It's interesting to me that almost no reactors pick up on the fact that Frank's oxygen line has been cut by the pod's claw. Everyone seems to think he's still alive when Dave goes to recover his body.
Yes. His arms were wiggling only for the first 10 or 20 seconds. Since he was caught by surprise he did not have the chance to brace himself so he probably lost his breath and passed out. I was thinking to just leave what is left of him in his suit. Freeze dried. I would guess bracing yourself might double your survival from 15 to 30 seconds before you can't hold it any more and burst through your skin. The body is not sealed very well and pressure drop will expand water to gas....
Stanley Kubrick wasn’t just making a movie-he was throwing viewers into the deep end of existential philosophy, evolutionary theory, and cosmic wonder. That last sequence with Dave and the monolith? Buckle up, because it’s abstract and open to interpretation,. Before the Monolith: Setting the Stage • The monoliths in the movie (on the Moon, orbiting Jupiter, etc.) are tools placed by an advanced alien intelligence. They’re catalysts for evolution-pushing humanity from ape-like tool users to space travelers and, eventually, something greater. • When Dave approaches the monolith orbiting Jupiter, he’s entering the next phase of human evolution. The mini pod acts as his bridge into this next dimension. The Psychedelic Light Show • The kaleidoscope of lights as Dave enters the monolith is Kubrick’s way of showing Dave transcending space and time. He’s no longer bound by the physical laws of the universe. Think of it as a symbolic journey to a higher state of consciousness. • This sequence can be read as a visual metaphor for enlightenment or an alien-assisted transformation. The Room: What’s Happening? • Dave finds himself in a surreal, ornate, 18th-century-style room. This environment feels alien yet familiar, like something designed to make him feel at ease while undergoing a transformation. • Kubrick portrays Dave’s life accelerating: he sees himself aging rapidly-eating dinner, bedridden, and eventually near death. This suggests time is either irrelevant or being manipulated in this space. The Star Child • As Dave is on his deathbed, the monolith appears one last time. It’s the symbol of transformation. Dave reaches out to it, reminiscent of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, bridging the gap between human and divine. • Dave is reborn as the Star Child-a being of pure energy and consciousness, floating above Earth. This represents the next step in human evolution, one no longer constrained by physical form.
Yeah, basically some alien or god-like beings are propelling humanity forward with the monoliths until they evolve into something else, so we see the beginning of humanity and the end when we evolve. It’s beautiful and I wouldn’t argue with someone saying it’s the best movie ever made. Unfortunately I think humans will need alien god help to evolve, instead of our current trajectory of self destructive extinction
There are other classic sci-fi films such as Forbidden Planet, The Time Machine, etc. But they all look dated to the period in which they were made. Not 2001.
For people who end up loving this movie, you never forget the first time you saw it and realizing how completely unprepared you were for what you were about to see and how it would just blow your mind.
So very true. I saw this at 16 in the summer of '68 in Washington D.C. My aunt and uncle thought it looked interesting and thought I might enjoy it. That viewing of 2001 on the largest screen in town, not only blew me away, it became part of my DNA!
@@CaptainBobRockets I saw it first in Munich, Germany in the largest cinema there in 1972. Happily, they showed it in 70mm. It was an afternoon show and not very crowded (it already ran for a few weeks) and I was able to sit in the perfect seat for the show. It was SPECTACULAR!
"2001: A Space Odyssey" is my all-time favorite movie - but it definitely has a reputation for NOT making people absolutely giddy while they're watching it. The fact that it had this effect on you makes this one of my favorite reactions to it!
I think the monolith is pointing humanity to the next step in our evolution. Dave sees different ages of himself and is now evolved past us. He’s a new being.
Valid interpretation, I think. The monolith at the start of the film gave apes intelligence enough to craft tools and use them(in this case clubs/weapons). IE - the next step in evolution.
It is also instructive to observe that the tapirs (the porcine-looking animals) did not percieve the man-apes as any sort of threat since they (the man-apes) had no idea they could be used as a food source. Instead they were seen as a noxious competitor for the vegetarian food supply. The "normal" food supply was gathered on the ground, and was disappearing at that time due to the (cyclical) climate change occuring in Africa at that time. The man-apes were starving to death. After the monolith appeared and "uplifted" them not only did they gain the use of tools, but now a reliable food supply of meat protein from freshly killed animals, as was shown in the next scene. The additional available and reliable protein source allowed for the accelerated development of their brains and hence continued advancement.
Yep. Man learns to use tools in the first part, but by the second part, the tools are running the show. Man requires another evolutionary leap to move forward. If HAL hadn't gone nuts, there would be five Star Children at the end of the film.
The movie bookends the evolution of man; the dawn of man, and theorizes our evolution to our next form, as well as the evolution of our tools, which go on to be extensions of ourselves.
Well the apes/Hominids could be a bit better. And a few of the shots of the moon looking out of a ship's window are a bit dated too. But most of the rest is as good as it gets.
The 7 minute delay is because of the speed of light in a vacuum, which is 186,000 miles per second (light is the same as a radio transmission, just a different frequency). That means they're a little over 78 million miles from Earth for the delay to be that long. The sun is 93 million miles away, so it takes over 8 minutes for light to reach us from the sun.
Read a theory somewhere that what you're really looking at for the first minutes is not a black screeen, but ... the monolith! Generally, I'm not a fan of these in-the-weeds interpretations, but this one, I like.
The 7 minute delay is a mistake in my opinion after 18 months of travel. At a 7 minute delay, they would be within the orbital area of Mars. If you assume the ship was somewhere within the asteroid belt after 18 months, it could take anywhere between 26 and 35 minutes for a radio transmission from Earth to reach them. Then another 26 to 35 minutes for Earth to receive their response. At all depends on the distance between the Earth and the ship which is always changing.
Dave not panicking is how real astronauts are trained. You can't freak out in an emergency as it doesn't help the situation. Totally accurate response from someone trained as such.
I guess it just feels strange as for years we are bombarded with movies where people like that have no emotional self control but start yelling and crying and panicking
The picking up the bones to use as a weapon at the beginning of the movie was mankind’s ancestors learning how to use a tool. That was a HUGE evolutionary event and (in this movie) showed how the influence of the Monolith started mankind’s separation from the rest of the animal kingdom and the first steps in being able to use tools to manipulate the environment.
In 68 this was like a post card from thirty five years in the future. Back then, there were no flat screen TV's, they used picture tubes. No,i pads back then a pad had a spiral binding. Notebooks had pages with lines. . No FaceTime messaging stuff of sci fi. , Computers ran on punchcards, and were found at universities. Phones were attached to the wall. This is the first time I noticed that the girl wanted a phone before a bushbaby ! Any of the new generation watching this will never realize that what they take for granted had not been in existence when the movie was made. What space movies that were made before this varied A true Science Fiction landmark was. Forbidden Planet 1956 Films like Conquest of Space 1955 was typical spaceman fare. A landmark film from 1950 was Destination Moon. It was 2001's closest relative. A scientific conjecture on what it would take to land man on the Moon.
I am old enough to have seen this when it came out. Personally, I wasn't blown away... I WAS SEEING THE FUTURE!! In fact, I was shocked when Pan-Am didn't survive into the 21st century.
Kubrick and Clarke "stole" a lot of future nuance from Robert Heinlein. In fact the movie about traveling to the moon was written by Heinlein and he was the technical director. Heinlein was a navy engineer and gunnery officer turned writer. If you like this movie I highly recommend that you read his books "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Have Spacesuit Will Travel". If you enjoyed this movie I pretty much guarantee that you will enjoy those books. I would love to hear back if you read and enjoyed them. Btw the books predate this movie.
@@pheverdream5618 I mean, even look at the sequel 2010 made in the 80’s. They even had the Soviets in it because who would have thought they would collapse only a few years later. Back when I was a kid it just seemed the Soviets were always going to be around until we tossed missiles at each other.
We were still using punch cards at Uni in the early eighties. They make great bookmarks. Fun fact. When they launched the National Lottery in the UK 30 years ago, the numbers on the chit you filled in to buy a ticket lined up exactly with a punch card.
There is an interesting fact behind the monoliths in the movie. They are different from Clarke‘s versions, which had the dimension 1:4:9 (the first 3 primes 1,2,3 squared). Stanley wanted the monolith's dimensions to reflect the same aspect ratio of the film itself as it is projected on the screens in the movie theaters - so if that's Super Panavision 70 then the aspect ratio is 2.2:1 - which gives a width of 4'10" or 58". These shapes reoccur many times in the movie: the windows in the briefing room on Clavius base for example. In the last scenes, the white room has no door, no exit. Only at the end, as the monolith reappears, it offers a door like shaped thing, reminding the viewer, that he can exit this phantastic situation using the screen in the movie theater to get to reality again. For the shot to be realized they had to physically remove a whole wall of the set, literally „breaking the 4th wall“.
@@losmosquitos1108 TMA-1 ... T M A O N E ... NO MEAT "What is that, 'chicken'?" "Tastes the same, anyway ... they're getting better at it all the time."
Best reaction comment ever: "this music is so famous... they even used this music for the start of Barbie" ! Of course, it is cool that you then realised that the opening of Barbie was an homage, but it made me smile anyway, as probably 2001 is the main reason that this is the most famous piece by Richard Strauss.!
@@aussiedonaldduck2854 _"Understood it perfectly"_ Yea, as if this film is clear-cut with a definitive interpretation. Right. This film is deliberately ambiguous and is completely up to interpretation cuz Kubrick refused to explain the meaning of it.
Having read the book it certainly helps because Clarke wrote so much that was difficult to film. The acid trip at the end? Space ports for alien civilizations
just a small point in the start of the film. the "men in monkey suits" aren't supposed to be monkeys or gorilla's they're supposed to be very early humans, to our eyes they may well have looked like men in monkey outfits 😂😂😂
As commented: Skinny mimes, who studied ape behavior before acting in the suits. "2001" - despite having more elaborately engineered ape-man faces (including tongue-operated toggles/levers to convey facial expressions) - Lost the Academy Award for make-up to the (also excellent, but simpler) "glue-on" facial prosthetics of the original "Planet of the Apes". Their response (paraphrasing): "Apparently, the Academy didn't realize that the man-apes in 2001 were also ACTORS" XD
The Dawn of Man sequence implies that the evolution from ape to man was triggered by your "stick " (hereafter called the "monolith"). It expanded the capacity of the ape to problem=solve, discover tools and weapons, and expand the diet to include more meat, and to give one clan the ability to take and defend resources (the water hole). Throw in a few millennia of development, and we're in space on a spaceliner so comfortable that we're sleeping. And the space sequence is meant to take place in 2001 (the future, from the POV of the original audience). Clavius is the base on the moon. The music you're trying to remember is "The Blue Danube Waltz". The Jupiter mission stemmed from the fact that the high-pitched signal from the Moon monolith was directed at Jupiter, so we sent a ship to see if we could figure out why. Dave was so calm during the rescue because of his training. Astronauts are trained to remain calm under stress, as shown often by our real astronauts. One thing I think you missed was that HAL took control of the pod and sent it after Poole when Poole was in his spacewalk. And Poole stopped moving because his air line had been severed and he had suffocated. The ending is intentionally ambiguous. Kubrick wanted the audience to reach their own conclusions. Answers about why HAL went nuts are in the sequel, "2010: The Year We Make Contact" which is a really good movie in it's own right. Thanks for giving me a new channel to sub!
The 1st "ship" morphed from the bone along with the second "ship" were in fact multi-warhead nuclear weapon platfoms (one Western and one Soviet) ... the evolution of humans and their weapons.
The glint of the studio lights in the leopard's eyes was not anticipated, but they acknowledged that it added to the quality of the shot. They'd painted zebra stripes onto an (already dead) horse, whose stench made everybody (the leopard included) unenthusiastic while filming the scene.
2001 was a big game changer for sci fi and special effects. It was the gold standard in special effects for many years, and it took the sci fi genre up another level.
What does the ending of 2001 mean? 'During an interview for Japanese audiences in 1980, Kubrick is asked what 2001: A Space Odyssey's last scene meant, and he explains that Dave was “taken in by godlike entities; creatures of pure energy and intelligence.” This is what the colors and hallucinations are supposed to represent. Mar 5, 2023
"for then" my @$$! I think the visuals in this flick are just great PERIOD! I dare even say that they beat those computer simulations (in every other movie made today) out of the freaking water! And yes, THIS flick came nearly an entire decade before Star Wars and Close Encounters. It's pretty much the movie that TRULY pioneered and revolutionized screen visuals of THIS kind.
The reason the circular spinning rooms are the best effects ever done for any space project and are so believable is because they are real, practical effects, without any CGI. Kubrick had the largest hamster wheel ever created for the movie, so when he is running around the 'hub', the entire MASSIVE set is actually rotating as well. The amount of insight and foresight this movie had is one of the greatest impacts on inventions that exist today. NASA was heavily involved, to the point where they actually had prototypes of the original space suits the astronauts were going to wear on the moon landing, (which hadn't happened yet.) That is a major thing to consider when you realize everything in this movie was just theory at that time. So many people get lost in the fact of how slow paced they movie is, not recognizing the fact that was done on purpose to ground the film in reality. Instead of taking artist license with how long and drawn out things actually are, (which is far slower than the movie in reality,) it embraces that fact and gives you an actual sense of how monotonous that type of life truly is, which to me has always been a masterstroke and defies everything you are classically told should be entertaining. As you experienced, the tension gets palpable and at times can almost leave you feeling breathless, like you are choking, or trying desperately to catch your breath. There are a TON of little hidden details littered throughout the movie that make re-watching it an endless experience. I can't count the number of times I've re-watched the movie, and every single time I either catch something new, or think about something in a slightly different way. The story doesn't end here either. The book dives deeper into certain things, while there are 3 more 'chapters' of the story, (it is a quadrilogy of books,) while this movie has 1 film sequel. There are changes from book to screen, which Arthur C. Clarke changed himself, so trying to fully align the books to the movies doesn't work. It is best to watch 2010: The Year We Make Contact to learn more about the story than read 2010: Odyssey Two. I'm really glad you finally got to watch and (mostly) enjoy the movie, because it can be very divisive, especially among younger/newer viewers that have been raised on fast-paced, less 'thought-hungry' content. It stands alone as something that will never be achieved again, although I would highly advise watching Contact as well, if you haven't. In my opinion it is probably the closest movie that has ever achieved the same level of impact, (for me.) P.S. There are actually some effects in the movie that still baffle even the greatest special effects artists in the world. Certain effects the artists/Kubrick took to the grave, so they will likely never be reproduced. There was also a longer cut of the movie originally shown in the theater, the first night it debuted. Kubrick was upset at the reception and ended up cutting portions out, destroying the original prints of those scenes. Only a handful of single-frame stills still exist from that original cut. The second showing already had those edits when it was shown. It shows just how dedicated and demanding Kubrick was...
What's amazing to me are the IBM iPad-like devices they are watching in the hamster wheel. This was 1967 and this was used by Samsung to prove there was prior art in Apple's lawsuit against them. In the production materials, Kubrick's team called these 'Newspads', and they had a variety of functions - all called in 1967. Just... Amazing!
