In the book, there are a few pages dedicated to explaining the aliens. They were once flesh and blood like us, but had passed into machines, then pure energy long ago. So by the time of Bowman's encounter there is nothing of them to see.
Turning humans into machines is a long dream of the technocrats. Musk grandfather was one of the first technocrat and now his grandson will working on the brainchip. They don't want us to be humans. They like machines better.
Yeah I understood the aliens to be something like the Organians in Star Trek, perhaps a million or more years advanced than humans and having no familiar form to us.
Keep in mind that Kubrick used Clark. Clark did not write the story, Kubrick did. Kubrick wrote the script and sent drafts and changes to Clark to incorporate in the book version. They eventually got out of synch which is why the book has differences, but Kubrick's version is what you might call the original. He just used Clark's name to sell the film. So, if you want to know about 2001 aliens you have to look at what Kubrick ended up with. Clark simply had no idea what Kubrick was doing, and threw in his own spin to fill out the pages.
Also, I remember other people’s reaction to the 2001 movie was that they didn’t know what the movie was ‘really about’ and that it was ‘a mystery’. I think Kubrick made it into an art project as he does with most of his films, that is, takes a genre and makes more out of it than it was at the time.
This was the second movie I saw in my life. I persuaded my Aunt to bring me to it when it was first released. It blew my tiny little young mind and still lingers with me after all these years. While its special effects were truly ground breaking in an era before CGI, its genius was leaving space for the viewer's imagination. And for this reason, it has aged incredibly well compared with other SF movies from its time.
@@a.manraizada Not at all. If memory serves, it was the Jungle Book which was also completely mesmerizing when all there was at home was a monochrome valve based TV with the amazing resolution of 405 lines. (My father was employee number 6 in the national TV station in Ireland which was itself only a few years old). How times have changed. 🙂
Excellent. Thank you for this. I experienced 2001 in Cinerama back in 1968 as a 13 year old kid. 2001 greatly impacted my psyche and inspired me to become a spacecraft systems engineer. Not showing any aliens was brilliant.Yet you could hear them "speak" in the room at the end which was creepy imo.
A Space Odyssey is so incredibly good that even now, after decades, it still is fantastic. The whole story, the characters, the sheer suspense, the way it makes you use your imagination, it's a true masterpiece and it's successor, 2010 The Year we make Contact, is not far behind.
How I wish “2061: Odyssey 3” had been made by Peter Hyams shortly after “2010”. Now I’d rather it never get produced because I’d probably be gravely disappointed.
This is very interesting. I'm not sure if it was Kubrick or Clarke that mentioned this, but my understanding of the movie accelerated greatly when someone said: "It's not that the universe is stranger that we imagine. It's that the universe is stranger than we _can_ imagine." Once you realize this film is attempting to depict the unimaginable - it actually makes a lot more sense. Given that objective, having physical alien creatures would have spoiled the intended theme. The unimaginable cannot be men in rubber monster suits filmed in some bizarre light - because we can easily imagine that.
precisely. we all dread the slightly ajar closet door in the dark, the strange coloured flashing light on the wall... will sit there for hours imagining all sorts of silly things... childhood leftovers, primordial memories, who knows... but once we get up and see theres nothing there... pffft. just a bit of plastic on a branch... "dont look back"... trained from the start to fear the unknown and scamper... to have shown anything... ruined. its the idea, the subtle fear that it might be... what it might be? who knows? makes me think of that old time classic, "duel"... wtf? nothing ever really happens but man, you cant stop watching... in case... was a bit like watching one of rob zombies movies. dull as batshit. but... i couldnt get up. i had to keep watching... almost peed myself actually. and personally, i grew up figuring crap out so i HATE having the answer given? another peculiarity is things like say, warp drive, time travel. we all sort of know it cant happen but love to pick apart someones depiction of how it may happen, even make whole storylines based on what or what may not be, arguments over how something non-existent and imaginary actually operates... lol... so called "canon literature" on star wars, star trek, etc... or is that lore? iunno, cant stand the nonsense! may as well concentrate on pratchetts turtles and the fifth elephant...
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 it fitted with the genre? aliens is more towards horror. and it doesnt really affect the storyline, having some visualisation. terminator revels in it. whereas 2001 and 2010 are more... explorative. not aiming for shock value... we sort have all come to expect an ET or similar. its really hard to break from the basic form sharing similar traits to all other vertebrate on this planet. we dont have any six legged mammals, or anything with its facial structure other than two eyes over two nostrils over a mandible, the lower of which invariably is made of two parts... (i will ignore cetaceans and their nostrils!) all mammals have an ulnar and radii, tibia and fibia... we cant seem to break from that basic biological constraint. and to do so just.. ruins storylines. it wasnt right for 2001 to have the aliens shown. theyre above that. just evidence of their existence, and power. are they malignant, benign, ambivalent? thats left hanging on purpose. aliens doesnt leave you pondering what if.. it just shoves it in your face. xenomorphs are nasty mofos. dark crystal showed the "aliens"... was part of the fun. gelflings, pod people, them... moths on stilts... yet, the end... the uRskeks are barely shown, drowned out in white light... only the vaguest glimpse, suggestions... jim henson was just as much a genius!
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 _Alien_ would not have happened if the crew had worked together as a team. One of the big tropes in sci-fi films that depict space travel, is the idea that the astronauts never get along with each other. It's a lazy way to introduce tension in a film - and often results in someone being shot out of an airlock - which is what we all want to see, right? _2001_ was different. The crew got along - but they could never figure out what they were dealing with. Even at the very end, Dave Bowman had no idea what was happening to him. The big airlock scene in _2001_ was the opposite of most sci-fi films. Here, a crew member trying to get into an airlock from the outside, instead of being ejected into space by a psychopathic astronaut who wants to take over the ship. Now one could argue that HAL _is_ the deranged crew member in _2001_ - but in the second movie, it's clearly explained that HAL had been given contradictory instructions. So really, HAL is more akin to an equipment failure - than a crazy crew person. I'm a big fan of _Alien_ . It's a great film - with an original aesthetic, excellent pacing, and a relentless sense of dread - but it just does not evoke the unimaginable like _2001_ does. The two films highlight different themes, in my opinion. I struggled for many years to make sense of _2001_ until I realized what Kubrick and Clarke were trying to tell us.
I read a book on Kubrick as a kid and recall that someone involved with the making of the film explained why attempting to show the aliens failed by comparing it to a production of Harvey they'd seen that partway through had a person in a rabbit costume walk across the stage, which ruined the mystique of the titular character. Some stuff is better left up to the audience's imagination.
Where did you get that? No, the “crystal aliens,” known during the production as the “mindbender effect,” were there from the very beginning. I have always considered them the best possibility for what might be aliens in the film.
2001 is not the greatest. watch Solaris:1972 Russian production.While Kubrick admired Solaris, Solaris director Tarkovsky brutally dismissed 2001, and its preoccupation with technological progress, as “cold and sterile, with only pretensions to truth”. Tarkovsky ensures that in Solaris - often viewed as a Soviet riposte to 2001 - passionate human drama takes centre stage.
@@skylar4735 Yes, it could be argued thus. Arthur C. Clarke can be thrilling but also there is always a coldness, an inhumanity, which I guess is how he himself says he sees the Universe.
That’s the beauty of the film-simplistic themes, yet great profoundness. Using the elements of Homer’s Odyssey and the theories of Nietzsche on man’s role in the Universe.
Years later Carl Sagan come up with the aliens of his own novel "Contact": They scan your mind and appear in front of you in the shape of someone you love.
Yes, it's a good oft used trope in sci fi films, to have the aliens take on human forms, like in the "pretty good" 1950's movie, "It came from outer space". They only appear as their "true selves" once, because they themselves knew we were not ready to see their actual "hideous" form!
Kubrick never consulted with Carl Sagan about anything. What happened was that Clarke took Sagan to Kubrick's apartment for an informal dinner, to meet the director. They were still in the early stages of writing the script, and Clarke thought that Sagan could contribute with some ideas. The problem is that Kubrick took an instant dislike of Sagan and told Clarke to get rid of him and never bring him back again. While Sagan did predict that It would be impossible to convincingly portray an alien, Kubrick ignored him and went on to attempt It anyway, only giving up at the very end. When the film came out and seeing there was no alien, the egocentric Sagan assumed they had followed his advice and tried to take undeserved credit for it. Check out Michael Benson's excelent book on the production of 2001 for the whole story.
I've heard anecdotal accounts about Sagan and how a lot of people didn't seem to like the guy after the first meeting so hearing Kubrick had the same reaction isn't all that surprising. What is surprising is that Sagan was able to present his series Cosmos in such a way where his ego didn't stick out like a sore thumb though he did rub a lot of people the wrong way during it's production as well.
I’m _really_ glad you mentioned that. I had remembered that Stanley Kubrick took an instant and profound dislike to Carl Sagan but I could _not_ remember where I had read it. From Michael Benson’s book: _Throughout the meal, Kubrick had been solicitous of Sagan, asking for his views and listening politely. He even agreed to the suggestion that they reconvene the following day to resume the discussion. But actually, he'd been irritated by what he saw as the young astronomer's supercilious, patronizing manner. After seeing his guests to the door, he waited an hour and then called Clarke at the Chelsea. "Get rid of him," he said. "Make any excuse, take him anywhere you like. I don't want to see him again."_
@@glenyoung1809 I'm not so sure about that. What really stood out for me when I first saw Cosmos was how Sagan's face would appear all the time, when a narration in off would've sufficed, especially since the show was based on groundbreaking animations for the time. I didn't know anything about Sagan back then, but his vanity was pretty evident.
@@luiznogueira1579 Your statement reminded me of how cringey Cosmos could get. Generally it was a serious show and well presented but there was one sequence which made me cringe, that was the ‘ship of the imagination’ and Sagan’s cornball ‘acting’ especially when he was trying escape a supernova! Yes he appeared personally when a narration would’ve sufficed, normally I didn’t mind it but at times it was a bit much for a documentary style series.
The polka dot man concept was kinda recycled in the 1970s TV show The Land of the Lost with an alien character called "The Zarn". However, instead of dots, it was motes of light in a human form and the character was see-through/transparent inbetween the lights as if the character lacked any substance other than the lights. It was probably early green-screen with person in green-man suit with little mirror all over, bathed in bright lights so only the mirrors would show up when the rest of the body was edited out.
