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Christopher Nolan Returns Kubrick Sci-Fi Masterpiece '2001: A Space Odyssey' To Its Original Glory (latimes.com)
LA Times' Kenneth Turan traces Christopher Nolan's meticulous restoration of Kubrick's masterpiece to its 70-mm glory: Christopher Nolan wants to show me something interesting. Something beautiful and exceptional, something that changed his life when he was a boy. It's also something that Nolan, one of the most accomplished and successful of contemporary filmmakers, has persuaded Warner Bros. to share with the world both at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival and then in theaters nationwide, but in a way that boldly deviates from standard practice.
For what is being cued up in a small, hidden-away screening room in an unmarked building in Burbank is a brand new 70-mm reel of film of one of the most significant and influential motion pictures ever made, Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science-fiction epic "2001: A Space Odyssey." Yes, you read that right. Not a digital anything, an actual reel of film that was for all intents and purposes identical to the one Nolan saw as a child and Kubrick himself would have looked at when the film was new half a century ago.
For what is being cued up in a small, hidden-away screening room in an unmarked building in Burbank is a brand new 70-mm reel of film of one of the most significant and influential motion pictures ever made, Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science-fiction epic "2001: A Space Odyssey." Yes, you read that right. Not a digital anything, an actual reel of film that was for all intents and purposes identical to the one Nolan saw as a child and Kubrick himself would have looked at when the film was new half a century ago.
NOLAN
It looks much better on vinyl.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
SQUIRREL!!!!
The original was in Cinerama.
It looks much better on vinyl.
It's really obscure, you've probably never heard/seen it before...
Now where's the 4K torrent of that beauty?
This back-to-analog BS is out of control. Wake me up when digital is IN again.
I read the article, but still don't know what is significant.
It sounds like they made a copy of the original 70 mm film? Can anyone explain why this is newsworthy?
Too bad the movie sucks. It's one of the most overrated movies of all time. It's slow, boring, and non-sensical.
It's a Kubric film, so if you turn up the volume you can hear him softly masturbating throughout each long, drawn out scene.
It's based on Clarke's work, so you may as well turn it off half way through and make up your own ending. You'll get a better result than Clarke, and you'll get it much sooner.
Oh, look! Here come the zealots to tell me how I'm too stupid to "get" it, how the scenes at the end make sense if you take acid while lobotomizing yourself, and how the grand imagery and fairly accurate depictions of space somehow make a turd into a diamond. Nope, sorry.
Hey Kubrick! Are you ever gonna get around to writing the second half of Full Metal Jacket? I like what I saw, but the projectionist swapped in a different film halfway through. Strangely, this mistake has been repeated on every video/DVD/etc. release I've seen so far. If you need some help finishing, maybe give John Kricfalusi a call, he's known for timely work!
with the original Klingon soundtrack!
A big THANK YOU to Mr Nolan from someone who saw this movie fifty years ago for his 8th birthday, and I've been a space geek ever since.
2001 still most compelling sci-fi movie ever made. Haters can't stand the long cut scenes etc., but then go watch a (so fake its painful to watch) CGI Midtown fall down in 'new' way for Avengers 57 or whatever.
If you're not watching it on a 1936 343-line 9" RCA RR-359 receiver then you're not seeing it the way Kubrick originally intended.
Splendidly good on my DvD player. It's a Suny so you know it's good stuff.
There is no right answer, but somehow, you've both managed to be wrong.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
I saw this when it first came out, as an adult and fan of SciFi. I came away secure in the knowledge that I understood the point of the movie every bit as completely as Kubrick - which was not at all. Nice visuals for the time. A plot would have been a nice touch.
I remember the first time I saw 2001. I was at my grandmothers place and it was on cable. I didn't see it from the begining, I came in on the star gate scene. I was sitting there thinking WTF am I watching? I liked it. Then came the hotel scene, then the star child scene. Even eventually after watching the whole movie I still didn't get it. It wasn't until I read the book that it made any sense. When ever I read 2001 I visualize it as the movie because I can't think of anything better. I even imagine Heywood Floyd portrayed by Roy Scheider.
It is mostly Nietzsche's _Also Sprach Zarathustra_, and Clarke and Kubrick knew it.
The opening music isn't an accident.
for what Wikipedia's worth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra): " More specifically, this note related to the concept of the eternal recurrence, which is, by Nietzsche's admission, the central idea of Zarathustra; this idea occurred to him by a **"pyramidal block of stone"** on the shores of Lake Silvaplana in the Upper Engadine, "
"Another singular feature of Zarathustra, first presented in the prologue, is the designation of human beings as a transition between apes and the "Übermensch" "
There's the plot. HAL 9000 is humanity's failure at forcing the ubermensch.
"At any rate, it is by Zarathustra's transfiguration that he embraces eternity, that he at last ascertains "the supreme will to power".[6] " The book makes this more clear. Clarke and Kubrick agree that both co-wrote the book and film.
Wikipedia editor: "The book embodies a number of innovative poetical and rhetorical methods of expression."
