One of the things about young people watching this film today for the first time is they cannot possibly fully appreciate how truly amazing the practical effects were. Seeing this in the theater in 68-69 was a mndblowing experience visually.
They generally can't take the slow pacing either. But the agonizing slow pace of moving around in space was one of the things that really thrilled me about this movie when I saw it in 1968 when I was 10.
Yeah. And I saw it in '68 in Cinerama. 70mm plus curved screen (plus I was a teenager). It was a blast! As immersive, if not more so, than Imax. As for pacing, if you have watched some Russian/Soviet cinema, you get used to the slow pacing. You have to kind of surrender yourself to the pace of the movie - including the intro - don't be impatient eg: the opening of the Russian version of Solaris. Just water running in a stream - for what seems like ages - but it fits perfectly. BTW, DO see that one as well (not the US remake, though that is not awful, just not as good as the original). Another SCi Fi classic.
The shots of Earth from space are especially impressive to be because while we had been in orbit, we hadn't yet landed on the moon. Even things we take for granted today like "How does Earth look from outer space?" they had to do the hard way. The movie is actually incredible too for the equipment/set design. The spacecraft but also the futuristic furniture and the video call.
My parents saw it in a movie theatre when my mom was expecting. When I first saw this movie somewhere in the '90s, I was like "hey wait a minute.. I've seen this one before!" 😂 Still waiting for it to make 💯sense tho..
1968: 2001 Space Odyssey released with amazing special effects, no CGI Directed by Kubrick. 1969: 1st moon landing, some say Kubrick also Directed .... cue weird music
I actually prefer the part where he says "Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Good Bye." But that whole sequence, HAL is positively eerie beyond measure.
Daisy is in there because it's the first song a computer was ever programmed to sing. Kubrick visited the lab where it was to research computers for the film.
The opening theme - Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss - was first performed in 1896. But pretty much every time you hear that music in film or TV anymore, it's a 2001 reference.
@@docsavage8640 Merriam-Webster anymore adverb any·more ˌe-nē-ˈmȯr 1 : any longer I was not moving anymore with my feet -Anaïs Nin 2 : at the present time : now, nowadays Hardly a day passes without rain anymore.
Yeah, I like it a lot. I think if it were a stand alone film people would give it the accolades it deserves, but it naturally suffers from being compared to the masterpiece that is 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Didn't understand the movie? Screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke offers this advice: Watch the movie. Read the book. Repeat as needed. Though I must say, you pretty much understood a lot more than other reactors to this classic. Hats off to you, girl!
This movie is so much easier to understand if you read the book first. I kind of feel like that kind of gets said for every sci-fi movie based on a book but it really takes away the brain cramps for this one.
You could also read the original short story "The Sentinel", which was published in 1951, and has the seed of the story that became the book and movie.
@@88wildcat This wasn't really based on the book, though. The book and the movie were developed more or less simultaneously. But I agree the book helps a lot.
@@dereknolin5986 I should also add that in the book, the mission is to Saturn, not Jupiter. Kubrick decided to change it to Jupiter because, besides the rings, they had to basically make Jupiter anyway (since both are gas giants, and for the science of the time, they more or less resembled each other). Oh, and Jupiter and Earth are just paintings.
Almost 30 years ago I worked on a theatre production with Keir Dullea, who plays Dave. He had some great stories about making 2001. The one that stuck with me was that, during filming, HAL's lines were read off camera by an assistant director with a very friendly/plummy British accent...and he had to imagine the soulless voice of HAL in his head and not react to the friendly voice he was hearing speak to him on set.
a lot was explained in the sequel, 2010 about HAL's actions and what happened to the crew of Discovery and what the monolith was, (the big black wall that "early man" and the astronauts on the moon touched), to some degree. also the little girl at 5:33 was director Stanley Kubrick's daughter.
The sequel is a little too specific where this film is more like Kubrick’s The Shining. There are plot points for sure, but you are left on your own to decipher it as much is told visually.
So many reactors are confused by the overture. The theater house lights were up as the overture played, and (in theaters with curtains in front of the screens) the curtains were closed. As it finished, the curtains opened, and the house lights went dark and the event began. The first Star Trek film also had an overture of this type.
Several big time movies had overtures playing in the lobby as people bought their popcorn and made their way to reserved seats. 2001 and Star Trek were among the last. It's a shame that we're deprived of that now, and subjected to twenty minutes of ads and trailers.
That confusion was actually on display at a screening I saw a decade ago at the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre in70mm. ( I was fully aware of the Overture/Entracte/Exit Music). Sitting in the balcony there was somebody on the main floor "alerting" whoever about the "problem" shouting out "LIGHTS! PICTURE!" Someone else downstairs shouted a reply, "IT"S THE OVERTURE, ASSHOLE!" The showing had actually followed a 35mm preview and the house lights were brought back up for the overture. The Egyptian had no curtains at this time. Surprisingly the theatrre has undergone a major restoration and now has curtains once again.
Yes, right, and Kubrick's Spartacus is also presented with an Overture/Entr'acte/Intermission, as are Gone With the Wind, Judgement at Nuremberg, Lawrence of Arabia, and several others of the era. I'm old enough to remember when movie theaters were converted from stage theaters, or at least designed with vestiges of the latter, and red curtains would open to reveal the screen during the Overture, close for intermission (i.e. the pee break) and reopen for the second "act" of the film. Presenting a movie in the manner of a stage musical production was I suppose meant to signal the sweep and grandeur of the film so presented. I'm one of those weirdos who absolutely love Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and it is very interesting to compare the 2001 DVD Director's Cut (I haven't seen the 2022 Blu-Ray/4K new Director's Cut yet) to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm quite sure that the makers of ST: TMP had Kubrick's masterpiece in mind when they made it. Those familiar with it will know exactly the part of the film to which I am referring...
The reason the title of the movie is '2001: A Space Odyssey' is because 2001 is the actual first year of the 21st Century. Calendar years do not start at "zero," they start at "Year One," so the first year on the calendar is 1 A.D. and the year before that is 1 B.C. Each century begins on a "1" year (1 A.D., 101 A.D., 201 A.D., 501 A.D., 1201 A.D., 1901 A.D.) and each millennium begins on a "1" year (1 A.D., 1001 A.D., 2001 A.D ). The year 2000 was actually the final year of the 20th Century.
The movie makes whatever sense it happens to make to you. Literally speaking, Dave went to the alien home planet, lived out his life in a strange way (based on knowledge extracted from his brain by the aliens), and ultimately became the "Star Child": a highly evolved human being. Maybe he didn't actually live out his life like that physically, but one way or another, he represents a huge leap in human development. What all of this means, the story as a whole, is for us to decide as individuals.
Prior to Star Wars, this was considered the greatest technical achievement in vfx ever seen. In some shots they appear even more real than the first star wars which came out 9 years later.
Star Wars had many quite visible matte lines, especially in its original release, before they were cleaned up or redone in the Special Edition. I could never see any in 2001.
@@izzonj And it honours him that he admitted it. 2001 is indeed way better. A lot of the effects still hold up even today. And most of those that look a little dated only do so when you watch then on high def digital media, a format the movie was never made for - but they still look convincing if you have the chance to actually watch it on a real big cinema screen.
@mrtveye6682 the effect that holds up the worst is probably the views of Earth from space. I think that when this was being made, we still hadn't gotten any images of Earth from outside of low Earth Orbit. Apollo hadn't even flown yet. We had sent prices to the moon, but they were looking at the Moon, not Earth! When Apollo 8 captured color pictures of the Earth from lunar orbit, it was really a marvel to behold!
Hey Addy, the sequel 2010 gives a lot of exposition about these lingering questions (in the minds of some critics, too much exposition). So it's well worth a watch. Also, regarding the monolith on the moon, it's like a huge solar-powered alarm, first encountering sunlight in 4 million years, signifying that Earth technology has advanced enough to dig it up. It's sending a message back to those who left it (and near-deafening the scientists via their helmet speakers in the process), aimed at the monolith in Jupiter orbit serving as a gateway to their wormhole, saying, "Hey guys, Earth's ready now!" Once you take into account Kubrick's artistic license, Arthur C. Clarke's sci-fi really holds up.
A buddy and I went to see the 20th anniversary theatrical re-release at the Cineplex Odeon in Washington DC in 1988. It was us and a bunch of people who had seen the movie and understood what the hell was going on. When the movie ended, they stood and cheered like teenage girls at a Taylor Swift concert as my buddy and I looked at each other wondering WTF was going on. When I got home, I read Roger Ebert's review of the movie. Suddenly, it all made sense. What a journey. We went back the following week to experience it again and were the ones standing and cheering as the movie ended.
The music and black screen at the beginning is the Overture. Big, epic movies used to have them in the old days, just like with operas and broadway musicals.
The actor at 6:53 is British actor Leonard Rossiter. He is well known in the UK for his sitcoms in the 1970s “Rising Damp” and “The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin”.
This is by far my favorite movie of all time. Keep in mind this came out BEFORE the moon landing so at the time of release this film was groundbreaking. The jump from the bone to space was not only the longest timeframe jump cut but it was also a jump in "weapons development", the satellite was an orbital nuclear weapons platform.
One thing that is clear from the movie itself (although it takes several viewings to pick all the clues) is the purpose of the three monoliths. Monolith A (the Dawn of Man) was a teaching machine, that took a group of homonid animals barely managing to survive and turned them into sapient beings capable of conceptualization, imagination, and tool use. Monolith B (the Moon) was an alarm system. Buried at the same time as the Dawn of Man sequence, it emitted a powerful magnetic field for the sole purpose of drawing the attention of lunar explorers. Exposed to sunlight for the first time in four million years, it send a warning signal to Monolith C, telling the monolith builders that humanity had advanced far enough to leave its homeworld. It also functioned as a roadsign, telling humanity where to go next. Monolith C (Jupiter orbit) was a stargate, creating a wormhole to send whoever discovered it somewhere else- a laboratory? zoo? courtroom? where this new species could be evaluated and prepared for the next stage in its evolution.