@@ConorsMovieList Not at all - my "Old man " worked on that movie - ( HAL 9000 wasn't my dad ;-) ) ~ so trust me when I say so much ponderous crap has been written about 2001 that in fact your analysis really nails it for a broad and contemporary audience in a very concise way. [Just makes you wonder what would have happened if "They" had leaned into solving the problems with those amazing abstract alien CRT based (Cathode Ray Tube) "Renderings" ? - Sort of a shocking thought even though they were receiving commercial help for the more CAD based / info-matic data displays and visualizations. Transformation and display of Vector elements and matrices (like IBM) vs. forms of programmed "shading" they [Team special effects / optical ] were experimenting with. I think the twisted organic aliens you showed remind me of a physical execution of George Ligeti's music. To me this movie has a lot wrong with it / not 100% fanboy here, but understand its place in "History".
1:30- “The Sentinel” was one of at least six short stories that serves as source material for the film. Just as seminal an entry was Clarke’s 1953 story “Encounter at Dawn”, serving as the basis for essentially the entire “Dawn of Man” sequence.
@@paddynemo5411 It most definitely was used, as recounted in Michael Benson’s “Space Odyssey-Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke and the The Making of a Masterpiece”. Not scene for scene, certainly-but the thematic elements and setting were there.
A version of the "figure made of lights" idea eventually showed up as the Zarn in "Land of the Lost", a kid's TV show with big science-fiction ambitions and a tiny budget. In the context of the show, he actually looked freaky and cool, but he probably wouldn't have worked in "2001".
The moment the video mentioned the "figure of point lights", I immediately thought of those particular "Land of the Lost" episodes. Had I been drinking something, I might have pulled a "spit take". I'm glad I was not the only person to make the comparison. (Apropos of nothing, but I found the "robot" Zarn sent after the Marshalls far more unnerving! Years later I realized it was one of the dinosaur stop-motion armatures devoid of its foam latex skin.)
This movie literally changed me at age 12. At 66 I am just beginning to get answers to the questions this filmmaker raised. Thanks for reviewing this aspect. Nicely done.
Excellent concise video however if you want to explore the unused options in greater detail try and find a copy of "The lost worlds of 2001" by Arthur C Clarke, he recounts the seemingly endless attempts create believable aliens and indeed how to end the film
There were no aliens described in the book, but in the Dawn of Man sequence Moon Watcher can hear the Monolith being built, but he is too scared to go out and see what is going on.
@@ronschlorff7089 I'm not sure "they" are alive in 2010. Working their magic, yes. But we never see them. Or do we? It's been a while since I've seen that one.
Yes, like the original, it reveals a bit but not all of the aliens, only their "magical" technology and "philosophy". It's one of the few sequels to a sci fi movie I'd actually recommend to folks, especially if they were a bit confused about the primary. The fact that HAL's "motives" for killing, or attempting to kill, in Dave's case, the crew of Discovery are explained was enough to make it "worthwhile" to watch, at least for me!! : )@@BruceCarroll
Alien or other dimensional, the polka dot guy concept isn't too far off with the ones who are like a watery looking translucence. If one is right near you it's hard to not see because as they move along, their bodies 'ripple' in almost transparent waves. Their bodies blend in with whatever is behind them and the rippled wavy movement stands out while at the same time, making the outline of their body stand out.
The audience's imagination is usually the most powerful and varied source of ideas, as evidenced by the plethora of fan theories and documentaries about "what Kubrick really meant" in this movie and "The Shining", and "Eyes Wide Shut".
Arthur C. Clarke's novel version of "2001", written concurrently with the movie, gives fairly clear explanations of what it all means to Clarke, though many incidental details are still left mysterious. So someone seeking *an* answer can find it there. But the book's interpretation of the story isn't necessarily the last word on the movie, especially considering that while they have the same story in broad outline, there are many differences between the book and the movie in detail. Kubrick was willing to let the audience ponder and come up with their own concept of the film's meaning. I've particularly heard a lot of speculation from viewers about a possible connection between HAL's malfunction and the unseen aliens (did the monoliths sabotage HAL somehow? Is the conflict between Dave and HAL a test that is required for him to "level up"?) that is interesting, and nowhere to be found in Clarke's version of the story. That's the kind of thing viewers can imagine on their own. (I suspect the film is subliminally reinforcing those speculations by making HAL's "eye" panels shaped like the monolith.)
My father took me with him to see this movie when I was very young. Less than five, it is one of those movies I r=have memories of seeing in fragments. I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I've seen it since. I read the book once when I was in middle school and what I remember was Dave flying through space in his capsule and seeing evidence of the Aliens that had evolved or died off millennia before. The one example that stuck in my mind was a giant city/spaceport in the middle of space, long abandoned.
Kubrick didn't depict the aliens in 2001: A Space Odyssey visually, but he made up for it by depicting them through György Ligeti's terrifying music. It sounds like the wailing of disembodied souls. It's completely otherworldly. You hear that, and you know the characters are dealing with something that could bend the human mind to the breaking point.
2001 IS the alien experience. Not just visual effects, but the production design was so detailed that it transported us. Even the door to Hall's brain was on another level. By the way, when you see all the shots of the space station it becomes apparent there is no space for the Aries 1b, the round ship that lands on the moon, to depart from.
What I don’t understand when they made the film Independence Day the Alien didn’t look like they had a physical appearance to built a spaceship 🚀 unless they had human like aliens engineers on their home planet
Kubrick was genius, his mind created perfect scenarios, and he compelled actors in his films, to complete his visions perfectly. Was interesting that most of the A-list actors, who performed in his films, swore to never work with him again. Nicholson claimed he was crazier than Jack was, and could be terrifying. Kubrick was a very interesting person, who was usually the smartest man in the room, even if people like Clarke and Sagan were in there with him.
It would have been neat to include near-subliminal glimpses of something that might have been alien life, or might have been some other kind of phenomenon. Leaving some tantalizing mystery. I liked the analog video experiments. Just a flash of one of those, and the viewer is left wondering if we've just seen an alien, or a ship, or something else entirely.
I believe the "catch" behind Kubricks' movie and the monolith are 4th dimension aliens. See the monolith is the 3d representation that can be seen and touch by 3d beings. So the monolith itself in this sense would be the alien (not its representation). I took that way at least.
Yes!! Especially "today" when you see the crap they pass of as sci fi films, cranked out by "children" at Disney and others, trashing long-revered franchises and making a woke-ish mockery of the entire genre of sci fi films. Yes, even Avatar, and Dune, kiddies!! ;D
There was a book written about how the film developed thru time. I don't know why it wasn't mentioned in the video but it is called The Lost Worlds of 2001. It has Clarke writing Bout the different screen plays that he and Kubrick toyed with. Very good read.
There were some aliens in movies and tv looking outerworldly. Like in Star Trek sometimes they showed us lights floating in the air. The Blob was a slimepuddle. And in the german scifi series "Raumpatrouille" from the sixties they showed sillhouettes filled with lightning effects.
The recent film "Bird Box" comes to mind. The aliens were supposed to be so scary, it would drive you mad if you saw them. After a number of tests, the filmmakers realized it was better not to show anything, rather than depict something that fell short of expectations. (I have not actually seen the film, but heard this.)
That’s why “A Quiet Place” ended up mediocre. The aliens looked stupid. Once you see them clearly, they’re just another dumb tropey alien monster. People are reaaaaaally bad at not following the popular ideas of other scifi filmmakers. It’s truly annoying.
I'm thinking many did not read the book or later books as I don't remember there being any description of the races or race involved with Bowmen and his journey at all. I do remember something that was explained that many species take the same journey as at one point he passes through some massive ship graveyard and that the beings in question are beyond the natural. They evolved past the body to machines/robots and then past that of sorts. The monoliths are the aliens or one alien in a version of them.
The first time I heard they had actually intended to put aliens in the movie was, gosh, a decade after I’d first seen it, and my first reaction was, “where would you even put them?” There was just no need. It would have diminished the sense of wonder and fear. It would have made the film mundane. It’s much better with them inscrutable and offscreen. I take a little exception to the idea that SF prior to 2001 was all bug eyed monsters and whatnot. I mean you’ve got Forbidden Planet and The Day Th Earth Stood Still. I’d put Forbidden Planet in the same category as 2001 and Blade Runner as the three only American SF films that really matter.
Should do one on Kubricks attempt at Neanderthal prosthetic makeup before switching to apes - or the expensive making of a clear Lucite monolith that Kubrick rejected because it wasn’t invisible enough.
Stanley Kubrick had attempted to use rubber space alien toys. These toys were molded rubber set on a wire armature, and there was one for each of the planets at one time. He was going to film them then distort the images, pulling them out of shape. In the end, he abandoned it. I know of these toys, because both my brother and I owned one. His was from Neptune, I believe, and was sold as "Colossus Rex". Can't remember where mine was from, but they were pretty cool! 🙂🙂
Terence Young used the same power of the imagination in “Thunderball” by not showing the face of #1. When the ultimate force of evil is finally revealed as Donald Pleasence with a scar in “You Only Live Twice”, #1 (Blofeld) becomes a cultural joke for comics to mock.
@@historybuff66 of course, but the screened off view of #1, elevated at the head of the deadly conference table, was particularly effective. With that disembodied voice, in that accent, #1 became the frightening titular head of a mysterious “super mafia”.
2001 is the most horrific adventure you can imagine. Being empty, alone, untold miles from earth facing the total unknown being in the presence of an unseen alien race. To actually SHOW that race would totally undercut the film. The BEST thing Kubrick did was NOT show that race and leave it to our imagination!
Even Clarke’s novel projects the sense of mournful solitude and a fear of the unknown on behalf of Dave Bowman-especially in light of the fact that he ends up on Iapetus, moon of Saturn, double the distance from the Jupiter system.
The beauty of cinema and the true genius of Kubrick. To create something that doesn’t have to be defined. After all these years of watching and studying all of his films. I still come away with a different take on The Shining and 2001. Although I see a lot of similarities and understand where other fans derive their theories from. I just see them a little differently. The true definition of a masterpiece.
Yes, in all Art there is the oft used (and sometimes overused) term that "less is more". That does not work for me in the culinary arts, however, LOL. But, the viewers of a "masterpiece" may "create" it in their own minds!
In the Lost Worlds of 2001 by Clarke (hard to find now) he described the aliens as Nordic like. Tall, blond hair, large rap around eyes, and 5 fingers and a thumb on each hand.
There's a moment during the stargate sequence where a group of pulsing crystalline structures appear over the horizon (IIRC). I always thought that those were meant to represent the alien observers.
