Ok, so can someone please tell me why this is considered ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME?
I mean, the pacing is terrible. It isn't slow. It's glacial. Most of the scenes are very, very slow shots of outer space/monkeys with classical music. I love classical music, but come on, I'm watching a movie here not an opera. The film is 2h20 long, but I'm pretty sure you could tell the same story in ~1h30. I mean, seriously? A scene that consists of 3 minutes of a monolith orbiting Jupiter before something happens?
Or for instance, the whole Hal getting insane, while well executed, had nothing to do with the main storyline of the monolith (by this I mean: you could remove Hal from the film and it doesn't change anything with respect to the monolith storyline). Basically they grafted two independent plots; one about human evolution and another about a computer that has a mental breakdown. Two cool stories individually that gain nothing by being glued together.
Speaking of evolution, everything was very unclear about the monolith. I knew it jumpstarted human evolution because the film's 50 years old and by now that's common knowledge, but I'm unsure if I could have figure that old otherwise. And don't even get me started on the psychodelic ending! I have this little rule of thumb: if something is so cryptic to the point that it can mean anything, then it means nothing.
So yeah, to sum up: the film has specific strong points, but is overall extremely overrated.
It's an "experience film". It's paced for you to lose yourself in the visuals and music. You pretty much are watching an opera. And if that's not your cup of tea, that's not your cup of tea. For my part, I hate the movie.
Also, we as an entire generation have a raging case of ADD that Clarke and Kubrick could not have anticipated in 1968. (Well, Clarke probably predicted it somewhere.) Even movies that aren't mindless action-fests have sped up their pacing considerably over the last ten or twenty years.
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I wish I could finally watch it. Viewing it on a laptop with so many distractions just won't work... Had once found a cinema that was showing it for one day, but couldn't go.
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DCI L2 Judge GP:Madrid 2010 45th GP:Amsterdam 2011 74th GP:London 2013 67th Bazaar of Moxen 2013 32nd
I mean, the pacing is terrible. It isn't slow. It's glacial. Most of the scenes are very, very slow shots of outer space/monkeys with classical music. I love classical music, but come on, I'm watching a movie here not an opera. The film is 2h20 long, but I'm pretty sure you could tell the same story in ~1h30. I mean, seriously? A scene that consists of 3 minutes of a monolith orbiting Jupiter before something happens?
All those outer space shots were triumphs in special effects technology for the time. People were too blown away by the effects to notice the pace.
Me, when I first watched the movie I was 12. I fast forwarded the entire monkey bit, then gave up at the point where a guy was jogging.
Yes, this is very much an experience movie. It also helps if you read the book.
I love the film, it is quite iconic, so many awesome moments. Definatley ahead of it's time. Maybe it hasn't aged well, bu the same could be said for most sic-fi.
That all being said, I didn't care for the ending as much, the monolith was kind of talking to Dave- I remember dialogue- but the movie was squiggly lines, Dave flipping out, then watching himself become old. In the book, he lands on a vast surface dotted with derelict alien spacecraft, is taken to a room, and given a choice.
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Also, we as an entire generation have a raging case of ADD that Clarke and Kubrick could not have anticipated in 1968. (Well, Clarke probably predicted it somewhere.) Even movies that aren't mindless action-fests have sped up their pacing considerably over the last ten or twenty years.
Oh I've read about that. Basically, it's not our generation's fault, but the fact our time is worth more. A lot of people complain nowadays about not having enough time, even though advances in working conditions mean we work less than previous generations. We, however, earn more per hour; also, with faster transportation and efficient technology, we can achieve more per hour as well. So when we lose an entire hour in a queue or a slow film, we're losing more "potential things that could've been done" or more "potential earnings" than previous generations. Hence, our ADD.
I think our cinematic vocabulary is more advanced though as well. So that we take in more information more quickly and process it more quickly. As the passive participants that cinema naturally makes us, the act of languishing in a scene, waiting for the director to move the camera, where we've already absorbed all the information is frustrating and boring.
We certainly read books very fast but nobody accuses us of ADD because of that. Heck the fast readers are praised or at least implicitly rewarded as "smart".