I've always considered that somewhere else to be a type of cosmic womb that allows Dave to slowly comprehend what he is evolving into. The more he adjusts to the new him the older the old him gets. Let's remember the sequel is called 2010 but he ages a lot more than nine years between when he goes into the wormhole and when he is hovering over the earth in his little egg thing.
I think of the hotel suite as the equivalent of a lab rat cage, where they could study the human, and prepare him for the upgrade to the Starchild. Note that the bone being thrown upwards was a weapon, and the satellite shown immediately after was supposed to be an orbital nuclear weapon. The implied story is weapons were the prod to new technology. Fortunately for us, nuclear weapons in space were banned by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the year before this film was released, and we did not have to live in a world with death constantly hanging over our heads. The Cold War was bad enough as it was.
I have always considered TMA-1 to be the Africa monolith moved after its first phase was done. Why use 2 when 1 can do the job? Dimensions 1x4x9 and they continue...
It's kind of disturbing that the first lesson mankind learns is how to use weapons to kill other living things and kill others of their own species. Are we sure the monolith creators are benevolent? Am I my brother's keeper?
The actor who plays Dr Poole (the second guy on the Jupiter mission) is Gary Locke, who played an important role on an early Star Trek episode "Where No Man has Gone Before"
Star Trek was was in production in it's second season when 2001 was released.....And yes just a few years earlier had it not been for his Manager/Girlfriend, he would probably have had a great career with Star Trek......She talked him into NOT taking anymore roles with Star Trek because she believed the show was stupid and beneath him.....Remember Shatner was further down the list of people they wanted and Gary was the guy with the name they wanted to stay....
I have a friend named Dave, and back in the 90's some of his co-workers changed the "you messed up" sound on his computer to be HAL saying "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?" and that freaked him right out..... I used to sit in between a guy named Hal and another named Dave at work for several years too. That always tickled my sci-fi nerd funny-bone too.
No. It is a superficial interpretation of 2001. This film is a mysterious open-ended work of art, 2010 is an unnecessary sequel completely different in tone and intent....
@@jonathanswift2251 manchildren don't get any of that. They want conclusions spoonfed to them. The very idea of a text is beyond them, they just want to enter a kind of hypnotic daze for a few hours to soothe their alienation.
The AI being the villain trope pretty much came from this. There’s a whole pantheon of science fiction that owes itself to that story trope from here 😁
Mmm, AI being the villain goes back a lot further than this. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R. (1920) Asimov invented his 'three laws of robotics' in the 1940s more or less in response to that trope. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
Seeing this film in 1968 at the age of 12 made quite an impact. Strauss’s Zarathustra music refers back to Nietzsche and his ape/man/superman idea, thus summarizing the film right at the start. Advance each letter in the name “HAL” by one place in the alphabet and you get “IBM.” Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE is a film I quote perhaps more than any other.
You say that like it was planned. They weren't sure if they were going to have the budget for new music, so they shot and edited the move, showed it to Clarke and Kubrick with classical music for filler, and they both loved it. So they went with it. Some claim it allowed a certain Mr Williams to be available to do Lost in Space, but I'm not quite sure I believe that.
@@tenchraven I say it like being planned is irrelevant. Classical music lovers got the connection whether it was planned or not. As we know, it's possible to be a poet and not know it.
You did pretty well observing&understanding 2001, Addie. And, yes, it really was a trip seeing it for it upon it's first release, while tripping on LSD; I was 15 yrs old at the time! 😉
We've been discussing this movie for the last 50 years, and not one has figured it out yet. This is the movie that inspired George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, etc., etc., when they were teenagers, to become movie directors. There are UA-cam videos with those director discussing 2001. It's interesting to hear their take on the 2001 movie.
I remember watching it in the theater as a kid (yes I'm that old) and people were blown away. Also the big theory was that HAL was a spin off of IBM as in the alphabet I follows H, B follows A and L follows M.
There are actually four books in this series, "2001," "2010," "2063," and "3001." All were very good books and there was a great explanation of the beings who put the monoliths where humans could see and use them. Great reaction video Addie. 🙂
Finally watched this myself just a couple months ago and was blown away by the sheer scale of this movie. Absolutely floored at how well it holds up so many decades later. I'd imagine patreon or someone else in the comments has already explained the ending, so I'll skip that, but I found it super intriguing and thought provoking. _Really_ did not expect what it turned into
That’s why this classic is so brilliant! Most of us as movie goers want things “wrapped in a bow” and explained simply and thoroughly to us. Anything else has become unacceptable. Especially to Hollywood producers! Stanley is my all time favorite Director because he did the exact opposite. He made you think and left you way more than what most would expect.
It's all explained in Arthur C Clarke's book. The monolith is a tool to guide evolution. Thus the apes learned to use tools, which led to space travel further down. The monolith on the moon was a beacon. If a species advanced enough to find it, it signaled to Jupiter's monolith that a species was advanced enough to move up to the next stage of evolution. When Bowman entered the "Stargate", which was an alien transit system, he was taken to a holding cell that tried to replicate human surroundings. The boxes of food looked normal but inside held just a goop-like substance. So he aged and the monolith at the edge of his bed helped him advance to the next stage of evolution: the Starchild who would oversee humanity.
From what I remember, the early humans used the tools to hunt game which helped them use the protein in the meat to help their brains develop as well. This was a masterpiece of a series as far as the books are concerned too. I read all four, it's just been a long time, so my memory of them is fuzzy. I may need to read them again.
18:11 My brother's name is Dave and one time he replaced all his computer's error alert sounds with HAL's non-compliant declarations, thinking it would be amusing. It took about two days to creep him out enough to switch everything back ^.^
A masterpiece in film making. I was three years old when this was released and I've seen it too many times to count. A classic art masterpiece from a real Jedi master.
I suppose it would also be helpful to quote a Stanley Kubrick explanation of the ending: "The final scenes of the film seemed more metaphorical than realistic. Will you discuss them -- or would that be part of the "road map" you're trying to avoid? No, I don't mind discussing it, on the lowest level, that is, straightforward explanation of the plot. You begin with an artifact left on earth four million years ago by extraterrestrial explorers who observed the behavior of the man-apes of the time and decided to influence their evolutionary progression. Then you have a second artifact buried deep on the lunar surface and programmed to signal word of man's first baby steps into the universe -- a kind of cosmic burglar alarm. And finally there's a third artifact placed in orbit around Jupiter and waiting for the time when man has reached the outer rim of his own solar system. When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or star gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he's placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination. In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death. He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child, an angel, a superman, if you like, and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man's evolutionary destiny. That is what happens on the film's simplest level. Since an encounter with an advanced interstellar intelligence would be incomprehensible within our present earthbound frames of reference, reactions to it will have elements of philosophy and metaphysics that have nothing to do with the bare plot outline itself. What are those areas of meaning? They are the areas I prefer not to discuss because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded. Why does 2001 seem so affirmative and religious a film? What has happened to the tough, disillusioned, cynical director of The Killing, Spartacus, Paths of Glory, and Lolita, and the sardonic black humorist of Dr. Strangelove? The God concept is at the heart of this film. It's unavoidable that it would be, once you believe that the universe is seething with advanced forms of intelligent life. Just think about it for a moment. There are a hundred billion stars in the galaxy and a hundred billion galaxies in the visible universe. Each star is a sun, like our own, probably with planets around them. The evolution of life, it is widely believed, comes as an inevitable consequence of a certain amount of time on a planet in a stable orbit which is not too hot or too cold. First comes chemical evolution -- chance rearrangements of basic matter, then biological evolution. Think of the kind of life that may have evolved on those planets over the millennia, and think, too, what relatively giant technological strides man has made on earth in the six thousand years of his recorded civilization -- a period that is less than a single grain of sand in the cosmic hourglass. At a time when man's distant evolutionary ancestors were just crawling out of the primordial ooze, there must have been civilizations in the universe sending out their starships to explore the farthest reaches of the cosmos and conquering all the secrets of nature. Such cosmic intelligences, growing in knowledge over the aeons, would be as far removed from man as we are from the ants. They could be in instantaneous telepathic communication throughout the universe; they might have achieved total mastery over matter so that they can telekinetically transport themselves instantly across billions of light years of space; in their ultimate form they might shed the corporeal shell entirely and exist as a disembodied immortal consciousness throughout the universe. Once you begin discussing such possibilities, you realize that the religious implications are inevitable, because all the essential attributes of such extraterrestrial intelligences are the attributes we give to God. What we're really dealing with here is, in fact, a scientific definition of God. And if these beings of pure intelligence ever did intervene in the affairs of man, so far removed would their powers be from our own understanding. How would a sentient ant view the foot that crushes his anthill -- as the action of another being on a higher evolutionary scale than itself? Or as the divinely terrible intercession of God?" - An Interview with Stanley Kubrick (1969) by Joseph Gelmis
The screen is initially black for a long interval while music plays (often referred to as the "Overture") to allow patrons a chance to take their seats in the theater as the lights dim. Then the actual film starts. That's how the movie-going experience was back in the day.
Well done, your the first reactor to realise that Frank was dead, that aliens were observing Dave in the room and that Dave evolved into the 'star child' at the end
The simple explanation for the ending is Dave goes through a wormhole to The Builders homeworld. Humans are still so primative compared to The Builders that they put him in the equivalent of a zoo, constricted from his memories. He lives his life and as he dies, his consciousness is transfered into The Star Baby where he then oversees, and perhaps guides, the further development of humanity.