Near the end of the film when the astronaut David Bowman inside that strange Room you can hear whispering sound that is the Aliens but the human can only hear it but it incomprehensible to us like animals in a zoo 2001 A space Odyssey doesn't show the Alien specie but only there technology
I still cannot believe this film was made in 1965. Its production values are off the scale even by todays standards . In fact because it was FILMED it has a quality all of its own that cannot be done with CGI. Also the design of interiors ,spacecraft ect, are utterly superb
I have this idea for an alien species with helical symmetry that has a top instead of legs, twigs instead of arms, and eyes instead of leaves. If Kubrick ever came across such a concept, I'm pretty sure he would've used it.
It is "well enough" explained in the sequel "2010, the year we make contact", so, without giving it away, as a spoiler, in case someone would like to see that really good movie, BTW, it has to do with "human error and deception", as HAL was always quick to point out in the primary movie!! ;D@@crowbar_the_skull
Read the book, the Star Child is Bowman being reborn. Reborn as an evolved being, made up of energy. Throw away all the nonsense that was said by Clark and Kubrick, you need the book and the movie to understand 2001. And then if you read all 4 books it becomes very easy to understand.
There is a theory that when the screen goes to black for long intervals, the audience in the theatres,were actually, unknowingly, staring at the monolith.
I get that in 2001 the monolith alone implies a completely unknown alien intelligence, and that's fine. It works just great in that film. Now, some will want to show alien lifeforms anyway, especially ones that have not been designed in human special effects departments. One would be hard-pressed indeed to find alien creatures more alien than those found at the bottom of the sea. They weren't designed within the limited imaginations of men. Their origin is far beyond that.
It's still a problem and CGI hasn't helped much IMO. I think the scene in 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' where David Bowie reveals himself as alien is good as even though he is 'almost human' the sheer 'alien-ness' of the character is enough to send the lady over the edge...
2:15 Of course you had to illustrate "Actors in Rubber Suits" with a clip executed using Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation from _First Men in the Moon._
at 4:25 .... I wonder how they filmed this shot, with no camera reflected in the visor. I'm a vfx artist, and today we would digitally clean it up, or put the visor in afterward
They stuck to it to a glass pane right? Man, working with Brian Johnson must’ve been an experience- I’m sure you got some great stories. What project was it on?
Visor: Hang Black board or velvet across the front of set and cut a hole for the lens have the front of the lens /matte box a little ways behind this nd make sure that from the subjects point of view no light reflects off of lens. If it’s not lit, there’s no reflection to show up in the visor.
The best movie ever made in history in my opinion.The lists on the moviedatabases are wrong 😛 Often commercialism goes before art.The most viewers doesn't understand what a wellmade movie is ? Or they doesn't understand the concept ? Therefore they prefer"Kitch" ???
Those 'giant tumbling rocks' were meant to signify that the Discovery had passed the orbit of Mars and was now passing through the Asteroid Belt(s), on the way to Jupiter. Another cool detail in the movie. Contrary to in much science fiction, the asteroids average VERY far apart from one-another (unless two happen to also be orbiting one-another). IRL, All of the space probes to the outer solar system passed through the asteroid belt(s) without incident.
@@anorthosite That’s one seemingly small and insignificant detail that I always appreciated about the film, that the asteroid belt was so accurately depicted. In silly films like Star Wars an asteroid zone is shown in such a manner that the mutual gravitation of the individual asteroids would invariably lead to coalescence.
@@historybuff66 As you Well Know: Many Asteroids are fragments of Early Solar System, Moon-sized, internally-differentiated Planetesimals. MASSIVE collisions then shattered them to their cores (why we get nickel-iron meteorites - vs the stony and stony-iron ones, or chondrites). But recent spacecraft encounters show that many other asteroids are just gravity-bound agglomerations of various sized fragments. They remind me of when I clean the Cat Box of "Urine Balls". [Except the binding force is micro-gravity - not Cat Pee] XD
@@anorthosite The distinct differences in composition between chondritic meteoroids and those comprising a nickel-iron (inner planetesimal core) and their genesis was rather lost on me until you offered up some enlightenment! I must have read this in Carl Sagan’s book “Comet” or perhaps an Asimov treatise on the origins of the early Solar System-but since forgot this. Much obliged.
@@ConorsMovieListIt is cheesy, very cheesy, even as far as a 70s sci-fi kid's show went, a Sid and Marty Krofft production. But as a kid I loved it and viewed through those eyes and with nostalgia I can watch it without cringing. Whatever you do, don't watch the film version with Will Ferrell, especially if you enjoyed the tv series.
Kubrick absolutely made the best decision - to show the aliens would have been a huge letdown. Allow each member of the audience the freedom to fill in that detail to the best of their ability with their own imagination, and the mystery and wonder will persist for as long as people watch this movie. This is just one of many details that make _2001: A Space Odyssey_ arguably the greatest movie ever made, and not just the greatest sci-fi movie.
I was ten years old when I saw the film at the Cinerama movie theater Theran iran Atlantic Movie theater Pahlavi St. I was completely out of my body and couldn't believe what I was seeing!
He certainly did as it was one of the many films he and author Arthur C. Clarke viewed together for background info and to get a sense of the evolution of science fiction cinema.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 That Kubrick and Clarke viewed together a ton of old science fiction films beginning with “Things to Come” (1936), and most importantly DTESS (given that it served as a high water mark for SF cinema) has been recounted in at least a couple books devoted to “2001”, most recently Michael Benson’s book. Kubrick hated them all, that much is certain, while Clarke relished all of them like a kid at the theater, which baffled Kubrick.
@@historybuff66 So Kubrick saw the first SF movie where it is the humans that (without provocation) attack the alien, not the other way round, and completely failed to appreciate the significance of that.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Who knows…his criticism of the films up until 1965 were that they were cinematically flat, devoid of cerebral concepts and generally cliched. Clarke greatly appreciated the film and for me, it’s the one of the top three SF films of all time at any rate.
I've watched 2001 many times over the years. To this day, I wouldn't say I like the first and last portions of the film. After being warned not to go to Europa, a better ending would show him disregarding that warning, going to that moon, and sending a message to Earth, "You won't believe this, but I saw..." The transmission cuts off.
I recommend reading The Lost Worlds of 2001. When I ordered the book I erroneously believed that it was going to be behind-the-scenes journal by Arthur C. Clarke and the evolution of the film. It has a bit of that but mostly it is discarded chapters that Clarke submitted to Kubrick and were rejected. Thankfully Kubrick saw how bad these ideas were and gave them a pass. One would have seen Bowman during his journey though the Star Gate and passing over an alien village. A young alien on the ground spots the craft costing above him and aims his toy ray gun to shoot it down. I don't recall if there was much detail into the appearance of the alien child but this just embarrassing to read. I've read the entire Odyssey series and found them dreadful , with the last, 3001, being among the worst books I have ever read. It involves finding Poole floating in space in a state of suspended animation and revived a thousand years since his attack by HAL. But I digress. Thankfully Kubrick was wise enough to leave the aliens unseen. It might disappoint some but I think it gives them an omnipotent and "godlike" presence. I always assumed that the monoliths were the aliens and they had advanced to such a state were there was no distinguishing between them and their technology, having a mastery of time and space that humans can not comprehend. I don't care for the ending of the novel which has the Star Child detonating the weaponry orbiting the Earth. In the film his destiny is more ambiguous and left open to us what happens next. Surely not the silly events of the sequel.
The Star Child’s detonation of the orbiting nuclear weapons platforms in Clarke’s novel works well for me because, in watching the film, what becomes clear is that the bone tossed by “Moonwatcher” showcases an incredible instantaneous cut of man’s first weapon to his “ultimate” weapon over the span of 4 million years. Myself, I found the Odyssey tetralogy satisfying up until the final entry, which was underwhelming for certain. “2010” was for me cleverly crafted and the landing on Halley’s Comet in “2061” was a novel concept in its own right.
Kubrick didn't want to use the 'invisible aliens' and 'aliens look almost like us' that everyone else used. That would imply that he was limited in the same way as all other directors. That sculpture of the alien with the awkward multiple arms faces the problem all such creatures have; how are such shapes even born, how can something so awkward become lords of space and time? I mean, humans are flexible, but still very limited (especially when their space helmets don't let them look up, as in 2001). The attempt to make Arthur C Clarke's idea of the aliens being 'frozen lattices of light' came closest with the 'paper sculpture people' mentioned here as being generated like shapes on an oscilloscope (something actually done in Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape', worth looking up, as they also cross space and time, being visible in the opening titles as well as at the denoument). I personally, would have gone with them, but I'm not a director.
There is a saying: “truth is stranger than fiction”. If you thought such body configurations were implausible, try making sense of the Burgess Shale fossils. Think of where names like “Hallucigenia” or “Priapulida” might come from ...
I ALWAYS found ironic "they" would find us equally shocking in appearance. IMAGINE we're alien describing humans: "they have central thorax which 4 appendages emerge, 2 upper slightly shorter than the 2 lower; at the end of each are 5 smaller appendages. Atop the thorax is a head with 2 eyes, 5 openings they use to breath and ingest nutrients, ... etc...
Good analysis. Great film, I actually saw in "Cinerama" format when it came out in 1968. And the sound, of course, who could forget that iconic opening!! The best sci fi films seem to show little of the "aliens", and in this case none of them, only their vast age and abilities. And, like the Krell, only their long-ago abandoned super technology, in "Forbidden Planet", which is arguably one of the best sci fi films of all time. Or they show only a few glimpses of them like in "Alien", and not pouncing around all over the place terrifying and eating poor humans or smashing their big cities, like in "Godzilla", for example. Or they take on human form like in "It Came From Outer Space", but are really big cyclops-ish shaggy beasts, in that one shot of them revealing their true form. Lots of good examples, but mostly from movies made long ago. Bad ones too of course, as you showed in the clips. You can go too far with this trop though, like in the inexplicable movie recently "the Arrival". Anyway, good stuff in all the movies. One more thing about 2001, the final approach to what appears to be their planet is it seems that Dave is being escorted down with a couple of diamond like ships and then we seem to hear them talking, "discordantly", while he is in his room, aging away. Anyway, only my imaginings, I guess. The fact they buried the moon monolith 4 million years ago and we see the monolith when we were at the earliest stages of our ape-ish development is genius too, as is the bone, as a weapon, flung high into sky; and it turns into a space craft in orbit, millions of years later. "2010" is good too, and still does not show the aliens, but again, their unimaginable technology and "magic"! Forcrissakes, why oh why oh why do they not make movies like that anymore. Geeeeeeeeeeezuuuuz!!! ;D
Solid exposition on the history and lore of some of the best science fiction films of the past. Recall too, that “The Day The Earth Stood Still” never revealed the true appearance of Klatuu, the emissary of an omnipotent alien race. Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rendezvous With Rama” series also features an alien race we can only guess at for appearance and I, for one, have been awaiting a filmed version for several decades (!)
