2001 is not just one of the greatest sci-fi movies, it’s also what I call a foundational sci-fi movie. It has gone on to influence almost every science fiction film after. It proved that science fiction was a serious genre, that could be just as important and impactful as any other. It’s important to remember that this came out a year before man first set foot on the moon. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this film.
You are one of the few who noticed the iPad-like pad. Most young viewers overlooks them, because they are everywhere today. Back in 1968, a CRT monitor was still heavy and big!
Back in 1968? CRT monitors never stopped being heavy and big. That's why LCDs replaced them, even though they're an inferior display technology in many ways.
Viewers today seem unfamiliar with film overtures, yet these musical preludes appeared in many films: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE....
Discovery of tools = violence. The Cain and Abel myth says the same thing. Abel was a shepherd, using simple tools. The first murderer, Cain, was a tiller of the ground, a user of more advanced tools.
Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote this movie and also pushed for the idea of geosynchronous orbit satellites having a real scientific impact, also wrote a series of books called the Rama series (starting with Rendezvous with Rama) which explores similar themes but in a more approachable way. I recommend the Rama books.
Those opening few minutes of music, in IMAX, in 70mm were fcking spine tingling. Christopher Nolan expertly arranged that screening a few years ago, and it was magical. That's what 2001 A Space Odyssey was specifically designed for; a dark theatre with huge screen and big sound. Unfortunately, people are seeing this film on their laptops are getting the most minimal experience of this classic. Same with Lawrence of Arabia, Blade Runner and Vertigo.
The novel is more explicit about the ending. “The book explores the perils related to the atomic age. In Clarke’s novel, the Cold War is apparently still on, and at the end of the book one side has nuclear weapons above the earth on an orbital platform. To test its abilities, the Star Child detonates an orbiting warhead at the end of the novel, creating a false dawn below for the people on Earth. Roger Ebert notes that Kubrick originally intended for the first spaceship seen in the film to be an orbiting bomb platform, but in the end he decided to leave the ship's meaning more ambiguous. Clarke, however, retained and clearly stated this fact in the novel.”
@@dzenacs2011 Sorry! But for a film and book that are 68 years old, and have been deeply woven into popular culture and film history over those decades, it is not really possible to avoid a “spoiler” when discussing.
The explanation is much simpler than you're thinking. Some members of an extremely advanced alien civilization became aware of the Earth and our ancestors and decided to give is a little push in the right direction. They sent a machine, the monolith, to Earth and let it handle the situation. Its most obvious action was to put the idea in the apes' minds that object of a certain shape and size could be used as weapons. Previously, the apes had been starving in the midst of food animals because the lacked the means to kill them. They had also been prey to many predators, as when the leopard kills an ape at the beginning. Now they had a weapon, and were on the path of using and making tools. On their way out of our solar system, the aliens buried a monolith on the Moon so that when the apes' descendants become advanced enough to reach their own moon, they would find it. Shortly before the year 2001, humans find it and dig it up. Apparently its purpose is to send out a signal to the monolith at Jupiter when the sun's rays hit it for the first time. The people looking at the monolith when this happens hear the signal as a loud burst of radio noise. The Earth's scientists ask themselves why someone would bury something designed to be activate by sunlight, and decide that someone might do that if they wanted to know when it was dug up. They calculate that the signal was directed towards Jupiter and send a space mission there. In fact, the purpose of the monolith buried on the Moon is to let the monolith at Jupiter know that the apes' descendants (the human race) have achieved elementary space travel and that lesson #2 can begin. Lesson #2 is basically doing the same thing to David Bowman that it had done to the apes - take him to the next level. For the apes, the next level was using tools. For Dave, it was to change him into a more advanced being as evolution would have done eventually. Dave then returns to Earth with a single thought. The light show was just something the monolith did to distract Dave while it analyzed him to see how Earth people had changed since the apes. The hotel room is simply a traditional place of safety and comfort it had pulled out of Dave's mind so that he could be comfortable while it changed him. The more advanced embryo-like version of Dave is often called the star child. The story about Hal is merely a subplot. The humans had inadvertently created a programming bug. This is explained more in the sequel "2010." Hal did what he did because he didn't want to die.
One extra thing - the “light show”is not just a visual distraction but is the experience of Bowman traveling thru the “ Star Gate” in order to travel to other planetary systems, galaxies or dimensions, where time is not necessarily as linear as on Earth. Today, shows and films might refer to Wormholes, time or space traveling tunnels, or other “shortcuts” to allow travel over unimaginable distances. (In the children’s book A Wrinkle in Time, they travel using the 5th dimension and call it a tesseract.) When Bowman arrives at the “hotel” and we can see the pod in the background, one of the panels on it says something similar to the Non Function that we saw earlier when life functions were terminated. So, Bowman is no longer in an ordinary place, time or state of being. Some of the visuals in that sequence seem to suggest the genesis of life, of traveling over planets, and possibly of the appearance of non-humanoid life forms.
@@Dej24601 "the “light show”is not just a visual distraction but is the experience of Bowman traveling thru the “ Star Gate” in order to travel to other planetary systems, galaxies or dimensions" I disagree. Tell me specifically one single thing in the entire movie which supports this idea.