The Star Baby is how Kubrick visually represented something that truly had no form since Dave and the Monolith were basically merged into one non-corporeal being with the Monolith taking Dave's conscious upon his physical bodies death. Since he was a being of pure thought and energy at that point, no longer having a physical body, the constraints of a physical universe (other than time) no longer applied to him. The form of a baby symbolized his birth as basically a new species, somewhat like a newborn God who then has to learn how to exist on this new plane and learn the limits of his abilities. The real question is whether the Builders selected Dave and set the events on Discovery in motion or if the Jupiter Monolith would simply choose the first being to arrive as its subject. In the Dawn of Man sequence the Monolith gave special attention to Moonwatcher but he was also the first one to approach and touch the Monolith as well (but in the book the Monolith choose Moonwatcher specifically because he seemed to have the most promise).
Some films back in "the day" used to include entrance music to let the audience know the film was about to start and that they should get settled in their seats. "The Cowboys" with John Wayne and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" are other examples of this. Longer movies may have also had an intermission midway through the film.
Addie, your reaction to this film was GREAT. One of the best I've seen. 👍👍 The minimalist dialogue, the MUSIC, the suspense and HAL9000's creepy, haunting voice are magnificent. Kubrick purposely left the ending wide open for everyone's personal interpretation. People have been debating it for decades!
The opening theme of this movie is Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. I was first introduced to that piece of music through the TV Room scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), which featured this movie itself playing on the TV. You've also seen the Dawn of Man sequence parodied at the start of Barbie (2023).
Lots of movies used to open with a black screen and music to allow moviegoers to get to their seats and settle before the movie started proper. I had to google the term, but it was simply called an "overture". Disney's "The Black Hole" from 1979 opens the same way.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture also opened like that; the Director’s Edition added the star field. This is why I still collect movies on DVD and Blu-ray, because you can easily chapter skip these parts.
The weird music you hear when the monolith first appears is Ligeti's Requiem. Ligeti was an incredibly fascinating avant-garde composer of modern classical music. His music is like nothing you've ever heard. Check out his "Musica ricercata" set of piano pieces if interested.
They decided to set it (mainly) in 2001 because that year was the first year of the 21st Century. Arthur C Clarke wrote a book about how he and Kubrick collaborated - they basically wrote the screenplay and the novel at the same time, developing and discarding ideas, and leaving hundreds of thousand of words out (which he later published). I would definitely recommend reading the novel - t's pretty short and contains some of Clarke's most awe-inspiring writing. And Clarke was an explainer, so he does explain things the film leaves mysterious. And of course you have to watch 2010. That was a great review - you picked up on things many reactors just blank on.
I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in the theater when it was first released. I was 11 years old. I didn't understand the ending, but I knew I had seen something great. Astronauts have said that this movie captures the feeling of being in space better than any other. The movie starts with an overture. People were expected to enter the theater and take their seats while the screen was black. Overtures used to be pretty common, especially with long movies (like this one). The main theme was Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss (1896). The other music (used in the docking sequence and elsewhere) was The Blue Danube (1866) by Johann Strauss II (no relation to Richard Strauss). Don't worry about not understanding the film. No one understands it on first viewing. You can watch it 100 times and still have questions about it. Kubrick wanted to leave it open to interpretation, and the feeling of mystery is part of what makes the movie work.
I am the same - I saw it in the theaters when I was 9. I just remember staring at the last sequence with my jaw hanging open, but having no idea what was going on LOL
All of the creepy, tense, dissonant, sound-design-y music was composed by Russian symphonic/choral composer Gyorgy Ligeti (Kubrik uses his works a lot, such as the very tense piano piece used throughout Eyes Wide Shut). Kubrik had edited the entire film with these existing pieces of "classical" orchestra music as "temp" music, and he ended up loving them so much that he didn't use the entire original score commissioned from the amazing film & theatre composer Alex North.
The last few films to feature a "seating overture" included 'Star Trek: the Motion Picture" and "The Black Hole" from Disney, both released in late 1979. Not claiming they were definitely the very last, just that they were among the last few, a practice that was gradually phased out, much like animated short subjects.
The famous musical theme was not made for this movie, although it was made even more famous by the movie and is closely associated with it in many people's minds. It's from the tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss.
5:05 -- RE: "I don't know how to describe it but the music fits this so well."; A: Short answer, that is a Waltz, specifically the "Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II. That's why I have always understood it to fit perfectly because the waltz implies there is a relationship between at least 2 partners who are dancing and using each other to counterbalance the spinning. In this case, the docking maneuvers for a spaceship and the space station is the dance.
This film was made before they knew what the surface of the moon really looked like. Some of the sets were huge and revolved around the actors. Check out Barry Lyndon, it's currently free on youtube. Kubrick got a camera lense from Nasa to shoot the candlelit scenes in that film.
Both the movie and novel were based on a short story called "The Sentinel", which loosely corresponds with the events at Clavius. The novelisation ends with "Then he waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something."
Love the reaction as always! Please please please watch the sequel 2010 - the year we make contact. Has Roy Schneider from Jaws and Dame Helen Mirren (young) and a John Lithgow (3rd Rock from the Sun). If you don't.....I won't open the pod bay doors for you.
@@Exordiri the third one is actually 2061: Odyssey Three, and there is a fourth: 3001: The Final Odyssey. I hesitate to recommend any book besides the first one, frankly.
Kubrick was a certified genius - crazed genius at that. The film is definitely polarizing - some loathe it - others like Tom Hanks love it (it's his fave film of all-time). The visuals are beyond stunning and ahead of their time and set the tone for the next 50 yrs for film overall. Fun watch as always Ads - Happy New Year :D xoxo
Oops one thing to mention about the soundtrack, it was originally a temporary soundtrack that Kubrick used when editing the film. The film studio had paid Alex North to create a soundtrack, however Kubrick liked the soundtrack he used so much that work was stopped on the other one. Years ago a CD of Alex North's incomplete soundtrack was released, it's very different
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but if you take the letters HAL and go up one letter on each, you get IBM. IBM was quite the company and forward thinking with computing at the time.
You should definitely watch the sequel, 2010 (it wasn't made in 2010 either hyuk hyuk hyuk). It's a far more conventional film but also a lot easier to understand haha. It answers a lot of the questions raised here. One thing not explained iirc was what happened in that last scene. Basically, Dave landed his pod on the monolith and it transported him to the dimension where the aliens reside. They built him a sort of pocket dimension that he could live in. He died and was reborn the Star Child. I can't remember if the Star Child is ever fully explained in either book or movie, though. It's been ages since I've watched/read either.
Stanley Kubrick was a different type of filmmaker. He was also notorious for having props from his films destroyed after production. Anything from his movies that survived is very valuable for collectors.
I love the return of _Also Spracht Zarathustra_ at the end, linking "Star Child" Dave to the hominid at the beginning who had touched the monolith and worked out the concept of weaponry. A clever way to suggest Dave represents the next step in human evolution without any dialogue or text. (Speaking of the hominid, his name in the script is Moon Watcher.)
You have, quite honestly, done a better job of understanding the film, than most people did, upon their first viewing. One of my favorite interpretations, which isn't super solid, but isn't without merit, is that the Monolith is the Movie Screen. Hence the feedback when they point a camera at it. Thus when Dave evolves, it's because he became aware that he's in a movie. There are some other interesting tidbits to support, the notion. I don't think that it's likely that it was the director's intent, but it's a really fun notion. Definitely check out 2010. It's a very different movie, yet a direct sequel. Both are two of my favorite movies ever.
Oh the joy of watching reactors deal with the black screen intro! 😂 .....lots of films started like this back in the day, the black screen was for the audience finding their seats, and the curtains opened when the logo came up....remember when screens had curtains? One of the smarter reactions ive seen to the film, im pretty impressed for a first viewing. Essentially, you got it Addie. As a side note, there used to be, perhaps still is, a sound suite for Windows that replaced all the stock sounds with samples of Hal from the film. My brother installed it, his name is Dave, i think he lasted two days before he uninstalled it in a fit of rage. ... almost everything Hal said had, "Dave" in it, it drove him to distraction.
I'd say the 1st "killer AI" movie was probably Metropolis 1927. Silent movie but well worth the watch! Full film is actually on UA-cam. Anyway 2001 is one of my very favorite movies!!! They say it actually makes the viewer of the film "evolve" . The monolith is a portal in the middle of the planetary alignment and yes supposedly aliens have put him in a "human zoo" after downloading knowledge into his head. Thankyou for reacting to this masterpiece -- much respect!
This film is a masterwork in demonstrating how film is, at its core, a visual medium. It is an incredibly complex and intellectual science fiction story that is told almost entirely visually, with only 40 out of 144 minutes that has dialogue and most of it very technical and straightforward, and yet you, like most people due, basically understood everything that was going on in the plot. Its Kubrick's best directorial work, and narrowly his second best movie after Dr. Strangelove. The music is all classical, even the bit that is often identified as the 2001 Theme is from Also Sprach Zarathustra. Almost all of the physics and details of how space travel would work is accurate (at least to the best understanding of scientists when it was made). To answer your question, if you prep yourself by taking a deep breath and are exhaling the whole time (otherwise, just like ascending from a depth of water too quickly, your lungs will pop if you aren't exhaling the whole time) a person would probably have 10-20 seconds of useful consciousness and about 25-30 seconds before the damage to the body (from lack of pressure, not the cold, despite what Hollywood often likes to show) is fatal.
Since the age of 12 this has and remains to be my favorite film of all time. Stanley Kubrick's commentary of the human race still manages to present the best story when it comes to the unknown of the infinity of space. His ability to connect a higher power in the cosmos to the story of human evolution is an accomplishment like no other, making the viewer feel a deep connection with the Stars. As usual Kubrick takes a simple concept and elevates the material with his unique style of directing, somehow managing to make grandiose shots feel intimate enough to resonate long after watching the film. To what I think is the films strongest aspect, it is in my opinion the only film to ever transcend the screen, truly transcend the artform, and become the purest version of itself, true art, a true fucking masterpiece.