I read the book, RWR, long ago and found it duller than all of the other books he wrote, me being mainly a hard sci fi fan of books and movie at the time. Precious few of the latter, but lots of the former to be devoured, even today, with a focus on fantasy mostly in the film genre, witness Avatar for example. I won't ever watch "new" Dune movie, (I found old Dune just "ok") having read all the books by Herbert himself. ;D@@historybuff66
Unfortunately, I don't believe they will EVER make movies like this again. The Hollywood system is too frightened to allow a director to have total vision, and we'll never get a visionary genius like Stanley Kubrick again, not in my lifetime at least. Occasionally a gem might show up and it's usually in the places you'd never expect. I think that, currently, only Nolan and Villeneuve might come close but even they can't compare with Kubrick.
@@historybuff66 TDTESS is one of my favorite movies. I watch it at least once every couple of months. "Rendezvous with Rama" is an amazing book, all the more as it doesn't have a compelling plot and the characters are a bit underdeveloped, but it does have many "big ideas" that carry it. I read it every few years. I'm waiting for an ACCURATE version of "Childhood's End". The Syfy miniseries did NOT do it justice!
It's interesting that by the time '2010' came around, the technology to show convincing aliens on screen existed... yet the filmmakers opted not to show any. Any word on whether a film version of the third novel is pending?
Well, it is interesting to look inside a merger sponge a 3D pathagerus rug cut it diametrically in half and come to find it is full of stars, 6-pointed stars and wonder if they thought of that in the movie or not.
Exactly right. 2001 will always be great to me partially because I never understood WTF was going on . . and my imagination had to do the work of aliens or whatever. So, he made the right move IMO. And, the sequel was far less alluring: it tried to explain things.
Exactly the opposite for me,the first movie left too many things unexplained....like a night dream...I paid to see a movie damnit! The second movie was clearly better ...
@@henrybrowne7248 all-time sci-fi fave? hm..alien 1-3 , silent running, enemy mine. you mean Tarkovsky's Solaris? seen it once when I was young, I don't remember a thing :-)
It's funny but the same year 2001 came out another sci fi film was made starring Darren McGavin and Nick Adams called Mission Mars. It uses obscure looking aliens as well. One film is considered a masterpiece and the other trash. I enjoyed both.
It wasn't really a prediction, though. 2001 was just a work of fiction; the "ancient astronaut" thing wasn't an idea that Clarke was seriously promoting or believed himself.
@@thewkovacs316 As Clarke himself stated on numerous occasions, “2001” could have VERY easily happened by 2001 considering the accelerated developments in science and technology in the 60s, given our landing on the Moon occurred by 1969. That it didn’t occur was directly tied into socio-political and socio-economic developments that brought Western society down an unforeseen path. But from a purely technological standpoint he was almost certainly on point with his extrapolations. This is the man who exactly 10 years prior predicted the development of artificial satellites and also exactly 10 years prior predicted the Moon landing.
Actually, Clarke's book has no defined aliens in it, just their tech shows up, they're mentioned but not defined... the book is perfect as it is, it was Kubrick trying to invent some aliens all along and then giving up I guess.
According to Clarke, the movie isn't based on the book, or vice versa--they co-evolved during the film's long and chaotic production. Some ideas that were discarded from the film are still in the book (the most obvious being that the monolith is on a moon of Saturn, not orbiting Jupiter), but my impression is that Clarke was involved in these rejected ideas. There was a lot of material he wrote about a roughly humanoid alien named Clindar who was the agent behind everything, and none of that survived. There's a book that is now long out of print called "The Lost Worlds of 2001" in which Clarke talks about his take on the creative process, and includes great big chunks of several unused versions of the novel. I would love to get my hands on it.
@@MattMcIrvin I think I have that book somewhere in my collection, I first started reading sci-fi in the early 70s as a kid and bought the book, I think in 1975, I had completely forgotten it until you mentioned it and don't recall all the details after nearly 50 years.
No, as I remember it they get explained. It might be in a later book (2010). The beings behind the Monolith are described as having evolved from biological beings, into trans-human and then finally into "lattices of light." Pure consciousness and intelligence that flit about the Universe like lattices of light.
If you read Clarke’s _The Lost Worlds Of 2001_ , you’ll come across some depictions of aliens that were tried and discarded. One idea I remember from that was, instead of the Monolith, it was an actual alien being who came to Earth and nudged our ape ancestors in the direction of intelligence. Then, three million years later, the same being meets Bowman personally. But it is impossible for a normal humanoid body to hold milions of years’ worth of memories; so he keeps only the ones he immediately needs “online” in his brain, all the rest are backed up to a large storage ring that orbits his house.
I'm glad he didn't show the aliens because it would've been reductive. It reminds me of when the movie "Contact" with Jodie Foster came out and I saw a professional critic's review of it who said he didn't like the film because there weren't any aliens in it. After watching the movie myself I realized how ridiculous and moronic his review was because the film was about so much more. Alien technology, alien philosophy, alien motivation, alien tradition, etc. And he didn't like it simply because he didn't physically see the aliens behind those things themselves. He wanted "Contact" to just be another dumb Independence Day alien invasion movie. I'm glad Contact and 2001 didn't subscribe to that and were so much more profound.
It might be slightly unfair to use a still from " When Worlds Collide" when describing Shlocky Monster driven Sci Fi Tropes as WWC was relatively High brow in comparison. There is a monster but it's Capatalism and Human Nature.
To the poor, starving artist who endured hours of makeup, completely covered in absurd polka dots, we salute you. I hope to god the fifty-bucks they paid you was worth it.
I wish filmmakers today would learn from the past greats. Jaws is the best, and literally only good, shark movie because the shark isn't on screen much. 2001 is the greatest sci-fi alien movie because the aliens never appear on screen. Books are great because of what we don't see, and I think CGI has pushed filmmakers to try and defy that recently, but it's impossible to beat the human imagination.
@@CordellPotts For sure! One of the best, if not the best, horror movie in space. And, of course, the alien is largely off screen. Both the adult and facehugger version of the xenomorph only have 4 minutes of total screen time.
Yes, the best part of horror is the unknown, and the "horror" of "alien life" is that it is unimaginable how different we will be compared to them or them to us. To some we may be seem like stupid and disgusting little "proctodeal" animals, not worth their brain bower to come down to our level, hence no good/convincing examples of "contact", yet!!@@JonathanMartin884
In the book, there are a few pages dedicated to explaining the aliens. They were once flesh and blood like us, but had passed into machines, then pure energy long ago. So by the time of Bowman's encounter there is nothing of them to see.
Turning humans into machines is a long dream of the technocrats. Musk grandfather was one of the first technocrat and now his grandson will working on the brainchip. They don't want us to be humans.
They like machines better.
This is the explanation Clarke gives in 2010.
Yeah I understood the aliens to be something like the Organians in Star Trek, perhaps a million or more years advanced than humans and having no familiar form to us.
Keep in mind that Kubrick used Clark. Clark did not write the story, Kubrick did. Kubrick wrote the script and sent drafts and changes to Clark to incorporate in the book version. They eventually got out of synch which is why the book has differences, but Kubrick's version is what you might call the original. He just used Clark's name to sell the film. So, if you want to know about 2001 aliens you have to look at what Kubrick ended up with. Clark simply had no idea what Kubrick was doing, and threw in his own spin to fill out the pages.
Also, I remember other people’s reaction to the 2001 movie was that they didn’t know what the movie was ‘really about’ and that it was ‘a mystery’. I think Kubrick made it into an art project as he does with most of his films, that is, takes a genre and makes more out of it than it was at the time.
This was the second movie I saw in my life. I persuaded my Aunt to bring me to it when it was first released. It blew my tiny little young mind and still lingers with me after all these years. While its special effects were truly ground breaking in an era before CGI, its genius was leaving space for the viewer's imagination. And for this reason, it has aged incredibly well compared with other SF movies from its time.
This might be dumb but i am really curious. Which was the first movie?
@@a.manraizada Not at all. If memory serves, it was the Jungle Book which was also completely mesmerizing when all there was at home was a monochrome valve based TV with the amazing resolution of 405 lines. (My father was employee number 6 in the national TV station in Ireland which was itself only a few years old). How times have changed. 🙂
No aliens were necessary for his masterpiece.
Excellent. Thank you for this. I experienced 2001 in Cinerama back in 1968 as a 13 year old kid. 2001 greatly impacted my psyche and inspired me to become a spacecraft systems engineer. Not showing any aliens was brilliant.Yet you could hear them "speak" in the room at the end which was creepy imo.
Holy shit so they were there in the room
@@danjun7986 They can see into spaces and times from outside them.
A Space Odyssey is so incredibly good that even now, after decades, it still is fantastic.
The whole story, the characters, the sheer suspense, the way it makes you use your imagination, it's a true masterpiece and it's successor, 2010 The Year we make Contact, is not far behind.
How I wish “2061: Odyssey 3” had been made by Peter Hyams shortly after “2010”. Now I’d rather it never get produced because I’d probably be gravely disappointed.
@@historybuff66 Considering how modern sci-fi movies are all about CGI and not much else I agree.
I loved 2010, it way more conventional but I remember being on the edge of my seat
@@danjun7986 I appreciated the film because of its hard science storyline, being very faithful to Clarke’s “sequel”novel.
2010 is a fine movie in almost every respect, but isn't comparable to 2001.
Reading about 2001 in 2023. I never thought the day would come...
This is very interesting. I'm not sure if it was Kubrick or Clarke that mentioned this, but my understanding of the movie accelerated greatly when someone said: "It's not that the universe is stranger that we imagine. It's that the universe is stranger than we _can_ imagine." Once you realize this film is attempting to depict the unimaginable - it actually makes a lot more sense. Given that objective, having physical alien creatures would have spoiled the intended theme. The unimaginable cannot be men in rubber monster suits filmed in some bizarre light - because we can easily imagine that.
precisely. we all dread the slightly ajar closet door in the dark, the strange coloured flashing light on the wall... will sit there for hours imagining all sorts of silly things...
childhood leftovers, primordial memories, who knows... but once we get up and see theres nothing there... pffft. just a bit of plastic on a branch...