Blade Runner and Space Odyssey 2001 are both slowwwwwwww but I really like them, they give me time to really think about what Im seeing, interpret it, go make a sandwich, go pour some coffee, mull over it, and then we get to the next scene.
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Don't you see that the whole aim of Moderators is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make infractions literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
I loved Blade Runner and all, but the reason I loved it was Roy Batty. Without his rage, charisma, menace, and yearning for life, this is mostly just a beautifully realized world with pretty uninteresting characters.
Hauer's Batty is to Ford's Deckard, what Ledger's Joker is to Bale's Batman.
Rutger Hauer and Heath Ledger MAKE those movies.
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2001 seriously lacked a human dramatic element for me. HAL was actually the most interesting character in the whole movie, and he didn't get to shine until the late part of the movie. But I see his direct influence (and his cold, unintentional menace) in Ash in Ridley Scott's ALIEN.
i saw this movie in a theater which was epic, but it was quite some time ago, so ill try to remember what stood out.
first off, kubrick is a genius. probably the best filmmaker to never get honored by the academy but he didn't really give a sh*t. some have mentioned other great kubrick films, my favorite would be barry lyndon. clockwork orange is masterful as well, and the script is completely symmetrical which is impressive.
2001 is considered a classic because it never gets dated. think about it, all that footage u saw in space was done with models and a blue screen(not positive about the blue screen). they didn't have the editing or computer graphics that we do today. honestly, it's even done better than some of the films today, which is impressive to say the least.
the score. excellent. like i said earlier, cinema music is a lost art. 2001 had an incredible score that really accented the space scenes. we hear the famous monolith song even today in pop culture.
hal. one of the greatest computer villains of all time. he probably spawned every single other computer villain after him. the red visuals they played with hal as he was going insane were very compelling as well.
I'm all for slower movies if they are at least engaging. This movie was terrible at hooking tHe audience, instead we get a borefest of epic porportions. Don't get me wrong parts of the movie were amazingly well executed and deserve some praise, but 20 minutes of greatness is not worth the 2 hours of struggling to find a reason to keep watching the movie.
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"I've always been a fan of reality by popular vote" - Stephen Colbert (in response to Don McLeroy)
I'm all for slower movies if they are at least engaging. This movie was terrible at hooking tHe audience, instead we get a borefest of epic porportions. Don't get me wrong parts of the movie were amazingly well executed and deserve some praise, but 20 minutes of greatness is not worth the 2 hours of struggling to find a reason to keep watching the movie.
well the movie received critical acclaim for its accuracy regarding physics and space, lol it's other movies that have clouded our perception of what space travel really is. u say the movie is boring, endless, doesn't hook? the same could probably be said about space. space isn't some glorious shoot-out like star wars perceives it to be. it's boring, black, lonely, and endless, something the film captures very well. no sound, as someone mentioned earlier, so kubrick decidedly limited the dialogue in the film, and instead let the score do the speaking.
this movie is a natural beauty. as time goes on, more people begin to recognize its brilliance, b/c it is well made and doesn't play on corny animation or cgi. filmmakers appreciate the actual time and labor put into the production, which is ENORMOUS when u compare it to a film that moves quickly but is all CGI: lets say transformers, which will probably have no replay value 5 years from now.
I liked the book (written and released I think simultaneously with the movie, right?), but the movie wasn't my cup of tea. The beginning wasn't very clear (though I knew what was supposd to be happening) and nothing else was either. And holy cow was it boring. You can tell me it's great and all, and I see people still praising it today, but I'm not sure I'll ever really appreciate it. It may have been good for its time, but if I can't stay awake during a movie it can't be one of the best of all time.
lol anyway yes the book and screenplay were written simultaneously, and i do believe the film has garnished much more praise today than it had received when it first opened. but most of kubrick's films do tend to shine after the fact.
well the movie received critical acclaim for its accuracy regarding physics and space, lol it's other movies that have clouded our perception of what space travel really is. u say the movie is boring, endless, doesn't hook? the same could probably be said about space. space isn't some glorious shoot-out like star wars perceives it to be. it's boring, black, lonely, and endless, something the film captures very well. no sound, as someone mentioned earlier, so kubrick decidedly limited the dialogue in the film, and instead let the score do the speaking.
this movie is a natural beauty. as time goes on, more people begin to recognize its brilliance, b/c it is well made and doesn't play on corny animation or cgi. filmmakers appreciate the actual time and labor put into the production, which is ENORMOUS when u compare it to a film that moves quickly but is all CGI: lets say transformers, which will probably have no replay value 5 years from now.