The long musical intro was a thingy back in the day. I believe it was when the audience came in to sit down etc. Sometimes there weren't trailers and such. Years ago our local theatres would have an old movie night, and they ran Spartacus (also Kubrick), and there was music with blackness and later a still shot of Kirk Douglas. Most of us thought the movie was broken, as this was a digital copy etc. We tried a few times... not sure if I told the staff to leave, remembering that older movies did THIS.. and then it was fine and we watched the film. Another feature of longer older movies was an Intermission screen with just music. Think it was taking a smoke break, get another snack, stretch etc 😉
The patterns seen at minte marker 23:00 were referenced in SPACEBALLS. It happens when Maug (I mean Barf who was a Mog) yells "They went to plaid!" in his reaction to the Spaceball ship going into ludicrous drive,
Very impressive how you keyed into most of it right from the get go. Even your confusion at the end still hit on the broader strokes of meaning that most audiences miss initially.
This was my first movie, though I don't remember seeing it in the theater. My parents took me when I was less than two. The music used at the beginning of the film was Richard Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra. Also featured in the film is The Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss II. The movie was loosely based on several Arthur C. Clark short stories, including "The Sentinel", about a monolith left on our moon by an alien race millions of years ago. It was determined that the monolith was an alarm of sorts, alerting the aliens when we discovered it, thus notifying them that we have evolved to the point of developing space flight.
If you want answers regarding what happened with HAL and some of Dave's subsequent 'odyssey' (though not the grander, more abstract questions raised by the film), you'll definitely want to check out its more straightforward, non-Kubrick-directed sequel "2010: The Year We Make Contact." It's definitely not the same sort of experience, but is enjoyable in its own right.
A couple of comments for you. The opening music is from the Richard Strauss Opera "Thus Spake Zarathurstra". The music on the trip to the Moon was from Johann Strauss- "The Blue Danube" . But ever since the movie came out tboth pieces have been associated with it rather than the originals. As for not getting the ending. That was intentional. From Arthur C. Clarke. ""If you understand '2001' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered."
I sometimes argue with myself whether I like this movie or not. I decided since I wasn't bored nor did I want to stop watching it, so it was a good movie. Even though I feel mostly confused every time I watch it.
Congratulations! You've finally watched the greatest sci-fi movie of all time. The books do go into more detail than the movies, however they are slightly different as well, so they don't perfectly transfer between them, so they aren't necessary to get your own interpretations. The subtle nuances that went into making this movie are what makes it brilliant to a level that will never again be matched. Considering everything was practical, (they actually built the largest rotating room ever designed so that those running scenes, and scenes where they go upside-down could happen in real-time, will never be duplicated,) and they not only had the blessing, but the co-operation of NASA. You have to remember that this movie happened BEFORE the actual moon landing, while NASA was preparing for it, and the suits they are wearing were actual prototypes NASA was originally planning on using, before they updated them for the actual launch, so the vast majority of it was as close to what their understanding of space-travel would be. Just to explain how detail-oriented Kubrick was, the song HAL sings, 'Daisy Bell', has a load of significance. It was the first ever song sung by a computer, back in 1961, and sounded about as creepy then as HAL's replication of the song, but it was an absolute revolution at the time, so he is paying homage to that evolution. The pen floating is also another completely practical effect done without wires and for the longest time people couldn't figure out how it was done until one of the effects people finally explained how they did it, which is brilliant, but also extremely difficult to pull off. There are still other scenes in the movie that no one knows how to replicate them to this day, using just practical effects, and will likely remain a mystery forever. The single best thing about this movie, is nearly every subsequent watch you'll be able to catch new details if you pay attention. It is the ONLY movie my dad has re-watched, and every time I watch it, I see another new detail or pick up on something I didn't previously. That is the sign of true greatness.
The musical theme is indeed very majestic, but it has also been the basis of or inspiration for pop music, of all things. One example off the top of my head is A-ha's "Take On Me"--listen to the notes when he sings the words "Take on me". Do you hear the resemblance? The band have actually said they were inspired by "Also Sprach Zarathustra" or, as most people know it, "The 2001 theme".
They're going to get weapons too... the first arms race. During Hal's personal question, he's trying to lead Dave into the conclusion that Hal knows what they found at Clavius but he's not allowed to tell them. Hal doesn't like lying, he was very proud to say that no 9000 computer has ever distorted information, yet mission control ordered him to lie by omission. Hal couldn't handle it, he went crazy. The AE-35 unit points the antenna at Earth, by breaking it HAL could break ties with the people who made him lie. In the Odyssey only Odysseus survived to return to Ithaca... As for your guess at the end...it's as good of a guess as any. It fits the theme and the story from the book. Both Kubrick and Clarke have said if you aren't confused, they failed. You're right about the visuals, the cinematography is awesome and the special effects look good for today let alone 50 some odd years ago. Kubrick films you might like, Dr. Strangelove (funny as hell) and Paths of Glory. A Clockwork Orange will scar you, it's a great movie but can also give you nightmares.
It isn't that HAL went crazy. It's that HAL's primary directive was to ensure the success of the actual (secret) mission to investigate the Clavius signal. So, when it became apparent to HAL that Dave and Frank didn't even know about that part of the mission, their presence became a threat to the success of the actual mission. HAL couldn't bring them up to speed, and HAL's actions to further the actual mission would seem to Dave and Frank like HAL was malfunctioning - which would then lead Dave and Frank to shut HAL down, thereby threatening the mission. So Dave and Frank had to go.
@@flatebo1 I consider becoming homicidal as crazy lol. And that scenario doesn't explain HAL's trying to sever communication with Earth. The whole HAL killing the crew starts when HAL predicts the failure of the AE-35 unit. Failure of the AE-35 would break communication with Earth, that was never part of either mission
The extremely eerie music at the obelisk on the moon is a "Lux Aeterna" by György Ligeti. It was not written for this film, which tells you something about Ligeti.
I was 15 when I saw this extraordinary movie in 1968. It looked so modern and futuristic! Since then I've seen it lots of times and has become my favorite SciFi movie ever. I really liked how you reacted to this forever classic. Greetings from México 🇲🇽!
I saw this when it came out. I saw it again, several times, influenced by various um... things. I still don't understand it all, but it was a tremendous influence. Thank you, Addie, for helping me experience it again.
One of the things about young people watching this film today for the first time is they cannot possibly fully appreciate how truly amazing the practical effects were. Seeing this in the theater in 68-69 was a mndblowing experience visually.
Alot of the effects team went on to work on films like Star Wars,and other film of the 70's.
They generally can't take the slow pacing either. But the agonizing slow pace of moving around in space was one of the things that really thrilled me about this movie when I saw it in 1968 when I was 10.
Yeah. And I saw it in '68 in Cinerama. 70mm plus curved screen (plus I was a teenager). It was a blast! As immersive, if not more so, than Imax. As for pacing, if you have watched some Russian/Soviet cinema, you get used to the slow pacing. You have to kind of surrender yourself to the pace of the movie - including the intro - don't be impatient eg: the opening of the Russian version of Solaris. Just water running in a stream - for what seems like ages - but it fits perfectly. BTW, DO see that one as well (not the US remake, though that is not awful, just not as good as the original). Another SCi Fi classic.
The shots of Earth from space are especially impressive to be because while we had been in orbit, we hadn't yet landed on the moon. Even things we take for granted today like "How does Earth look from outer space?" they had to do the hard way. The movie is actually incredible too for the equipment/set design. The spacecraft but also the futuristic furniture and the video call.
"I'm waiting for this to make sense"
hahahahahahahahahaha🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
My parents saw it in a movie theatre when my mom was expecting. When I first saw this movie somewhere in the '90s, I was like "hey wait a minute.. I've seen this one before!" 😂
Still waiting for it to make 💯sense tho..
😂😂😂
@@Columbasta Me too!
Millions of people filled that 'boat' long ago.
1968: 2001 Space Odyssey released with amazing special effects, no CGI Directed by Kubrick.
1969: 1st moon landing, some say Kubrick also Directed .... cue weird music
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that” still gives me creepy chills every time I watch this. So glad you reacted to this classic, Addie!
I actually prefer the part where he says "Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Good Bye."
But that whole sequence, HAL is positively eerie beyond measure.
@ that’s a great quote too! & 💯 agree with you about HAL
@@tylermcclain5332
creepy stalker.
I used that clip as an audio file on my old Mac for the error message alert.
@@tylermcclain5332
So now you are being a creepy stalker in two threads?
Someone tell Addie to make sure to close her drapes....we've got a voyeur.
You may have felt confused during this reaction, but you actually got the film way better than many other reactors.
NOBODY catches that the 'monolith' is described in three ways: "black," "damned," and a "wish to Hell." Interesting, no?
Daisy is in there because it's the first song a computer was ever programmed to sing. Kubrick visited the lab where it was to research computers for the film.
There's a video on the IBM 7094 singing the song ua-cam.com/video/41U78QP8nBk/v-deo.html
The opening theme - Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss - was first performed in 1896. But pretty much every time you hear that music in film or TV anymore, it's a 2001 reference.
FYI, the piece’s title, Also Sprach Zarathustra, translates as Then Spoke God.
All the music in the film is pre-existing. There was a score written for it but not used.
@flatebo1 learn what "anymore" means. It doesn't mean "now"
@yelnikigwawa1845 that's not what it means 😅🤣😂
@@docsavage8640
Merriam-Webster
anymore
adverb
any·more ˌe-nē-ˈmȯr
1
: any longer
I was not moving anymore with my feet
-Anaïs Nin
2
: at the present time : now, nowadays
Hardly a day passes without rain anymore.
“Are we jumping ahead in time”? Yeah, a bit. 😂
😂😂😂
i know the sequal doesn't get much love but I think its very underrated and it truly does explain a lot.
Yeah, I like it a lot. I think if it were a stand alone film people would give it the accolades it deserves, but it naturally suffers from being compared to the masterpiece that is 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I thought that 2010 was 1000 times better than 2001.
Have you read 2061? (The third book in the trilogy)
@@SJHFotoI have and think it should be made into some sort of movie. 3001 is even wilder!
