I watched this moving again last night and thought it has stood up pretty well in the intervening four decades. I remember first seeing it in a big cinema in late 1968 or early 1969 and was impressed by the ideas in the movie, although the ending was quite strange. It wasn't until after seeing it again and/or reading the book that the ending made a little more sense. Still, I thought then and still do now that the ending was a bit lame.

What I still appreciate is Kubrick's attempt at a film without a lot of dialog. The scenes in space, especially on the way to Jupiter, still strike me as excellent, although the lighting wasn't as harsh as it would be in space (some external scenes of the spacecraft had way too much reflected light on surfaces not illuminated by the sun).

My wife, on the other hand, found the thing immensely boring, especially the obnoxious discordant noise (according to her) during the trip to TMA-1 on the moon. I felt it was an attempt at reality; although I'd imagine someone doing that for real would probably use a ballistic path rather than the one shown.

I especially enjoyed hearing HAL the computer again. Years ago, a software engineer I worked with named Dave had the famous "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that" on his computer as an error message.

I also thought about how I would film such a movie. I was gratified to see that they did in fact build a large model of the cylindrical part of the ship to Jupiter and rotated it for realistic shots.

 

Agreed it is still a great movie.

But ""I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that" is not the best error message.

I worked at Texas Instruments in early 80s. We had a computer with voice synthesizer. One of the vocal errors was "Shut her down Clancy, she's a pumpin sludge". When you look up the error in the manual it mean fatal error, similar to the blue screen of death for XP.

As a background TI got it's start as an oil exploration company hence the error.

That was back when programmers and the companies they worked for had a sense of humor.

Lotus 123 had a program that translated common English to 123 commands. It was called HAL (Human Access Language). With a certain version you could type "Open the pod bay doors HAL" and it responded "I'm sorry Dave I can't do that". It existed till the bean counters found out about it and it was quickly disabled.

BTW for those unaware this was called an "Easter Egg". I am not sure if musch software has those these days.

 

It's a great film, I got the 9 disc Kubrick box set. Mostly excellent or unusual films although Eyes Wide Shut is let down by Cruise and Kidman, and Barry Lyndon is a bit slow.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Full Metal Jacket
The Shining
Lolita
Barry Lyndon
Clockwork Orange
Eyes Wide Shut
Dr Strangelove
Plus documentary disc: "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures" narrated by Tom Cruise

 

I loved the main part with the spaceship and hal, the rest of it was too weird and I didn't really get it. After the end I discovered that my nose was bleeding. Freaked me out something good.
I might read the book... see if it makes more sense

 

The book definately is required reading, before or after the movie.

 

Personally, I found the movie noticeable, but not something superb.

I hated the fact that the first word was spoken half an hour after the start of the film, and the last half an our before the end. If the plot was a bit thicker it could make sense, but watching chimps discover the weapon didn't failed to draw my attention.

I didn't quite get the ending. Maybe Dave found eternity. Maybe he just dreamt before he died. But in the psychedelic era of the 60s that is understandable.

 

If Kubrick's movies have a major problem, it gets down to a OCD-like concern with dirt and disorder. Things are simply too neat and tidy to be fully convincing.

"2001" almost gets away with it, but "Full Metal Jacket" was simply ridiculous - troops in combat for weeks with clean and pressed uniforms is too much.

A clip of the TWA spaceplane docking to "The Blue Danube" and the space station scenes would be a good edit.

I was learning computers at the time of release - HAL seemed awfully silly.

 

Clockwork Orange was anything but tidy. What a mess! The only film that made me hate violence, for it presented it in its every form!

 

I was learning computers at the time of release - HAL seemed awfully silly.

I loved HAL, still do. If you make a machine with Synthetic Intelligence (the real deal instead of artificially) madness is always a possibility. You will still find people who think it impossible. I suspect his movie AI is closer to the truth than anyone believes, when it happens it will become extremely routine, and a problem. Cherry 2000 anyone? (another movie).

The thing I find interesting about 2001 is the same thing the Jetsons missed. We have come so far in some ways, yet so little in others. Robots exist, but they are still fairly limited for home applications. Air cars probably could exist at a reasonable price, but I suspect the government bureaucracy started thinking about what the consequences would be when they fell out of the sky in large numbers. Space flight? Unless there are some fundamental breakthroughs it may never exist in any large way.

 

But ""I'm sorry, Dave, I('m afraid I) can't do that"

Along with "Hello Dave" from the League of Gentleman (a bizarre "comedy" programme here in the UK), this is one of those sayings that people repeatedly say to me as if its is unique and hilarious, and I've never heard it before.

Mighty annoying.

Didn't like the film btw, although I can appreciate its significance as an early pioneer of what we would see as modern sci-fi production.

Dave

 

The film is definitely a polarizer -- people either like it or don't like it.

But it doesn't really compare with my favorite book by Clarke -- Rendezvous With Rama. That's a story that still holds up well. I didn't find the sequels to be as good though.