As did the film---complex, rhetorical and unusual and non-literal.
It looks even better on a wax disk
The BEST TV series ever is "The Wild Wild West".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R5DWIVhrMY
The advanced AI, daily spaceflight with established lunar colony and space hotels, none of that came to pass by 2001 (or has even yet).
But during the video phone call to his daughter (played by Kubrick's daughter), Heywood Floyd asks her what she wants for her birthday.
Her reply: "A Bush Baby"
Which is exactly what the US got for a president in 2001. I shit you not.
It actually kind of is available on vinyl. Ok, it's not really vinyl, but these discs were apparently stamped on more or less standard phonographic record manufacturing equipment. See also CED...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I am sort of middle-ground. I do think the movie is overrated and it is one of my least favourite Kubrick movies (my favourite are Dr. Strangelove, Barry Lyndon, Clockwork Orange - probably in that order), but I can appreciate how it is ground-braking and visually (and audibly) stunning - especially in its day, but remarkably holding up. If it were not for 2 needlessly long sequences: the start with the apes, and the approaching the monolith psychedelia, as well as a much more cryptic than required and tiring ending, I bet everyone would be able to appreciate it. At least the problem with the cryptic ending can be alleviated without needing to read the book: just watch the sequel "2010: The year we make contact". It is a more mainstream movie, it doesn't try to be a masterpiece, however it explains everything that happened in 2001 and it is a decent film in its own right.
So, not a turd, but neither the flawless diamond it is portrayed. I mean. if there are scenes that seriously bore a person like me who e.g. considers a Mussorgsky symphony exciting throughout, it should at least be considered an "uneven" or "flawed" movie, no matter how good it was in parts.
Of course art is always a matter of taste...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Wait, what? I don't think that is what they died for. Not that I was there or anything.
I loved the camera work and cuts in Interstellar. Same with the soundtrack.
What would it take to convince Chris Nolan to take on Clarke's Rama books and transfer to the big screen?
Can you imagine seeing the inside of the Rama spacecraft on an IMAX screen?
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
The movie was an allegory about the repressed gender stasis of that time. The movie is a stand-in for gender fluidity and alternate ways of viewing and experiencing gender. It is no wonder that at the time the movie's largest fan base was among the nascent transgender sci-fi movement whose nexus was New York's Christopher Street transvestite community. From there, and much to Arthur C. Clarke's approval, it spread and grew. And here today is stands as bastion not only against Trumpism, but also against Hillaryism and her faux persona which belies her heterosexist core.
He killed them all because of a conflicted routine in his programming.
He was programmed to fully objective and report everything without withholding or error.
He was then told to withhold information from his crew and effectively lie to them.
Being still a machine based on logic. The problem was resolved by:
If crew = dead
Then lie = null
He no longer had to withhold data if the entities he was to withhold from were dead.
Star Trek The Motion Picture tried to match the pacing. The series did not retain that slow pace. Most will agree that it is too slow.
That said, we are on the far side of history from this film. Much of the awe and wonder is passé, we've seen it so many times before. Many of the technological advances of the film have already been surpassed in this decade.
In addition, the artistic and ambiguous ending has already been brought closer to reality in other media, tales, and plotlines. It is more interesting now as a historical piece to give us insight into the limitations of the imaginations of previous generations.
Excuse my technical naivety, but doesn't the Seattle Cinerama already show 2001 in their 70mm festival?
(https://cinerama.com/News/July-2017/Announcing-70mm-Film-Festival.aspx)
> My generation just doesn't get old movies like this. 100%!
Oh, well, here we go...
*My* generation didn't get it, too -- and I am from the same generation as your dad: I've seen it in the cinemas, in its original form, before PCs were invented. So it was not digital, obviously.
And yes, it is a masterpiece. It's beautiful, it has clever non-digital effetcs which were described in a magazine that already closed shop, with that same photo of the two astronauts looking serious.
The problem is what people expect from a movie. If you want art, fine, Kubrick is a master in doing art and I doubt I would be qualified to even comment about his works.
That said, fiction (including movies) is not just art. Sci-fi, in particular, is quite arid -- quite differently from other types with all kinds of aspects from human nature. And if we're gonna talk abou sci-fi, well then, maybe then there' something to be said.
Again I must look old, but I see a quality decline in that genre, and "A Space Odyssey" is on the middle of the way to disaster that would come later: Star Wars.
Just as a checklist, I leave you with a few items, nothing exaustive, just done impromptu:
- plot;
- depth;
- actor prowess;
- director quality demands (exaggerate with Chaplin, for instance);
- a rhythm that holds the audience attention with quality -- not with speed, like Star Wars -- or 2001, BTW;
- empathy with the audience (I don't know whether "rapport" would be a better word here);
- and other things, but I got tired.
That's the short length version. It was developed concurrently with the novel. They actually ended up filming two hundred times as much footage as was in the final movie.
https://inktank.fi/17-little-k...