@@brandonflorida1092 it is fine if you disagree. Kubrick invited audiences to use his films as springboards for discussion and rarely said any detail was set in concrete. And this film more than most, is more like a poem or haiku than a novel, with its suggestiveness, symbolism, simplicity, sparseness, metaphors, etc. People also find the film reveals different aspects as they change and grow, and bring their own new life experiences to each viewing. I have been discussing the film since I saw it in Cinerama when it first came out while I was in high school. After dozens and dozens of viewings, reading books on it for the past 50 years and hearing professionals discuss it, I have my thoughts. But as for the specifics you ask about, there seem to be visuals alluding to galaxy formation; exposure to what may be stars different than our yellow dwarf type; journey-like passages over planetary-like forms of land and water; traversing different horizons; seemingly coming in from vast cosmological areas to almost “landing” on some surface. Most specifically however, in the novel it says the Monolith was a portal for interstellar travel and the term Star Gate was used. The famous line "My God, it's full of stars!" were Dave Bowman's final words as he entered the monolith in the book version of 2001: A SpaceOdyssey, in Chapter 39. However, if your analysis is different, that is understandable.
@@Dej24601 The book says that room contained a picture phone with a conventional Bell System directory labelled "Washington" but for which all the other printing was a blur. There were human books and magazines for which only the titles were readable. There was a TV showing actual Earth programming, but all a couple of years old. Furthermore, the book says: "So that was how this reception area had been prepared for him." and says that when Bowman slept in the room, the furniture dissolved back into the mind of it's creators leaving only the walls, etc., which he still needed a while longer to keep him alive. Clearly the room is a simulation prepared to comfort Bowman while it changed him.
@@brandonflorida1092 I agree the room was based on elements from Bowman’s and cultural memory, and what aliens found of human society from Bowman’s time period. The “room” is different than the sequences about the Monolith/Star Gate. The film made the room less detailed than the book as far as incorporating current details, and more symbolic (the breaking of glass, and spilling of liquids, in art,often forecasts transformation or spiritual growth, or new life.) Even if that room is a “zoo”, or cage, and we hear the quirky sounds which may be the aliens talking about Bowman as they watch, Kubrick can’t resist making the room beautiful with Renaissance art and perfectly balanced decor. One of my favorite aspects of the film is when Bowman is transformed into the Star Child and goes to Earth; indicating the next step of development and hope for mankind. (Those scenes show up well on the big screen and today it is a valuable opportunity to see the film when it is part of a 70mm Film Festival such as held in many cities.) And that same theme is the essence of Clarke’s great novel “Childhood’s End.” I think Childhood’s End expands on Clarke’s vision for the future of humanity and the place of life in the universe.
23:10 - Since you asked...the first computer to defeat a reigning chess champion was "Deep Blue" in 1997, defeating Garry Kasparov. So, back in 1968 when "2001" was released we were still decades away from a computer capable of playing chess at a high level.
It was not unusual in previous years for very long features to have an overture that featured some of the music that would be heard (example: “West Side Story 1961”) and/or an intermission, again with music. There might or might not be various images on screen. The overture not only set the mood and tone of what was to come, but on a practical side, allowed people to get their seats, settle in and let their eyes adjust to the darkened room. What Kubrick did that was different was to make the screen so empty and so dark and almost force the viewers into a different state of mind; he was clearly alerting the audience that this would not be a typical cinematic production.
What generations preceding Boomers need to know is that with older films the initial "blank" or "dark" screen with accompanying music was essentially the last chance to take a seat before the theater was totally darkened for the actual start of the film. Often the music was the films "Overture". Essentially an introduction. This trend existed with movies from "GWTW" to "Lawrence of Arabia" to "2001: A Space Odyssey".
If you want to see very effective handheld camera work (done by Kubrick) check out Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It feels completely realistic for battle scenes. Also, there is a lot of footage taken flying over the Arctic Ocean and those regions, as well as Greenland, Iceland, Canada and Colorado in the US. It looks as if some of that footage was used with various filters and colorization to create some of the Star-Gate sequences that look as if they are over land or water.
The "centrifuge" set used for filming scenes depicting interior of the spaceship Discovery. For spacecraft interior shots, ostensibly containing a giant centrifuge that produces artificial gravity, Kubrick had a 30-short-ton (27 t) rotating "ferris wheel" built by Vickers-Armstrong Engineering Group at a cost of $750,000 (equivalent to $6,600,000 in 2023.) The set was 38 feet (12 m) in diameter and 10 feet (3.0 m) wide. Various scenes in the Discovery centrifuge were shot by securing set pieces within the wheel, then rotating it while the actor walked or ran in sync with its motion, keeping him at the bottom of the wheel as it turned. The camera could be fixed to the inside of the rotating wheel to show the actor walking completely "around" the set, or mounted in such a way that the wheel rotated independently of the stationary camera, as in the jogging scene where the camera appears to alternately precede and follow the running actor.” There is a seam, groove, track, running down the center of the white floor, and a camera could be attached in it.
Opening overtures were a thing in some movies for a few decades, the phenomenon mostly came to an end in the 1970s. I love watching reactors sort of bump into the phenomenon for their first time and work to sort out the convention without the broader context of the device in cinemas as a whole. It's always an interesting moment. I was born in 1974 and they were largely passé by then even, so there's no reason to expect folks born in the 80s or 90s or 00s to have had much in the way of a reference for them at all. It's just intriguing to see the device thru the eyes of someone bumping into it for the first time.