NASA was not heavily involved. Go look it up. They did employ some ex nasa people, but no. Not NASA directly and certainly not heavily involved. They were sorta busy at the time, you might remember? That stuff was super secret because of the space race - they landed on the moon the following year. Makes no sense at all that they would have volunteered information. But when the movie came out Nasa were very impressed on how close they were on many things. And what are those effects that baffle VFX people?
well thats not true today, back then it was though, just go google inception and check out the practical monster rotating sets they made for that at a time when they could have CG'd the whole thing. They instead built the entire giant monster multi-level rotating building. It is utterly wild. Like several rotating giant hamster wheels for those long tunnel shots where different actors can be rotating on different wheels. Very amazing stuff.
Right you are, sir. Which is why I tell people who are about to see it for the first time, "Listen, to truly enjoy this movie, dial down the speed at which you expect a movie to flow. It isn't boring, it isn't monotonous. It's art. When you examine a piece of art, you linger, you look deep, you notice detail. Watch "2001" like you're seeing it in an art museum."
When this movie was released, it was in Cinerama; a huge curved screen with 6 track sound, in a time when most movies were in mono. Your reactions reminded me of how I felt when I saw it. No movie before had ever portrayed space so realistically. I went into Chicago 3 times to see it. When you came back out to the street, you felt as if you had just returned from outer space. Coby, your reactions to all the scenes were great! What a wonderful experience to get to share your emotions to this movie. It made me feel as if I were watching it for the first time! Thanks, and congratulations on starting your own personal channel! I can't wait to see more!
The reason the space miniature shots all look so amazing, and they do, is because every frame was hand touched up to clean up masking and any imperfections. It's literally a work of art, and as a result it looks better than the vast majority of films that come out today.
The old joke goes.... Kubrick did infact direct the moon landings but he was such a perfectionist he insisted shooting at the real location, so they had to go anyway haha
The way I heard it, it was not that he wanted to film on the Moon...I heard that he needed to send his gaffers up to get him all the correct light levels, so he could match the lighting on the set he built. ROFLMAO
@andrewcrowder4958 yeah I actually had the same thought when I posted the comment. It was like "actually he would have shot in England" haha. But like I say its an old joke and I think predated him working exclusively in the uk.
I knew an older man with a PHD. He was a late teenager when he saw this movie in a theatre and choose it on sheer luck. At the time he was seriously considering dropping out of High School and be a hippie. After seeing this he realized how important being an intellectual with a high level of education would be so important in the future. He loved how stoic and intelligent everyone was in this movie. He made education his purpose and became quite successful.
Coby, when you said you shouldn't talk about what you don't know, during the coffee pour, you were wrong. The whole point of this film is to talk about and question what we don't know. That is what makes this film a classic. Kubrick not only made a stunning movie visually, he also made one that questioned our existence.
But of course the coffee pour was on the moon, not in space. The moon does have gravity (although 1/6 that of earth) and so you could pour coffee and eat sandwiches (without a straw!).
a friendly reminder- this film released in 1968, no computer graphics used in this film! Still amazing to me! That's for sharing your reaction sharing Coby.
Agree. The date of production has practically nothing to do with the quality of the film. Perhaps the second-greatest (much better than Star Wars or any Star Trek film) sci-film of all time was Forbidden Planet (1956). Third may be Alien (1979).
Strongly recommend the book to everyone who appreciates the movie and wants their questions answered. It's an incredibly easy read despite being so profound.
@@dudermcdudeface3674 Kubrick decided that Saturn (as in the book's destination) would be too hard for the effects artists to convincingly "create". And his vision of Earth, from space, looks dated now: Too Blue/washed out. Not enough Brown, and some green needed. But all he had to base it on was 1960s spacecraft footage.
@stuartparker-q3o In the '60s they couldn't have done justice to Saturn's rings. Not just because special effects technology wasn't up to it, but mainly because we were still over a decade away from Voyager showing us just how truly awesome they are. It's a general rule that whenever we send a spacecraft somewhere new what it shows us wildly exceeds our expectations.
I was in the 6th grade when my mother bought me the book. Not long after finishing the read, I learned that the movie was to be released later in the year. I must have mentioned quite often how much I'd like to see the movie, because I actually was allowed to go in to see the movie one day when we went to town. Seeing a movie in a theater was a very rare treat growing up. I was very glad I read the book first. It helped me grasp what the hell was going on at the end of the movie.
Same here. I would not have understood the end of the movie if I had not read the book. "For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something."
@@dylanthompson8511 All I can recall is the fact that I read the book before seeing the movie, and being resigned to the fact that I'd have to wait until a TV network showed it as their "Movie of the Week". However I was surprised when we went to town one weekend and it was in one of the downtown theaters, and Mom allowed me to watch the movie as she and my grandmother did their shopping. I still have the book, which has a copyright date of 1968, has on the cover page "Based on a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and as a big boost to your memories, just inside the hard cover, front and back, a scene from the movie is shown. On the left is the unfortunate David Bowman floating away, and on the right is the space pod that HAL whacked him with.
@@dylanthompson8511 That's interesting, and now that makes me wonder when he wrote the novel? There are some major differences from the book to the movie, the primary one being that the Discovery's destination is Saturn (in the book) and Jupiter's gravity is used (I believe?) by Dave and Frank to slingshot and accelerate the Discovery on towards Saturn. Forgive me if I've gotten details wrong, it's been years since I've read the novel!
@outpost31mac no worries. He wrote it at the same time as co-writing the script with Kubrick. So the film isn't actually based on the novel. They did get the initial inspiration from one of his previous short stories "The Sentinel" where humans find a pyramid on the moon, which sends an alarm to the aliens that put it there eons ago that human tech has advanced to space travel.
Your reaction to the ending is exactly as the filmmakers intended. It’s not meant to be wrapped up in a “Hollywood ending” it’s meant to be interpreted and debated.
Exactly, and that was Kubrick's idea, in particular. He intended it to be left as a mystery that each viewer could ponder independently, himself or herself. Clark, who wrote much of the screenplay and the accompanying book (and whose short story "The Sentinel" was the inspiration), took a much more literal approach.
@@robinstevenson6690in fact Kubrick said “You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film-and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level-but I don't want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point.”
@@virtual-viking ...and both are a piece of art. Art isn't meant to do justice to its subject. Kubrick never said he was making figurative art! 2001 is Kubrick's interpretation of Clarke's short story, its own vision based upon Clarke's work , it's never meant to be a recreation or a copy true to its inspiration. 🙂
@@Onlygloo The description in the book lies very well within the range of potential interpretations of the film's vague ending. So I stand by the book as providing the canonical interpretation of the film.
@@RockBrentwood Kubrick intentionally wanted to 2001:ASO to be ambiguous. The central concept of the film is that it's by encountering the unknown that we grow and evolve. The apes do that; Dave does that. The end of the film provokes US to do that. When all the answers are given to you, as they are in 2010, and requires no effort from you, the viewer, there's nothing of real value to be gained from that other than mindless entertainment. There's a reason why 2001:ASO is often listed in the top 5-10 best films ever made and 2010... well, isn't.
Starchild, I met Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka back in 1982. I was on the USS America then, and he asked to share a taxi with me. He told me about the restaurants there, and boy, was he a very quiet person.
i think we'd today say he was on the spectrum. Weirdly had no interest in computers and wrote on a typewriter his whole life. And yet he is named as being the inventor or perhaps inventor isn't the right word. The birther? of some technology that did not exist but would come to exist. Like satelites, he wrote in depth about them but none existed at the time. Solar panels, solar sails, unfolding craft. Its just a huge list of stuff he must have spent hundreds of hours working through the practicalities of it existing before he wrote about it. So much so that what he came up with would come to exist exactly as he had written decades before. That's wild to me. Also my favourite quote from Clarke is that one day robots will become so advanced that they will replace us as the next step in human evolution. And we shouldn't feel bad about that because they will be so much better than us. HAHA how on the spectrum was that?
Hey, Coby! This is one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. It is based on one of the pillars of science fiction literature written by Arthur C. Clarke. The monolith has been seeded throughout our solar system and, presumably, throughout the rest of the galaxy and perhaps beyond by an advanced species to give an 'uplift' to sentient species on planets with life-bearing potential. Bowman makes an evolutionary leap to a non-corporeal state after making contact with the Jovian monolith. His psychedelic experience was his consciousness expansion and isn't to be taken literally; it's just a series of images designed to create a hallucinatory effect for an unknowable experience. His time in the room was a psychic construct designed as a way to cope with the stress of transformation enabling him to shuffle off his corporeal and temporal perspectives in a familiar way. He experiences a full life cycle in moments that, relatively, seem like decades and passes away into another state of existence. We experience time linearly but a non-temporal or fourth-dimensional being experiences time simultaneously with past, present and future occurring all at once. As a newborn, non-corporeal, non-temporal entity, he psychically clings to the familiar and views himself as an embryo or a 'Star-Child'. He takes one last look at his place of origin, the Earth, and then ascends to a higher form of consciousness. It is man's eventual destiny and Bowman is the forerunner like the first hominid to use the bone as a tool who, in the book, is called Moon-Watcher. The epiphany granted to Moon-Watcher evolves him from Homo erectus to Homo habilis. The bone tool feeds the tribe protein whereas they were previously foraging with the herbivorous tapirs and starving. The bone tool enables them to successfully compete for the meager resource of the watering hole whereas they were previously driven off. The bone tool was the first technology from which all others are derived leading to the transition to satellite technology, one of the most famous transitions in movie history! The black-screen musical opening is called an OVERTURE, a sampling of the score to set the mood. Most epic blockbusters of the period were shown with OVERTURES and INTERMISSIONS since they were presented in giant movie palaces just like theater productions! There is an excellent, underrated sequel starring Roy Scheider as Dr. Heywood Floyd called "2010" and Bowman, played again by Keir Dullea, returns! There are many book sequels. Kubrick's film is a classic. Every one of his movies are. He only made 11 films. They're each worth studying from "The Killing" to "Eyes Wide Shut". The classical selection for the space travel sequences was the "Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss. This was very futuristic at the time especially the video phone call from space! It remains the most scientifically accurate space movie ever made and influenced everything that followed. The great contribution of George Lucas and Ridley Scott with "Star Wars" and "Alien", respectively, was designing a future that felt lived-in and worn-out rather than the Kubrickian aesthetic of pristine and anti-septic. Most future societies were presented as shiny and clean. It was a trope.
The bone-to-space transition covers the evolution of human weapons tech, too, that "bone-shaped" satellite is an orbital weapons platform stuffed full of thermonuclear warheads.
Read the original book, it will answer all your questions. Clark was a straight science writer and didn’t deal in abstractions. Many people won’t read the book and choose instead to stay in the dark. Kubrick chose to leave out the explanations.
Clarke and Kubrick worked on this together. The book isn't technically a movie tie-in. Oh,.and wait til you see in the last book sequel, 3001, who returns as a character ...!
The movie was not based on the book. Both were being created at the same time as a collaboration between Kubrick and Clark, and evolved as they thrashed out the final story. Reading some of the preliminary drafts is fascinating.
It's incrredible that this was made BEFORE the Apollo 11 mission that landed on the Moon for the first time. With such an iconic film as this, references to it pop up all over the place. The book of 2001 was by 'hard science fiction' writer Arthur C. Clarke, expanded from his short story 'The Sentinel'. Apart from the manned landing on the moon almost every milestone in the space race was achieved by the Soviet Union first. The moon has approximately 1/6 of Earth's gravity, things behave almost the same as they do on Earth, very different from microgravity on the real ISS.
I remember her documentary about her father making "The Shining" 12 years later. She was 17 filming it. Vivian Kubrick has been a scientologist since the 90s. What a stupid way to waste your life.
Clavius is the name of a crater on the moon, and, by extension, the name of the moonbase as well. As for HAL's "creepy" voice, it was supplied by Canadian actor Douglas Rain and was the inspiration for Anthony Hopkins' chilling portrayal of Hannibal Lecter's manner of speaking -- very calm, precise and emotionless.
From the Wiki because: TH-cam and links - Christopher Clavius, was a Jesuit German mathematician, head of mathematicians at the Collegio Romano, and astronomer who was a member of the Vatican commission that accepted the proposed calendar invented by Aloysius Lilius, that is known as the Gregorian calendar.
Years ago, you used to be able to get a sound package for Windows that replaced all the standard Windows default sounds, with clips of Hal. (Perhaps it's still around somewhere, I don't know) My brother, who's name is Dave, installed it, it lasted about two days before he got tired of Hal whining at him constantly 😂
Short Answers: [SPOILER ALERT} 1. The first monolith "kick started humanity" by teaching the proto-humans what tools were. 2. The second monolith was a checkpoint for humanity--once it was interacted with by humans (or any other species) on the back side of the moon, it sent a signal to the third monolith (and presumably, beyond) saying "hey, we got something here". 3. HAL went "crazy" due to bad programming: he knew the full mission (all of the monolith stuff), but Frank and Dave did not. HAL was programmed to make sure the mission succeeded, but also to not reveal the mission secrets to Dave and Frank, and could not reconcile those two (in his "mind") conflicting orders. The only solution he could come up with to meet his programming was to remove the conflict by removing Dave and Frank. 4. The third monolith "opened up" (in the book, Frank says "It's full of stars....."), and presumably took Frank "somewhere else" to allow/help him to the next target on humanity's evolutionary path: the Star Child you see at the end. "Somewhere Else" was clearly multi-dimensional, as Dave sees himself aging, and ultimately at the end of his life the 4th monolith arrives to help him transition along his evolutionary path. Reading the books does help to explain the story a lot better unfortunately--there is only so much you can do in movie mode without endless exposition with such "far out" concepts.
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey 1971 A Clockwork Orange 1975 Barry Lyndon 1980 The Shining 1987 Full Metal Jacket 1999 Eyes Wide Shut these are the last 6 movies he made. i dont think it can get more epic.
Pleonasm. Or tautology ....Kubrick only made classics ! Some may not have been successfully or well received at release . But all were deep, multi layered classics . Path of glory, , spartacus , dr.Strangelove , 2001, Clockwork Orange ,The Shining , Full Metal Jacket , Eyes wide shut. ..
A bit of trivia... Hal singing the song "Daisy Bell" as Dave removed the memory is a reference to an IBM 7094 computer. In 1961, it became the first computer to sing and it sang "Daisy Bell".
Instead of HAL saying replace the AE-35 it should have been CRM-114. (side note: Clockwork Orange treatment was Serum-114 which is a homonym for CRM-114)
@@dabe1971Towards the end of his life Clarke said he'd spent decades trying to put down that persistent innaccuracy, but decided it wasn't going to go away so he may as well embrace it. Daisy also contains the line, "I'm half crazy, all for the love of you." Which is the closest you'll get to an explanation of HAL's actions.