"dont look back"... trained from the start to fear the unknown and scamper...
to have shown anything... ruined. its the idea, the subtle fear that it might be... what it might be? who knows?
makes me think of that old time classic, "duel"... wtf? nothing ever really happens but man, you cant stop watching... in case...
was a bit like watching one of rob zombies movies. dull as batshit. but... i couldnt get up. i had to keep watching... almost peed myself actually.
and personally, i grew up figuring crap out so i HATE having the answer given?
another peculiarity is things like say, warp drive, time travel. we all sort of know it cant happen but love to pick apart someones depiction of how it may happen, even make whole storylines based on what or what may not be, arguments over how something non-existent and imaginary actually operates... lol... so called "canon literature" on star wars, star trek, etc... or is that lore? iunno, cant stand the nonsense! may as well concentrate on pratchetts turtles and the fifth elephant...
_Alien_ seemed to manage it, though ...
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 it fitted with the genre? aliens is more towards horror. and it doesnt really affect the storyline, having some visualisation.
terminator revels in it.
whereas 2001 and 2010 are more... explorative. not aiming for shock value...
we sort have all come to expect an ET or similar. its really hard to break from the basic form sharing similar traits to all other vertebrate on this planet. we dont have any six legged mammals, or anything with its facial structure other than two eyes over two nostrils over a mandible, the lower of which invariably is made of two parts... (i will ignore cetaceans and their nostrils!)
all mammals have an ulnar and radii, tibia and fibia...
we cant seem to break from that basic biological constraint. and to do so just.. ruins storylines. it wasnt right for 2001 to have the aliens shown. theyre above that. just evidence of their existence, and power. are they malignant, benign, ambivalent? thats left hanging on purpose.
aliens doesnt leave you pondering what if.. it just shoves it in your face. xenomorphs are nasty mofos.
dark crystal showed the "aliens"... was part of the fun. gelflings, pod people, them... moths on stilts...
yet, the end... the uRskeks are barely shown, drowned out in white light... only the vaguest glimpse, suggestions... jim henson was just as much a genius!
@@paradiselost9946 Killing all the crew was not your idea of “shock value”?
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 _Alien_ would not have happened if the crew had worked together as a team. One of the big tropes in sci-fi films that depict space travel, is the idea that the astronauts never get along with each other. It's a lazy way to introduce tension in a film - and often results in someone being shot out of an airlock - which is what we all want to see, right? _2001_ was different. The crew got along - but they could never figure out what they were dealing with. Even at the very end, Dave Bowman had no idea what was happening to him. The big airlock scene in _2001_ was the opposite of most sci-fi films. Here, a crew member trying to get into an airlock from the outside, instead of being ejected into space by a psychopathic astronaut who wants to take over the ship. Now one could argue that HAL _is_ the deranged crew member in _2001_ - but in the second movie, it's clearly explained that HAL had been given contradictory instructions. So really, HAL is more akin to an equipment failure - than a crazy crew person. I'm a big fan of _Alien_ . It's a great film - with an original aesthetic, excellent pacing, and a relentless sense of dread - but it just does not evoke the unimaginable like _2001_ does. The two films highlight different themes, in my opinion. I struggled for many years to make sense of _2001_ until I realized what Kubrick and Clarke were trying to tell us.
I read a book on Kubrick as a kid and recall that someone involved with the making of the film explained why attempting to show the aliens failed by comparing it to a production of Harvey they'd seen that partway through had a person in a rabbit costume walk across the stage, which ruined the mystique of the titular character. Some stuff is better left up to the audience's imagination.
I like the crystal aliens floating along in the journey thru the star tunnel. Added to a later version.
Where did you get that? No, the “crystal aliens,” known during the production as the “mindbender effect,” were there from the very beginning. I have always considered them the best possibility for what might be aliens in the film.
2001 is still the greatest sci fi film ever created and the authentic look still stands above any modern CG film making today.
Hey man, CG is cheap crap, turns human brains into mush, especially with the stupid physics. Interstellar and Arrival were cool though.
2001 is not the greatest. watch Solaris:1972 Russian production.While Kubrick admired Solaris, Solaris director Tarkovsky brutally dismissed 2001, and its preoccupation with technological progress, as “cold and sterile, with only pretensions to truth”. Tarkovsky ensures that in Solaris - often viewed as a Soviet riposte to 2001 - passionate human drama takes centre stage.
@@skylar4735 Yes, it could be argued thus. Arthur C. Clarke can be thrilling but also there is always a coldness, an inhumanity, which I guess is how he himself says he sees the Universe.
@@skylar4735Solaris - BORING. And that's the bottom line cause Stone Cold said so (from 976-CREOLEMAN)!
As extravagant as 2001 is, it's also got a minimalism quality to it as well. A very hard balance to strike, even today.
That’s the beauty of the film-simplistic themes, yet great profoundness. Using the elements of Homer’s Odyssey and the theories of Nietzsche on man’s role in the Universe.
Years later Carl Sagan come up with the aliens of his own novel "Contact": They scan your mind and appear in front of you in the shape of someone you love.
Yes, it's a good oft used trope in sci fi films, to have the aliens take on human forms, like in the "pretty good" 1950's movie, "It came from outer space". They only appear as their "true selves" once, because they themselves knew we were not ready to see their actual "hideous" form!
Kubrick never consulted with Carl Sagan about anything. What happened was that Clarke took Sagan to Kubrick's apartment for an informal dinner, to meet the director. They were still in the early stages of writing the script, and Clarke thought that Sagan could contribute with some ideas. The problem is that Kubrick took an instant dislike of Sagan and told Clarke to get rid of him and never bring him back again. While Sagan did predict that It would be impossible to convincingly portray an alien, Kubrick ignored him and went on to attempt It anyway, only giving up at the very end. When the film came out and seeing there was no alien, the egocentric Sagan assumed they had followed his advice and tried to take undeserved credit for it.
Check out Michael Benson's excelent book on the production of 2001 for the whole story.
I've heard anecdotal accounts about Sagan and how a lot of people didn't seem to like the guy after the first meeting so hearing Kubrick had the same reaction isn't all that surprising. What is surprising is that Sagan was able to present his series Cosmos in such a way where his ego didn't stick out like a sore thumb though he did rub a lot of people the wrong way during it's production as well.
I’m _really_ glad you mentioned that. I had remembered that Stanley Kubrick took an instant and profound dislike to Carl Sagan but I could _not_ remember where I had read it. From Michael Benson’s book:
_Throughout the meal, Kubrick had been solicitous of Sagan, asking for his views and listening politely. He even agreed to the suggestion that they reconvene the following day to resume the discussion. But actually, he'd been irritated by what he saw as the young astronomer's supercilious, patronizing manner. After seeing his guests to the door, he waited an hour and then called Clarke at the Chelsea. "Get rid of him," he said. "Make any excuse, take him anywhere you like. I don't want to see him again."_
It wasn’t Sagan who had the “ego” in _Cosmos_ ... the director wanted him to go in a direction he didn’t want to go.
@@glenyoung1809 I'm not so sure about that. What really stood out for me when I first saw Cosmos was how Sagan's face would appear all the time, when a narration in off would've sufficed, especially since the show was based on groundbreaking animations for the time. I didn't know anything about Sagan back then, but his vanity was pretty evident.
@@luiznogueira1579 Your statement reminded me of how cringey Cosmos could get.
Generally it was a serious show and well presented but there was one sequence which made me cringe, that was the ‘ship of the imagination’ and Sagan’s cornball ‘acting’ especially when he was trying escape a supernova!
Yes he appeared personally when a narration would’ve sufficed, normally I didn’t mind it but at times it was a bit much for a documentary style series.
The polka dot man concept was kinda recycled in the 1970s TV show The Land of the Lost with an alien character called "The Zarn". However, instead of dots, it was motes of light in a human form and the character was see-through/transparent inbetween the lights as if the character lacked any substance other than the lights.
It was probably early green-screen with person in green-man suit with little mirror all over, bathed in bright lights so only the mirrors would show up when the rest of the body was edited out.
Very good - and concise without being abrupt.
That’s very kind. Thank you
@@ConorsMovieList Not at all - my "Old man " worked on that movie - ( HAL 9000 wasn't my dad ;-) ) ~ so trust me when I say so much ponderous crap has been written about 2001 that in fact your analysis really nails it for a broad and contemporary audience in a very concise way. [Just makes you wonder what would have happened if "They" had leaned into solving the problems with those amazing abstract alien CRT based (Cathode Ray Tube) "Renderings" ? - Sort of a shocking thought even though they were receiving commercial help for the more CAD based / info-matic data displays and visualizations. Transformation and display of Vector elements and matrices (like IBM) vs. forms of programmed "shading" they [Team special effects / optical ] were experimenting with.
I think the twisted organic aliens you showed remind me of a physical execution of George Ligeti's music.
To me this movie has a lot wrong with it / not 100% fanboy here, but understand its place in "History".
Great work, I never get tired of hearing about the making of 2001, and learned something here.
1:30- “The Sentinel” was one of at least six short stories that serves as source material for the film. Just as seminal an entry was Clarke’s 1953 story “Encounter at Dawn”, serving as the basis for essentially the entire “Dawn of Man” sequence.
That story was not used by Kubrick despite the similarity to the opening of the film.
@@paddynemo5411 It most definitely was used, as recounted in Michael Benson’s “Space Odyssey-Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke and the The Making of a Masterpiece”. Not scene for scene, certainly-but the thematic elements and setting were there.
A version of the "figure made of lights" idea eventually showed up as the Zarn in "Land of the Lost", a kid's TV show with big science-fiction ambitions and a tiny budget. In the context of the show, he actually looked freaky and cool, but he probably wouldn't have worked in "2001".
I remember Land of the Lost!
I was a little too old for Land of the Lost. I never saw it, but I'd love to see this effect. I'll see if it's on TH-cam.
The moment the video mentioned the "figure of point lights", I immediately thought of those particular "Land of the Lost" episodes. Had I been drinking something, I might have pulled a "spit take". I'm glad I was not the only person to make the comparison. (Apropos of nothing, but I found the "robot" Zarn sent after the Marshalls far more unnerving! Years later I realized it was one of the dinosaur stop-motion armatures devoid of its foam latex skin.)
This movie literally changed me at age 12. At 66 I am just beginning to get answers to the questions this filmmaker raised. Thanks for reviewing this aspect. Nicely done.
You forgot to mention the diamond shape Alien artifacts seen hovering above the Stargate landscapes, suggesting an advanced intelligence.
