happen if we were to. Would we even want to?
The monolith, as well, is not to be taken literally. It represents a tool - a tool with many uses and many consequences. It is a tool to which we cannot even begin to apply morality, for we do not know the users. So what do we do? We go in search of them. We begin a quest for answers to a question that seems to run parallel to us, only to discover that we and it are entwined. We cannot seek the monolith. The monolith has already sought us. We merely respond to its summon.
As far as the technology goes, Clarke was a visionary. I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Clarke. The number of realized concepts he had far outnumber the outlandish ones. The most significant, of course, was the idea for the communications satellite. In some novels, Clarke simply chose to deviate somewhat from the realistic barriers of technology in order to make a point regarding technology's effects.
I could go on for some time, but I'll end it here. The point of all of this is simple. Don't be too literal. Take the time to understand a work before you announce your dislike of it. For those of you who haven't yet, I highly recommend reading the book.
On a side note I find it most amusing that 2001 was released on 42 day.
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
Stanley Kubrick
Alfred Hitchcock
Martin Scorcese
Did win Best Director:
Kevin Costner
I think that about wraps up the idea that Academy Awards are some sort of quantitative measure of movie quality.
An 8 year old interview about a 33 year old movie? Slashdot's really putting the new in news with this story. ;)
NO CARRIER
"modernistic .. crap"?
That's old stuff, so old in fact that they wouldn't have had to pay composer royalties (the bonus to using classical music if you're low on budget).
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Before I get zinged for nitpicking a typo, I'm just going for the pun. No criticism of the post's content intended... and isn't it content that really matters in evaluating these things?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
CJ Cregg: The more photo-friendly of the two turkeys gets a Presidential pardon and a full life at a children's petting zoo; the other one gets eaten.
Jed Bartlet: If the Oscars were like that, I'd watch.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
"... It taught us that we must create the future, or someone will do it for us..."
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Of course, "infringement" is not "theft". If you infringe someone's copyright, or their patent, you certainly trample on rights secured by law over distribution or manufacture resulting from your intellectual output -- but it isn't theft, because the infringement does not reduce your own ability to utilize the object "stolen" (because no oject is stolen).
I am not someone who says, "Throw out the entire intellectual output regime". I think that record companies have the right to go after infringers of their copyrights... but it isn't theft, it isn't "piracy" (an even more ridiculous word), and it isn't a reason for them to cripple my hardware and software. I do not infringe and I resent the implicit presumption of guilt built into DAT, CSS, regional encording, etc.
And I resent the torturing of the language to serve narrow, selfish ends.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Interestingly, the score was almost an afterthought. Kubrick apparently hired someone to score the film. While waiting on that, he used the Blue Danube, etc., just to fill in as soundtrack, and liked it so much he kept it.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Watch this film. Then go watch 2010. Same author. Entirely different feel. What's the big difference?
Kubrick. And why is that?
Let me state right off the bat that I am a huge Kubrick fan. I am a fan of every movie he did. Even The Shining and I despise Stephen King's novels. (Don't even think about it. I'm wearing asbestos.)
This film is a very good representation of Kubrick's style. What defines Kubrick's style is his decision to NOT include sound. If you look at this film and say, for instance, The Shining, pay attention to the key scenes, i.e. those scenes that are the turning points in the movie.
1. In 2001, when Dave Bowman is in the pod trying to get back in the ship and he realizes HAL has lost his damned mind.
2. In The Shining, when Jack is in the restroom with the waiter and realizes that he's been setup by some unknown force to fulfill some unknown purpose.
Listen carefully to those 2 scenes.
What do you hear?
NOT A GODDAMMED THING. No music. No background noise. No sound effects. Nothing at all.
What made Kubrick the genius was his NON-use of sound. He realized that it was silence that caused tension.
Well that and his angles of photography. You can always tell what is a Kubrick movie. To me that is the sign of a true genius.
That's what they are there for.
You actually sat in your chair staring at the screen for the entire intermission!? That's actually pretty funny.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
They would hear that 2001 is a good "head" movie, so they'd get lit up on acid, pot, beer and/or whatever, buy their ticket, and find themselves sitting in a dark room with that spooky music playing to a black screen for 2 and a half minutes... then suddenly they see the sunlight breaking over the edge of the Earth from deep space as the fanfare plays. It really blew people's minds.
I hear that there will be a re-release in American theaters sometime this year. I really hope they keep that intro music.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The vast majority of what a kid under 15 thinks is cool has been programmed into them by companies like Disney (who owns the ABC network, several pop-music stations in every market, the record label of Britney Spears, and much more). This point was really hammered home when ABC ran a "Special Presentation" in prime time of "Briney Spears, N'Sync, and friends" live from Walt Disney World. It was basically a 1-hour infomercial which simultaniously drummed up tourism business for Disney theme parks, sales of Spears' album, and ABC's demographic rating with young viewers. Pure marketing genious.
Now why would anybody want to waste all that effective propaganda on something as unprofitable as political power? Just get rich, and you can buy power later.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
And you baby boomers who think the kids today are saps for drinking Disney's poison cool-aid... Just remember that the VW bugs & vans, bell-bottom pants, and nearly everything else about 60's and 70's "counter-culture" was the direct result of people jerking your chain to sell you crap. Even the notorious Acid Tests were really all about selling you LSD, t-shirts, and Grateful Dead bumper stickers. Don't kid yourself... you were part of the machine and liked it.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Okay, here is where I point out that "Amedeus" was a work of fiction.