Yeah, except it’s not. Kubrick did play around with the idea of the satellites in the bone-to-satellite jump cut being orbiting weapons, even having voice-over narration explaining just what they were and having Dave/Starchild destroy them at the end of the movie, but Kubrick eventually rejected the weapons-in-space idea, insisting that they were just generic spacecraft, not explicitly or implicitly orbiting weapons.
@@markhamstra1083 Of course they are orbiting nuclear weapons satellites. That is the entire point. A spectacular 4 million year match cut from a primitive club to the most destructive weapon ever devised. If the satellite isn't a weapon then it don't make no sense. Kubrick frequently misdirected, denied or outright lied about the meaning and content of his films. You basically can't trust anything he says.
Coby, the monolith is the common thread. At the start of the movie it manipulated the apes to start using tools (a bone) which gave them an advantage over the other animals and kept them from going extinct. The monolith on the Moon was buried there by the aliens behind all this and had an intense magnetic field that was detected when mankind became advanced enough. Once the monolith was uncovered and the sun shined on it for the first time it sent a strong radio signal to Jupiter to another monolith in orbit around Jupiter. When Dave approached it in the pod it pulled him in because it is a stargate to other parts of the galaxy. In the hotel room he aged rapidly and then was reborn and went back through the monolith to Earth. The whole idea is that an alien race planted these monoliths on various worlds and they helped promote the evolution of intelligence and technology. The baby in the final scene is the next step in our evolution. Arthur C Clarke, the SiFi writer, wrote the book "2001 A Space Odyssey" from which the movie was developed. Its origins are in a short story titled "The Sentinel" also by Clarke. I highly recommend it
for clarification the book was released after the film ... so the film is not really based on the book as such ... it was written by Clarke at the same time as he was writing the film so it's the same story in book form. It does give a few more insights than the film but it's certainly not an explainer.
@@MrAdopado Yes the monolith was on a moon of Saturn not in orbit around Jupiter in the book so there were some differences. Probably cut for time. The book is an excellent read IMO. I think they had to release the book after the film so it wasn't a spoiler.
@@MrAdopado I found this on Google: "2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. It was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version and published after the release of the film. Clarke and Kubrick worked on the book together, but eventually only Clarke ended up as the official author"
"2010: The Year We Make Contact" so many answers waiting for you! And it's just a freaking good movie on its own despite the connection to "2001" ......😉 Trust me!!! 🤟🏻😎 👊🏻😏
@paulsander5433 it's very closely linked to the book, instead of being the artistic and poetic work that Kubrick and Clarke the writer created together. If Kubrick had been interested in directing 2010 it would have been so different. And probably much more vague and surreal!
Coby, I was lucky enough to watch "2001" in a CINERAMA theater, with a gigantic wrap-around screen and 180 degree view. As one might imagine, in that setting, the film was truly overwhelming! The film was designed to be viewed in a CINERAMA theater. Seeing it in any other format is a highly-diminished version of "2001." I haven't seen it an IMAX theater, but unless it's a "3D" version (unlikely), without the wrap-around screen, it's probably only a hint of what the film is in CINERAMA. Because the screen took up one's entire visual field, including peripheral vision, the viewer was almost literally "in the middle of the action" (e.g., one felt vividly that he/she was in the spacecraft alongside the astronauts).
I believe that there only 3 such theaters ever built. The Indian Hills in my hometown of Omaha,Nebraska was one. I never saw the entire screen being used myself. It was mostly the center section that was used. 🤓
I agree, I was one of the very first to see the total uncut movie and it was stunning. At intermission, most people were kind of quiet. The Cinerama view was much more immersive and gets lost on the small screen, but the directorial talent still shows through.
@@HRConsultant_Jeff Do you remember how you could shift your gaze up and down, and far to the left and right, and the film was happening all around you?
@@robinstevenson6690 yep. My best memory of that is Lawrence of Arabia when he arrives on the top of the train with the whole desert around him. It is a spectacular encompassing view you just don't get watching on a TV or computer screen.
“Is it meant to be black?” Yes, but it is also meant to be a very different movie going experience. It was intended to be more of a “high art” experience like going to an opera or play. The black-screen music at the beginning would play while everyone was still finding their seats, and the movie proper doesn’t start until after the MGM logo and the beginning of the Also Sprach Zarathustra overture. This confuses a lot of viewers who have strong expectations for what the beginning of a movie is supposed to be. Similarly, the intermission with “house music” playing isn’t a part of movies anymore.
This was among the last of the big time movies that had an overture before the curtain opened. Remember curtains? These days we have to endure twenty minutes of commercials and trailers.
@@randyshoquist7726 Considering the Lord of the Rings was the last film(s) I've bothered going to the theater to see - I have zero love for commercials and trailers ruin any possible surprises a film may have. Nope.
To be honest I wish the media producers had either removed the overture or inserted an MGM logo with an explanatory caption before it. 2001 is challenging enough for the newbie and the dark section, which had a place in the cinema, just serves to irritate and/or confuse. In the cinema it's a great way to suck you into the movie before the lights go down but in a living room - not so much. I get the Kubrick reverance, but there are limits. I think the last movie I saw with an intermission was "Logan's Run" in 1976. Before that they were the norm in movies over 90m or so.
The film, both the ape-part and the space-part, is about evolution of man, assisted by incomprehensibiy advanced beings working through the monoliths. The ending is meant to convey how little we could grasp what is on the other side of a quantum leap in consciousness.
Okay, I'm watching this a second time in two days. Yes, when I saw it in the theater, I thought those two spots on top of the helmet made it seem like a lizard head coming out of the pod. One other artsy thing I liked was how the arms of the pod seemed like human arms. When it grasped the latch mechanism at the emergency door lock, and started turning over and over again, well, that broke the illusion that it was a human arm. I'm sure the extended rotation was done purposely by Kubrick exactly for that reason. And I also liked the extended sequence of the button and alarm sounds inside the pod as he was getting ready to blow the explosive bolts on the hatch. It was all masterful on his part.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS CADENCE! "Good evening Dave" "Good evening Clarice" Anthony Hopkins partially patterned his character of Hannibal Lector on HALs look and sound. He trained to do all his lines by looking right into the camera and never blinking. And his voice is very quiet and controlled but at the same time you know he could calmy kill you.
This is the Sci-Fi movie that changed all Sci-Fi movies after it. Things, aspects you identified in other works are a result of Kubrick and Clark. I really enjoyed your reactions. If you want to understand this movie you have to read the book. Equally well, if you want to understand the book you have to watch the movie. Why? Because Kubrick and Clark created both works together.
It’s always infinitely entertaining watching a first time viewer get their brain scrambled by the ending of this movie. 😂👍 Just so you know, there is a sequel, “2010”. It isn’t Kubrick - it’s a little more Hollywood and a little more understandable. It attempts to offer some closure and answer some questions raised in this film. Just thought you might be interested… I first saw this on a grade 5 field trip to the local theatre. Being the young nerd that I was, I was the only kid there completely enthralled. All the others were bored out of their skulls and throwing popcorn everywhere after the first ten minutes. Congrats on the new channel and hope you continue to challenge yourself on your viewing choices.👍❤
I do enjoy 2010 more than 2001, specifically because it has a more traditional narrative. The funny thing though, many of the answers 2010 gives are also given in the original 2001 book, and Kubrick purposefully decided to leave those answers out. I get the interest in a film that leaves you with questions to answer,... but leaving out the answers the original author intended for you to have is a bit questionable.
@ the thing is, the book came after the movie. The movie came about from a short story by Arthur C. Clarke called “The Sentinel”. Mr. Clarke helped Kubrick with the screenplay and then wrote the book afterwards. Clarke probably felt a little explanation was in order, but it was after the fact.
22:07 we've never been back because at the time it was an economic, military and ideological competition with the USSR. They were taking steps in space quicker than we were, but we still had a chance at the moon shot which was viewed as a monumental landmark in space travel at the time. Once we achieved it, it didn't take long for the public's interest to wane, then government support dried up, and we ended up with manned craft stuck in low earth orbit for decades.
Even the Apollo programme was slated to be longer but got cut at 17. They'd only landed on the moon twice before TV networks started pulling the plug - then Apollo 13 happened an briefly peaked interest again.
There are videos with Arthur C Clarke from the 60's where he talks about his visions of the future and he is incredibly spot on! He talks about things that are commonplace today but were pure wizardry back in the 60's. He was an incredible visionary!
Elvis Presley opened his 1970s concerts with the 2001 Space Odyssey theme, aka "Also Sprach Zarathustra" composed by Richard Strauss in the 1890s. A live orchestra traveled with Elvis and performed it at his concerts. It thus became known as his theme music.
My favorite scene is HAL trying to talk to Dave about the mission and you can tell he REALLY wants to talk about it. He's projecting his feelings on Dave and fishing for a response. When Dave thinks he's testing them, that's when we get "Just a moment" and people start dying. I also like HAL's passive-aggresive tone when Dave's on his way to the logic center.
I hope she follows uo with 2010. (One other reactor has, so far.) Although it is a more conventional sci-fi film by Peter Hyams, I'm glad they filled in some of the background pieces of info that weren't in this one.
27:00 the coffee wouldn’t start to float because the mass of the Moon causes a gravitational pull. The force of gravity on the Moon is 1/6 that of Earth, but it’s enough to stop things floating away.
Spielberg and Lucas were obsessed by this movie since they saw it as young film students which is why you see so much of the technical aspects of Star Wars a decade later.
The VFX for 2001 was also where Douglas Trumbull developed many of the optical techniques later used for Star Wars (the original complete title of that movie). I recall that Trumbull was credited for the opticals of the "trench run scenes" in that one.
THAT was FUN! Great reaction, loved every bit of it. You really enjoyed it and it showed. You also connected the dots rather well. Yes, this film is art, and Kubrick left the ending a little fuzzy so you could interpret it your own way. The book is very clear on the events. Dave entered a Star Gate, had a trip of a trip (it WAS the 60s, after all), ended up in a hotel room the aliens had constructed when the monolith sampled our telecommunications, and was artificially aged so he could be reborn as the Star Child. He was then sent back to Earth thru the monolith so that he could lead humanity in the next stage of our evolution. So simple! Now you have to see 2010: The Year We Make Contact so you can find out what happened next, and also get some answers to your questions. The space station docking music was the Blue Danube by Strauss. The conspiracy joke is that NASA hired Kubrick to fake the moon landings, but he insisted on shooting on location! We had Star Trek before this, and many other sci-fi movies and stories involving space ships and aliens, but this was a different style and actually well grounded in the technology expectations of the time. A lot of the ship, moonbase, and space station characteristics were inspired by contemporary artist's renderings of planned projects. It was quite a time to be a kid.
Coby, I have used 2001 as ASMR to sleep many times. The saddest thing about the making of the film is that Kubrick had all the sets, models and their blueprints destroyed after filming to prevent a sequel. One was eventually made, 2010: The Year We Make Contact. IMO, it is a worthy follow-up. It is more a thriller/ adventure, answering some questions and leaving more. It is full of actors you'll recognize. I'd recommend it.
When I see how many times the ship, props and costumes from Forbidden Planet ended up being reused in other movies that were mostly of inferior quality, I can't blame Kubrick for wanting to make sure that nothing from 2001 befell the same ignominious fate.
An interesting question: Does HAL sound innately creepy (i.e. did he sound that way to the first audiences of this film), or have we been conditioned through pop culture to interpret HAL's way of speaking as creepy because of HAL's behavior in this film?
I have NEVER seen someone so giddy because of this film. Knowing you explained that it tickles you when you see the filmmakers’ concept of what the future might look like, you are absolutely adorable!
The crew encountered a higher intelligence that is impossible to comprehend with the human brain; at the end of the film, the hero became a superhuman messenger of this intelligence. There is a sequel to Odyssey 2010, they explain it there!
My dad was a rocket scientist. I knew this was coming as a kid. So none of this really surprised me in the movie theater, but I was just so happy to see it happening. And this will always be my favorite film for all time seeing this with my dad. I’m telling myself this is what a real movie is.
I saw this in 1968 when I was 10 and it completely blew me away. Can you imagine seeing this without having seen all the movies that took from it over the next 50+ years? I didn't understand it so I read the book. Which kinda over explains things. Even then, it's been said that what the writer, Arthur C Clarke, described in the book may not be exactly what Kubrick had in mind (the book was written as the film was being made. The movie was based on a short story by Clarke which was basically the part of the movie that takes place on the Moon). I went on to see it 13 more times in the theater (they rereleased it on a near yearly basis before home video). There's a sequel based on a book by Clarke called 2010: The Year We Make Contact that answers some questions. But it's more of a conventional film and not the art film that this is. It's good, but not a masterpiece. I will say that Kubrick actually planned to show the aliens. Doug Trumbull, who was in charge of effects said they tried several techniques to show a truly otherworldly alien. But none were to Kubrick's satisfaction. So he decided to let the monolith stand in for the aliens. Dave was basically evolved by the aliens into the next step in human evolution (a theme Clarke has dealt with before in other books like Childhood's End). The light show, which was a big hit with stoners in the 60s, is a stargate opened by the monolith orbiting Jupiter. The hotel room is a habitat or staging area for Dave as he goes through the evolutionary change. BTW that shot where the ape throws the bone and it jumps to the satellite has been called the greatest jump cut in the history of film. One detail that isn't exactly clear is that the satellite is actually a nuclear weapons platform. So the transition is from man's first weapon to man's latest weapon. Douglas Trumbull, who supervised the effects for 2001, made another Sci Fi film in 1973 called Silent Running. It's good and also has something that Lucas definitely borrowed for Star Wars.
One of my favorite tidbits in the book that I wish had made it into the movie is what was in the fridge. I won't spoil it for Coby but if you know, you know. I just found it a great representation of aliens with limited information "doing their best."
@@cyberingcatgirls7069 Sort of like Trelaine in the "Squire of Gothos" episode of Star Trek. Observation from a distance. He replicates fire without the heat.
Yeah Coby, just as confused as you when first saw the movie soooo many years ago. At the end, Dave is transformed as you see him from his current age to the older age. He is then reborn as 'The Star Child' with help of whoever 'they' are. It's another step in the evolution of man and kind of leaves it up to you to use your imagination of how that evolved being moves forward. You should watch the sequel they did years later called '2010: The Year We Make Contact'. That was made in 1984 so a much more 'normal' kind of movie. It's based on a follow up novel to 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke. And congrats on the new channel! Looking forward to following you and seeing more great reactions!
2001: A Space Odyssey was the first movie to depict the use of an iPad-like device called the "IBM TelePad". You can see two of these tablet-like devices on the table whilst Dave Bowman and his fellow crew member eat their dinner and watch the latest news livestream. You can also see Dave carrying his IBM TelePad with him as he approaches the mess hall and climbs down the ladder just prior to joining his fellow crew member at the dinner table.