Excellent concise video however if you want to explore the unused options in greater detail try and find a copy of "The lost worlds of 2001" by Arthur C Clarke, he recounts the seemingly endless attempts create believable aliens and indeed how to end the film
That was an interesting and well put together video. Yhanks for taking the time to make and upload it!
Thank you for watching and the kind comment!
Fascinating! This video deserves a lot more views
Very kind. Thank you
There were no aliens described in the book, but in the Dawn of Man sequence Moon Watcher can hear the Monolith being built, but he is too scared to go out and see what is going on.
I think he just hears it arriving?
One possibility (one I embraced when I first saw the film as a child) is that the alien race behind the monolith is long extinct.
If you watch the movie 2010 you see, "they" are very much alive and doing their "magic" in our solar system, and for many more years!
@@ronschlorff7089 I'm not sure "they" are alive in 2010. Working their magic, yes. But we never see them. Or do we? It's been a while since I've seen that one.
Yes, like the original, it reveals a bit but not all of the aliens, only their "magical" technology and "philosophy". It's one of the few sequels to a sci fi movie I'd actually recommend to folks, especially if they were a bit confused about the primary.
The fact that HAL's "motives" for killing, or attempting to kill, in Dave's case, the crew of Discovery are explained was enough to make it "worthwhile" to watch, at least for me!! : )@@BruceCarroll
Alien or other dimensional, the polka dot guy concept isn't too far off with the ones who are like a watery looking translucence. If one is right near you it's hard to not see because as they move along, their bodies 'ripple' in almost transparent waves. Their bodies blend in with whatever is behind them and the rippled wavy movement stands out while at the same time, making the outline of their body stand out.
The audience's imagination is usually the most powerful and varied source of ideas, as evidenced by the plethora of fan theories and documentaries about "what Kubrick really meant" in this movie and "The Shining", and "Eyes Wide Shut".
Well said
If Kubrick meant to put me to sleep with "The Shining," he succeeded. Twice.
Arthur C. Clarke's novel version of "2001", written concurrently with the movie, gives fairly clear explanations of what it all means to Clarke, though many incidental details are still left mysterious. So someone seeking *an* answer can find it there. But the book's interpretation of the story isn't necessarily the last word on the movie, especially considering that while they have the same story in broad outline, there are many differences between the book and the movie in detail. Kubrick was willing to let the audience ponder and come up with their own concept of the film's meaning.
I've particularly heard a lot of speculation from viewers about a possible connection between HAL's malfunction and the unseen aliens (did the monoliths sabotage HAL somehow? Is the conflict between Dave and HAL a test that is required for him to "level up"?) that is interesting, and nowhere to be found in Clarke's version of the story. That's the kind of thing viewers can imagine on their own. (I suspect the film is subliminally reinforcing those speculations by making HAL's "eye" panels shaped like the monolith.)
@@BruceCarroll next time watching it without popcorn 🍿 and soda 🥤
But the whole point was that you cannot imagine it. "You cannot imagine the unimaginable."
The props, art design and practical special effects were a big jump forward at that time. Considering the limitation of movie technology in the 60s.
Yes, and the word "groundbreaking" does not begin to define it, at the time!
Especially when you consider that The Green Slime," a movie that's only redeeming factor is its funky theme song, came out at the same time.
Yes, another classic sci fi movie with classical theme music!! Right up there with "Beware of the Blob" !! LOL ;D@@felipecardoza9967
Just watched 2010 again a couple of days ago. An amazing sequel to an astonishing movie.
My father took me with him to see this movie when I was very young. Less than five, it is one of those movies I r=have memories of seeing in fragments. I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I've seen it since. I read the book once when I was in middle school and what I remember was Dave flying through space in his capsule and seeing evidence of the Aliens that had evolved or died off millennia before. The one example that stuck in my mind was a giant city/spaceport in the middle of space, long abandoned.
Kubrick didn't depict the aliens in 2001: A Space Odyssey visually, but he made up for it by depicting them through György Ligeti's terrifying music. It sounds like the wailing of disembodied souls. It's completely otherworldly. You hear that, and you know the characters are dealing with something that could bend the human mind to the breaking point.
2001 IS the alien experience. Not just visual effects, but the production design was so detailed that it transported us. Even the door to Hall's brain was on another level. By the way, when you see all the shots of the space station it becomes apparent there is no space for the Aries 1b, the round ship that lands on the moon, to depart from.
What I don’t understand when they made the film Independence Day the Alien didn’t look like they had a physical appearance to built a spaceship 🚀 unless they had human like aliens engineers on their home planet
Kubrick was genius, his mind created perfect scenarios, and he compelled actors in his films, to complete his visions perfectly. Was interesting that most of the A-list actors, who performed in his films, swore to never work with him again. Nicholson claimed he was crazier than Jack was, and could be terrifying. Kubrick was a very interesting person, who was usually the smartest man in the room, even if people like Clarke and Sagan were in there with him.
It would have been neat to include near-subliminal glimpses of something that might have been alien life, or might have been some other kind of phenomenon. Leaving some tantalizing mystery. I liked the analog video experiments. Just a flash of one of those, and the viewer is left wondering if we've just seen an alien, or a ship, or something else entirely.
I believe the "catch" behind Kubricks' movie and the monolith are 4th dimension aliens. See the monolith is the 3d representation that can be seen and touch by 3d beings. So the monolith itself in this sense would be the alien (not its representation). I took that way at least.
The film that changed cinema. It stands on its on even today.
Yes!! Especially "today" when you see the crap they pass of as sci fi films, cranked out by "children" at Disney and others, trashing long-revered franchises and making a woke-ish mockery of the entire genre of sci fi films. Yes, even Avatar, and Dune, kiddies!! ;D
There was a book written about how the film developed thru time. I don't know why it wasn't mentioned in the video but it is called The Lost Worlds of 2001. It has Clarke writing Bout the different screen plays that he and Kubrick toyed with. Very good read.
I must have read this 45 years ago and I can still recall being fascinated with scenes and concepts that never made it to the final film.
There were some aliens in movies and tv looking outerworldly. Like in Star Trek sometimes they showed us lights floating in the air. The Blob was a slimepuddle. And in the german scifi series "Raumpatrouille" from the sixties they showed sillhouettes filled with lightning effects.
The recent film "Bird Box" comes to mind. The aliens were supposed to be so scary, it would drive you mad if you saw them. After a number of tests, the filmmakers realized it was better not to show anything, rather than depict something that fell short of expectations. (I have not actually seen the film, but heard this.)
That was Lovecraft's skill - don't show, describe the effect on the viewer.
That’s why “A Quiet Place” ended up mediocre. The aliens looked stupid. Once you see them clearly, they’re just another dumb tropey alien monster. People are reaaaaaally bad at not following the popular ideas of other scifi filmmakers. It’s truly annoying.
I'm thinking many did not read the book or later books as I don't remember there being any description of the races or race involved with Bowmen and his journey at all. I do remember something that was explained that many species take the same journey as at one point he passes through some massive ship graveyard and that the beings in question are beyond the natural. They evolved past the body to machines/robots and then past that of sorts. The monoliths are the aliens or one alien in a version of them.
The movie still stands the test of time. It looks incredible, especially when you see it in a movie theater.
The first time I heard they had actually intended to put aliens in the movie was, gosh, a decade after I’d first seen it, and my first reaction was, “where would you even put them?” There was just no need. It would have diminished the sense of wonder and fear. It would have made the film mundane. It’s much better with them inscrutable and offscreen.
I take a little exception to the idea that SF prior to 2001 was all bug eyed monsters and whatnot. I mean you’ve got Forbidden Planet and The Day Th Earth Stood Still. I’d put Forbidden Planet in the same category as 2001 and Blade Runner as the three only American SF films that really matter.
Should do one on Kubricks attempt at Neanderthal prosthetic makeup before switching to apes - or the expensive making of a clear Lucite monolith that Kubrick rejected because it wasn’t invisible enough.
Stanley Kubrick had attempted to use rubber space alien toys. These toys were molded rubber set on a wire armature, and there was one for each of the planets at one time. He was going to film them then distort the images, pulling them out of shape. In the end, he abandoned it. I know of these toys, because both my brother and I owned one. His was from Neptune, I believe, and was sold as "Colossus Rex".
Can't remember where mine was from, but they were pretty cool!
🙂🙂
Terence Young used the same power of the imagination in “Thunderball” by not showing the face of #1. When the ultimate force of evil is finally revealed as Donald Pleasence with a scar in “You Only Live Twice”, #1 (Blofeld) becomes a cultural joke for comics to mock.
Young employed this earlier still in “From Russia With Love”.
@@historybuff66 of course, but the screened off view of #1, elevated at the head of the deadly conference table, was particularly effective. With that disembodied voice, in that accent, #1 became the frightening titular head of a mysterious “super mafia”.
@@stevenjones797 Ok, I’ll accept that.
Kubrick's "NASA Moonwalk" prequel was hilarious though.
Pathetic!
But you got your 2 seconds of attention, now go back under your rock!
Yes, and the funniest part is all those "ape-men" (like in the Dawn of Man segment of 2001) believing it was just a movie too! ;D LOL
Dismissing the monster from It Came from Outer Space as a "Bug Eyed Monster' is short sighted. The monster was quite innovative for the time.
2001 is the most horrific adventure you can imagine. Being empty, alone, untold miles from earth facing the total unknown being in the presence of an unseen alien race.
To actually SHOW that race would totally undercut the film.
The BEST thing Kubrick did was NOT show that race and leave it to our imagination!
Even Clarke’s novel projects the sense of mournful solitude and a fear of the unknown on behalf of Dave Bowman-especially in light of the fact that he ends up on Iapetus, moon of Saturn, double the distance from the Jupiter system.
The beauty of cinema and the true genius of Kubrick. To create something that doesn’t have to be defined.
After all these years of watching and studying all of his films. I still come away with a different take on The Shining and 2001. Although I see a lot of similarities and understand where other fans derive their theories from. I just see them a little differently. The true definition of a masterpiece.
Yes, in all Art there is the oft used (and sometimes overused) term that "less is more". That does not work for me in the culinary arts, however, LOL. But, the viewers of a "masterpiece" may "create" it in their own minds!
In the Lost Worlds of 2001 by Clarke (hard to find now) he described the aliens as Nordic like. Tall, blond hair, large rap around eyes, and 5 fingers and a thumb on each hand.