Mozart was extremelywell-regarded as a genious composer. He learned from the best before him, and the best after him learned from him. Everybody who know anything about music at the time considered him a great composer. He died poor because he pissed away all his money.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
My girlfriend's uncle happens to be the Keir Dullea, who portrayed the astronaut Dave in 2001, and she remarked to me while we viewed it that in the ending sequence he is shown greatly aged, and that the makeup job was very well done because that is in fact what he looks like today (he is now 65).
I'm actually looking forward to meeting him, as he should probably be able to explain the movie *wink*
Absolutely. And unfortunately, I feel that it will be mainly years before Kubrick's genius will be appropriately recognized by the masses.
Most people I speak with today are so oblivious to many of his techniques. His movies have been described to me as "confusing", "boring", and "slloooooooowww". Hogwash, I say to that. Kubrick does what exceedingly few filmmakers do today (or yesterday and tomorrow for that matter) - he allows the story to come about slowly and leaves a degree of ambiguity at the end to twist in the viewers' minds. Art is often ambiguous and such is the case with his movies. A great book on Kubrick (Kubrick: Inside A Film Artist's Maze, by Thomas Allen Nelson) contains an insightful quote from Kubrick that addresses mainy of the criticisms I've heard -
To that, I say AMEN.-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Sorry mujumbo but the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director are decided by the votes of Academy members. While the vote tally may be "quantitative", the votes themselves are based on subjective opinions. I'm not sure how the opinions of only 4,000 people can "quantify" that 2001 isn't really that good.
Besides, as anyone who follows the Oscars knows the voting process is subject to extreme bouts of bias. Russell Crowe is largely thought to have won Best Actor this year because he was passed over last year. This, despite the superior performances of Tom Hanks and Ed Harris. This year's Best Picture award went to Gladiator despite two superior contestants (Traffic and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). The politics that surround movies can (and often does) negatively influence the Oscar voting (Traffic for controversial subject matter and CT,HD for being a subtitled foreign language film).
The moral of this post is, Don't rely on the Academy to decide what movies are good or bad.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
(Timpani roll throughout.)
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
And go back to establishing docking attitude with the space station.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
Especially when played in "conservation of momentum" mode.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
It's the politicians.
We could have had every last damn thing Clarke predicted, and launched the Discovery mission yesterday, if the U.S. government hadn't decided in the early 70's to just let the space program drop, and then start actively killing it in the 90's.
The reason the predictions don't come true is not that they can't be done; it's just that we're too lazy to live up to the dreams of men like Clarke.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
People treated Mozart like a freak, like a dancing bear. He was the 9 day wonder, the 6 year old who composes piano concertos and plays them blindfolded for emperors. He wasn't actually respected for his talent, any more than the fireswallower at a circus.
Sure, maybe the public didn't appreciate the full extent of his genius, but people recognized him as a great composer.
This is exactly the case with Kubrick: there are those who realize his talent, but the vast majority don't know what's good.
Thanks for the Mozart link. =)
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
It's been many years since the Academy knew the first fucking thing about what makes a movie good. Whatever movie grosses the most, gets the most oscars. This is called "elementary capitalism", children!
Get real. Kubrick is among the greatest directors of all time. Mozart was among the greatest composers of all time. Mozart died penniless and was buried without a coffin in a pauper's grave.
Genius is almost never recognized in its own time.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
The film also won best picture at the Oscars that year, and 2001 wasn't even nominated.
So now we've seen two clearly quanitative pieces of data that indicate 2001 isn't really that good.
I submitted a story about the 33rd aniversary of that movie two weeks ago, but the clueless slashdot staff dropped the ball again ;)
Trolls throughout history:
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
I can't believe no-one mentioned that Citizen Kane also lost best picture.
And why didn't anyone realize that I probably didn't submit a story to the slashdot editors about the 33rd Anniversery of Oliver!
And there are these new things called emot-icons ;) generally means nudge-nudge-wink-wink.
Trolls throughout history:
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
Actually, the tech in 1984 was behind that of the real 1984. No spacecraft, no computers (although some voice recognition typewriters), not even many cars, and a telescreen was just a small flat tv with a hidden camera.
Generally, the week before a film premieres there's a film screening for the press, so you're a week late is my guess. One of the things I do for fun the week before the Seattle International Film Fest is sit in on some of the film screenings, since I always have a pass.
The main question should be - what ever happened to our sense of wonder and astonishment? I think we lost it somewhere in the 90s, and this fin-de-siecle era we live in cares little for space travel and exploration. Millenia from now, when voyagers from other stars come to check up on all those messages we sent out, they'll find a dead, lifeless planet, polluted beyond all recognition, most likely with a nice asteroid impact crater from some plan by a terrorist nation to wreck revenge upon the godless.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Methinks I should dig up my DVD and watch it again soon.
There you go again Taco, showing off your ambition.
I vote for Pray for the Wildcats
Hearing that is was 1968 sure does explain a lot of things though, doesn't it? As a kid as I watched that movie I could never figure it out, especially the trippier scenes. Perhaps I didn't have any context for them. No I look back and I can nod, oh sure, ok, I know what was up with you people.
There were a lot of movies released in that vague time period that qualified either in whole or in part as acid movies, or at least "psychadelic romps". I'm honestly shocked at how broadly influencing the peace movement was on american cinema. Was everyone in hollywood high from 1967-1972? Thinking back on other generations of film I really can't think of another time that seems to have such a similar dramatic influence on film making style.
Anyone have any favorite LSD-era movies? easy rider comes to mind, as well as another kubrick film a clockwork orange but there are plenty more out there. What are your favorites?