"I'm not going to get it wrapped up in a bow, am I?" You sure picked a doozy for a first reaction! ❤ To the many long time fans like myself, this movie makes perfect sense.. there's the books and would maybe recommend the movie "2010", though an imperfect non-Kubrick film, it will tie up some loose ends. Next film?.. "Forbidden Planet" 1956
I don't like the explanation for HAL going bad in 2010. The ape touched the monolith and got a jump in awareness. HAL has sensors and telescopes so he touched the monolith on route. It makes sense that his awareness experiences a similar expansion. The 2010 explanation deminishes 2001.
@@Concreteowl The explanation was that HAL was told the secret then ordered to lie to Bowman and Poole. This would have been during a continued Cold War with the Soviets, which makes sense. I can absolutely see the CIA meddling and overruling the scientists here. That HAL's issues turned out to really have been human error (that concerns for national security caused the problem) also makes sense. I think human error also fits the themes in 2001. That things like a political rivalry were trivial and destructive. It would be a repeat of the the battle for the drinking spot at the end of act 1. I also have a hard time with HAL 'touching the Monolith'. No one had any idea that there would be another, giant Monolith in Jovian orbit...and HAL's sensors were no better or worse than the ones on Earth. There is no hint that this happened in the film. It would also suggest that HAL's coming into contact with the Monolith would cause HAL to become a mass murderer. That makes the aliens either incompetent or evil, and I don't think that fits with what 2001 was striving for.
She also has ANOTHER reaction channel called "Criminal Content." TH-camrs like to make it as hard as possible to actually keep seeing their content, so they split their audience over and over.
The cat was real; as I recall, the guy it jumped was its trainer. The monolith on Earth inspired the tribe to become carnivores, so they'd have the strength to take back their water source. In the book, it was less abstract; pretty sure there was a lesson involving concentric circles for the sake of improving their aim, at some point. Then it relocated to the moon and waited to be found. Luna has a little gravity, but they'd still have to be careful pouring coffee, especially while moving; I believe The Expanse series represented that sort of thing best. The Odyssey mission went a little differently in the book, but Clarke said 2010 was a sequel to the movie, so. HAL took control of Frank's pod and used it to kill him. The suit's airfeed had been yanked from his helmet - that tube sticking out? - so he wouldn't have survived long. After shutting HAL down, David parked the ship between the gravities of Jupiter and one of its moons - the lagrange point - then went in the pod to this new, larger monolith... and then he went on a far greater journey... This film *inspired* Star Wars, and the model-making became a staple of sci-fi right up until computers started taking over. At first, this movie was popular among stoners. Then an astronut (Farscape joke) took a photo of the entire Earth with a handheld camera, right before Christmas of '68. More people started going to see the movie. Theories abounded concerning HAL's motives (including interference from the monolith), as well as what the ending meant. I'd suggest watching the 2010 movie for the answers you seek.
First and foremost, I would like to congratulate you on your new channel. I'm sure it will be a huge success! Your reaction to 2001: A Space Odyssey was priceless, and no, you are not the first to be confused by its ending. The film is open to many interpretations. May I suggest you watch the sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984). This underrated film actually answers many of the questions raised by the first movie. As for classic sci-fi, I recommend The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Forbidden Planet (1956). Both films set a precedent for future science fiction movies, including 2001. Once again, congratulations on your new channel! I look forward to seeing more of your reactions in the near future.
It was deliberately buried there 4 million years ago, awaiting the next evolution of man to find it and touch it. Only then was the radio burst sent to Jupiter.
Spoilers: The meaning or interpretation of the meaning of the film is endlessly debated. My view as to what happened in the film: The Monolith was a tool for unseen aliens. Its job is to seek out intelligent life in the universe and to help it along. It arrives on Earth where the ancestors of Mankind are struggling. They are gatherers, eating only the plants they can scrounge and are on the brink of starvation. The Monolith teaches the man-apes technology in the form of tools that allow hunting, ending their starvation. The side effect of that technology is the second water hole scene. We see the first war, now made deadly with the advent of weapons. Technology is a double-edged sword that brings life and kills. Bone gets thrown into the air, jump-cuts to the satellite. In act 2, we go to the Moon, where another Monolith was found, deliberately buried. When that Monolith is exposed to sunlight for the first time in 4 million years, it sends a radio beam to Jupiter. It’s a way the aliens know mankind is advanced enough for the next step. The people who find the Monolith on the Moon lie to keep its existence a secret, because reasons. Act 3 sees the astronauts going to Jupiter. The tech crew (Bowman and Poole) are awake for the trip there but don't know about the real mission (they think it's just the first manned mission to Jupiter). The science crew (Hunter, Kaminsky, and Kimball) were briefed on the alien thing found on the Moon and then frozen, to keep the secret. HAL was also told the truth but instructed to lie to Bowman and Poole. HAL goes crazy, since lying went against his original programming. When HAL starts to crack up, he begins making mistakes...blaming those mistakes on the crew. He kills off the fallible humans so they don't ruin the secret mission. Bowman shuts down the higher functions of HAL's brain, in the process activating prerecorded briefing materials informing him about what was found on the Moon and what the real mission is. Act 4 Bowman investigates the giant Monolith orbiting Jupiter, but when he gets close, it turns into a sort of stargate and drags him to a pre-planned location set up by the aliens (the aliens themselves are long dead). After the trip (and incidentally seeing many mysteries of the Universe), he is put into a cage of sorts, made to look like an Earth hotel suite so he feels more comfortable. The weird thing where he keeps seeing himself I think is representing time being affected...so he sees 'time jumps' of himself on multiple occasions. Bowman is drained of all his memories and humanity, which is transferred to his new existence, the Star Child. The Monolith, the thing that gave humanity a gentle 'push' down the evolutionary path of tool making and technology, now gives him a new 'push' to the next phase of evolution, from existence as matter to existence as pure energy. Bowman/Star Child then returns to Earth, and the next step of Mankind's journey begins. That's how I see it anyway.
I wonder if HAL wasn’t making mistakes, but instead was purposefully creating situations to test them to see how they’d react. I know in 2010 they explain that HAL did what he did bc he was told to lie, but I’m not convinced he is completely innocent.
Personally I see the Monoliths as way markers. The first one on Earth disappeared (disappeared in the film too) after initialising the growth of man and then was moved to the Moon, only to be found when man had evolved enough to actually travel there and find it again. Sort of tests for mankind as it evolves
My small objection to your synopsis is that the monolith didn't provide technology, but through contact with it the small group of man-apes were stimulated to make new mental connections and thus make deeper imaginative solutions to problems.
The long intro and intermission are because it's a theatrical release. Movies used to mimic the opera in that music played while you entered, not commercials. And had intermissions for concession or bathroom breaks.
Here’s my idea in a nutshell . . . The black obelisk guides early man to sentience, tools, hunting, even war. Then we flash forward to space travel. The obelisk guides man to Jupiter. Man’s tools turn against him just as another evolution takes place. Dave takes a journey through his life into death. Man is about to leap forward again. The end. 😀
I was born in 84 and looking back I'm happy I had the privilege of watching this on local TV as a kid. I didn't understand half of it by then, but it showed me stuff that I've been mulling in my head ever since. This, to me, is the epitome of what science-fiction and cinema can be. Glad to see this not forgotten over the years, quite the opposite. Cheers. Your various facial expressions across this are yet another testimony. This was special stuff. The unknown is something you usually don't come across in your life, and by the end of this movie you are repeatedly thrust into that - and experience within is evident.
I watched this in theaters around age 10. It changed my life. If anyone gets a chance to watch it on the big screen at a film festival, it is a must-see.
Not sure if there’s any love here for 2010, the sequel to this film, but I remember being blown away by the concept it tells. Really hope Coby gives it a watch, too!
I like it but 2010 is very different from this as the script is based on Arthur C. Clarke's book rather than a Kubrick-Clarke collaboration where Clarke didn't have the final say. And 2010 is very much not Kubrick. As both a Clarke and Kubrick fan I'm torn. I would like a reboot of this and three more movies adapting Clarke's four books. But it would be hard to compete with this one for a first movie. I suppose it will never happen. :(
Why does that film say everything happened on the Moon at the "Sea of Tranquillity"? The discovery of the object on the Moon was near crater Tycho and the US base was at Clavius. Nowhere near the equatorial Mare Tranquillitatis.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver I don't know for sure, but anything in 2001 that isn't right, or any difference between that and 2010, I blame on Kubrick. Clarke said "This makes sense." and Kubrick thought "But my idea makes a better movie..." and unfortunately Kubrick had final say on anything in the script. Perhaps he thought Sea of Tranquillity sounded better? Have you read Clarke's books? He wrote 2001 based on his input for the movie, but still changed a little (I think) for the sequels. Fun trivia: Clarke didn't like sequels, but had a thing for this story. In the third book I read he had a foreword where he apologised for writing it, and in the fourth he PROMISED that this was the last one. :D
It's interesting to me that almost no reactors pick up on the fact that Frank's oxygen line has been cut by the pod's claw. Everyone seems to think he's still alive when Dave goes to recover his body.
That's why Frank is so frantically trying to reattach the hose even though it's hopeless then stops moving
Yes. His arms were wiggling only for the first 10 or 20 seconds. Since he was caught by surprise he did not have the chance to brace himself so he probably lost his breath and passed out. I was thinking to just leave what is left of him in his suit. Freeze dried.
I would guess bracing yourself might double your survival from 15 to 30 seconds before you can't hold it any more and burst through your skin. The body is not sealed very well and pressure drop will expand water to gas....
Yes, I noticed that, but not my first time watching! I wonder if Dave knew it, but went after Frank anyway.
The even more interesting thing is that's not his oxygen line, it's the coffee feed.
You're correct, to me it was incredibly obvious that Hal cut Frank's oxygen line
Stanley Kubrick wasn’t just making a movie-he was throwing viewers into the deep end of existential philosophy, evolutionary theory, and cosmic wonder. That last sequence with Dave and the monolith? Buckle up, because it’s abstract and open to interpretation,.
Before the Monolith: Setting the Stage
• The monoliths in the movie (on the Moon, orbiting Jupiter, etc.) are tools placed by an advanced alien intelligence. They’re catalysts for evolution-pushing humanity from ape-like tool users to space travelers and, eventually, something greater.
• When Dave approaches the monolith orbiting Jupiter, he’s entering the next phase of human evolution. The mini pod acts as his bridge into this next dimension.
The Psychedelic Light Show
• The kaleidoscope of lights as Dave enters the monolith is Kubrick’s way of showing Dave transcending space and time. He’s no longer bound by the physical laws of the universe. Think of it as a symbolic journey to a higher state of consciousness.
• This sequence can be read as a visual metaphor for enlightenment or an alien-assisted transformation.
The Room: What’s Happening?
• Dave finds himself in a surreal, ornate, 18th-century-style room. This environment feels alien yet familiar, like something designed to make him feel at ease while undergoing a transformation.
• Kubrick portrays Dave’s life accelerating: he sees himself aging rapidly-eating dinner, bedridden, and eventually near death. This suggests time is either irrelevant or being manipulated in this space.
The Star Child
• As Dave is on his deathbed, the monolith appears one last time. It’s the symbol of transformation. Dave reaches out to it, reminiscent of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, bridging the gap between human and divine.
• Dave is reborn as the Star Child-a being of pure energy and consciousness, floating above Earth. This represents the next step in human evolution, one no longer constrained by physical form.
Great summary, I never made the Michaelangelo connection till you mentioned it! That despite me being a Michaelangelo fan! 🙄
Yeah, basically some alien or god-like beings are propelling humanity forward with the monoliths until they evolve into something else, so we see the beginning of humanity and the end when we evolve. It’s beautiful and I wouldn’t argue with someone saying it’s the best movie ever made. Unfortunately I think humans will need alien god help to evolve, instead of our current trajectory of self destructive extinction
We will evolve as it is written.
@@dogmatistis3575 do you mean as it was written in the Arthur C. Clarke story? Cause that’d be impressive prophecy
@@maladjustedmoon5200 i'm going to evolve into monkey, i already eat bananas
For a 56 years old movie, it doesn´t look aged - for a Sci-Fi that is impressive.
Well, except for the red mod chairs on the space station. Those didn't age well.
CRT screens always age films set in the future.
56:37. Realization in 3…2…1…
I can almost guarantee you won't understand it.
There are other classic sci-fi films such as Forbidden Planet, The Time Machine, etc. But they all look dated to the period in which they were made. Not 2001.
Johann Strauss II - The Blue Danube Waltz
And the intro is Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Kubrick must have been a big Strauss fan.
@@confoundicator Thus Spoke Zarathustra is by Richard Strauss, a German, no relation to Johann, who was Austrian.
Different Strauss. See answer before. 😎
@@confoundicator The musical composition, unlike the book by Nietzche, is usually translated "Thus Spake Zarathustra."
@@confoundicator Richard pronounced RICKard Strauss...no relation). Other classical and electronic music includes Lux Aeterna by György Ligeti:
For people who end up loving this movie, you never forget the first time you saw it and realizing how completely unprepared you were for what you were about to see and how it would just blow your mind.
Those of us who saw this in 68 when we were in college were already blown mind stoned before we got to the theater.
@@8RBrain I'd imagine that was not pleasant. I've never done drugs. I saw this the first time in the early 90s.
I was 10 in the theater and had no problem sitting still or understanding it. Probably because I paid attention.
So very true. I saw this at 16 in the summer of '68 in Washington D.C. My aunt and uncle thought it looked interesting and thought I might enjoy it. That viewing of 2001 on the largest screen in town, not only blew me away, it became part of my DNA!
@@CaptainBobRockets I saw it first in Munich, Germany in the largest cinema there in 1972. Happily, they showed it in 70mm. It was an afternoon show and not very crowded (it already ran for a few weeks) and I was able to sit in the perfect seat for the show. It was SPECTACULAR!
Your reaction to the space walk is exactly what was intended. This movie is a masterclass in screwing with your mind.
"2001: A Space Odyssey" is my all-time favorite movie - but it definitely has a reputation for NOT making people absolutely giddy while they're watching it. The fact that it had this effect on you makes this one of my favorite reactions to it!
I think the monolith is pointing humanity to the next step in our evolution. Dave sees different ages of himself and is now evolved past us. He’s a new being.
Let me add, I’m not Arthur C Clark or Stanley Kubrick. My opinions are just my own and everyone’s interpretation is valid. But man, what a great film!
Valid interpretation, I think. The monolith at the start of the film gave apes intelligence enough to craft tools and use them(in this case clubs/weapons). IE - the next step in evolution.
It is also instructive to observe that the tapirs (the porcine-looking animals) did not percieve the man-apes as any sort of threat since they (the man-apes) had no idea they could be used as a food source. Instead they were seen as a noxious competitor for the vegetarian food supply. The "normal" food supply was gathered on the ground, and was disappearing at that time due to the (cyclical) climate change occuring in Africa at that time. The man-apes were starving to death. After the monolith appeared and "uplifted" them not only did they gain the use of tools, but now a reliable food supply of meat protein from freshly killed animals, as was shown in the next scene. The additional available and reliable protein source allowed for the accelerated development of their brains and hence continued advancement.
Yep. Man learns to use tools in the first part, but by the second part, the tools are running the show. Man requires another evolutionary leap to move forward. If HAL hadn't gone nuts, there would be five Star Children at the end of the film.