"Many theater owners had observed increasing numbers of young adults attending the film, who were especially enthusiastic about watching the ‘Star Gate’ sequence under the influence of psychotropic drugs. "
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
This movie is one of the worst sci fi movies, of not movies in general. Go watch an actual good sci-fi like Alerted Carbon or any Blonkampf movie
The approved method was to smoke a lot of reefer in the parking lot, and eat a couple of brownies. About the time the smoke was wearing off and Keir Dullea's pupils stopped dialating, the brownies were really fully kicking in for the "My God, it's full of stars" bit.
I remember the very very first time I saw it (no brownies as yet), I was the only person in the theatre who had read the book already. I remember narrating (as best I could) "what the fuck is going on?" for the people around me.
OK, I can see Nolan's point about the benefits of an analog process that captures light 1:1 by directly transferring it to a medium. But the rub is in the playback of that medium, because that always introduces flaws and errors in the recreation.
For example, I absolutely hated going to most movie theaters 10 years ago because I was sure to run into images out of focus, color lamps misaligned, scratches in the film, stutter in the playback, limitations in sound reproduction, etc. A digital projection system produces a film that is just amazingly more stable and overall enjoyable by a factor of 10 over the old movie projection systems.
But sure, if I could see a fresh 70mm print on a calibrated projector, that would be worth some money. It's similar to the IMAX experience. I just love the opening of Dark Knight in an IMAX theater, where the film just throws you right into an IMAX helicopter shot, bam! You can literally feel your body slump forward. That's an awesome effect.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I was thinking along the lines of how some music was mixed to sound good on over AM on a cheap transistor radio (where "good" == "almost acceptable if you're stoned") but you've hit the nail on the head far better than I could. Bravo.
P.S. That thing's huge. Is the bottom half where you store the coal?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We are at least 3/4 of the way there. In 50 years they won't even know what 2001 is/was. They may think it's a documentary.
The analogous format war is naturally cellophane vs. digital. See what I did there? And it wasn't quantized a bit.
It is clear from the peasants who have dissed the idea of this have never seeen a 70 mm film shot and projected in a huge screen in a deluxe theatre environment where I first saw it. I remember the exact place, the exact day, the exact time who I was with as this experience changed not only my life but also those of the theatre goers. It was a world of art and I,animation so beautifully considered and produced and the projection quality was flawless, rich and perfection. The image was super sharp and dynamic range was astonishing..Black was ink black and the brightness of say, the moon was startling in what we now know to be actual...this is not your big screen TV theatre..this is film and film is what digital image making has been trying to achieve and though it gets closer this dim will show how close it has come but not there yet.
A friend of mine worked on the arms of the pod, built them actually and the intimacy which he had of the making of this film has been a background conversation with me knowing what I did know of it. I own it on yes, laserdisk. I have watched this masterpiece thirty or more times and I can tell you it is a flawless work of genius. For those who have yet to see it, you have a wonderful experience ahead and for those who think the technology ought to be this or that jist miss then-principle of art.
Mehhh, I just popped some Lucy and went on a 12 hour trip. The whole movie was like that one scene to me.
I was going to high school in Manhattan when 2001 came out. As a science fiction fan, I had to see it right away, so I went to an afternoon show at a huge theater on 34th Street near the Empire State building. This was just before the multiplex boom began, so there were still some of these theaters around, and I was lucky enough to see 2001 in one. However, there were only about 12 people in the place, making me think it might be a tough sell for the masses.
Thus, I was able to see it the first time in a "first run" theater, which had the 70mm wide-screen format and also had 6 channel (or perhaps 8 channel) sound. This had a two major impacts on my viewing experience: (1) all the imagery and music was just spectacular (beginning with the opening), and (2) in the scene with the proto-humans ("Dawn of Man"), the sounds of the fighting was not just "left/right" but also "front/back" (I even think some sounds were coming from behind the screen).
I say all this because 2001 did not remain in this kind of venue for long, and I think nearly everyone who has seen it since doesn't fully appreciate the visual and sonic awesomeness of this film, because on a normal screen or even a HDTV at home, you don't get the full scale immersive experience I remember from that "first run' showing. To test this I have actually been to see a couple of showings at spaces that are like AFI in the DC area and TIFF in Toronto. These "revival" settings are great for most films, but not for one of this scale. Going to one of these showings was not a total disappointment, but not the kind of experience I had expected by any means.
I have been hoping someone would do a fresh 70mm print; now that this is available, if the IMAX folks could work with the owner of that print to offer a viewing experience close to what I saw in 1968 I think it would be well worth it. Projected on the IMAX large screen with the theater sound system in these venues would be a fitting tribute to this film, and a proper activity for its 50th anniversary.
IMAX Folks - please do an internal viewing of this new print asap so you can fully appreciate what I am talking about. Viewing a restored 70mm print in an IMAX theater - where the size of the projected image can reveal levels of detail I can only vaguely remember - will really help provide current viewers with a better appreciation for why 2001 has the reputation it does. None of this can fix the plot issues, but I think you will be surprised how much that won't matter once you have seen it in the kind of theater Kubrick originally had in mind.