This was an excellent commentary, thanks Will! PS: To be fair, even the book cover to Dune used to look like sand! Sand is the associated color with Dune, even when it was a book! I wouldn't lay that at the feet of "movies today", lol. This movie is such a celebration of human achievement, both in space, and in cinema. And in the brain!
Yeah well, the next book of Arthur C. Clarke adaptation, Rendezvous with Rama, is in production by Denis Villeneuve so we can be sure, it will be legendary too.
Good video. BTW, you should also react to "2010: The year we make contact". It's an underrated movie, however, don't expect it to be as good as the first film, it's more of an extension of the style that the first one created.
Hopefully this little excerpt doesn't cause a copyright issue. In the movie, after the apes discover tools, one of them throws his club into the air in exultation and on the way down, it turns into a spacecraft. Obviously, this wasn't the way it was presented in the book, but there are a few paragraphs at that point in the book which are kind of equivalent and talk about how this has set Man on the road to controlling the Earth. It starts like this: "A new animal was abroad on the planet, spreading slowly out from the African heartland. It was still so rare that a hasty census might have overlooked it, among the teeming billions of creatures roving over land and sea. There was no evidence, as yet, that it would prosper or even survive; on this world where so many mightier beasts had passed away, its fate still wavered in the balance. In the hundred thousand years since the crystals had descended upon Africa, the man-apes had invented nothing. But they had started to change, and had developed skills which no other animal possessed. Their bone clubs had increased their reach and multiplied their strength; they were no longer defenseless against the predators with whom they had to compete."
This movie is the most complex layered, and puzzling of Kubrick movies. Kubrick movies always have a puzzle layer to them. Figuring out the puzzle is part of the fun of Kubrick movies. Beware, spoilers ahead. The movie is illustrative of Friedrich Nietzsche's 1883 book, "Also sprach Zarathustra". Zoroaster has nothing to do with Nietzsche's character Zarathustra. Nietzsche just thought it was cool to name his character after a founder at the root of religion, particularly Christian religion, to give him authority while the character Zarathustra decries religion, particularly Christian religion. "Also sprach Zarathustra" is the name of that grand title music, the music during the scene where the monolith teaches the ape to use a tool, and the end where it turns the man into a super being. Nietzsche's character Zarathustra posits the Übermensch (superior man) as a goal for humanity to set for itself. The Übermensch represents a shift from otherworldly death oriented religious, particularly Christian, values and manifests the grounded life affirming human ideal. The Übermensch is someone who has "crossed over" the bridge, from the comfortable, easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes to the mountains of unrest and solitude. Zarathustra is the narrator of a series of short stories to illustrate, and teach the points to support the position ending each story with "Also sprach Zarathustra", "Thus spoke Zarathustra". In this movie the monolith has the role of Zarathustra, narrator, and teacher. Now you know the monolith character has a name. Zarathustra. Zarathustra tries to show that the comfortable easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes, is mediocre, and repulsive to the superior man. As inferior, and repulsive as the ape is to man, man is more so to the ubermench. The transition from ape to man takes place from one frame of the movie to another. That's how close man is to ape. The entire 4 million year history of the transition of ape to man is but a blink of the eye in comparison to the transition of mench to ubermench. Zarathustra is disappointed as man, instead of being repulsed by the mediocre, embraces the mediocre comfortable easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes. This is illustrated in the movie by all the food is repulsive, and has something wrong with it, grubs, raw meat, food sucked through a straw, sandwiches that should be chicken, and ham but are not but "They're getting better at it". But the coffee's too hot. The paste food trays are also too hot. Despite how we see the effects as fantastic the people in the movie practically sleepwalk through that life, and their movements are clumsy. The people are so mediocre (practically dead) Frank, and Dave aren't tippy top fighter jock alphas with "The Right Stuff" of the 1960s space program. They are so alike when they do talk in the pod they agree about everything. So bland, and mediocre their breathing doesn't even quicken when they go EVA. They don't even talk to each other until they have to leave their comfort zone, and plot against HAL. Their first words to each other are a lie. They know they are killing a conscious entity. That's what they're discussing when the sound cuts out in the pod. "No 9000 computer has ever been shut down before.", "Well no 9000 has ever fouled up before.", "That's not what I mean", "?", "I'm not so sure when you think about it...". Out with Christian morality to affirm, and fight for life. In "Also sprach Zarathustra" a dwarf shoves a tightrope walker off into an infinite abyss. That's HAL killing Frank. The ship represents the tightrope. That's why it's long like that. "The Trip", as the psychedelic sequence is called, represents the "crossing over the bridge to the mountains of unrest and solitude". All the food is repulsive except the last meal, it's perfect, comfortable. Except for the broken glass. The most startling moment in movie history. Puzzling too. "What does it mean?" Our hero has reached comfortable middle age. But he's not yet perfect. He's on his death bed before he reaches for perfection. He reaches for the black monolith, the dark side. Then he becomes the superior being. Zarathustra says we must embrace what religious morality says is the dark side to be a superior man. Religious morality says the darkest side is to reject their other worldly god. Zarathustra says "God is dead". Face it, own it. Don't turn to the comfort of false belief in other worldly reward by throwing away the treasure of life banking your treasure in heaven. God is dead, and heaven is bankrupt. Everyone who says otherwise is a lying, thieving beast feasting on your death, and your fear of death. The fear of death is contradictorily a fear of life. A fear of wasted life. The fear of which becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. Sacrificing life for the comforting false promise of reward after life until it's too late to live a life.