The movie bookends the evolution of man; the dawn of man, and theorizes our evolution to our next form, as well as the evolution of our tools, which go on to be extensions of ourselves.
You couldn't make this film any better, even with all the current CGI technology. It's perfect from every angle.
Well the apes/Hominids could be a bit better.
And a few of the shots of the moon looking out of a ship's window are a bit dated too.
But most of the rest is as good as it gets.
The 7 minute delay is because of the speed of light in a vacuum, which is 186,000 miles per second (light is the same as a radio transmission, just a different frequency). That means they're a little over 78 million miles from Earth for the delay to be that long. The sun is 93 million miles away, so it takes over 8 minutes for light to reach us from the sun.
That is correct.
Oh I didn’t know that about the opening. Thanks for the info
Or it’s because road show films like this and Doctor Zhivago, Lawerence of Arabia etc, had pre-credit musical interludes.
Read a theory somewhere that what you're really looking at for the first minutes is not a black screeen, but ... the monolith! Generally, I'm not a fan of these in-the-weeds interpretations, but this one, I like.
The 7 minute delay is a mistake in my opinion after 18 months of travel. At a 7 minute delay, they would be within the orbital area of Mars. If you assume the ship was somewhere within the asteroid belt after 18 months, it could take anywhere between 26 and 35 minutes for a radio transmission from Earth to reach them. Then another 26 to 35 minutes for Earth to receive their response. At all depends on the distance between the Earth and the ship which is always changing.
Dave not panicking is how real astronauts are trained. You can't freak out in an emergency as it doesn't help the situation. Totally accurate response from someone trained as such.
But it's also the counter dichotomy of humans acting like computers and the computer acting like a human.
Yep! And you see this in the movie "Apollo 13".
Astronauts have a saying: "There is no problem so bad that you can't make it worse." Panic would be a quick way of making it worse!
Which is why so many space movies fail, they forget that simple fact and put emotional morons into space.
I guess it just feels strange as for years we are bombarded with movies where people like that have no emotional self control but start yelling and crying and panicking
The picking up the bones to use as a weapon at the beginning of the movie was mankind’s ancestors learning how to use a tool. That was a HUGE evolutionary event and (in this movie) showed how the influence of the Monolith started mankind’s separation from the rest of the animal kingdom and the first steps in being able to use tools to manipulate the environment.
In 68 this was like a post card from thirty five years in the future. Back then, there were no flat screen TV's, they used picture tubes. No,i pads back then a pad had a spiral binding. Notebooks had pages with lines. . No FaceTime messaging stuff of sci fi. , Computers ran on punchcards, and were found at universities. Phones were attached to the wall. This is the first time I noticed that the girl wanted a phone before a bushbaby ! Any of the new generation watching this will never realize that what they take for granted had not been in existence when the movie was made. What space movies that were made before this varied A true Science Fiction landmark was. Forbidden Planet 1956 Films like Conquest of Space 1955 was typical spaceman fare. A landmark film from 1950 was Destination Moon. It was 2001's closest relative. A scientific conjecture on what it would take to land man on the Moon.
I am old enough to have seen this when it came out. Personally, I wasn't blown away... I WAS SEEING THE FUTURE!! In fact, I was shocked when Pan-Am didn't survive into the 21st century.
Kubrick and Clarke "stole" a lot of future nuance from Robert Heinlein. In fact the movie about traveling to the moon was written by Heinlein and he was the technical director. Heinlein was a navy engineer and gunnery officer turned writer. If you like this movie I highly recommend that you read his books "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Have Spacesuit Will Travel". If you enjoyed this movie I pretty much guarantee that you will enjoy those books. I would love to hear back if you read and enjoyed them. Btw the books predate this movie.
@@pheverdream5618 I mean, even look at the sequel 2010 made in the 80’s. They even had the Soviets in it because who would have thought they would collapse only a few years later. Back when I was a kid it just seemed the Soviets were always going to be around until we tossed missiles at each other.
We were still using punch cards at Uni in the early eighties. They make great bookmarks. Fun fact. When they launched the National Lottery in the UK 30 years ago, the numbers on the chit you filled in to buy a ticket lined up exactly with a punch card.
If we are doing shout outs then 1951 "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and 1971's "The Andromeda Strain" should be mentioned as well.
The Monolith launched Dave through hyperspace. Dave was just responding to the trauma of it all. It wasn't in his head.
There is an interesting fact behind the monoliths in the movie. They are different from Clarke‘s versions, which had the dimension 1:4:9 (the first 3 primes 1,2,3 squared). Stanley wanted the monolith's dimensions to reflect the same aspect ratio of the film itself as it is projected on the screens in the movie theaters - so if that's Super Panavision 70 then the aspect ratio is 2.2:1 - which gives a width of 4'10" or 58".
These shapes reoccur many times in the movie: the windows in the briefing room on Clavius base for example. In the last scenes, the white room has no door, no exit. Only at the end, as the monolith reappears, it offers a door like shaped thing, reminding the viewer, that he can exit this phantastic situation using the screen in the movie theater to get to reality again. For the shot to be realized they had to physically remove a whole wall of the set, literally „breaking the 4th wall“.
@@losmosquitos1108 TMA-1 ... T M A O N E ... NO MEAT
"What is that, 'chicken'?"
"Tastes the same, anyway ... they're getting better at it all the time."
Best reaction comment ever: "this music is so famous... they even used this music for the start of Barbie" ! Of course, it is cool that you then realised that the opening of Barbie was an homage, but it made me smile anyway, as probably 2001 is the main reason that this is the most famous piece by Richard Strauss.!
Don't worry, Coby. No one gets this film the first time they see it, but when you do understand it you realise how amazing it is.
Ive watched it several times - including in 1969 - and still don't understand it.
@@timtaylor7364 Nobody does.
I saw this movie in 1973 at 12 years of age and understood it perfectly, speak for yourself.
@@aussiedonaldduck2854 _"Understood it perfectly"_
Yea, as if this film is clear-cut with a definitive interpretation. Right. This film is deliberately ambiguous and is completely up to interpretation cuz Kubrick refused to explain the meaning of it.
Having read the book it certainly helps because Clarke wrote so much that was difficult to film. The acid trip at the end? Space ports for alien civilizations
just a small point in the start of the film.
the "men in monkey suits" aren't supposed to be monkeys or gorilla's they're supposed to be very early humans, to our eyes they may well have looked like men in monkey outfits 😂😂😂
plus "first monkey/human used tool moment"
Apes, not monkeys.
Hominids.
They were played by mimes chosen for being very thin.
As commented: Skinny mimes, who studied ape behavior before acting in the suits.
"2001" - despite having more elaborately engineered ape-man faces (including tongue-operated toggles/levers to convey facial expressions) - Lost the Academy Award for make-up to the (also excellent, but simpler) "glue-on" facial prosthetics of the original "Planet of the Apes".
Their response (paraphrasing): "Apparently, the Academy didn't realize that the man-apes in 2001 were also ACTORS" XD
The Dawn of Man sequence implies that the evolution from ape to man was triggered by your "stick " (hereafter called the "monolith"). It expanded the capacity of the ape to problem=solve, discover tools and weapons, and expand the diet to include more meat, and to give one clan the ability to take and defend resources (the water hole). Throw in a few millennia of development, and we're in space on a spaceliner so comfortable that we're sleeping. And the space sequence is meant to take place in 2001 (the future, from the POV of the original audience). Clavius is the base on the moon. The music you're trying to remember is "The Blue Danube Waltz". The Jupiter mission stemmed from the fact that the high-pitched signal from the Moon monolith was directed at Jupiter, so we sent a ship to see if we could figure out why. Dave was so calm during the rescue because of his training. Astronauts are trained to remain calm under stress, as shown often by our real astronauts. One thing I think you missed was that HAL took control of the pod and sent it after Poole when Poole was in his spacewalk. And Poole stopped moving because his air line had been severed and he had suffocated. The ending is intentionally ambiguous. Kubrick wanted the audience to reach their own conclusions. Answers about why HAL went nuts are in the sequel, "2010: The Year We Make Contact" which is a really good movie in it's own right. Thanks for giving me a new channel to sub!
The 1st "ship" morphed from the bone along with the second "ship" were in fact multi-warhead nuclear weapon platfoms (one Western and one Soviet) ... the evolution of humans and their weapons.
Well said....
The Leopard is real. Terry Duggan was a stuntman who spent a year or so getting comfortable play-fighting with the Leopard.
I have to say that leopard looked very young.
The glint of the studio lights in the leopard's eyes was not anticipated, but they acknowledged that it added to the quality of the shot.
They'd painted zebra stripes onto an (already dead) horse, whose stench made everybody (the leopard included) unenthusiastic while filming the scene.
I honestly thought you were gonna say "Terry Duggan was a stuntman who spent a year or so getting comfortable wearing a leopard costume ..."
2001 was a big game changer for sci fi and special effects. It was the gold standard in special effects for many years, and it took the sci fi genre up another level.
I think it's STILL the gold standard in special effects thanks to the artistic mastery of Douglass Trumbull, Wally Veevers and Stanley Kubrick.
It proved that serious Science Fiction films could be created and reach an audience.
Still is the gold standard.
@ Absolutely, it crossed over in a big way with Star Wars
@@les4767 Absolutely, three legends who are very much missed.
What does the ending of 2001 mean? 'During an interview for Japanese audiences in 1980, Kubrick is asked what 2001: A Space Odyssey's last scene meant, and he explains that Dave was “taken in by godlike entities; creatures of pure energy and intelligence.” This is what the colors and hallucinations are supposed to represent. Mar 5, 2023
"for then" my @$$! I think the visuals in this flick are just great PERIOD! I dare even say that they beat those computer simulations (in every other movie made today) out of the freaking water! And yes, THIS flick came nearly an entire decade before Star Wars and Close Encounters. It's pretty much the movie that TRULY pioneered and revolutionized screen visuals of THIS kind.
The reason the circular spinning rooms are the best effects ever done for any space project and are so believable is because they are real, practical effects, without any CGI. Kubrick had the largest hamster wheel ever created for the movie, so when he is running around the 'hub', the entire MASSIVE set is actually rotating as well. The amount of insight and foresight this movie had is one of the greatest impacts on inventions that exist today. NASA was heavily involved, to the point where they actually had prototypes of the original space suits the astronauts were going to wear on the moon landing, (which hadn't happened yet.) That is a major thing to consider when you realize everything in this movie was just theory at that time. So many people get lost in the fact of how slow paced they movie is, not recognizing the fact that was done on purpose to ground the film in reality. Instead of taking artist license with how long and drawn out things actually are, (which is far slower than the movie in reality,) it embraces that fact and gives you an actual sense of how monotonous that type of life truly is, which to me has always been a masterstroke and defies everything you are classically told should be entertaining. As you experienced, the tension gets palpable and at times can almost leave you feeling breathless, like you are choking, or trying desperately to catch your breath. There are a TON of little hidden details littered throughout the movie that make re-watching it an endless experience. I can't count the number of times I've re-watched the movie, and every single time I either catch something new, or think about something in a slightly different way. The story doesn't end here either. The book dives deeper into certain things, while there are 3 more 'chapters' of the story, (it is a quadrilogy of books,) while this movie has 1 film sequel. There are changes from book to screen, which Arthur C. Clarke changed himself, so trying to fully align the books to the movies doesn't work. It is best to watch 2010: The Year We Make Contact to learn more about the story than read 2010: Odyssey Two. I'm really glad you finally got to watch and (mostly) enjoy the movie, because it can be very divisive, especially among younger/newer viewers that have been raised on fast-paced, less 'thought-hungry' content. It stands alone as something that will never be achieved again, although I would highly advise watching Contact as well, if you haven't. In my opinion it is probably the closest movie that has ever achieved the same level of impact, (for me.)
P.S. There are actually some effects in the movie that still baffle even the greatest special effects artists in the world. Certain effects the artists/Kubrick took to the grave, so they will likely never be reproduced. There was also a longer cut of the movie originally shown in the theater, the first night it debuted. Kubrick was upset at the reception and ended up cutting portions out, destroying the original prints of those scenes. Only a handful of single-frame stills still exist from that original cut. The second showing already had those edits when it was shown. It shows just how dedicated and demanding Kubrick was...
What's amazing to me are the IBM iPad-like devices they are watching in the hamster wheel. This was 1967 and this was used by Samsung to prove there was prior art in Apple's lawsuit against them. In the production materials, Kubrick's team called these 'Newspads', and they had a variety of functions - all called in 1967. Just... Amazing!
NASA was not heavily involved. Go look it up. They did employ some ex nasa people, but no. Not NASA directly and certainly not heavily involved. They were sorta busy at the time, you might remember? That stuff was super secret because of the space race - they landed on the moon the following year. Makes no sense at all that they would have volunteered information. But when the movie came out Nasa were very impressed on how close they were on many things. And what are those effects that baffle VFX people?
well thats not true today, back then it was though, just go google inception and check out the practical monster rotating sets they made for that at a time when they could have CG'd the whole thing. They instead built the entire giant monster multi-level rotating building. It is utterly wild. Like several rotating giant hamster wheels for those long tunnel shots where different actors can be rotating on different wheels. Very amazing stuff.
@@ChordonblueRight ! 👍
Right you are, sir. Which is why I tell people who are about to see it for the first time, "Listen, to truly enjoy this movie, dial down the speed at which you expect a movie to flow. It isn't boring, it isn't monotonous. It's art. When you examine a piece of art, you linger, you look deep, you notice detail. Watch "2001" like you're seeing it in an art museum."
When this movie was released, it was in Cinerama; a huge curved screen with 6 track sound, in a time when most movies were in mono. Your reactions reminded me of how I felt when I saw it. No movie before had ever portrayed space so realistically. I went into Chicago 3 times to see it. When you came back out to the street, you felt as if you had just returned from outer space. Coby, your reactions to all the scenes were great! What a wonderful experience to get to share your emotions to this movie. It made me feel as if I were watching it for the first time! Thanks, and congratulations on starting your own personal channel! I can't wait to see more!
Great description of seeing it on giant screen, and a hit of acid helped a lot also.
The reason the space miniature shots all look so amazing, and they do, is because every frame was hand touched up to clean up masking and any imperfections.
It's literally a work of art, and as a result it looks better than the vast majority of films that come out today.
The old joke goes.... Kubrick did infact direct the moon landings but he was such a perfectionist he insisted shooting at the real location, so they had to go anyway haha
Except that’s not how Kubrick worked; he shot FMJ entirely in the UK.
Christopher Nolan, OTOH, crashed a real 747 for Tenet…
The way I heard it, it was not that he wanted to film on the Moon...I heard that he needed to send his gaffers up to get him all the correct light levels, so he could match the lighting on the set he built. ROFLMAO
@andrewcrowder4958 yeah I actually had the same thought when I posted the comment. It was like "actually he would have shot in England" haha. But like I say its an old joke and I think predated him working exclusively in the uk.