Didn't understand the movie? Screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke offers this advice:
Watch the movie.
Read the book.
Repeat as needed.
Though I must say, you pretty much understood a lot more than other reactors to this classic. Hats off to you, girl!
This movie is so much easier to understand if you read the book first. I kind of feel like that kind of gets said for every sci-fi movie based on a book but it really takes away the brain cramps for this one.
Just be prepared for Clarke to retconn details one book to the next. :)
You could also read the original short story "The Sentinel", which was published in 1951, and has the seed of the story that became the book and movie.
@@88wildcat This wasn't really based on the book, though. The book and the movie were developed more or less simultaneously. But I agree the book helps a lot.
@@dereknolin5986 I should also add that in the book, the mission is to Saturn, not Jupiter. Kubrick decided to change it to Jupiter because, besides the rings, they had to basically make Jupiter anyway (since both are gas giants, and for the science of the time, they more or less resembled each other). Oh, and Jupiter and Earth are just paintings.
Almost 30 years ago I worked on a theatre production with Keir Dullea, who plays Dave. He had some great stories about making 2001. The one that stuck with me was that, during filming, HAL's lines were read off camera by an assistant director with a very friendly/plummy British accent...and he had to imagine the soulless voice of HAL in his head and not react to the friendly voice he was hearing speak to him on set.
Your understanding of the movie is as good as anyone else's. You immediately got the subtleties that I missed my first dozen times.
Please watch the sequel as well. It is so underappreciated. 2010 is an amazing film in its own right. Tonally very different.
a lot was explained in the sequel, 2010 about HAL's actions and what happened to the crew of Discovery and what the monolith was, (the big black wall that "early man" and the astronauts on the moon touched), to some degree. also the little girl at 5:33 was director Stanley Kubrick's daughter.
I really enjoyed 2010. It's a more straightforward story with a great cast.
2010 was actually interesting.
This is why the book is infinitely better than this overrated nonsense
The sequel is a little too specific where this film is more like Kubrick’s The Shining. There are plot points for sure, but you are left on your own to decipher it as much is told visually.
@@GeorgeTropicana what are you talking , both movies are from books and both movies show pretty much exactly what is in the books...
So many reactors are confused by the overture. The theater house lights were up as the overture played, and (in theaters with curtains in front of the screens) the curtains were closed. As it finished, the curtains opened, and the house lights went dark and the event began. The first Star Trek film also had an overture of this type.
Several big time movies had overtures playing in the lobby as people bought their popcorn and made their way to reserved seats. 2001 and Star Trek were among the last. It's a shame that we're deprived of that now, and subjected to twenty minutes of ads and trailers.
That confusion was actually on display at a screening I saw a decade ago at the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre in70mm. ( I was fully aware of the Overture/Entracte/Exit Music). Sitting in the balcony there was somebody on the main floor "alerting" whoever about the "problem" shouting out "LIGHTS! PICTURE!" Someone else downstairs shouted a reply, "IT"S THE OVERTURE, ASSHOLE!"
The showing had actually followed a 35mm preview and the house lights were brought back up for the overture. The Egyptian had no curtains at this time. Surprisingly the theatrre has undergone a major restoration and now has curtains once again.
Yes, right, and Kubrick's Spartacus is also presented with an Overture/Entr'acte/Intermission, as are Gone With the Wind, Judgement at Nuremberg, Lawrence of Arabia, and several others of the era. I'm old enough to remember when movie theaters were converted from stage theaters, or at least designed with vestiges of the latter, and red curtains would open to reveal the screen during the Overture, close for intermission (i.e. the pee break) and reopen for the second "act" of the film. Presenting a movie in the manner of a stage musical production was I suppose meant to signal the sweep and grandeur of the film so presented.
I'm one of those weirdos who absolutely love Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and it is very interesting to compare the 2001 DVD Director's Cut (I haven't seen the 2022 Blu-Ray/4K new Director's Cut yet) to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm quite sure that the makers of ST: TMP had Kubrick's masterpiece in mind when they made it. Those familiar with it will know exactly the part of the film to which I am referring...
@@a23no Ben-Hur is another one with the overture and intermission. My Fair Lady too.
@@a23no the 4K restoration of Star Trek The Motion Picture is incredible. You have to get it. It’s my favorite Star Trek movie..
Kubrick left the ending ambiguous intentionally. The sequel 2010 answers some questions though.
The reason the title of the movie is '2001: A Space Odyssey' is because 2001 is the actual first year of the 21st Century. Calendar years do not start at "zero," they start at "Year One," so the first year on the calendar is 1 A.D. and the year before that is 1 B.C. Each century begins on a "1" year (1 A.D., 101 A.D., 201 A.D., 501 A.D., 1201 A.D., 1901 A.D.) and each millennium begins on a "1" year (1 A.D., 1001 A.D., 2001 A.D ). The year 2000 was actually the final year of the 20th Century.
MMI
The movie makes whatever sense it happens to make to you. Literally speaking, Dave went to the alien home planet, lived out his life in a strange way (based on knowledge extracted from his brain by the aliens), and ultimately became the "Star Child": a highly evolved human being. Maybe he didn't actually live out his life like that physically, but one way or another, he represents a huge leap in human development. What all of this means, the story as a whole, is for us to decide as individuals.
Prior to Star Wars, this was considered the greatest technical achievement in vfx ever seen. In some shots they appear even more real than the first star wars which came out 9 years later.
George Lucas said that 2001 had much better effects than Star Wars but pointed put that he only had 1/10th the budget Kubrick had!
Star Wars is for the kiddies - 2001: A Space Odyssey is for grown-ups.
Star Wars had many quite visible matte lines, especially in its original release, before they were cleaned up or redone in the Special Edition. I could never see any in 2001.
@@izzonj
And it honours him that he admitted it. 2001 is indeed way better. A lot of the effects still hold up even today. And most of those that look a little dated only do so when you watch then on high def digital media, a format the movie was never made for - but they still look convincing if you have the chance to actually watch it on a real big cinema screen.
@mrtveye6682 the effect that holds up the worst is probably the views of Earth from space. I think that when this was being made, we still hadn't gotten any images of Earth from outside of low Earth Orbit. Apollo hadn't even flown yet. We had sent prices to the moon, but they were looking at the Moon, not Earth! When Apollo 8 captured color pictures of the Earth from lunar orbit, it was really a marvel to behold!
Hey Addy, the sequel 2010 gives a lot of exposition about these lingering questions (in the minds of some critics, too much exposition). So it's well worth a watch. Also, regarding the monolith on the moon, it's like a huge solar-powered alarm, first encountering sunlight in 4 million years, signifying that Earth technology has advanced enough to dig it up. It's sending a message back to those who left it (and near-deafening the scientists via their helmet speakers in the process), aimed at the monolith in Jupiter orbit serving as a gateway to their wormhole, saying, "Hey guys, Earth's ready now!" Once you take into account Kubrick's artistic license, Arthur C. Clarke's sci-fi really holds up.
Crazy that this came out a year before we even made it to the moon.
"Is HAL not going to open the pod bay doors?!" I lol'd.
If you want a laugh, try asking your Amazon Alexa/Echo to open the pod bay doors!
@@dereknolin5986 I thought of trying that but was afraid of being locked out of my house.
A buddy and I went to see the 20th anniversary theatrical re-release at the Cineplex Odeon in Washington DC in 1988. It was us and a bunch of people who had seen the movie and understood what the hell was going on. When the movie ended, they stood and cheered like teenage girls at a Taylor Swift concert as my buddy and I looked at each other wondering WTF was going on. When I got home, I read Roger Ebert's review of the movie. Suddenly, it all made sense. What a journey. We went back the following week to experience it again and were the ones standing and cheering as the movie ended.
The music and black screen at the beginning is the Overture. Big, epic movies used to have them in the old days, just like with operas and broadway musicals.
The actor at 6:53 is British actor Leonard Rossiter. He is well known in the UK for his sitcoms in the 1970s “Rising Damp” and “The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin”.
This is by far my favorite movie of all time.
Keep in mind this came out BEFORE the moon landing so at the time of release this film was groundbreaking. The jump from the bone to space was not only the longest timeframe jump cut but it was also a jump in "weapons development", the satellite was an orbital nuclear weapons platform.
One thing that is clear from the movie itself (although it takes several viewings to pick all the clues) is the purpose of the three monoliths.
Monolith A (the Dawn of Man) was a teaching machine, that took a group of homonid animals barely managing to survive and turned them into sapient beings capable of conceptualization, imagination, and tool use.
Monolith B (the Moon) was an alarm system. Buried at the same time as the Dawn of Man sequence, it emitted a powerful magnetic field for the sole purpose of drawing the attention of lunar explorers. Exposed to sunlight for the first time in four million years, it send a warning signal to Monolith C, telling the monolith builders that humanity had advanced far enough to leave its homeworld. It also functioned as a roadsign, telling humanity where to go next.
Monolith C (Jupiter orbit) was a stargate, creating a wormhole to send whoever discovered it somewhere else- a laboratory? zoo? courtroom? where this new species could be evaluated and prepared for the next stage in its evolution.
Thanks for the explanation
I've always considered that somewhere else to be a type of cosmic womb that allows Dave to slowly comprehend what he is evolving into. The more he adjusts to the new him the older the old him gets. Let's remember the sequel is called 2010 but he ages a lot more than nine years between when he goes into the wormhole and when he is hovering over the earth in his little egg thing.
I think of the hotel suite as the equivalent of a lab rat cage, where they could study the human, and prepare him for the upgrade to the Starchild. Note that the bone being thrown upwards was a weapon, and the satellite shown immediately after was supposed to be an orbital nuclear weapon. The implied story is weapons were the prod to new technology.
Fortunately for us, nuclear weapons in space were banned by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the year before this film was released, and we did not have to live in a world with death constantly hanging over our heads. The Cold War was bad enough as it was.
