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.

Comments

Re:Rotten Tomatoes: 10%

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

First time

[Dusthead Jr.]

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.

Re:Timeless film

[TheZeitgeist]

So, feel free to sit around with your pipe and smoking jacket doing the kinds of things one does when wearing a smoking jacket ... and discuss in detail how HAL is a metaphor for human suffering an inequity and that the docking scene is representational of intercourse ... me, I'll take a good Avengers film any day.

I don't try reading between the lines (seeing between the frames?) on the movie. Meh. What I like about the movie is its a visual spectacle that makes one think. It is a movie that makes limitations work. A good example is the monolith. Supposed to be alien probe. Bowman supposed to be at alien planet/place at the end. And there was lots of talk about what the aliens should be like, look like, and so forth. It was none other than Carl Sagan's idea to avoid presenting the aliens or their tech in anything but the most generalized abstraction. Throw the superhero crew on that problem today, and you'd end up with zillion-polygon slime critter rendered through super-dark blue alpha filter in post production that would look laughably fake in two years.

Another thing is the destination planet. They picked Jupiter instead of Saturn (like in the book) because Saturn was a fuzzy blob with rings back then, and nothing else. There had never been a close-up photo of Jupiter even when 2001 was made. Nobody had ever seen the Jovian moons or even had good idea on what color they were. And yet there's never been a better depiction and sense of being in deep space around Jupiter than that film. No way around it, that is impressive.

How about a different Nolan/Clarke project?

[weeboo0104]

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?