Zarathustra ends the narration saying his story is over, and it's the transformed mench to ubermench hero's story now, and it's just beginning. The movie ends with the image of the hero as a not yet born super being. His story has not yet begun. The monolith is the same shape as the movie screen. During the beginning, and intermission it's the only presence on screen for a long time. Black, and exactly the shape of the monolith. The monolith takes a horizontal orientation at Jupiter like the movie screen. The change in orientation is depicted again in the corridor of light. The movie screen has been the narrator of this movie. Its story is over, and we are the hero of our own story, and our story has not yet begun. Now don't come back at me with "Wow dude, That's so deep." It's not my story. I'm just the narrator. I'm the hero of my own story. I've been gifted beyond reason in my life, and my story is just beginning. It involves what the superman does in this movie. Raising ape up to man to superman.
Dave is pushed to the next stage of evolution for a reason that becomes more clear in the sequel. But as the 'space baby' suggests, it's just another step in the 'Space Odyssey' that began at the dawn of man.
I enjoy some of your ideas about 2001. I'm not sure what is so advanced about a hive mind concept tho. I think it's a fairly primitive idea. This is no reflection on your video or your specific ideas. I'm just speaking generally about why it is that there's this trope about a hive mind and loss of individuality being somehow advanced Seems pretty terrible to me. I think it shows up in a lot of movies because the idea of it being an advancement is itself folly and that we all know that deep down. Losing identity and still being alive to experience it is worse than death.
There is a myth that Pink Floyd was supposed to write the score for the film but he decided to go with classical music because it is already been proven and timeless thus making the film timeless! but little did he know that Pink Floyd has and will become as timeless as as the classical music he chose
Poor people doing reactions to this don't know what to make of the first few minutes of darkness. Being confused myself I've looked into it and it doesn't seem to really have any significance. It's just an overture. An opening selection of music usually in an opera that kind of sets the tone for what's to come and allows people to take their seats knowing the show will start.
Lawrence of Arabia also has a similar overture. It was standard for epics released in a roadshow exhibition. The screens would have been covered by curtains as the overture played.
46:30 NON FICTION ? I saw the monitor in the podd. First i thougt the monitors said Non Fiction and i thought: does that mean that the space craft has anlysed this room as a real room in another reality. But then i looked at the monitor again and it said NON FUNCTION. oh the irony. 🙂 👨🏻🚀👩🏻🚀🚀👽
As others have said the black screen section is an overture. If you'd seen 2001 in a cinema at the time (as I did) they would have started to project the film with the house lights still up. The lights would dim during the overture and the curtains would open just before the MGM logo appears. It was Kubrick's way of pulling you into the film before it even started. I kind of wish they'd cut the overture from the home video releases, however, as 2001 is challenging enough without wondering if your equipment is knackered for ages. Same goes for the Intermission. Intermissions were the norm until the late '70s to give people a chance for a comfort break and to buy some popcorn and a drink but at home it's doesn't need to be there.
If you know SO much about the movie, why bother doing a reaction on video? I'm not going to watch your video because you know so much about the movie. What's the use? I want to see people seeing something for the first time and seeing their reaction. Knowing so much about the movie you just blew your reaction to smithereens.
2001 is not just one of the greatest sci-fi movies, it’s also what I call a foundational sci-fi movie. It has gone on to influence almost every science fiction film after. It proved that science fiction was a serious genre, that could be just as important and impactful as any other.
It’s important to remember that this came out a year before man first set foot on the moon. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this film.
It is ALWAYS a delight to watch someone experience this for the first time.
*smart people.
It is amazing that they began production on this in 1964 and it still holds up to this day! technically perfect!
You are one of the few who noticed the iPad-like pad. Most young viewers overlooks them, because they are everywhere today. Back in 1968, a CRT monitor was still heavy and big!
Back in 1968? CRT monitors never stopped being heavy and big. That's why LCDs replaced them, even though they're an inferior display technology in many ways.
A excellent followup to this is the sequal 2010 THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT . Your questions will be answered .
Yes, the ape attacked by the leopard was a trained stunt man.
Viewers today seem unfamiliar with film overtures, yet these musical preludes appeared in many films: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE....
A lot of those big "event movies", when movies had to start competing with TV, tried to recreate the experience of going to a major stage production.
Discovery of tools = violence. The Cain and Abel myth says the same thing. Abel was a shepherd, using simple tools. The first murderer, Cain, was a tiller of the ground, a user of more advanced tools.
Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote this movie and also pushed for the idea of geosynchronous orbit satellites having a real scientific impact, also wrote a series of books called the Rama series (starting with Rendezvous with Rama) which explores similar themes but in a more approachable way. I recommend the Rama books.
