Thank you for reminding us in the viddie that 2001 came out 50 years ago. Give an old man a break.
That movie was seminal in my appreciation of scratchbuilt scale modeling. Ordway and Lange were better than interpreters, they were real design engineers.
Besides Discovery, there’s Orion 3, which was just a beautiful ship, there’s the Moon Bus, Aries, the EVA pods and the Space Station.
My favorite, the space suits and in particular the helmets.
That, and the clothing in the space station scene was designed by Hardy Amies.
I stayed in the theater the first time and watched it twice. Went again with my Dad the next day, he the aerospace engineer.
Putting aside the Strauss and Strauss II if thats possible, the theme from the Moon Bus sequence is everything an out of the world experience should be,
Indeed, and that Pan Am space liner is still available as a kit. The decals have been changed, but if you know the secret, you can make the Pan Am decals from the kit decals.
That would probably be “Elite”. You had to match the rotation of the station to get through the docking slot. I had it for the Apple IIe, but my friend had it for the C64, and IIRC the C64 version even played the Blue Danube Waltz during docking.
My brother George took me to the Olympia Theater in Downtown Miami to see 2001 A Space Odyssey when it came out in 1968 and I was in awe watching it and thinking about life in the future.
The Esquire Downtown Sacramento K Street northside between 12th & 13th was one of several in the metro area hosting 2001 in 1968, didn’t see it there but could see models hanging of all the “flying stuff” & space station from lobby ceiling. My friend of 54 years now smuggled in a 35mm camera to photograph movie scenes, something of a fad was later told.
The Esquire fell on hard times in 1970s & 80s then closed for what seemed more than 15 years but facade kept intact, late 1990s Esquire Tower built next to the theatre, it - the theatre - reopening as an IMAX around 2000. The Sacramento Esquire is believed one of a relatively small number of early 1930s vintage downtown theatres surviving today as an IMAX.
I’d only been in the Esquire twice: c. November 7, 1963 to see Its A Mad Mad Mad Mad World on its release, Star Trek - The Motion Picture re-release 20 years later, theatre physical condition then was appaling.
I watched 2001 on TV back in 1975 or so. When the movie started, I thought my dad had pranked me into watching a monkey show! Even though I had no idea what was going on I thought it was neat. And “Also Spracht Zarathustra” was forever etched into my little pea brain.
When I recently watched the movie, the thing that struck me most was that the flight and docking sequenes were closer to “real time” compared to more recent films. I am always annoyed when a craft zooms into a crowded area, sets down, and the door/ramp opens as the landing gear are settling, AND someone is already deplaning from the ramp. So nobody has to observe the “fasten seat belts” sign in the future? Yeah I know, it’s to keep the story going, blah blah blah. But I appreciated 2001’s effort to depict such proceedures in a more realistic manner.
The only technical aspect that I felt was poor was that Bowman’s eyes were constantly darting about in the pod while attempting to retrieve Poole’s body. I guess HUDs were not yet commonplace. But he DID have a tablet computer!
Eagerly awaiting the Moebius Discovery from my LHS!
Thanks for giving me a heart attack with this thread title![:D]
I saw “2001” the first time on video, but then saw it at a small arts cinema in Brisbane in the late '80s as part of a month-long science fiction and fantasy movie festival. The highlight was during the trip through the gate near the end when the film got stuck in the projector and burned up. I think several people thought it was part of the movie until the house lights came up and the explained it would take a couple of minutes to rethread the projector.
Yep, but even with HUD I’d bet they’d be eye close ups showing the nervousness. Bowman’s expressions were the one really “human” dramatic part of the whole film, loved how red lights appeared over his eyes when the “Open The Pod Bay Doors Hal” conversation got underway.
I assume Bowman’s super serious expression combined with the constant flitting about of his eyes to various readouts was to heighten the dramatic impact of the moment. And the proximity radar’s boink–boink–boink-boink-boinkboinkboink sound contributed to the drama (and to tell the audience that he was nearing poor Poole).
I hope a styrene kit of the pod shows up before 2101! Maybe around 1/12 to 1/24 scale, not something so huge that you could wear it as a helmet for your own “Space Odyssey”. [:P]
The movies props and effects do stand the test of time very well. Maybe the civillian clothing at the space station is kind of “1960s groovy space age”, but everything else was solid.
I appreciate that Kubrik strove for scientific accuracy, particularly regarding space sequences. Though it might be a cool effect when spaceships roar past on the screen, there’s no sound in a vacuum. I appreciated that about “Firefly”, too.
The only part of the movie that I thought was weak was the sequence when Dave entered and traveled through the star gate. Clarke’s novelization had very precise and detailed descriptions of what Dave saw, till he reached his destination. For example, he passes over a space port of some kind, and sees ships of other interstellar travelers. The sequence in the movie is more of an acid trip than anything else, distorted images of terrestrial vistas. I don’t think it was a technical limitation, either, not to depict it, but an artistic decision.
Still, it’s a landmark, one of those films that represents a major change or shift in a genre.
Late 1970s came across a sci fi fanzine with single photo still of a supposed deleted movie scene of Bowman in the pod headed towards a collection of vertical columns of multi-color light ala city scape, open space above & below them, didn’t see the pod hurtling towards it though. I can’t find it on the Internet - yet - but would love to see it again.
I never did figure out the meaning of this film. The ending disappointed me and left me going “HUH?” I read the book, and that didn’t help, either. Great Sci Fi effects, though!
Lotta ink scribbled over decades regarding the ending, the “light show” should had been the ending IMHO. Exterior shots of pod flying through it would had been super neat; “hardware meeting the amorphous” is what grabbed me about the film.
Chuck’s post reminds me as (then legal age) beer-drinking teens, endless hours of beer-talk involved the meaning of the end of 2001. Don’t think we ever resolved anything, but it sure seemed so at the time. [I][B]
