(Unlike in the similarly proper and ascetic “Star Trek,” though, nations don’t fully cooperate in “2001.” When William Sylvester’s Heywood Floyd chats with some Russian friends on a space station en route to the moon, he can’t tell them about the monolith because it’s top secret.) Consider the totally generic board meeting of diplomats regarding the monolith found on American soil on the moon. Everyone earlier in the film is stiff and formal – almost robotic. Bowman and fellow astronaut Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) seem mildly annoyed by their jobs (which they nonetheless do well), and they should be: They aren’t let in on the secret of the monolith. However, the journey of the Discovery One to Jupiter is decidedly cold and downbeat. Given that final image of the Star Child – formerly astronaut Dave Bowman (Kier Dullea), or grown out of him, or connected to him – backed back the triumphant blast of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” “2001” leaves a viewer with a positive vibe about humanity’s next step. Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Douglas Rain Writers: Stanley Kubrick (screenplay), Arthur C. But it’s safe to say that “2001” is an art piece about the cycle of life. Clarke (see review below), a co-writer on the film with Kubrick. Specifics can be found in the novel by Arthur C. But it’s also deeply thoughtful.Įspecially in the final act, director Stanley Kubrick presents a viewer with a series of images, with the orchestral score providing hints, and asks us to piece together what we are seeing. Long and thoughtfulĪlso, “2001” is objectively long (2 hours, 29 minutes) and slow (although it’s pretty cool that my DVD includes music over a black screen at the front and back ends, plus the cinema intermission). Members of the “Star Wars” generation like me then watched “2001” – since it was about space and spaceships - and inevitably found it slow and boring, partly because we watched it at too young an age but even more so because we thought of space as a place for serialized laser-fight adventures. “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) kicked off nearly a decade of cerebral sci-fi that didn’t end until “Star Wars” premiered in 1977.
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