You don't see the aliens, but you see their works:
The monolith, the baroque zoo, and the two times aliens gave Man a little boost.
AFAIK those 4 lozenges in stargate sequence are supposed to be aliens.
Those opening few minutes of music, in IMAX, in 70mm were fcking spine tingling. Christopher Nolan expertly arranged that screening a few years ago, and it was magical. That's what 2001 A Space Odyssey was specifically designed for; a dark theatre with huge screen and big sound.
Unfortunately, people are seeing this film on their laptops are getting the most minimal experience of this classic. Same with Lawrence of Arabia, Blade Runner and Vertigo.
The novel is more explicit about the ending.
“The book explores the perils related to the atomic age. In Clarke’s novel, the Cold War is apparently still on, and at the end of the book one side has nuclear weapons above the earth on an orbital platform. To test its abilities, the Star Child detonates an orbiting warhead at the end of the novel, creating a false dawn below for the people on Earth. Roger Ebert notes that Kubrick originally intended for the first spaceship seen in the film to be an orbiting bomb platform, but in the end he decided to leave the ship's meaning more ambiguous. Clarke, however, retained and clearly stated this fact in the novel.”
Spoiler, mah dog
@@dzenacs2011 Sorry! But for a film and book that are 68 years old, and have been deeply woven into popular culture and film history over those decades, it is not really possible to avoid a “spoiler” when discussing.
The breathing sounds when Poole and Bowman are in their spacesuits was all done by Stanley Kubrick himself.
The explanation is much simpler than you're thinking. Some members of an extremely advanced alien civilization became aware of the Earth and our ancestors and decided to give is a little push in the right direction. They sent a machine, the monolith, to Earth and let it handle the situation. Its most obvious action was to put the idea in the apes' minds that object of a certain shape and size could be used as weapons. Previously, the apes had been starving in the midst of food animals because the lacked the means to kill them. They had also been prey to many predators, as when the leopard kills an ape at the beginning. Now they had a weapon, and were on the path of using and making tools.
On their way out of our solar system, the aliens buried a monolith on the Moon so that when the apes' descendants become advanced enough to reach their own moon, they would find it. Shortly before the year 2001, humans find it and dig it up. Apparently its purpose is to send out a signal to the monolith at Jupiter when the sun's rays hit it for the first time. The people looking at the monolith when this happens hear the signal as a loud burst of radio noise. The Earth's scientists ask themselves why someone would bury something designed to be activate by sunlight, and decide that someone might do that if they wanted to know when it was dug up. They calculate that the signal was directed towards Jupiter and send a space mission there. In fact, the purpose of the monolith buried on the Moon is to let the monolith at Jupiter know that the apes' descendants (the human race) have achieved elementary space travel and that lesson #2 can begin. Lesson #2 is basically doing the same thing to David Bowman that it had done to the apes - take him to the next level. For the apes, the next level was using tools. For Dave, it was to change him into a more advanced being as evolution would have done eventually. Dave then returns to Earth with a single thought. The light show was just something the monolith did to distract Dave while it analyzed him to see how Earth people had changed since the apes. The hotel room is simply a traditional place of safety and comfort it had pulled out of Dave's mind so that he could be comfortable while it changed him. The more advanced embryo-like version of Dave is often called the star child.
The story about Hal is merely a subplot. The humans had inadvertently created a programming bug. This is explained more in the sequel "2010." Hal did what he did because he didn't want to die.
One extra thing - the “light show”is not just a visual distraction but is the experience of Bowman traveling thru the “ Star Gate” in order to travel to other planetary systems, galaxies or dimensions, where time is not necessarily as linear as on Earth. Today, shows and films might refer to Wormholes, time or space traveling tunnels, or other “shortcuts” to allow travel over unimaginable distances. (In the children’s book A Wrinkle in Time, they travel using the 5th dimension and call it a tesseract.)
When Bowman arrives at the “hotel” and we can see the pod in the background, one of the panels on it says something similar to the Non Function that we saw earlier when life functions were terminated. So, Bowman is no longer in an ordinary place, time or state of being. Some of the visuals in that sequence seem to suggest the genesis of life, of traveling over planets, and possibly of the appearance of non-humanoid life forms.
@@Dej24601 "the “light show”is not just a visual distraction but is the experience of Bowman traveling thru the “ Star Gate” in order to travel to other planetary systems, galaxies or dimensions"
I disagree. Tell me specifically one single thing in the entire movie which supports this idea.
@@brandonflorida1092 it is fine if you disagree. Kubrick invited audiences to use his films as springboards for discussion and rarely said any detail was set in concrete. And this film more than most, is more like a poem or haiku than a novel, with its suggestiveness, symbolism, simplicity, sparseness, metaphors, etc. People also find the film reveals different aspects as they change and grow, and bring their own new life experiences to each viewing.
I have been discussing the film since I saw it in Cinerama when it first came out while I was in high school. After dozens and dozens of viewings, reading books on it for the past 50 years and hearing professionals discuss it, I have my thoughts.