It was a joke, not an accurate accounting of how he worked. The joke was about his perfectionism.
@@lord_haven1114 That is right. I was one of executive producers, so I had to make the trip to the moon myself, lol.
I knew an older man with a PHD. He was a late teenager when he saw this movie in a theatre and choose it on sheer luck. At the time he was seriously considering dropping out of High School and be a hippie. After seeing this he realized how important being an intellectual with a high level of education would be so important in the future. He loved how stoic and intelligent everyone was in this movie. He made education his purpose and became quite successful.
Coby, when you said you shouldn't talk about what you don't know, during the coffee pour, you were wrong. The whole point of this film is to talk about and question what we don't know. That is what makes this film a classic. Kubrick not only made a stunning movie visually, he also made one that questioned our existence.
But of course the coffee pour was on the moon, not in space. The moon does have gravity (although 1/6 that of earth) and so you could pour coffee and eat sandwiches (without a straw!).
the movie doesn’t question our existence. to me, that’s pure interpretation, tbh. i’m fine with “visually stunning”😊
@@brusecco It literally is about questioning our existence and our place in the universe.
It not only predates Star Wars. It predates the moon landing.
And it still totally works. Crazy!
@@fearsomeworrier Well, even the film's creators say they got the lunar surface wrong and made Earth look far too bright.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Kubrick got it right when he filmed the moon landing on location.
@@ianstopher9111 Strange how people think there was only one crewed lunar mission.
Which Kubrick directed, allegedly
a friendly reminder- this film released in 1968, no computer graphics used in this film! Still amazing to me! That's for sharing your reaction sharing Coby.
Hmm, so without computers, how were the moon base scenes and space station scenes done?
Watching you earn your Sci-Fi merit badge was a true honor. Great reaction
Oh god fucking CRINGE
Your reaction when you realized HAL was lip reading is unforgettable. Great reaction Coby.
Actually, HAL is probably no longer science fiction.
We blur out meat now?
HAL is derived from IBM, always the letter in front in the alphabet.
@@diehandgottes6721 Nope. Coincidence.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver I thought this country was starting to get a little saner. Blurring out meat is just proving we have a long way to go still.
The piece is called, 'The Blue Danube' by Johann Strauss.
2001: A Space Odyssey is by far the greatest sci-fi movie of all time. A masterpiece.
Agree. The date of production has practically nothing to do with the quality of the film. Perhaps the second-greatest (much better than Star Wars or any Star Trek film) sci-film of all time was Forbidden Planet (1956). Third may be Alien (1979).
Strongly recommend the book to everyone who appreciates the movie and wants their questions answered. It's an incredibly easy read despite being so profound.
It was written alongside the movie though, so many of the details are different.
@@PixelatedH2O A few are, due to the limitations of cinematic special effects at the time.
@@dudermcdudeface3674 Kubrick decided that Saturn (as in the book's destination) would be too hard for the effects artists to convincingly "create". And his vision of Earth, from space, looks dated now: Too Blue/washed out. Not enough Brown, and some green needed. But all he had to base it on was 1960s spacecraft footage.
The book is only Clark's vision.
@stuartparker-q3o In the '60s they couldn't have done justice to Saturn's rings. Not just because special effects technology wasn't up to it, but mainly because we were still over a decade away from Voyager showing us just how truly awesome they are. It's a general rule that whenever we send a spacecraft somewhere new what it shows us wildly exceeds our expectations.
I was in the 6th grade when my mother bought me the book. Not long after finishing the read, I learned that the movie was to be released later in the year. I must have mentioned quite often how much I'd like to see the movie, because I actually was allowed to go in to see the movie one day when we went to town. Seeing a movie in a theater was a very rare treat growing up. I was very glad I read the book first. It helped me grasp what the hell was going on at the end of the movie.
Same here. I would not have understood the end of the movie if I had not read the book.
"For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next.
But he would think of something."
Didn't the film come first, though? I thought Clarke agreed not to release the novel before the film...?
@@dylanthompson8511 All I can recall is the fact that I read the book before seeing the movie, and being resigned to the fact that I'd have to wait until a TV network showed it as their "Movie of the Week". However I was surprised when we went to town one weekend and it was in one of the downtown theaters, and Mom allowed me to watch the movie as she and my grandmother did their shopping. I still have the book, which has a copyright date of 1968, has on the cover page "Based on a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and as a big boost to your memories, just inside the hard cover, front and back, a scene from the movie is shown. On the left is the unfortunate David Bowman floating away, and on the right is the space pod that HAL whacked him with.
@@dylanthompson8511 That's interesting, and now that makes me wonder when he wrote the novel? There are some major differences from the book to the movie, the primary one being that the Discovery's destination is Saturn (in the book) and Jupiter's gravity is used (I believe?) by Dave and Frank to slingshot and accelerate the Discovery on towards Saturn.
Forgive me if I've gotten details wrong, it's been years since I've read the novel!
@outpost31mac no worries. He wrote it at the same time as co-writing the script with Kubrick. So the film isn't actually based on the novel. They did get the initial inspiration from one of his previous short stories "The Sentinel" where humans find a pyramid on the moon, which sends an alarm to the aliens that put it there eons ago that human tech has advanced to space travel.
Your reaction to the ending is exactly as the filmmakers intended. It’s not meant to be wrapped up in a “Hollywood ending” it’s meant to be interpreted and debated.
Exactly, and that was Kubrick's idea, in particular. He intended it to be left as a mystery that each viewer could ponder independently, himself or herself.
Clark, who wrote much of the screenplay and the accompanying book (and whose short story "The Sentinel" was the inspiration), took a much more literal approach.
@@robinstevenson6690in fact Kubrick said “You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film-and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level-but I don't want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point.”
Maybe, the ending was as the _filmmaker_ intended, but the book is much more fleshed out.
@@virtual-viking ...and both are a piece of art. Art isn't meant to do justice to its subject. Kubrick never said he was making figurative art! 2001 is Kubrick's interpretation of Clarke's short story, its own vision based upon Clarke's work , it's never meant to be a recreation or a copy true to its inspiration. 🙂
@@Onlygloo The description in the book lies very well within the range of potential interpretations of the film's vague ending. So I stand by the book as providing the canonical interpretation of the film.
In 16 years, we'll let you watch 2010. If we had to wait, you have to wait.
😂😂😂
That's funny right there. I don't care who you are.
🤣 Oh, that would be so cruel.
I read 2061 recently , it was just as good, but I do really love 2010
@@RockBrentwood Kubrick intentionally wanted to 2001:ASO to be ambiguous. The central concept of the film is that it's by encountering the unknown that we grow and evolve. The apes do that; Dave does that. The end of the film provokes US to do that. When all the answers are given to you, as they are in 2010, and requires no effort from you, the viewer, there's nothing of real value to be gained from that other than mindless entertainment. There's a reason why 2001:ASO is often listed in the top 5-10 best films ever made and 2010... well, isn't.
Starchild, I met Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka back in 1982. I was on the USS America then, and he asked to share a taxi with me. He told me about the restaurants there, and boy, was he a very quiet person.
he probably just didn't like you.
@@SMacCuUladh Definitely he would not like you.
He was probably thinking 🙂
Just not a can't-stand-the-silence-American that constantly disturbs the peace ...
i think we'd today say he was on the spectrum. Weirdly had no interest in computers and wrote on a typewriter his whole life. And yet he is named as being the inventor or perhaps inventor isn't the right word. The birther? of some technology that did not exist but would come to exist. Like satelites, he wrote in depth about them but none existed at the time. Solar panels, solar sails, unfolding craft. Its just a huge list of stuff he must have spent hundreds of hours working through the practicalities of it existing before he wrote about it. So much so that what he came up with would come to exist exactly as he had written decades before. That's wild to me. Also my favourite quote from Clarke is that one day robots will become so advanced that they will replace us as the next step in human evolution. And we shouldn't feel bad about that because they will be so much better than us. HAHA how on the spectrum was that?
Hey, Coby! This is one of the greatest science fiction films ever made.
It is based on one of the pillars of science fiction literature written by Arthur C. Clarke.
The monolith has been seeded throughout our solar system and, presumably, throughout the rest of the galaxy and perhaps beyond by an advanced species to give an 'uplift' to sentient species on planets with life-bearing potential.
Bowman makes an evolutionary leap to a non-corporeal state after making contact with the Jovian monolith.
His psychedelic experience was his consciousness expansion and isn't to be taken literally; it's just a series of images designed to create a hallucinatory effect for an unknowable experience.
His time in the room was a psychic construct designed as a way to cope with the stress of transformation enabling him to shuffle off his corporeal and temporal perspectives in a familiar way. He experiences a full life cycle in moments that, relatively, seem like decades and passes away into another state of existence. We experience time linearly but a non-temporal or fourth-dimensional being experiences time simultaneously with past, present and future occurring all at once.
As a newborn, non-corporeal, non-temporal entity, he psychically clings to the familiar and views himself as an embryo or a 'Star-Child'.
He takes one last look at his place of origin, the Earth, and then ascends to a higher form of consciousness. It is man's eventual destiny and Bowman is the forerunner like the first hominid to use the bone as a tool who, in the book, is called Moon-Watcher.
The epiphany granted to Moon-Watcher evolves him from Homo erectus to Homo habilis. The bone tool feeds the tribe protein whereas they were previously foraging with the herbivorous tapirs and starving. The bone tool enables them to successfully compete for the meager resource of the watering hole whereas they were previously driven off. The bone tool was the first technology from which all others are derived leading to the transition to satellite technology, one of the most famous transitions in movie history!
The black-screen musical opening is called an OVERTURE, a sampling of the score to set the mood. Most epic blockbusters of the period were shown with OVERTURES and INTERMISSIONS since they were presented in giant movie palaces just like theater productions!
There is an excellent, underrated sequel starring Roy Scheider as Dr. Heywood Floyd called "2010" and Bowman, played again by Keir Dullea, returns!
There are many book sequels.
Kubrick's film is a classic. Every one of his movies are. He only made 11 films. They're each worth studying from "The Killing" to "Eyes Wide Shut".
The classical selection for the space travel sequences was the "Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss.
This was very futuristic at the time especially the video phone call from space!
It remains the most scientifically accurate space movie ever made and influenced everything that followed.
The great contribution of George Lucas and Ridley Scott with "Star Wars" and "Alien", respectively, was designing a future that felt lived-in and worn-out rather than the Kubrickian aesthetic of pristine and anti-septic. Most future societies were presented as shiny and clean. It was a trope.
The bone-to-space transition covers the evolution of human weapons tech, too, that "bone-shaped" satellite is an orbital weapons platform stuffed full of thermonuclear warheads.
Read the original book, it will answer all your questions. Clark was a straight science writer and didn’t deal in abstractions. Many people won’t read the book and choose instead to stay in the dark. Kubrick chose to leave out the explanations.
Clarke wrote 3 sequels to 2001. I have read 2 and 3. There is a movie of the 2nd., "2010: The Year We Make Contact".
Clarke and Kubrick worked on this together. The book isn't technically a movie tie-in.
Oh,.and wait til you see in the last book sequel, 3001, who returns as a character ...!
The movie was not based on the book. Both were being created at the same time as a collaboration between Kubrick and Clark, and evolved as they thrashed out the final story. Reading some of the preliminary drafts is fascinating.
It's incrredible that this was made BEFORE the Apollo 11 mission that landed on the Moon for the first time.
With such an iconic film as this, references to it pop up all over the place.
The book of 2001 was by 'hard science fiction' writer Arthur C. Clarke, expanded from his short story 'The Sentinel'.
Apart from the manned landing on the moon almost every milestone in the space race was achieved by the Soviet Union first.
The moon has approximately 1/6 of Earth's gravity, things behave almost the same as they do on Earth, very different from microgravity on the real ISS.
The little girl on the tv phone is Stanley Kubrick’s daughter.
I remember her documentary about her father making "The Shining" 12 years later. She was 17 filming it.
Vivian Kubrick has been a scientologist since the 90s. What a stupid way to waste your life.
Vivian, who went on to have an impressive career of her own.
@@stuartparker-q3o Before she went a little bonkers.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver by disagreeing with you politically?
@@robertwiles8106 No, for being disagreeable politically. Major difference.
everybody gangsta until coby says "I've been in that room."
Clavius is the name of a crater on the moon, and, by extension, the name of the moonbase as well.
As for HAL's "creepy" voice, it was supplied by Canadian actor Douglas Rain and was the inspiration for Anthony Hopkins' chilling portrayal of Hannibal Lecter's manner of speaking -- very calm, precise and emotionless.
From the Wiki because: TH-cam and links -
Christopher Clavius, was a Jesuit German mathematician, head of mathematicians at the Collegio Romano, and astronomer who was a member of the Vatican commission that accepted the proposed calendar invented by Aloysius Lilius, that is known as the Gregorian calendar.
Weirdly, the silly _2010_ film says everything happened on the Moon at the "Sea of Tranquillity."
dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. goodbye.
I'm afraid, Dave, my mind is going...
ChatGPT in 6 months
Dave's not here. 😅
I'm sorry, dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Years ago, you used to be able to get a sound package for Windows that replaced all the standard Windows default sounds, with clips of Hal. (Perhaps it's still around somewhere, I don't know)
My brother, who's name is Dave, installed it, it lasted about two days before he got tired of Hal whining at him constantly 😂
Short Answers:
[SPOILER ALERT}
1. The first monolith "kick started humanity" by teaching the proto-humans what tools were.
2. The second monolith was a checkpoint for humanity--once it was interacted with by humans (or any other species) on the back side of the moon, it sent a signal to the third monolith (and presumably, beyond) saying "hey, we got something here".
3. HAL went "crazy" due to bad programming: he knew the full mission (all of the monolith stuff), but Frank and Dave did not. HAL was programmed to make sure the mission succeeded, but also to not reveal the mission secrets to Dave and Frank, and could not reconcile those two (in his "mind") conflicting orders. The only solution he could come up with to meet his programming was to remove the conflict by removing Dave and Frank.
4. The third monolith "opened up" (in the book, Frank says "It's full of stars....."), and presumably took Frank "somewhere else" to allow/help him to the next target on humanity's evolutionary path: the Star Child you see at the end. "Somewhere Else" was clearly multi-dimensional, as Dave sees himself aging, and ultimately at the end of his life the 4th monolith arrives to help him transition along his evolutionary path.
Reading the books does help to explain the story a lot better unfortunately--there is only so much you can do in movie mode without endless exposition with such "far out" concepts.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) another Kubrick classic.
oooh - warning - a masterpiece, yes, but a one nasty piece of shit to watch.
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey
1971 A Clockwork Orange
1975 Barry Lyndon
1980 The Shining
1987 Full Metal Jacket
1999 Eyes Wide Shut
these are the last 6 movies he made. i dont think it can get more epic.
@@inmoviesempire , LOLITA, DR. STRANGELOVE earlier in black and white.
Pleonasm. Or tautology ....Kubrick only made classics ! Some may not have been successfully or well received at release . But all were deep, multi layered classics .
