50 years. Timeless. Let's do it again.

[yallerdawg]

Watch the Trailer for a Stunning New 70-Millimeter Print of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Released by Christopher Nolan on the Film’s 50th Anniversary

[longship]

1. The best SciFi film of all time.

It broke all new ground. All the special effects crap of today stem from this one film. Sadly they don't have the background narrative nor the spectacular story arch in this original. Today, it's all blasters and action Jackson.

Kubrick showed everybody how SciFi can be depicted. Hell! One doesn't even need dialog to tell one what's happening. And the wondrous music!!! Such music! To this day I cannot hear the Blue Danube without seeing spaceships in my mind's eye.

A near flawless a film as was ever made.

I saw it at its first release in Cinerama in downtown Detroit.

Kubrick! Ever the visionary!


Too damned many fucking spoilers in the new damnable trailer!!!! Why? Oh why do studios do that shit? Fuck them!

[yallerdawg]

2. Watching it in the early '70's...

the "Trip Sequence" was the literal draw to the movie theater.

It was really amazing that the entire movie was a trip - and unlike anything ever seen before.

It turned out to be most similar to a religious experience. Still quite a mystery if you just reference the movie alone.

[longship]

3. I never saw it as a religious experience.

It was about the sci/tech for me. Yes, much of it highly speculative. However, that's how SciFi has always been rendered. Consider Star Trek and its iconic techno-babble (nevertheless, still the best SciFi from television).

But 2001 made it seem real. No! Space ships do not make thrusting noises in space!!! There are thousands of other elements that Kubrick got absolutely right. (And granted, a few he did not.)

I do not consider Star Wars as proper SciFi. More like speculative fiction that focuses mostly on action Jackson sequences. Dazzle the audience and make sure you throw in a suitable number of clever lines of dialog.

[yallerdawg]

4. For me, it was always the monolith.

All the rest was pretty cut and dry.

In the end, technology and super-intelligence failed. Man planned - "something" laughed.

This movie makes you experience and think. Kubrick's best movies do that!

[longship]

8. After all, it was Arthur C. Clarke who said...

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

In 2001, he puts that into the narrative.

And he's not the only SciFi writer who has done that.

My best to you.

[3Hotdogs]

5. We wouldn't hear thrusting noise outside a space ship but what about from inside?

[longship]

7. I would think yes.

But that very long spaceship might not transmit sound all the way to the front.

That's my explanation and I'm sticking to it.

[BigmanPigman]

6. I did trip to this and it was extra great since it was at

a science center with a dome screen and the only seats available were in the front row. It was beyond "trippy". I have it on DVD and have seen it a zillion times since but nothing could ever come close to that experience.

I showed it to my 6th graders and they had no idea what was going on with the monolith...it was over their heads. I remember Rock Hudson said after he saw the Hollywood premiere, "What the Hell was that supposed to be about?".

[pressbox69]

9. Why is it

that nobody seems to talk about the only plot development other the Hal trying to take matters into his own hands, the discussion about covering up the discovery of the monolith with some story about a virus. I didn't even notice it the first time I saw the movie.