But as for the specifics you ask about, there seem to be visuals alluding to galaxy formation; exposure to what may be stars different than our yellow dwarf type; journey-like passages over planetary-like forms of land and water; traversing different horizons; seemingly coming in from vast cosmological areas to almost “landing” on some surface. Most specifically however, in the novel it says the Monolith was a portal for interstellar travel and the term Star Gate was used. The famous line "My God, it's full of stars!" were Dave Bowman's final words as he entered the monolith in the book version of 2001: A SpaceOdyssey, in Chapter 39.
However, if your analysis is different, that is understandable.
@@Dej24601 The book says that room contained a picture phone with a conventional Bell System directory labelled "Washington" but for which all the other printing was a blur. There were human books and magazines for which only the titles were readable. There was a TV showing actual Earth programming, but all a couple of years old. Furthermore, the book says:
"So that was how this reception area had been prepared for him."
and says that when Bowman slept in the room, the furniture dissolved back into the mind of it's creators leaving only the walls, etc., which he still needed a while longer to keep him alive.
Clearly the room is a simulation prepared to comfort Bowman while it changed him.
@@brandonflorida1092 I agree the room was based on elements from Bowman’s and cultural memory, and what aliens found of human society from Bowman’s time period.
The “room” is different than the sequences about the Monolith/Star Gate. The film made the room less detailed than the book as far as incorporating current details, and more symbolic (the breaking of glass, and spilling of liquids, in art,often forecasts transformation or spiritual growth, or new life.) Even if that room is a “zoo”, or cage, and we hear the quirky sounds which may be the aliens talking about Bowman as they watch, Kubrick can’t resist making the room beautiful with Renaissance art and perfectly balanced decor. One of my favorite aspects of the film is when Bowman is transformed into the Star Child and goes to Earth; indicating the next step of development and hope for mankind. (Those scenes show up well on the big screen and today it is a valuable opportunity to see the film when it is part of a 70mm Film Festival such as held in many cities.) And that same theme is the essence of Clarke’s great novel “Childhood’s End.” I think Childhood’s End expands on Clarke’s vision for the future of humanity and the place of life in the universe.
Matte paintings? No; front-projected photo transparencies.
23:10 - Since you asked...the first computer to defeat a reigning chess champion was "Deep Blue" in 1997, defeating Garry Kasparov. So, back in 1968 when "2001" was released we were still decades away from a computer capable of playing chess at a high level.
I really enjoy watching your videos. You always give a very intelligent, thoughtful analysis of the story and how the film is made.
It was not unusual in previous years for very long features to have an overture that featured some of the music that would be heard (example: “West Side Story 1961”) and/or an intermission, again with music. There might or might not be various images on screen. The overture not only set the mood and tone of what was to come, but on a practical side, allowed people to get their seats, settle in and let their eyes adjust to the darkened room. What Kubrick did that was different was to make the screen so empty and so dark and almost force the viewers into a different state of mind; he was clearly alerting the audience that this would not be a typical cinematic production.
Thank you for reacting to this iconic movie. Imho, it's the greatest movie ever filmed.
What generations preceding Boomers need to know is that with older films the initial "blank" or "dark" screen with accompanying music was essentially the last chance to take a seat before the theater was totally darkened for the actual start of the film. Often the music was the films "Overture". Essentially an introduction. This trend existed with movies from "GWTW" to "Lawrence of Arabia" to "2001: A Space Odyssey".
Stanley Kubrick uses mostly experimental classical music throughout this film.
If you want to see very effective handheld camera work (done by Kubrick) check out Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It feels completely realistic for battle scenes. Also, there is a lot of footage taken flying over the Arctic Ocean and those regions, as well as Greenland, Iceland, Canada and Colorado in the US. It looks as if some of that footage was used with various filters and colorization to create some of the Star-Gate sequences that look as if they are over land or water.
The "centrifuge" set used for filming scenes depicting interior of the spaceship Discovery. For spacecraft interior shots, ostensibly containing a giant centrifuge that produces artificial gravity, Kubrick had a 30-short-ton (27 t) rotating "ferris wheel" built by Vickers-Armstrong Engineering Group at a cost of $750,000 (equivalent to $6,600,000 in 2023.) The set was 38 feet (12 m) in diameter and 10 feet (3.0 m) wide. Various scenes in the Discovery centrifuge were shot by securing set pieces within the wheel, then rotating it while the actor walked or ran in sync with its motion, keeping him at the bottom of the wheel as it turned. The camera could be fixed to the inside of the rotating wheel to show the actor walking completely "around" the set, or mounted in such a way that the wheel rotated independently of the stationary camera, as in the jogging scene where the camera appears to alternately precede and follow the running actor.” There is a seam, groove, track, running down the center of the white floor, and a camera could be attached in it.
2:30 lol "oh...oh the movie hasn't started yet"
The Dawn of Man has photograph backgrounds not matte painting.
Opening overtures were a thing in some movies for a few decades, the phenomenon mostly came to an end in the 1970s. I love watching reactors sort of bump into the phenomenon for their first time and work to sort out the convention without the broader context of the device in cinemas as a whole. It's always an interesting moment. I was born in 1974 and they were largely passé by then even, so there's no reason to expect folks born in the 80s or 90s or 00s to have had much in the way of a reference for them at all. It's just intriguing to see the device thru the eyes of someone bumping into it for the first time.