Path of glory, , spartacus , dr.Strangelove , 2001, Clockwork Orange ,The Shining , Full Metal Jacket , Eyes wide shut. ..
A bit of trivia... Hal singing the song "Daisy Bell" as Dave removed the memory is a reference to an IBM 7094 computer. In 1961, it became the first computer to sing and it sang "Daisy Bell".
HAL of course being IBM, but each letter is replacing the preceding one. H-I, A-B, L-M.
Instead of HAL saying replace the AE-35 it should have been CRM-114. (side note: Clockwork Orange treatment was Serum-114 which is a homonym for CRM-114)
@scottbrown8604 there's a clip on TH-cam from the original research video
@@bucklberryreturns Pure coincidence as confirmed by Kubrick and Clarke.
@@dabe1971Towards the end of his life Clarke said he'd spent decades trying to put down that persistent innaccuracy, but decided it wasn't going to go away so he may as well embrace it.
Daisy also contains the line, "I'm half crazy, all for the love of you." Which is the closest you'll get to an explanation of HAL's actions.
I will never be unable to unsee the lizard heads. Thanks Coby.
In the greatest transition ever, the first weapon (the bone) transforms into the most powerful weapon, an orbital nuclear device.
Yeah, except it’s not. Kubrick did play around with the idea of the satellites in the bone-to-satellite jump cut being orbiting weapons, even having voice-over narration explaining just what they were and having Dave/Starchild destroy them at the end of the movie, but Kubrick eventually rejected the weapons-in-space idea, insisting that they were just generic spacecraft, not explicitly or implicitly orbiting weapons.
@@markhamstra1083 When one expounds on the cleverness of the book while another denies it. Classic!
Well, maybe equalled in Lawrence of Arabia when the blowing out of a match is cut to sunrise in the desert.
@@markhamstra1083 Of course they are orbiting nuclear weapons satellites. That is the entire point. A spectacular 4 million year match cut from a primitive club to the most destructive weapon ever devised. If the satellite isn't a weapon then it don't make no sense. Kubrick frequently misdirected, denied or outright lied about the meaning and content of his films. You basically can't trust anything he says.
Three million jump cut.
Frank's parents saying "See you next Wednesday" became a thing for director John Landis. The line appears in many of his films as a tribute to 2001.
And is almost certainly a play on C... U... next Tuesday, esp. in American Werewolf in London.
It’s in Thriller too.
Guillermo Del Toro too!
@@lmiddleman No. Wednesday is Woden's Day, or Jove aka Jupiter.
Coby, the monolith is the common thread. At the start of the movie it manipulated the apes to start using tools (a bone) which gave them an advantage over the other animals and kept them from going extinct. The monolith on the Moon was buried there by the aliens behind all this and had an intense magnetic field that was detected when mankind became advanced enough. Once the monolith was uncovered and the sun shined on it for the first time it sent a strong radio signal to Jupiter to another monolith in orbit around Jupiter. When Dave approached it in the pod it pulled him in because it is a stargate to other parts of the galaxy. In the hotel room he aged rapidly and then was reborn and went back through the monolith to Earth. The whole idea is that an alien race planted these monoliths on various worlds and they helped promote the evolution of intelligence and technology. The baby in the final scene is the next step in our evolution. Arthur C Clarke, the SiFi writer, wrote the book "2001 A Space Odyssey" from which the movie was developed. Its origins are in a short story titled "The Sentinel" also by Clarke. I highly recommend it
for clarification the book was released after the film ... so the film is not really based on the book as such ... it was written by Clarke at the same time as he was writing the film so it's the same story in book form. It does give a few more insights than the film but it's certainly not an explainer.
@@MrAdopado Yes the monolith was on a moon of Saturn not in orbit around Jupiter in the book so there were some differences. Probably cut for time. The book is an excellent read IMO. I think they had to release the book after the film so it wasn't a spoiler.
@@MrAdopado I found this on Google: "2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. It was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version and published after the release of the film. Clarke and Kubrick worked on the book together, but eventually only Clarke ended up as the official author"
"2010: The Year We Make Contact" so many answers waiting for you! And it's just a freaking good movie on its own despite the connection to "2001" ......😉 Trust me!!! 🤟🏻😎 👊🏻😏
Much easier to digest, all the answers and a beautiful movie visually. More of a modern pace. Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow
Also more of an action flick, and a little spooky, though it's not as timeless as the original. Some fun cameos, too.
Ok... No I gotta go see 2010 also !
@paulsander5433 it's very closely linked to the book, instead of being the artistic and poetic work that Kubrick and Clarke the writer created together. If Kubrick had been interested in directing 2010 it would have been so different. And probably much more vague and surreal!
Personally believe it devalues the story told by 2001. It didn’t need a sequel
the use of silence a a character in this film is amazing.
Coby, I was lucky enough to watch "2001" in a CINERAMA theater, with a gigantic wrap-around screen and 180 degree view. As one might imagine, in that setting, the film was truly overwhelming!
The film was designed to be viewed in a CINERAMA theater. Seeing it in any other format is a highly-diminished version of "2001." I haven't seen it an IMAX theater, but unless it's a "3D" version (unlikely), without the wrap-around screen, it's probably only a hint of what the film is in CINERAMA.
Because the screen took up one's entire visual field, including peripheral vision, the viewer was almost literally "in the middle of the action" (e.g., one felt vividly that he/she was in the spacecraft alongside the astronauts).
WHOA! That's awesome! 👍🏻
I believe that there only 3 such theaters ever built. The Indian Hills in my hometown of Omaha,Nebraska was one. I never saw the entire screen being used myself. It was mostly the center section that was used. 🤓
I agree, I was one of the very first to see the total uncut movie and it was stunning. At intermission, most people were kind of quiet. The Cinerama view was much more immersive and gets lost on the small screen, but the directorial talent still shows through.
@@HRConsultant_Jeff Do you remember how you could shift your gaze up and down, and far to the left and right, and the film was happening all around you?
@@robinstevenson6690 yep. My best memory of that is Lawrence of Arabia when he arrives on the top of the train with the whole desert around him. It is a spectacular encompassing view you just don't get watching on a TV or computer screen.
“Is it meant to be black?”
Yes, but it is also meant to be a very different movie going experience. It was intended to be more of a “high art” experience like going to an opera or play. The black-screen music at the beginning would play while everyone was still finding their seats, and the movie proper doesn’t start until after the MGM logo and the beginning of the Also Sprach Zarathustra overture. This confuses a lot of viewers who have strong expectations for what the beginning of a movie is supposed to be. Similarly, the intermission with “house music” playing isn’t a part of movies anymore.
This was among the last of the big time movies that had an overture before the curtain opened. Remember curtains? These days we have to endure twenty minutes of commercials and trailers.
At the time, some took "high" art literally by taking LSD, Marijuana, and other drugs before going to the theatre to watch this movie.
@@jd-zr3vk Well let's be fair, this is the epitome of an LSD movie.
@@randyshoquist7726 Considering the Lord of the Rings was the last film(s) I've bothered going to the theater to see - I have zero love for commercials and trailers ruin any possible surprises a film may have. Nope.
To be honest I wish the media producers had either removed the overture or inserted an MGM logo with an explanatory caption before it. 2001 is challenging enough for the newbie and the dark section, which had a place in the cinema, just serves to irritate and/or confuse. In the cinema it's a great way to suck you into the movie before the lights go down but in a living room - not so much. I get the Kubrick reverance, but there are limits.
I think the last movie I saw with an intermission was "Logan's Run" in 1976. Before that they were the norm in movies over 90m or so.
The film, both the ape-part and the space-part, is about evolution of man, assisted by incomprehensibiy advanced beings working through the monoliths. The ending is meant to convey how little we could grasp what is on the other side of a quantum leap in consciousness.
I think it's more like experimentation.
Coby after you meet HAL , you'll never look at a RED Light in the same way 😮😮😂😂
Okay, I'm watching this a second time in two days. Yes, when I saw it in the theater, I thought those two spots on top of the helmet made it seem like a lizard head coming out of the pod. One other artsy thing I liked was how the arms of the pod seemed like human arms. When it grasped the latch mechanism at the emergency door lock, and started turning over and over again, well, that broke the illusion that it was a human arm. I'm sure the extended rotation was done purposely by Kubrick exactly for that reason. And I also liked the extended sequence of the button and alarm sounds inside the pod as he was getting ready to blow the explosive bolts on the hatch. It was all masterful on his part.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS CADENCE!
"Good evening Dave"
"Good evening Clarice"
Anthony Hopkins partially patterned his character of Hannibal Lector on HALs look and sound. He trained to do all his lines by looking right into the camera and never blinking. And his voice is very quiet and controlled but at the same time you know he could calmy kill you.
This is the Sci-Fi movie that changed all Sci-Fi movies after it. Things, aspects you identified in other works are a result of Kubrick and Clark.
I really enjoyed your reactions.
If you want to understand this movie you have to read the book. Equally well, if you want to understand the book you have to watch the movie. Why? Because Kubrick and Clark created both works together.
It’s always infinitely entertaining watching a first time viewer get their brain scrambled by the ending of this movie. 😂👍
Just so you know, there is a sequel, “2010”. It isn’t Kubrick - it’s a little more Hollywood and a little more understandable. It attempts to offer some closure and answer some questions raised in this film. Just thought you might be interested…
I first saw this on a grade 5 field trip to the local theatre. Being the young nerd that I was, I was the only kid there completely enthralled. All the others were bored out of their skulls and throwing popcorn everywhere after the first ten minutes.
Congrats on the new channel and hope you continue to challenge yourself on your viewing choices.👍❤
I do enjoy 2010 more than 2001, specifically because it has a more traditional narrative. The funny thing though, many of the answers 2010 gives are also given in the original 2001 book, and Kubrick purposefully decided to leave those answers out. I get the interest in a film that leaves you with questions to answer,... but leaving out the answers the original author intended for you to have is a bit questionable.
@k1productions87 Maybe Kubrick want people to read the book to find the answers.
@ the thing is, the book came after the movie. The movie came about from a short story by Arthur C. Clarke called “The Sentinel”. Mr. Clarke helped Kubrick with the screenplay and then wrote the book afterwards. Clarke probably felt a little explanation was in order, but it was after the fact.
22:07 we've never been back because at the time it was an economic, military and ideological competition with the USSR. They were taking steps in space quicker than we were, but we still had a chance at the moon shot which was viewed as a monumental landmark in space travel at the time. Once we achieved it, it didn't take long for the public's interest to wane, then government support dried up, and we ended up with manned craft stuck in low earth orbit for decades.
This. And the military had what they wanted : the knowledge/engineering required for ICBM missiles.
Even the Apollo programme was slated to be longer but got cut at 17. They'd only landed on the moon twice before TV networks started pulling the plug - then Apollo 13 happened an briefly peaked interest again.
There are videos with Arthur C Clarke from the 60's where he talks about his visions of the future and he is incredibly spot on! He talks about things that are commonplace today but were pure wizardry back in the 60's. He was an incredible visionary!
Simple explanation of the end: He was abducted by aliens.
Everyone that saw this movie the first time, felt exactly like you do now! Fantastic reaction video. Loved it. Can't wait to see more!
Elvis Presley opened his 1970s concerts with the 2001 Space Odyssey theme, aka "Also Sprach Zarathustra" composed by Richard Strauss in the 1890s. A live orchestra traveled with Elvis and performed it at his concerts. It thus became known as his theme music.
You're never going to forget your first watch of this "masterpiece."
Kubrick did direct the moon landing, but he was such a prefectionist he insisted to film on location
😂
So we film the fake moon landing on the moon.
My favorite scene is HAL trying to talk to Dave about the mission and you can tell he REALLY wants to talk about it. He's projecting his feelings on Dave and fishing for a response. When Dave thinks he's testing them, that's when we get "Just a moment" and people start dying. I also like HAL's passive-aggresive tone when Dave's on his way to the logic center.
I hope she follows uo with 2010. (One other reactor has, so far.)
Although it is a more conventional sci-fi film by Peter Hyams, I'm glad they filled in some of the background pieces of info that weren't in this one.
27:00 the coffee wouldn’t start to float because the mass of the Moon causes a gravitational pull. The force of gravity on the Moon is 1/6 that of Earth, but it’s enough to stop things floating away.
Spielberg and Lucas were obsessed by this movie since they saw it as young film students which is why you see so much of the technical aspects of Star Wars a decade later.
Gene Roddenberry was obsessed about it also and was always referring to it when making TNG in his authorized biography.
The VFX for 2001 was also where Douglas Trumbull developed many of the optical techniques later used for Star Wars (the original complete title of that movie). I recall that Trumbull was credited for the opticals of the "trench run scenes" in that one.
THAT was FUN! Great reaction, loved every bit of it. You really enjoyed it and it showed. You also connected the dots rather well.
Yes, this film is art, and Kubrick left the ending a little fuzzy so you could interpret it your own way. The book is very clear on the events. Dave entered a Star Gate, had a trip of a trip (it WAS the 60s, after all), ended up in a hotel room the aliens had constructed when the monolith sampled our telecommunications, and was artificially aged so he could be reborn as the Star Child. He was then sent back to Earth thru the monolith so that he could lead humanity in the next stage of our evolution. So simple! Now you have to see 2010: The Year We Make Contact so you can find out what happened next, and also get some answers to your questions.
The space station docking music was the Blue Danube by Strauss. The conspiracy joke is that NASA hired Kubrick to fake the moon landings, but he insisted on shooting on location!
We had Star Trek before this, and many other sci-fi movies and stories involving space ships and aliens, but this was a different style and actually well grounded in the technology expectations of the time. A lot of the ship, moonbase, and space station characteristics were inspired by contemporary artist's renderings of planned projects. It was quite a time to be a kid.
Coby, I have used 2001 as ASMR to sleep many times. The saddest thing about the making of the film is that Kubrick had all the sets, models and their blueprints destroyed after filming to prevent a sequel. One was eventually made, 2010: The Year We Make Contact. IMO, it is a worthy follow-up. It is more a thriller/ adventure, answering some questions and leaving more. It is full of actors you'll recognize. I'd recommend it.
I really like 2010. It's sort of what I imagine a film adaptation of a Tom Clancy sci-fi novel would turn out, had he written one.
Jumping on the 2010 bandwagon.
2010 is not in the same league as 2001, but is a good, conventional movie worth watching. It’s definitely better than it had any right to be.
When I see how many times the ship, props and costumes from Forbidden Planet ended up being reused in other movies that were mostly of inferior quality, I can't blame Kubrick for wanting to make sure that nothing from 2001 befell the same ignominious fate.
2010 is the actual most underrated movie of all time!
An interesting question: Does HAL sound innately creepy (i.e. did he sound that way to the first audiences of this film), or have we been conditioned through pop culture to interpret HAL's way of speaking as creepy because of HAL's behavior in this film?
Time for "The Matrix" reference. "What's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?"
I have NEVER seen someone so giddy because of this film. Knowing you explained that it tickles you when you see the filmmakers’ concept of what the future might look like, you are absolutely adorable!