I have always considered TMA-1 to be the Africa monolith moved after its first phase was done. Why use 2 when 1 can do the job? Dimensions 1x4x9 and they continue...
It's kind of disturbing that the first lesson mankind learns is how to use weapons to kill other living things and kill others of their own species. Are we sure the monolith creators are benevolent? Am I my brother's keeper?
The actor who plays Dr Poole (the second guy on the Jupiter mission) is Gary Locke, who played an important role on an early Star Trek episode "Where No Man has Gone Before"
Gary Lockwood
Star Trek was was in production in it's second season when 2001 was released.....And yes just a few years earlier had it not been for his Manager/Girlfriend, he would probably have had a great career with Star Trek......She talked him into NOT taking anymore roles with Star Trek because she believed the show was stupid and beneath him.....Remember Shatner was further down the list of people they wanted and Gary was the guy with the name they wanted to stay....
@@leftcoaster67 oops, thank you
@@jimmythundarrsdrumcoverser492 To be fair, that show was NOT a hit or even popular during its original run.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver I was there I know.
I have a friend named Dave, and back in the 90's some of his co-workers changed the "you messed up" sound on his computer to be HAL saying "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?" and that freaked him right out.....
I used to sit in between a guy named Hal and another named Dave at work for several years too. That always tickled my sci-fi nerd funny-bone too.
Now that's funny!
You really need to watch 2010 now. It answers a lot of questions, raises some others, and improves the whole experience.
No. It is a superficial interpretation of 2001. This film is a mysterious open-ended work of art, 2010 is an unnecessary sequel completely different in tone and intent....
@@jonathanswift2251 manbabies don't understand that. They literally need everything spoonfed to them.
@@jonathanswift2251 manchildren don't get any of that. They want conclusions spoonfed to them. The very idea of a text is beyond them, they just want to enter a kind of hypnotic daze for a few hours to soothe their alienation.
Why the hell do so many people think this movie needs concrete answers. makes me think you just dont know how to appreciate the movie as it is
@@jonathanswift22512010 is entertaining
The AI being the villain trope pretty much came from this. There’s a whole pantheon of science fiction that owes itself to that story trope from here 😁
Mmm, AI being the villain goes back a lot further than this.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R. (1920)
Asimov invented his 'three laws of robotics' in the 1940s more or less in response to that trope.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
Another great movie from 1970 where computer take control is Colossus:The Forbin Project. Happy New Year Addie!
Seeing this film in 1968 at the age of 12 made quite an impact. Strauss’s Zarathustra music refers back to Nietzsche and his ape/man/superman idea, thus summarizing the film right at the start. Advance each letter in the name “HAL” by one place in the alphabet and you get “IBM.” Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE is a film I quote perhaps more than any other.
You say that like it was planned. They weren't sure if they were going to have the budget for new music, so they shot and edited the move, showed it to Clarke and Kubrick with classical music for filler, and they both loved it. So they went with it. Some claim it allowed a certain Mr Williams to be available to do Lost in Space, but I'm not quite sure I believe that.
@@tenchraven I say it like being planned is irrelevant. Classical music lovers got the connection whether it was planned or not. As we know, it's possible to be a poet and not know it.
@@rg3388 There is no connection to 'IBM'.
You did pretty well observing&understanding 2001, Addie.
And, yes, it really was a trip seeing it for it upon it's first release, while tripping on LSD; I was 15 yrs old at the time! 😉
We've been discussing this movie for the last 50 years, and not one has figured it out yet. This is the movie that inspired George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, etc., etc., when they were teenagers, to become movie directors. There are UA-cam videos with those director discussing 2001. It's interesting to hear their take on the 2001 movie.
I remember watching it in the theater as a kid (yes I'm that old) and people were blown away. Also the big theory was that HAL was a spin off of IBM as in the alphabet I follows H, B follows A and L follows M.
There are actually four books in this series, "2001," "2010," "2063," and "3001." All were very good books and there was a great explanation of the beings who put the monoliths where humans could see and use them. Great reaction video Addie. 🙂
Finally watched this myself just a couple months ago and was blown away by the sheer scale of this movie. Absolutely floored at how well it holds up so many decades later.
I'd imagine patreon or someone else in the comments has already explained the ending, so I'll skip that, but I found it super intriguing and thought provoking. _Really_ did not expect what it turned into
That’s why this classic is so brilliant! Most of us as movie goers want things “wrapped in a bow” and explained simply and thoroughly to us. Anything else has become unacceptable. Especially to Hollywood producers! Stanley is my all time favorite Director because he did the exact opposite. He made you think and left you way more than what most would expect.
It's all explained in Arthur C Clarke's book. The monolith is a tool to guide evolution. Thus the apes learned to use tools, which led to space travel further down. The monolith on the moon was a beacon. If a species advanced enough to find it, it signaled to Jupiter's monolith that a species was advanced enough to move up to the next stage of evolution. When Bowman entered the "Stargate", which was an alien transit system, he was taken to a holding cell that tried to replicate human surroundings. The boxes of food looked normal but inside held just a goop-like substance. So he aged and the monolith at the edge of his bed helped him advance to the next stage of evolution: the Starchild who would oversee humanity.
That was Clarke's explanation, Kubrick's had his own explanation. I'm not sure he tolled anyone.
@@GairBear49 Did Kubrick even have a concrete explanation, or was he going entirely for "up to your own interpretation" symbolism?
told?
From what I remember, the early humans used the tools to hunt game which helped them use the protein in the meat to help their brains develop as well. This was a masterpiece of a series as far as the books are concerned too. I read all four, it's just been a long time, so my memory of them is fuzzy. I may need to read them again.
18:11 My brother's name is Dave and one time he replaced all his computer's error alert sounds with HAL's non-compliant declarations, thinking it would be amusing. It took about two days to creep him out enough to switch everything back ^.^
For a while, I had "Dave.. my mind is going... I can feel it.." as my PC's shutdown sound.
“Waiting for it all to make sense” during the end sequence is classic. 😂😂😂😂
A masterpiece in film making. I was three years old when this was released and I've seen it too many times to count. A classic art masterpiece from a real Jedi master.
I suppose it would also be helpful to quote a Stanley Kubrick explanation of the ending:
"The final scenes of the film seemed more metaphorical than realistic. Will you discuss them -- or would that be part of the "road map" you're trying to avoid?
No, I don't mind discussing it, on the lowest level, that is, straightforward explanation of the plot. You begin with an artifact left on earth four million years ago by extraterrestrial explorers who observed the behavior of the man-apes of the time and decided to influence their evolutionary progression. Then you have a second artifact buried deep on the lunar surface and programmed to signal word of man's first baby steps into the universe -- a kind of cosmic burglar alarm. And finally there's a third artifact placed in orbit around Jupiter and waiting for the time when man has reached the outer rim of his own solar system.
When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or star gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he's placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination. In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death. He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child, an angel, a superman, if you like, and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man's evolutionary destiny.
That is what happens on the film's simplest level. Since an encounter with an advanced interstellar intelligence would be incomprehensible within our present earthbound frames of reference, reactions to it will have elements of philosophy and metaphysics that have nothing to do with the bare plot outline itself.
What are those areas of meaning?
They are the areas I prefer not to discuss because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded.
Why does 2001 seem so affirmative and religious a film? What has happened to the tough, disillusioned, cynical director of The Killing, Spartacus, Paths of Glory, and Lolita, and the sardonic black humorist of Dr. Strangelove?
The God concept is at the heart of this film. It's unavoidable that it would be, once you believe that the universe is seething with advanced forms of intelligent life. Just think about it for a moment. There are a hundred billion stars in the galaxy and a hundred billion galaxies in the visible universe. Each star is a sun, like our own, probably with planets around them. The evolution of life, it is widely believed, comes as an inevitable consequence of a certain amount of time on a planet in a stable orbit which is not too hot or too cold. First comes chemical evolution -- chance rearrangements of basic matter, then biological evolution.
Think of the kind of life that may have evolved on those planets over the millennia, and think, too, what relatively giant technological strides man has made on earth in the six thousand years of his recorded civilization -- a period that is less than a single grain of sand in the cosmic hourglass. At a time when man's distant evolutionary ancestors were just crawling out of the primordial ooze, there must have been civilizations in the universe sending out their starships to explore the farthest reaches of the cosmos and conquering all the secrets of nature. Such cosmic intelligences, growing in knowledge over the aeons, would be as far removed from man as we are from the ants. They could be in instantaneous telepathic communication throughout the universe; they might have achieved total mastery over matter so that they can telekinetically transport themselves instantly across billions of light years of space; in their ultimate form they might shed the corporeal shell entirely and exist as a disembodied immortal consciousness throughout the universe.
Once you begin discussing such possibilities, you realize that the religious implications are inevitable, because all the essential attributes of such extraterrestrial intelligences are the attributes we give to God. What we're really dealing with here is, in fact, a scientific definition of God. And if these beings of pure intelligence ever did intervene in the affairs of man, so far removed would their powers be from our own understanding. How would a sentient ant view the foot that crushes his anthill -- as the action of another being on a higher evolutionary scale than itself? Or as the divinely terrible intercession of God?" - An Interview with Stanley Kubrick (1969)
by Joseph Gelmis
I can watch the scenes with "The Blue Danube" waltz every day!
The screen is initially black for a long interval while music plays (often referred to as the "Overture") to allow patrons a chance to take their seats in the theater as the lights dim. Then the actual film starts. That's how the movie-going experience was back in the day.
Well done, your the first reactor to realise that Frank was dead, that aliens were observing Dave in the room and that Dave evolved into the 'star child' at the end
She even guessed HAL was a cereal miller
@@SnabbKassa yep, Hal killed the cornflakes.😜
You made some great observations and caught some things as they occurred.
Now, watch 2010 to get more answers to the questions.
not the first
@@larrybremer4930 it's the youtube euphemism treadmill
The two main music pieces are classical Also Sprach Zarathrustra, by Richard Strauss and The Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss
and do not forget "Atmospheres" by Ligeti - at the beginning (black screen) and the flight through the "wormhole" near the end.