There's a moment during the stargate sequence where a group of pulsing crystalline structures appear over the horizon (IIRC). I always thought that those were meant to represent the alien observers.
Or alien spaceships. Or cities. Or maybe there's not difference between the 3?
During the final sequence of the film you can actually hear the aliens outside Dave's "apartment" at several points.
Quality always stands the test of time...
Near the end of the film when the astronaut David Bowman inside that strange Room you can hear whispering sound that is the Aliens but the human can only hear it but it incomprehensible to us like animals in a zoo
2001 A space Odyssey doesn't show the Alien specie but only there technology
At 0:52, you can see a human face inside the robot's helmet.
I still cannot believe this film was made in 1965. Its production values are off the scale even by todays standards . In fact because it was FILMED it has a quality all of its own that cannot be done with CGI. Also the design of interiors ,spacecraft ect, are utterly superb
I have this idea for an alien species with helical symmetry that has a top instead of legs, twigs instead of arms, and eyes instead of leaves. If Kubrick ever came across such a concept, I'm pretty sure he would've used it.
No.
Ultimately, it is a human story. It's about us. Not the aliens.
Well said
Yes, and especially true in the sequel movie "2010"! @@ConorsMovieList
Yes - and HAL is one of us. Because he kills, as Moonwalker did. Kubrick's vision of humanity wasn't optimistic.
@@Julius_Hardware The film never really gives a clear reason as to why HAL behaved the way he did. What do you think...?
It is "well enough" explained in the sequel "2010, the year we make contact", so, without giving it away, as a spoiler, in case someone would like to see that really good movie, BTW, it has to do with "human error and deception", as HAL was always quick to point out in the primary movie!! ;D@@crowbar_the_skull
2001 A Space Odyssey is the greatest film ever made and it is an indication of Kubrick’s genius that he realised that no alien was necessary.
Why was the black pyramid replaced by a black monolith ?
In the original story it was a crystalline, clear pyramid. I believe a rectangular black monolith was just plain easier to construct.
Read the book, the Star Child is Bowman being reborn. Reborn as an evolved being, made up of energy. Throw away all the nonsense that was said by Clark and Kubrick, you need the book and the movie to understand 2001. And then if you read all 4 books it becomes very easy to understand.
There is a theory that when the screen goes to black for long intervals, the audience in the theatres,were actually, unknowingly, staring at the monolith.
I get that in 2001 the monolith alone implies a completely unknown alien intelligence, and that's fine. It works just great in that film. Now, some will want to show alien lifeforms anyway, especially ones that have not been designed in human special effects departments. One would be hard-pressed indeed to find alien creatures more alien than those found at the bottom of the sea. They weren't designed within the limited imaginations of men. Their origin is far beyond that.
It's still a problem and CGI hasn't helped much IMO. I think the scene in 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' where David Bowie reveals himself as alien is good as even though he is 'almost human' the sheer 'alien-ness' of the character is enough to send the lady over the edge...
It's like he's an approximation of a human. Drawn in broad stokes but with no details.
Even "Alien" had humanlike characteristics and what might be impossible is the concept of an alien that is not a projection of ourselves.
Well, there's some amazing sea life to riff off of..
2:15 Of course you had to illustrate "Actors in Rubber Suits" with a clip executed using Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation from _First Men in the Moon._
at 4:25 .... I wonder how they filmed this shot, with no camera reflected in the visor. I'm a vfx artist, and today we would digitally clean it up, or put the visor in afterward
Really crazy what they were able to do pre digital and in camera. Even just the seemingly simple things like the floating pen work so well
@@ConorsMovieList I worked with Brian Johnson and he explained how they did that, as he was there on set
They stuck to it to a glass pane right?
Man, working with Brian Johnson must’ve been an experience- I’m sure you got some great stories. What project was it on?
@@ConorsMovieList yep.... glass and a little double sided. took a few goes to get right. Brian is a hoot. A true gent.
Visor: Hang Black board or velvet across the front of set and cut a hole for the lens have the front of the lens /matte box a little ways behind this nd make sure that from the subjects point of view no light reflects off of lens. If it’s not lit, there’s no reflection to show up in the visor.
The best movie ever made in history in my opinion.The lists on the moviedatabases are wrong 😛
Often commercialism goes before art.The most viewers doesn't understand what a wellmade movie is ?
Or they doesn't understand the concept ? Therefore they prefer"Kitch" ???
The best part of the film was those meteoroids coming so close to scuttling the whole lash-up!
Those 'giant tumbling rocks' were meant to signify that the Discovery had passed the orbit of Mars and was now passing through the Asteroid Belt(s), on the way to Jupiter.
Another cool detail in the movie. Contrary to in much science fiction, the asteroids average VERY far apart from one-another (unless two happen to also be orbiting one-another).
IRL, All of the space probes to the outer solar system passed through the asteroid belt(s) without incident.
@@anorthosite That’s one seemingly small and insignificant detail that I always appreciated about the film, that the asteroid belt was so accurately depicted. In silly films like Star Wars an asteroid zone is shown in such a manner that the mutual gravitation of the individual asteroids would invariably lead to coalescence.
@@historybuff66 As you Well Know: Many Asteroids are fragments of Early Solar System, Moon-sized, internally-differentiated Planetesimals. MASSIVE collisions then shattered them to their cores (why we get nickel-iron meteorites - vs the stony and stony-iron ones, or chondrites).
But recent spacecraft encounters show that many other asteroids are just gravity-bound agglomerations of various sized fragments. They remind me of when I clean the Cat Box of "Urine Balls". [Except the binding force is micro-gravity - not Cat Pee] XD
@@anorthosite The distinct differences in composition between chondritic meteoroids and those comprising a nickel-iron (inner planetesimal core) and their genesis was rather lost on me until you offered up some enlightenment! I must have read this in Carl Sagan’s book “Comet” or perhaps an Asimov treatise on the origins of the early Solar System-but since forgot this. Much obliged.
The greatest sci-fi film ever made!
Kubrick deserves a special place in Heaven for this one!
“Unused Aliens”. That would be a cool band name. 🎸
ah how much things have changed, you got so much evidence and tapes of ufos today
'Polka dot man" was used in Land of the Lost, as the Zarn character. Except they bumped it up to chromakey.
That creeped me out as a kid.
I haven’t seen land of the lost I’ll need to check it out
...And then in animation in Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" video.
@@ConorsMovieListIt is cheesy, very cheesy, even as far as a 70s sci-fi kid's show went, a Sid and Marty Krofft production. But as a kid I loved it and viewed through those eyes and with nostalgia I can watch it without cringing.
Whatever you do, don't watch the film version with Will Ferrell, especially if you enjoyed the tv series.
@@MattMcIrvin _Sledgehammer_ was groundbreaking. Gabriel must have endured a lot for that video.
Kubrick absolutely made the best decision - to show the aliens would have been a huge letdown. Allow each member of the audience the freedom to fill in that detail to the best of their ability with their own imagination, and the mystery and wonder will persist for as long as people watch this movie. This is just one of many details that make _2001: A Space Odyssey_ arguably the greatest movie ever made, and not just the greatest sci-fi movie.
“You cannot imagine the unimaginable” was one of the rare instances of Stanley Kubrick being creatively closed minded
I was ten years old when I saw the film at the
Cinerama movie theater
Theran iran Atlantic Movie theater Pahlavi St. I was completely out of my
body and couldn't believe what I was seeing!
Must’ve been quite the experience at 10!
yes, even at 22!! ;D@@ConorsMovieList
It looks like kubrick was getting to know or learn things which culminated in Eyes wide shut kabal rituals shown in the movie which cost him his life.
0:51 You wonder whether he ever heard of _The Day The Earth Stood Still_ ...
He certainly did as it was one of the many films he and author Arthur C. Clarke viewed together for background info and to get a sense of the evolution of science fiction cinema.
@@historybuff66 Given how dismissive he was of what came before, somehow I doubt it.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 That Kubrick and Clarke viewed together a ton of old science fiction films beginning with “Things to Come” (1936), and most importantly DTESS (given that it served as a high water mark for SF cinema) has been recounted in at least a couple books devoted to “2001”, most recently Michael Benson’s book. Kubrick hated them all, that much is certain, while Clarke relished all of them like a kid at the theater, which baffled Kubrick.
@@historybuff66 So Kubrick saw the first SF movie where it is the humans that (without provocation) attack the alien, not the other way round, and completely failed to appreciate the significance of that.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Who knows…his criticism of the films up until 1965 were that they were cinematically flat, devoid of cerebral concepts and generally cliched. Clarke greatly appreciated the film and for me, it’s the one of the top three SF films of all time at any rate.
I've watched 2001 many times over the years. To this day, I wouldn't say I like the first and last portions of the film. After being warned not to go to Europa, a better ending would show him disregarding that warning, going to that moon, and sending a message to Earth, "You won't believe this, but I saw..." The transmission cuts off.
Subbed & Liked! Enjoyed the video! Good work!
I recommend reading The Lost Worlds of 2001. When I ordered the book I erroneously believed that it was going to be behind-the-scenes journal by Arthur C. Clarke and the evolution of the film. It has a bit of that but mostly it is discarded chapters that Clarke submitted to Kubrick and were rejected. Thankfully Kubrick saw how bad these ideas were and gave them a pass. One would have seen Bowman during his journey though the Star Gate and passing over an alien village. A young alien on the ground spots the craft costing above him and aims his toy ray gun to shoot it down. I don't recall if there was much detail into the appearance of the alien child but this just embarrassing to read. I've read the entire Odyssey series and found them dreadful , with the last, 3001, being among the worst books I have ever read. It involves finding Poole floating in space in a state of suspended animation and revived a thousand years since his attack by HAL. But I digress. Thankfully Kubrick was wise enough to leave the aliens unseen. It might disappoint some but I think it gives them an omnipotent and "godlike" presence. I always assumed that the monoliths were the aliens and they had advanced to such a state were there was no distinguishing between them and their technology, having a mastery of time and space that humans can not comprehend. I don't care for the ending of the novel which has the Star Child detonating the weaponry orbiting the Earth. In the film his destiny is more ambiguous and left open to us what happens next. Surely not the silly events of the sequel.
The Star Child’s detonation of the orbiting nuclear weapons platforms in Clarke’s novel works well for me because, in watching the film, what becomes clear is that the bone tossed by “Moonwatcher” showcases an incredible instantaneous cut of man’s first weapon to his “ultimate” weapon over the span of 4 million years.
Myself, I found the Odyssey tetralogy satisfying up until the final entry, which was underwhelming for certain. “2010” was for me cleverly crafted and the landing on Halley’s Comet in “2061” was a novel concept in its own right.