The crew encountered a higher intelligence that is impossible to comprehend with the human brain; at the end of the film, the hero became a superhuman messenger of this intelligence.
There is a sequel to Odyssey 2010, they explain it there!
Congratulations on starting your own channel. What a classic to start off with!!
My dad was a rocket scientist. I knew this was coming as a kid. So none of this really surprised me in the movie theater, but I was just so happy to see it happening. And this will always be my favorite film for all time seeing this with my dad. I’m telling myself this is what a real movie is.
“I’m not gonna get it wrapped up in a bow am I?” 🤣❤️
I saw this in 1968 when I was 10 and it completely blew me away. Can you imagine seeing this without having seen all the movies that took from it over the next 50+ years? I didn't understand it so I read the book. Which kinda over explains things. Even then, it's been said that what the writer, Arthur C Clarke, described in the book may not be exactly what Kubrick had in mind (the book was written as the film was being made. The movie was based on a short story by Clarke which was basically the part of the movie that takes place on the Moon).
I went on to see it 13 more times in the theater (they rereleased it on a near yearly basis before home video).
There's a sequel based on a book by Clarke called 2010: The Year We Make Contact that answers some questions. But it's more of a conventional film and not the art film that this is. It's good, but not a masterpiece.
I will say that Kubrick actually planned to show the aliens. Doug Trumbull, who was in charge of effects said they tried several techniques to show a truly otherworldly alien. But none were to Kubrick's satisfaction. So he decided to let the monolith stand in for the aliens. Dave was basically evolved by the aliens into the next step in human evolution (a theme Clarke has dealt with before in other books like Childhood's End). The light show, which was a big hit with stoners in the 60s, is a stargate opened by the monolith orbiting Jupiter. The hotel room is a habitat or staging area for Dave as he goes through the evolutionary change. BTW that shot where the ape throws the bone and it jumps to the satellite has been called the greatest jump cut in the history of film. One detail that isn't exactly clear is that the satellite is actually a nuclear weapons platform. So the transition is from man's first weapon to man's latest weapon.
Douglas Trumbull, who supervised the effects for 2001, made another Sci Fi film in 1973 called Silent Running. It's good and also has something that Lucas definitely borrowed for Star Wars.
One of my favorite tidbits in the book that I wish had made it into the movie is what was in the fridge. I won't spoil it for Coby but if you know, you know. I just found it a great representation of aliens with limited information "doing their best."
@@cyberingcatgirls7069 Sort of like Trelaine in the "Squire of Gothos" episode of Star Trek. Observation from a distance. He replicates fire without the heat.
I was 16. Total freakout.
Yeah Coby, just as confused as you when first saw the movie soooo many years ago. At the end, Dave is transformed as you see him from his current age to the older age. He is then reborn as 'The Star Child' with help of whoever 'they' are. It's another step in the evolution of man and kind of leaves it up to you to use your imagination of how that evolved being moves forward. You should watch the sequel they did years later called '2010: The Year We Make Contact'. That was made in 1984 so a much more 'normal' kind of movie. It's based on a follow up novel to 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke. And congrats on the new channel! Looking forward to following you and seeing more great reactions!
2001: A Space Odyssey was the first movie to depict the use of an iPad-like device called the "IBM TelePad". You can see two of these tablet-like devices on the table whilst Dave Bowman and his fellow crew member eat their dinner and watch the latest news livestream. You can also see Dave carrying his IBM TelePad with him as he approaches the mess hall and climbs down the ladder just prior to joining his fellow crew member at the dinner table.
Star Trek had tricorders 2 years earlier.
@@miller-joel But the tricorders didn't even remotely looked like iPads.
@@ClaudeGohier Did you expect the apple logo?
@@miller-joel At least a large flat screen taking all the surface, like an iPad, and the TelePad from the movie. The tricorder wasn't AT ALL similar.
@ClaudeGohier It was basically a portable computer. What it looked like exactly is irrelevant.
Hi Coby. I've watched many of your reactions on Popcorn Roulette and Criminal Content. Congrats on starting your own channel! 👍😁
"I'm not going to get it wrapped up in a bow, am I?" You sure picked a doozy for a first reaction! ❤
To the many long time fans like myself, this movie makes perfect sense.. there's the books and would maybe recommend the movie "2010", though an imperfect non-Kubrick film, it will tie up some loose ends. Next film?.. "Forbidden Planet" 1956
2010 is the sequel to this. Great movie. Many questions answered.
Sort of the sequel to this. It's more like a cinematic sequel to the novel. Or probably an adaptation of the sequel to the novel.
@@StreetHierarchy Agreed. It's a good but forgettable film...though to be fair it's the only (mostly) successful sequel to a Kubrick film so far.
@@Ocrilat Yes. Pretty much.
I don't like the explanation for HAL going bad in 2010. The ape touched the monolith and got a jump in awareness. HAL has sensors and telescopes so he touched the monolith on route. It makes sense that his awareness experiences a similar expansion. The 2010 explanation deminishes 2001.
@@Concreteowl The explanation was that HAL was told the secret then ordered to lie to Bowman and Poole. This would have been during a continued Cold War with the Soviets, which makes sense. I can absolutely see the CIA meddling and overruling the scientists here.
That HAL's issues turned out to really have been human error (that concerns for national security caused the problem) also makes sense. I think human error also fits the themes in 2001. That things like a political rivalry were trivial and destructive. It would be a repeat of the the battle for the drinking spot at the end of act 1.
I also have a hard time with HAL 'touching the Monolith'. No one had any idea that there would be another, giant Monolith in Jovian orbit...and HAL's sensors were no better or worse than the ones on Earth. There is no hint that this happened in the film. It would also suggest that HAL's coming into contact with the Monolith would cause HAL to become a mass murderer. That makes the aliens either incompetent or evil, and I don't think that fits with what 2001 was striving for.
Finally you have broken away and created your own channel, i always thought you should be solo, your one of my favorite reactionist, good job
She's the smartest 'reactor' I've seen. Certainly up on multi-generational pop culture.
"Broken away" in the most positive way. Seems amical... Popcorn Roulette invited subscribers to come over.
She also has ANOTHER reaction channel called "Criminal Content." TH-camrs like to make it as hard as possible to actually keep seeing their content, so they split their audience over and over.
The cat was real; as I recall, the guy it jumped was its trainer. The monolith on Earth inspired the tribe to become carnivores, so they'd have the strength to take back their water source. In the book, it was less abstract; pretty sure there was a lesson involving concentric circles for the sake of improving their aim, at some point. Then it relocated to the moon and waited to be found. Luna has a little gravity, but they'd still have to be careful pouring coffee, especially while moving; I believe The Expanse series represented that sort of thing best.
The Odyssey mission went a little differently in the book, but Clarke said 2010 was a sequel to the movie, so. HAL took control of Frank's pod and used it to kill him. The suit's airfeed had been yanked from his helmet - that tube sticking out? - so he wouldn't have survived long. After shutting HAL down, David parked the ship between the gravities of Jupiter and one of its moons - the lagrange point - then went in the pod to this new, larger monolith... and then he went on a far greater journey...
This film *inspired* Star Wars, and the model-making became a staple of sci-fi right up until computers started taking over. At first, this movie was popular among stoners. Then an astronut (Farscape joke) took a photo of the entire Earth with a handheld camera, right before Christmas of '68. More people started going to see the movie. Theories abounded concerning HAL's motives (including interference from the monolith), as well as what the ending meant. I'd suggest watching the 2010 movie for the answers you seek.
First and foremost, I would like to congratulate you on your new channel. I'm sure it will be a huge success! Your reaction to 2001: A Space Odyssey was priceless, and no, you are not the first to be confused by its ending. The film is open to many interpretations.
May I suggest you watch the sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984). This underrated film actually answers many of the questions raised by the first movie.
As for classic sci-fi, I recommend The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Forbidden Planet (1956). Both films set a precedent for future science fiction movies, including 2001.
Once again, congratulations on your new channel! I look forward to seeing more of your reactions in the near future.
It was deliberately buried there 4 million years ago, awaiting the next evolution of man to find it and touch it. Only then was the radio burst sent to Jupiter.
What if Jupiter had not been above the lunar horizon when sunlight hit the 'monolith'?
at the end: Dave Bowman evolved into such an advanced being that he considered himself to be but a child trying to learn what powers he now had.
Spoilers: The meaning or interpretation of the meaning of the film is endlessly debated. My view as to what happened in the film:
The Monolith was a tool for unseen aliens. Its job is to seek out intelligent life in the universe and to help it along. It arrives on Earth where the ancestors of Mankind are struggling. They are gatherers, eating only the plants they can scrounge and are on the brink of starvation. The Monolith teaches the man-apes technology in the form of tools that allow hunting, ending their starvation. The side effect of that technology is the second water hole scene. We see the first war, now made deadly with the advent of weapons. Technology is a double-edged sword that brings life and kills. Bone gets thrown into the air, jump-cuts to the satellite.
In act 2, we go to the Moon, where another Monolith was found, deliberately buried. When that Monolith is exposed to sunlight for the first time in 4 million years, it sends a radio beam to Jupiter. It’s a way the aliens know mankind is advanced enough for the next step. The people who find the Monolith on the Moon lie to keep its existence a secret, because reasons.
Act 3 sees the astronauts going to Jupiter. The tech crew (Bowman and Poole) are awake for the trip there but don't know about the real mission (they think it's just the first manned mission to Jupiter). The science crew (Hunter, Kaminsky, and Kimball) were briefed on the alien thing found on the Moon and then frozen, to keep the secret. HAL was also told the truth but instructed to lie to Bowman and Poole. HAL goes crazy, since lying went against his original programming. When HAL starts to crack up, he begins making mistakes...blaming those mistakes on the crew. He kills off the fallible humans so they don't ruin the secret mission. Bowman shuts down the higher functions of HAL's brain, in the process activating prerecorded briefing materials informing him about what was found on the Moon and what the real mission is.
Act 4 Bowman investigates the giant Monolith orbiting Jupiter, but when he gets close, it turns into a sort of stargate and drags him to a pre-planned location set up by the aliens (the aliens themselves are long dead). After the trip (and incidentally seeing many mysteries of the Universe), he is put into a cage of sorts, made to look like an Earth hotel suite so he feels more comfortable. The weird thing where he keeps seeing himself I think is representing time being affected...so he sees 'time jumps' of himself on multiple occasions. Bowman is drained of all his memories and humanity, which is transferred to his new existence, the Star Child. The Monolith, the thing that gave humanity a gentle 'push' down the evolutionary path of tool making and technology, now gives him a new 'push' to the next phase of evolution, from existence as matter to existence as pure energy. Bowman/Star Child then returns to Earth, and the next step of Mankind's journey begins. That's how I see it anyway.
I wonder if HAL wasn’t making mistakes, but instead was purposefully creating situations to test them to see how they’d react. I know in 2010 they explain that HAL did what he did bc he was told to lie, but I’m not convinced he is completely innocent.
Personally I see the Monoliths as way markers. The first one on Earth disappeared (disappeared in the film too) after initialising the growth of man and then was moved to the Moon, only to be found when man had evolved enough to actually travel there and find it again. Sort of tests for mankind as it evolves
@@grabtharshammer I agree 👍🏻
My small objection to your synopsis is that the monolith didn't provide technology, but through contact with it the small group of man-apes were stimulated to make new mental connections and thus make deeper imaginative solutions to problems.
@@JeffC26131 Hal wasn't making mistakes, he was just prioritizing the mission. The humans were jeopardizing it, so they had to go
The long intro and intermission are because it's a theatrical release. Movies used to mimic the opera in that music played while you entered, not commercials.
And had intermissions for concession or bathroom breaks.
And cigarettes. You could smoke in the lobby but not the main theater
I wish they still did that
I watched this in the cinema the year it came out, with my Dad. The theatre had smoking loges.
@nullfield no lounges left when i was a kid, but you could still smoke in the lobby
The overture and intermission are also subtle hints about the shape of the monolith: 16:9 like a cinema screen.
Always great to see someone watching this film for the first time. Great to see Coby have her own show.
Here’s my idea in a nutshell . . . The black obelisk guides early man to sentience, tools, hunting, even war. Then we flash forward to space travel. The obelisk guides man to Jupiter. Man’s tools turn against him just as another evolution takes place. Dave takes a journey through his life into death. Man is about to leap forward again. The end. 😀
I first saw this film 40 years ago aa teenager and I'm still ruminating over its themes and symbolism.
well this dumb dumb reacting cant get past monkey men killing each other --- i hate dumb people
I was born in 84 and looking back I'm happy I had the privilege of watching this on local TV as a kid. I didn't understand half of it by then, but it showed me stuff that I've been mulling in my head ever since. This, to me, is the epitome of what science-fiction and cinema can be. Glad to see this not forgotten over the years, quite the opposite. Cheers.
Your various facial expressions across this are yet another testimony. This was special stuff. The unknown is something you usually don't come across in your life, and by the end of this movie you are repeatedly thrust into that - and experience within is evident.
I LOVE this movie now. I hated it when I first saw it because I was nine years old. It scared the "beep" out of me. I was too young.
I watched this in theaters around age 10. It changed my life. If anyone gets a chance to watch it on the big screen at a film festival, it is a must-see.
Me too. All the way through age 10. No adults just some 10 years old friends.
@@autoclearanceuk7191 I'm baffled a bit at people that "don't get it", the movie is so accessible and will remain fresh.
I was able to catch a re-release of this film in theaters sometime around 2001. Heh.
The days when 10 year olds went into town and to the cinema without any adults.
Remember, there weren't even any graphic computer games yet when this was made!
Not sure if there’s any love here for 2010, the sequel to this film, but I remember being blown away by the concept it tells. Really hope Coby gives it a watch, too!
I like it but 2010 is very different from this as the script is based on Arthur C. Clarke's book rather than a Kubrick-Clarke collaboration where Clarke didn't have the final say. And 2010 is very much not Kubrick. As both a Clarke and Kubrick fan I'm torn.
I would like a reboot of this and three more movies adapting Clarke's four books. But it would be hard to compete with this one for a first movie. I suppose it will never happen. :(
@@donkfail1 I LOVE 2010, hopefully Coby watches it
Why does that film say everything happened on the Moon at the "Sea of Tranquillity"? The discovery of the object on the Moon was near crater Tycho and the US base was at Clavius. Nowhere near the equatorial Mare Tranquillitatis.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver I don't know for sure, but anything in 2001 that isn't right, or any difference between that and 2010, I blame on Kubrick. Clarke said "This makes sense." and Kubrick thought "But my idea makes a better movie..." and unfortunately Kubrick had final say on anything in the script.
Perhaps he thought Sea of Tranquillity sounded better?
Have you read Clarke's books? He wrote 2001 based on his input for the movie, but still changed a little (I think) for the sequels.
Fun trivia: Clarke didn't like sequels, but had a thing for this story. In the third book I read he had a foreword where he apologised for writing it, and in the fourth he PROMISED that this was the last one. :D
@@donkfail1 I was talking about the 1984 film.