The simple explanation for the ending is Dave goes through a wormhole to The Builders homeworld. Humans are still so primative compared to The Builders that they put him in the equivalent of a zoo, constricted from his memories. He lives his life and as he dies, his consciousness is transfered into The Star Baby where he then oversees, and perhaps guides, the further development of humanity.
after watching a ridiculous number of explanation videos that is probably the most succinct and clear explanation I have heard.
The Star Baby is how Kubrick visually represented something that truly had no form since Dave and the Monolith were basically merged into one non-corporeal being with the Monolith taking Dave's conscious upon his physical bodies death. Since he was a being of pure thought and energy at that point, no longer having a physical body, the constraints of a physical universe (other than time) no longer applied to him. The form of a baby symbolized his birth as basically a new species, somewhat like a newborn God who then has to learn how to exist on this new plane and learn the limits of his abilities. The real question is whether the Builders selected Dave and set the events on Discovery in motion or if the Jupiter Monolith would simply choose the first being to arrive as its subject. In the Dawn of Man sequence the Monolith gave special attention to Moonwatcher but he was also the first one to approach and touch the Monolith as well (but in the book the Monolith choose Moonwatcher specifically because he seemed to have the most promise).
It's always a blast to watch someone try to figure out wtf they're watching for the first time. Thank you for sharing ❤
Addie your instincts about HAL are 100% correct.
Some films back in "the day" used to include entrance music to let the audience know the film was about to start and that they should get settled in their seats. "The Cowboys" with John Wayne and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" are other examples of this. Longer movies may have also had an intermission midway through the film.
Called the Overture.
Addie, your reaction to this film was GREAT. One of the best I've seen. 👍👍
The minimalist dialogue, the MUSIC, the suspense and HAL9000's creepy, haunting voice are magnificent.
Kubrick purposely left the ending wide open for everyone's personal interpretation. People have been debating it for decades!
The opening theme of this movie is Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. I was first introduced to that piece of music through the TV Room scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), which featured this movie itself playing on the TV. You've also seen the Dawn of Man sequence parodied at the start of Barbie (2023).
Lots of movies used to open with a black screen and music to allow moviegoers to get to their seats and settle before the movie started proper. I had to google the term, but it was simply called an "overture". Disney's "The Black Hole" from 1979 opens the same way.
@woodch And so did Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
Star Trek: The Motion Picture also opened like that; the Director’s Edition added the star field. This is why I still collect movies on DVD and Blu-ray, because you can easily chapter skip these parts.
"You've also seen the Dawn of Man sequence parodied at the start of Barbie (2023)." Also History of the World Part I by Mel Brooks!
@@mattpobursky850 Addie hasn't seen History of the World: Part I (1981) yet.
The weird music you hear when the monolith first appears is Ligeti's Requiem. Ligeti was an incredibly fascinating avant-garde composer of modern classical music. His music is like nothing you've ever heard. Check out his "Musica ricercata" set of piano pieces if interested.
The music with the moon bus is also by Ligeti: Lux Aeterna. And the music with the starship is by Aram Khatchaturian from the ballett "Gayaneh".
@@wawinkelmann1011 I didn't know that. Thanks!
They decided to set it (mainly) in 2001 because that year was the first year of the 21st Century.
Arthur C Clarke wrote a book about how he and Kubrick collaborated - they basically wrote the screenplay and the novel at the same time, developing and discarding ideas, and leaving hundreds of thousand of words out (which he later published).
I would definitely recommend reading the novel - t's pretty short and contains some of Clarke's most awe-inspiring writing. And Clarke was an explainer, so he does explain things the film leaves mysterious.
And of course you have to watch 2010.
That was a great review - you picked up on things many reactors just blank on.
I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in the theater when it was first released. I was 11 years old. I didn't understand the ending, but I knew I had seen something great.
Astronauts have said that this movie captures the feeling of being in space better than any other.
The movie starts with an overture. People were expected to enter the theater and take their seats while the screen was black. Overtures used to be pretty common, especially with long movies (like this one).
The main theme was Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss (1896). The other music (used in the docking sequence and elsewhere) was The Blue Danube (1866) by Johann Strauss II (no relation to Richard Strauss).
Don't worry about not understanding the film. No one understands it on first viewing. You can watch it 100 times and still have questions about it. Kubrick wanted to leave it open to interpretation, and the feeling of mystery is part of what makes the movie work.
I am the same - I saw it in the theaters when I was 9. I just remember staring at the last sequence with my jaw hanging open, but having no idea what was going on LOL
All of the creepy, tense, dissonant, sound-design-y music was composed by Russian symphonic/choral composer Gyorgy Ligeti (Kubrik uses his works a lot, such as the very tense piano piece used throughout Eyes Wide Shut). Kubrik had edited the entire film with these existing pieces of "classical" orchestra music as "temp" music, and he ended up loving them so much that he didn't use the entire original score commissioned from the amazing film & theatre composer Alex North.
The last few films to feature a "seating overture" included 'Star Trek: the Motion Picture" and "The Black Hole" from Disney, both released in late 1979. Not claiming they were definitely the very last, just that they were among the last few, a practice that was gradually phased out, much like animated short subjects.
The famous musical theme was not made for this movie, although it was made even more famous by the movie and is closely associated with it in many people's minds. It's from the tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss.
5:05 -- RE: "I don't know how to describe it but the music fits this so well."; A: Short answer, that is a Waltz, specifically the "Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II. That's why I have always understood it to fit perfectly because the waltz implies there is a relationship between at least 2 partners who are dancing and using each other to counterbalance the spinning. In this case, the docking maneuvers for a spaceship and the space station is the dance.
Great first reaction. You did quite well understanding and were adorable/charming as usual.
This film was made before they knew what the surface of the moon really looked like. Some of the sets were huge and revolved around the actors. Check out Barry Lyndon, it's currently free on youtube. Kubrick got a camera lense from Nasa to shoot the candlelit scenes in that film.
They'd never seen the Earth in colour either - why the blue looks wrong.
Both the movie and novel were based on a short story called "The Sentinel", which loosely corresponds with the events at Clavius.
The novelisation ends with "Then he waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something."
Love the reaction as always! Please please please watch the sequel 2010 - the year we make contact. Has Roy Schneider from Jaws and Dame Helen Mirren (young) and a John Lithgow (3rd Rock from the Sun). If you don't.....I won't open the pod bay doors for you.
Yes, 2010 is a must.
Agreed. It answers questions and asks more. It’s magnificent. There is a third book. They should also make it. I believe it’s called 2177.
@@Exordiri the third one is actually 2061: Odyssey Three, and there is a fourth: 3001: The Final Odyssey.
I hesitate to recommend any book besides the first one, frankly.
Kubrick was a certified genius - crazed genius at that. The film is definitely polarizing - some loathe it - others like Tom Hanks love it (it's his fave film of all-time). The visuals are beyond stunning and ahead of their time and set the tone for the next 50 yrs for film overall. Fun watch as always Ads - Happy New Year :D xoxo
Oops one thing to mention about the soundtrack, it was originally a temporary soundtrack that Kubrick used when editing the film. The film studio had paid Alex North to create a soundtrack, however Kubrick liked the soundtrack he used so much that work was stopped on the other one.
Years ago a CD of Alex North's incomplete soundtrack was released, it's very different
Some time in the 80's they did release the intended soundtrack but i dont know if a version was of the film released with it added.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but if you take the letters HAL and go up one letter on each, you get IBM. IBM was quite the company and forward thinking with computing at the time.
The eirie vocals are the sign of evolution.The monoliths are the agents.
The classical music piece is called “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (“and so Zoroaster Spoke”).
You should definitely watch the sequel, 2010 (it wasn't made in 2010 either hyuk hyuk hyuk). It's a far more conventional film but also a lot easier to understand haha. It answers a lot of the questions raised here.
One thing not explained iirc was what happened in that last scene. Basically, Dave landed his pod on the monolith and it transported him to the dimension where the aliens reside. They built him a sort of pocket dimension that he could live in. He died and was reborn the Star Child. I can't remember if the Star Child is ever fully explained in either book or movie, though. It's been ages since I've watched/read either.
I strongly disagree about the sequel. It's not worth your time.
@@nazfrde if you watch it as its own movie it's great, comparing it to 2001 does it a disservice.
@@nazfrde I thought 2010 was better.
The music is Also Sprach Zarathustra (thus spoke Zarathustra) by Richard Strauss. There was also On the Beautiful blue Danube by Johann Strauss Ii.
Stanley Kubrick was a different type of filmmaker. He was also notorious for having props from his films destroyed after production. Anything from his movies that survived is very valuable for collectors.
I love the return of _Also Spracht Zarathustra_ at the end, linking "Star Child" Dave to the hominid at the beginning who had touched the monolith and worked out the concept of weaponry. A clever way to suggest Dave represents the next step in human evolution without any dialogue or text. (Speaking of the hominid, his name in the script is Moon Watcher.)
The music at the beginning was for when people are coming into the theater and finding their seats.
Today, it's ads, which shows how far we've fallen.
You have, quite honestly, done a better job of understanding the film, than most people did, upon their first viewing.
One of my favorite interpretations, which isn't super solid, but isn't without merit, is that the Monolith is the Movie Screen. Hence the feedback when they point a camera at it. Thus when Dave evolves, it's because he became aware that he's in a movie. There are some other interesting tidbits to support, the notion. I don't think that it's likely that it was the director's intent, but it's a really fun notion.
Definitely check out 2010. It's a very different movie, yet a direct sequel. Both are two of my favorite movies ever.
Oh the joy of watching reactors deal with the black screen intro! 😂 .....lots of films started like this back in the day, the black screen was for the audience finding their seats, and the curtains opened when the logo came up....remember when screens had curtains?
One of the smarter reactions ive seen to the film, im pretty impressed for a first viewing. Essentially, you got it Addie.