This was an excellent commentary, thanks Will! PS: To be fair, even the book cover to Dune used to look like sand! Sand is the associated color with Dune, even when it was a book! I wouldn't lay that at the feet of "movies today", lol. This movie is such a celebration of human achievement, both in space, and in cinema. And in the brain!
I wonder, if Kubrick were still around, would he want to reshoot the scenes with Dave in the white room, because Keir Dullea is now 88 years old?
Strong film. Really good reaction. I found out this year that there's actually a sequel to this film.
Which Kubrick was really not happy about. He wanted this movie to stand on its own.
@@wackyvorlon That is understandable. 2010 had a different feel and texture than 2001. Both were really good in my book.
And it sucks because it actually tries to explain things.
Yeah well, the next book of Arthur C. Clarke adaptation, Rendezvous with Rama, is in production by Denis Villeneuve so we can be sure, it will be legendary too.
Good video. BTW, you should also react to "2010: The year we make contact". It's an underrated movie, however, don't expect it to be as good as the first film, it's more of an extension of the style that the first one created.
Hopefully this little excerpt doesn't cause a copyright issue. In the movie, after the apes discover tools, one of them throws his club into the air in exultation and on the way down, it turns into a spacecraft. Obviously, this wasn't the way it was presented in the book, but there are a few paragraphs at that point in the book which are kind of equivalent and talk about how this has set Man on the road to controlling the Earth. It starts like this:
"A new animal was abroad on the planet, spreading slowly out from the African heartland. It was still so rare that a hasty census might have overlooked it, among the teeming billions of creatures roving over land and sea. There was no evidence, as yet, that it would prosper or even survive; on this world where so many mightier beasts had passed away, its fate still wavered in the balance.
In the hundred thousand years since the crystals had descended upon Africa, the man-apes had invented nothing. But they had started to change, and had developed skills which no other animal possessed. Their bone clubs had increased their reach and multiplied their strength; they were no longer defenseless against the predators with whom they had to compete."
This movie is the most complex layered, and puzzling of Kubrick movies. Kubrick movies always have a puzzle layer to them. Figuring out the puzzle is part of the fun of Kubrick movies. Beware, spoilers ahead.
The movie is illustrative of Friedrich Nietzsche's 1883 book, "Also sprach Zarathustra". Zoroaster has nothing to do with Nietzsche's character Zarathustra. Nietzsche just thought it was cool to name his character after a founder at the root of religion, particularly Christian religion, to give him authority while the character Zarathustra decries religion, particularly Christian religion. "Also sprach Zarathustra" is the name of that grand title music, the music during the scene where the monolith teaches the ape to use a tool, and the end where it turns the man into a super being.
Nietzsche's character Zarathustra posits the Übermensch (superior man) as a goal for humanity to set for itself. The Übermensch represents a shift from otherworldly death oriented religious, particularly Christian, values and manifests the grounded life affirming human ideal. The Übermensch is someone who has "crossed over" the bridge, from the comfortable, easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes to the mountains of unrest and solitude.
Zarathustra is the narrator of a series of short stories to illustrate, and teach the points to support the position ending each story with "Also sprach Zarathustra", "Thus spoke Zarathustra". In this movie the monolith has the role of Zarathustra, narrator, and teacher. Now you know the monolith character has a name. Zarathustra.
Zarathustra tries to show that the comfortable easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes, is mediocre, and repulsive to the superior man. As inferior, and repulsive as the ape is to man, man is more so to the ubermench. The transition from ape to man takes place from one frame of the movie to another. That's how close man is to ape. The entire 4 million year history of the transition of ape to man is but a blink of the eye in comparison to the transition of mench to ubermench.
Zarathustra is disappointed as man, instead of being repulsed by the mediocre, embraces the mediocre comfortable easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes. This is illustrated in the movie by all the food is repulsive, and has something wrong with it, grubs, raw meat, food sucked through a straw, sandwiches that should be chicken, and ham but are not but "They're getting better at it". But the coffee's too hot. The paste food trays are also too hot. Despite how we see the effects as fantastic the people in the movie practically sleepwalk through that life, and their movements are clumsy. The people are so mediocre (practically dead) Frank, and Dave aren't tippy top fighter jock alphas with "The Right Stuff" of the 1960s space program. They are so alike when they do talk in the pod they agree about everything. So bland, and mediocre their breathing doesn't even quicken when they go EVA. They don't even talk to each other until they have to leave their comfort zone, and plot against HAL. Their first words to each other are a lie. They know they are killing a conscious entity. That's what they're discussing when the sound cuts out in the pod. "No 9000 computer has ever been shut down before.", "Well no 9000 has ever fouled up before.", "That's not what I mean", "?", "I'm not so sure when you think about it...". Out with Christian morality to affirm, and fight for life.
In "Also sprach Zarathustra" a dwarf shoves a tightrope walker off into an infinite abyss. That's HAL killing Frank. The ship represents the tightrope. That's why it's long like that.
"The Trip", as the psychedelic sequence is called, represents the "crossing over the bridge to the mountains of unrest and solitude".