Kubrick didn't want to use the 'invisible aliens' and 'aliens look almost like us' that everyone else used. That would imply that he was limited in the same way as all other directors.
That sculpture of the alien with the awkward multiple arms faces the problem all such creatures have; how are such shapes even born, how can something so awkward become lords of space and time?
I mean, humans are flexible, but still very limited (especially when their space helmets don't let them look up, as in 2001).
The attempt to make Arthur C Clarke's idea of the aliens being 'frozen lattices of light' came closest with the 'paper sculpture people' mentioned here as being generated like shapes on an oscilloscope (something actually done in Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape', worth looking up, as they also cross space and time, being visible in the opening titles as well as at the denoument).
I personally, would have gone with them, but I'm not a director.
There is a saying: “truth is stranger than fiction”. If you thought such body configurations were implausible, try making sense of the Burgess Shale fossils. Think of where names like “Hallucigenia” or “Priapulida” might come from ...
The Stone Tape. Work of genius, if now rather dated.
I ALWAYS found ironic "they" would find us equally shocking in appearance. IMAGINE we're alien describing humans: "they have central thorax which 4 appendages emerge, 2 upper slightly shorter than the 2 lower; at the end of each are 5 smaller appendages. Atop the thorax is a head with 2 eyes, 5 openings they use to breath and ingest nutrients, ... etc...
Good analysis. Great film, I actually saw in "Cinerama" format when it came out in 1968. And the sound, of course, who could forget that iconic opening!! The best sci fi films seem to show little of the "aliens", and in this case none of them, only their vast age and abilities. And, like the Krell, only their long-ago abandoned super technology, in "Forbidden Planet", which is arguably one of the best sci fi films of all time. Or they show only a few glimpses of them like in "Alien", and not pouncing around all over the place terrifying and eating poor humans or smashing their big cities, like in "Godzilla", for example. Or they take on human form like in "It Came From Outer Space", but are really big cyclops-ish shaggy beasts, in that one shot of them revealing their true form. Lots of good examples, but mostly from movies made long ago. Bad ones too of course, as you showed in the clips. You can go too far with this trop though, like in the inexplicable movie recently "the Arrival".
Anyway, good stuff in all the movies. One more thing about 2001, the final approach to what appears to be their planet is it seems that Dave is being escorted down with a couple of diamond like ships and then we seem to hear them talking, "discordantly", while he is in his room, aging away. Anyway, only my imaginings, I guess. The fact they buried the moon monolith 4 million years ago and we see the monolith when we were at the earliest stages of our ape-ish development is genius too, as is the bone, as a weapon, flung high into sky; and it turns into a space craft in orbit, millions of years later. "2010" is good too, and still does not show the aliens, but again, their unimaginable technology and "magic"!
Forcrissakes, why oh why oh why do they not make movies like that anymore. Geeeeeeeeeeezuuuuz!!! ;D
Solid exposition on the history and lore of some of the best science fiction films of the past. Recall too, that “The Day The Earth Stood Still” never revealed the true appearance of Klatuu, the emissary of an omnipotent alien race.
Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rendezvous With Rama” series also features an alien race we can only guess at for appearance and I, for one, have been awaiting a filmed version for several decades (!)
I read the book, RWR, long ago and found it duller than all of the other books he wrote, me being mainly a hard sci fi fan of books and movie at the time. Precious few of the latter, but lots of the former to be devoured, even today, with a focus on fantasy mostly in the film genre, witness Avatar for example. I won't ever watch "new" Dune movie, (I found old Dune just "ok") having read all the books by Herbert himself. ;D@@historybuff66
Unfortunately, I don't believe they will EVER make movies like this again. The Hollywood system is too frightened to allow a director to have total vision, and we'll never get a visionary genius like Stanley Kubrick again, not in my lifetime at least. Occasionally a gem might show up and it's usually in the places you'd never expect. I think that, currently, only Nolan and Villeneuve might come close but even they can't compare with Kubrick.
@@historybuff66 TDTESS is one of my favorite movies. I watch it at least once every couple of months. "Rendezvous with Rama" is an amazing book, all the more as it doesn't have a compelling plot and the characters are a bit underdeveloped, but it does have many "big ideas" that carry it. I read it every few years. I'm waiting for an ACCURATE version of "Childhood's End". The Syfy miniseries did NOT do it justice!
It shits me that 2001 was 22 years ago lol
Excellent job ❤😂
What are “munsters”?
It's interesting that by the time '2010' came around, the technology to show convincing aliens on screen existed... yet the filmmakers opted not to show any.
Any word on whether a film version of the third novel is pending?
Well, it is interesting to look inside a merger sponge a 3D pathagerus rug cut it diametrically in half and come to find it is full of stars, 6-pointed stars and wonder if they thought of that in the movie or not.
Great video...👍
Thank you 👍
@@ConorsMovieList >>> You're Welcome.
Exactly right. 2001 will always be great to me partially because I never understood WTF was going on . . and my imagination had to do the work of aliens or whatever. So, he made the right move IMO. And, the sequel was far less alluring: it tried to explain things.
Exactly the opposite for me,the first movie left too many things unexplained....like a night dream...I paid to see a movie damnit! The second movie was clearly better ...
@@vasopel Yeah I figgered there'd be some variation on that point . . . 🤣So, what are your all-time sci-fi faves? Ever seen Solaris?
@@henrybrowne7248 all-time sci-fi fave? hm..alien 1-3 , silent running, enemy mine.
you mean Tarkovsky's Solaris? seen it once when I was young, I don't remember a thing :-)
It's funny but the same year 2001 came out another sci fi film was made starring Darren McGavin and Nick Adams called Mission Mars. It uses obscure looking aliens as well. One film is considered a masterpiece and the other trash. I enjoyed both.
2001 pushed the "ancient astronauts" theory of man's evolution
clark was a brilliant futurist, but he got a lot of predictions wrong
It wasn't really a prediction, though. 2001 was just a work of fiction; the "ancient astronaut" thing wasn't an idea that Clarke was seriously promoting or believed himself.
@@rocketdave719 star trek is also a work of fiction, but many of the future devices predicted have become reality.
Name something that Clarke was incorrect on-just out of curiosity.
@@historybuff66 in 2001? moon tourists
@@thewkovacs316 As Clarke himself stated on numerous occasions, “2001” could have VERY easily happened by 2001 considering the accelerated developments in science and technology in the 60s, given our landing on the Moon occurred by 1969. That it didn’t occur was directly tied into socio-political and socio-economic developments that brought Western society down an unforeseen path. But from a purely technological standpoint he was almost certainly on point with his extrapolations. This is the man who exactly 10 years prior predicted the development of artificial satellites and also exactly 10 years prior predicted the Moon landing.
Actually, Clarke's book has no defined aliens in it, just their tech shows up, they're mentioned but not defined... the book is perfect as it is, it was Kubrick trying to invent some aliens all along and then giving up I guess.
According to Clarke, the movie isn't based on the book, or vice versa--they co-evolved during the film's long and chaotic production. Some ideas that were discarded from the film are still in the book (the most obvious being that the monolith is on a moon of Saturn, not orbiting Jupiter), but my impression is that Clarke was involved in these rejected ideas. There was a lot of material he wrote about a roughly humanoid alien named Clindar who was the agent behind everything, and none of that survived.
There's a book that is now long out of print called "The Lost Worlds of 2001" in which Clarke talks about his take on the creative process, and includes great big chunks of several unused versions of the novel. I would love to get my hands on it.
...huh, there's a Kindle version now. OK, I know what I want.
@@MattMcIrvin I think I have that book somewhere in my collection, I first started reading sci-fi in the early 70s as a kid and bought the book, I think in 1975, I had completely forgotten it until you mentioned it and don't recall all the details after nearly 50 years.
No, as I remember it they get explained. It might be in a later book (2010). The beings behind the Monolith are described as having evolved from biological beings, into trans-human and then finally into "lattices of light." Pure consciousness and intelligence that flit about the Universe like lattices of light.
If you read Clarke’s _The Lost Worlds Of 2001_ , you’ll come across some depictions of aliens that were tried and discarded.
One idea I remember from that was, instead of the Monolith, it was an actual alien being who came to Earth and nudged our ape ancestors in the direction of intelligence. Then, three million years later, the same being meets Bowman personally. But it is impossible for a normal humanoid body to hold milions of years’ worth of memories; so he keeps only the ones he immediately needs “online” in his brain, all the rest are backed up to a large storage ring that orbits his house.
I'm glad he didn't show the aliens because it would've been reductive.
It reminds me of when the movie "Contact" with Jodie Foster came out and I saw a professional critic's review of it who said he didn't like the film because there weren't any aliens in it.
After watching the movie myself I realized how ridiculous and moronic his review was because the film was about so much more. Alien technology, alien philosophy, alien motivation, alien tradition, etc. And he didn't like it simply because he didn't physically see the aliens behind those things themselves. He wanted "Contact" to just be another dumb Independence Day alien invasion movie.
I'm glad Contact and 2001 didn't subscribe to that and were so much more profound.
It might be slightly unfair to use a still from " When Worlds Collide" when describing Shlocky Monster driven Sci Fi Tropes as WWC was relatively High brow in comparison. There is a monster but it's Capatalism and Human Nature.
To the poor, starving artist who endured hours of makeup, completely covered in absurd polka dots, we salute you. I hope to god the fifty-bucks they paid you was worth it.
I should have credited the actor Daniel Richter! They didn’t just cover him in polka dots he played the leader of the apes at the start of the film
I wish filmmakers today would learn from the past greats. Jaws is the best, and literally only good, shark movie because the shark isn't on screen much. 2001 is the greatest sci-fi alien movie because the aliens never appear on screen. Books are great because of what we don't see, and I think CGI has pushed filmmakers to try and defy that recently, but it's impossible to beat the human imagination.
What about ALIEN?
@@CordellPotts For sure! One of the best, if not the best, horror movie in space. And, of course, the alien is largely off screen. Both the adult and facehugger version of the xenomorph only have 4 minutes of total screen time.
Yes, the best part of horror is the unknown, and the "horror" of "alien life" is that it is unimaginable how different we will be compared to them or them to us. To some we may be seem like stupid and disgusting little "proctodeal" animals, not worth their brain bower to come down to our level, hence no good/convincing examples of "contact", yet!!@@JonathanMartin884
the girl uses velcro to get around in space, but the boys dont need it for there space odyssey.
odd you say.