As a side note, there used to be, perhaps still is, a sound suite for Windows that replaced all the stock sounds with samples of Hal from the film. My brother installed it, his name is Dave, i think he lasted two days before he uninstalled it in a fit of rage. ... almost everything Hal said had, "Dave" in it, it drove him to distraction.
I had a colleague named Dave who asked me to do something in an email. I couldn't resist, just had to answer in the manner of HAL.
"Visually, this movie is stunning!" Yes. That's how Kubrick films tend to look.
I'd say the 1st "killer AI" movie was probably Metropolis 1927. Silent movie but well worth the watch! Full film is actually on UA-cam. Anyway 2001 is one of my very favorite movies!!! They say it actually makes the viewer of the film "evolve" . The monolith is a portal in the middle of the planetary alignment and yes supposedly aliens have put him in a "human zoo" after downloading knowledge into his head. Thankyou for reacting to this masterpiece -- much respect!
This film is a masterwork in demonstrating how film is, at its core, a visual medium. It is an incredibly complex and intellectual science fiction story that is told almost entirely visually, with only 40 out of 144 minutes that has dialogue and most of it very technical and straightforward, and yet you, like most people due, basically understood everything that was going on in the plot. Its Kubrick's best directorial work, and narrowly his second best movie after Dr. Strangelove.
The music is all classical, even the bit that is often identified as the 2001 Theme is from Also Sprach Zarathustra.
Almost all of the physics and details of how space travel would work is accurate (at least to the best understanding of scientists when it was made). To answer your question, if you prep yourself by taking a deep breath and are exhaling the whole time (otherwise, just like ascending from a depth of water too quickly, your lungs will pop if you aren't exhaling the whole time) a person would probably have 10-20 seconds of useful consciousness and about 25-30 seconds before the damage to the body (from lack of pressure, not the cold, despite what Hollywood often likes to show) is fatal.
Since the age of 12 this has and remains to be my favorite film of all time. Stanley Kubrick's commentary of the human race still manages to present the best story when it comes to the unknown of the infinity of space. His ability to connect a higher power in the cosmos to the story of human evolution is an accomplishment like no other, making the viewer feel a deep connection with the Stars.
As usual Kubrick takes a simple concept and elevates the material with his unique style of directing, somehow managing to make grandiose shots feel intimate enough to resonate long after watching the film. To what I think is the films strongest aspect, it is in my opinion the only film to ever transcend the screen, truly transcend the artform, and become the purest version of itself, true art, a true fucking masterpiece.
So well said. Kubrick is just on another level.
The long musical intro was a thingy back in the day. I believe it was when the audience came in to sit down etc. Sometimes there weren't trailers and such.
Years ago our local theatres would have an old movie night, and they ran Spartacus (also Kubrick), and there was music with blackness and later a still shot of Kirk Douglas. Most of us thought the movie was broken, as this was a digital copy etc. We tried a few times... not sure if I told the staff to leave, remembering that older movies did THIS.. and then it was fine and we watched the film. Another feature of longer older movies was an Intermission screen with just music. Think it was taking a smoke break, get another snack, stretch etc 😉
The patterns seen at minte marker 23:00 were referenced in SPACEBALLS. It happens when Maug (I mean Barf who was a Mog) yells "They went to plaid!" in his reaction to the Spaceball ship going into ludicrous drive,
Maug? His name is Barf. His species is Mog. Half man half dog.
@@RelativeReality7 Yep, I screwed up. Thanks for calling me out on it. And it is now corrected.
Very impressive how you keyed into most of it right from the get go. Even your confusion at the end still hit on the broader strokes of meaning that most audiences miss initially.
4:45 Bone Clubs to Nuclear Attack Satellites. The start of the Arms Race vs the Final Form. Everything in between is R&D
I hope Addie sees this comment.
This was my first movie, though I don't remember seeing it in the theater. My parents took me when I was less than two.
The music used at the beginning of the film was Richard Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra. Also featured in the film is The Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss II.
The movie was loosely based on several Arthur C. Clark short stories, including "The Sentinel", about a monolith left on our moon by an alien race millions of years ago. It was determined that the monolith was an alarm of sorts, alerting the aliens when we discovered it, thus notifying them that we have evolved to the point of developing space flight.
If you want answers regarding what happened with HAL and some of Dave's subsequent 'odyssey' (though not the grander, more abstract questions raised by the film), you'll definitely want to check out its more straightforward, non-Kubrick-directed sequel "2010: The Year We Make Contact." It's definitely not the same sort of experience, but is enjoyable in its own right.
A highly underrated sequel. It's not anything like this film, but it wasn't trying to be.
As an avid fan of the film/story/book, I am very pleased with your positive response! From a modern viewer's perspective.
I vote for "Evil Maria" in Fritz Langs Metropolis as the first evil A.I. but I am sure there are earlier books with evil A.I.'s
The next Kubrick film you should watch is Dr. Strangelove.
A couple of comments for you. The opening music is from the Richard Strauss Opera "Thus Spake Zarathurstra". The music on the trip to the Moon was from Johann Strauss- "The Blue Danube" . But ever since the movie came out tboth pieces have been associated with it rather than the originals. As for not getting the ending. That was intentional. From Arthur C. Clarke. ""If you understand '2001' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered."
I encourage you to see "Barry Lyndon" (1975) by the same director. It is a very great film.
True. It's so underrated.
All of Stanley’s films are “very great films”. A true Master…
@@jeromedeparis lit entirely by candlelight. Technically astonishing.
I sometimes argue with myself whether I like this movie or not. I decided since I wasn't bored nor did I want to stop watching it, so it was a good movie. Even though I feel mostly confused every time I watch it.
Congratulations! You've finally watched the greatest sci-fi movie of all time. The books do go into more detail than the movies, however they are slightly different as well, so they don't perfectly transfer between them, so they aren't necessary to get your own interpretations. The subtle nuances that went into making this movie are what makes it brilliant to a level that will never again be matched. Considering everything was practical, (they actually built the largest rotating room ever designed so that those running scenes, and scenes where they go upside-down could happen in real-time, will never be duplicated,) and they not only had the blessing, but the co-operation of NASA. You have to remember that this movie happened BEFORE the actual moon landing, while NASA was preparing for it, and the suits they are wearing were actual prototypes NASA was originally planning on using, before they updated them for the actual launch, so the vast majority of it was as close to what their understanding of space-travel would be.
Just to explain how detail-oriented Kubrick was, the song HAL sings, 'Daisy Bell', has a load of significance. It was the first ever song sung by a computer, back in 1961, and sounded about as creepy then as HAL's replication of the song, but it was an absolute revolution at the time, so he is paying homage to that evolution. The pen floating is also another completely practical effect done without wires and for the longest time people couldn't figure out how it was done until one of the effects people finally explained how they did it, which is brilliant, but also extremely difficult to pull off. There are still other scenes in the movie that no one knows how to replicate them to this day, using just practical effects, and will likely remain a mystery forever. The single best thing about this movie, is nearly every subsequent watch you'll be able to catch new details if you pay attention. It is the ONLY movie my dad has re-watched, and every time I watch it, I see another new detail or pick up on something I didn't previously. That is the sign of true greatness.
The musical theme is indeed very majestic, but it has also been the basis of or inspiration for pop music, of all things. One example off the top of my head is A-ha's "Take On Me"--listen to the notes when he sings the words "Take on me". Do you hear the resemblance? The band have actually said they were inspired by "Also Sprach Zarathustra" or, as most people know it, "The 2001 theme".
Please continue with Star Trek.
Absolutely!!!
I think you pretty much nailed it.
They're going to get weapons too... the first arms race. During Hal's personal question, he's trying to lead Dave into the conclusion that Hal knows what they found at Clavius but he's not allowed to tell them. Hal doesn't like lying, he was very proud to say that no 9000 computer has ever distorted information, yet mission control ordered him to lie by omission. Hal couldn't handle it, he went crazy. The AE-35 unit points the antenna at Earth, by breaking it HAL could break ties with the people who made him lie. In the Odyssey only Odysseus survived to return to Ithaca...
As for your guess at the end...it's as good of a guess as any. It fits the theme and the story from the book. Both Kubrick and Clarke have said if you aren't confused, they failed. You're right about the visuals, the cinematography is awesome and the special effects look good for today let alone 50 some odd years ago.
Kubrick films you might like, Dr. Strangelove (funny as hell) and Paths of Glory. A Clockwork Orange will scar you, it's a great movie but can also give you nightmares.
It isn't that HAL went crazy. It's that HAL's primary directive was to ensure the success of the actual (secret) mission to investigate the Clavius signal. So, when it became apparent to HAL that Dave and Frank didn't even know about that part of the mission, their presence became a threat to the success of the actual mission. HAL couldn't bring them up to speed, and HAL's actions to further the actual mission would seem to Dave and Frank like HAL was malfunctioning - which would then lead Dave and Frank to shut HAL down, thereby threatening the mission. So Dave and Frank had to go.
@@flatebo1 I consider becoming homicidal as crazy lol. And that scenario doesn't explain HAL's trying to sever communication with Earth. The whole HAL killing the crew starts when HAL predicts the failure of the AE-35 unit. Failure of the AE-35 would break communication with Earth, that was never part of either mission
The extremely eerie music at the obelisk on the moon is a "Lux Aeterna" by György Ligeti. It was not written for this film, which tells you something about Ligeti.
PSA: "1917" was indeed not filmed in 1917. 😁
I was 15 when I saw this extraordinary movie in 1968. It looked so modern and futuristic! Since then I've seen it lots of times and has become my favorite SciFi movie ever. I really liked how you reacted to this forever classic. Greetings from México 🇲🇽!
HAL is IBM shifted over one letter of the alphabet.
I saw this when it came out. I saw it again, several times, influenced by various um... things. I still don't understand it all, but it was a tremendous influence. Thank you, Addie, for helping me experience it again.
The next one.... 2010