All the food is repulsive except the last meal, it's perfect, comfortable. Except for the broken glass. The most startling moment in movie history. Puzzling too. "What does it mean?" Our hero has reached comfortable middle age. But he's not yet perfect. He's on his death bed before he reaches for perfection. He reaches for the black monolith, the dark side. Then he becomes the superior being. Zarathustra says we must embrace what religious morality says is the dark side to be a superior man. Religious morality says the darkest side is to reject their other worldly god. Zarathustra says "God is dead". Face it, own it. Don't turn to the comfort of false belief in other worldly reward by throwing away the treasure of life banking your treasure in heaven. God is dead, and heaven is bankrupt. Everyone who says otherwise is a lying, thieving beast feasting on your death, and your fear of death. The fear of death is contradictorily a fear of life. A fear of wasted life. The fear of which becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. Sacrificing life for the comforting false promise of reward after life until it's too late to live a life.
Zarathustra ends the narration saying his story is over, and it's the transformed mench to ubermench hero's story now, and it's just beginning. The movie ends with the image of the hero as a not yet born super being. His story has not yet begun.
The monolith is the same shape as the movie screen. During the beginning, and intermission it's the only presence on screen for a long time. Black, and exactly the shape of the monolith. The monolith takes a horizontal orientation at Jupiter like the movie screen. The change in orientation is depicted again in the corridor of light. The movie screen has been the narrator of this movie. Its story is over, and we are the hero of our own story, and our story has not yet begun.
Now don't come back at me with "Wow dude, That's so deep." It's not my story. I'm just the narrator. I'm the hero of my own story. I've been gifted beyond reason in my life, and my story is just beginning. It involves what the superman does in this movie. Raising ape up to man to superman.
Dave is pushed to the next stage of evolution for a reason that becomes more clear in the sequel.
But as the 'space baby' suggests, it's just another step in the 'Space Odyssey' that began at the dawn of man.
Obviously Boeing wasn’t the contractor that built any of the space vehicles😉
There is a sequel.
I enjoy some of your ideas about 2001. I'm not sure what is so advanced about a hive mind concept tho. I think it's a fairly primitive idea. This is no reflection on your video or your specific ideas. I'm just speaking generally about why it is that there's this trope about a hive mind and loss of individuality being somehow advanced Seems pretty terrible to me. I think it shows up in a lot of movies because the idea of it being an advancement is itself folly and that we all know that deep down. Losing identity and still being alive to experience it is worse than death.
There is a myth that Pink Floyd was supposed to write the score for the film but he decided to go with classical music because it is already been proven and timeless thus making the film timeless! but little did he know that Pink Floyd has and will become as timeless as as the classical music he chose
"Pink Floyd"
Who are they?
Were they remembered after they all died?
Meanwhile Strauss is... timeless.
Poor people doing reactions to this don't know what to make of the first few minutes of darkness. Being confused myself I've looked into it and it doesn't seem to really have any significance. It's just an overture. An opening selection of music usually in an opera that kind of sets the tone for what's to come and allows people to take their seats knowing the show will start.
Well, setting the mood is the significance in and of itself.
@@dylanthompson8511 good point. I just meant there was no deeper thematic significance.
Yeah, I remember seeing Star Trek: The Motion Picture and The Black Hole on the same day in 1979 and both had overtures over a black screen.
@@herbertkeithmiller I remember watching reactors discussing afterwards that the opening black rectangular screen must represent the monolith.
Lawrence of Arabia also has a similar overture. It was standard for epics released in a roadshow exhibition. The screens would have been covered by curtains as the overture played.
Cheers mate i was 12 when i saw this. No cell phones the had cordage. And bristol was a lot smaller then
Enjoyed your unique insights!
Nah mate john williams kinda owns space music and chors hornier that dod the star trek music. Winging it both good composers
46:30 NON FICTION ? I saw the monitor in the podd. First i thougt the monitors said Non Fiction and i thought: does that mean that the space craft has anlysed this room as a real room in another reality. But then i looked at the monitor again and it said NON FUNCTION. oh the irony. 🙂 👨🏻🚀👩🏻🚀🚀👽
hey will, love your reactions.
HAL + 1 = IBM
When you are looking at the black screen, you are gazing into the monolith. Prepare to have your mind expanded.
It's probable many people watched the end of the film under the influence of less than legal substances.
The leopard was highly drugged.
Some acting gig, though.
So were a portion of the original audience.
Strap down, friend.
4:19
As others have said the black screen section is an overture. If you'd seen 2001 in a cinema at the time (as I did) they would have started to project the film with the house lights still up. The lights would dim during the overture and the curtains would open just before the MGM logo appears. It was Kubrick's way of pulling you into the film before it even started. I kind of wish they'd cut the overture from the home video releases, however, as 2001 is challenging enough without wondering if your equipment is knackered for ages. Same goes for the Intermission. Intermissions were the norm until the late '70s to give people a chance for a comfort break and to buy some popcorn and a drink but at home it's doesn't need to be there.
13:21
Spacewalking without a teather or jetpack really irks me watching this now.
If you know SO much about the movie, why bother doing a reaction on video? I'm not going to watch your video because you know so much about the movie. What's the use? I want to see people seeing something for the first time and seeing their reaction. Knowing so much about the movie you just blew your reaction to smithereens.
You talk an awful lot, don't you? Sometimes it's better not to vocal your thoughts...
"better to not *voice* your thoughts"
What do you expect a commentator to do, dolt?
7:23