Nothing you mention here means a damn thing when it comes to how watchable the movie is. Sure, it's art, and it's art I can appreciate but it's a boring movie with abhorant pacing. It's a form of entertainment first and foremost and the movie fails at being entertainment.
Also don't think about bringing Star Wars into this, anyone with a brain can figure out the two movies are not comparable at all. I've seen many great movies that moved at glacial speeds and enjoyed them greatly. I've also enjoyed my fair share of Kubrick films.
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"I've always been a fan of reality by popular vote" - Stephen Colbert (in response to Don McLeroy)
I mean, the pacing is terrible. It isn't slow. It's glacial. Most of the scenes are very, very slow shots of outer space/monkeys with classical music. I love classical music, but come on, I'm watching a movie here not an opera. The film is 2h20 long, but I'm pretty sure you could tell the same story in ~1h30. I mean, seriously? A scene that consists of 3 minutes of a monolith orbiting Jupiter before something happens?
Or for instance, the whole Hal getting insane, while well executed, had nothing to do with the main storyline of the monolith (by this I mean: you could remove Hal from the film and it doesn't change anything with respect to the monolith storyline). Basically they grafted two independent plots; one about human evolution and another about a computer that has a mental breakdown. Two cool stories individually that gain nothing by being glued together.
Speaking of evolution, everything was very unclear about the monolith. I knew it jumpstarted human evolution because the film's 50 years old and by now that's common knowledge, but I'm unsure if I could have figure that old otherwise. And don't even get me started on the psychodelic ending! I have this little rule of thumb: if something is so cryptic to the point that it can mean anything, then it means nothing.
So yeah, to sum up: the film has specific strong points, but is overall extremely overrated.
Also, we as an entire generation have a raging case of ADD that Clarke and Kubrick could not have anticipated in 1968. (Well, Clarke probably predicted it somewhere.) Even movies that aren't mindless action-fests have sped up their pacing considerably over the last ten or twenty years.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
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I loved Dr Strangelove. Clockwork Orange was Great but disturbing. The Shining was good... FMJ good.
I think of him as a great director, but I think about it and realize I only truly loved Dr Strangelove.
All those outer space shots were triumphs in special effects technology for the time. People were too blown away by the effects to notice the pace.
Me, when I first watched the movie I was 12. I fast forwarded the entire monkey bit, then gave up at the point where a guy was jogging.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
I love the film, it is quite iconic, so many awesome moments. Definatley ahead of it's time. Maybe it hasn't aged well, bu the same could be said for most sic-fi.
That all being said, I didn't care for the ending as much, the monolith was kind of talking to Dave- I remember dialogue- but the movie was squiggly lines, Dave flipping out, then watching himself become old. In the book, he lands on a vast surface dotted with derelict alien spacecraft, is taken to a room, and given a choice.
Tribute to Dr. Jeebus
Not a little Sheeple.
Oh I've read about that. Basically, it's not our generation's fault, but the fact our time is worth more. A lot of people complain nowadays about not having enough time, even though advances in working conditions mean we work less than previous generations. We, however, earn more per hour; also, with faster transportation and efficient technology, we can achieve more per hour as well. So when we lose an entire hour in a queue or a slow film, we're losing more "potential things that could've been done" or more "potential earnings" than previous generations. Hence, our ADD.
We certainly read books very fast but nobody accuses us of ADD because of that. Heck the fast readers are praised or at least implicitly rewarded as "smart".
Science Fiction is boring honestly, I like science fiction.
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-09/
Plinkett sums it up pretty acurately.
Look at Blade Runner.
Blade Runner and Space Odyssey 2001 are both slowwwwwwww but I really like them, they give me time to really think about what Im seeing, interpret it, go make a sandwich, go pour some coffee, mull over it, and then we get to the next scene.
Hauer's Batty is to Ford's Deckard, what Ledger's Joker is to Bale's Batman.
Rutger Hauer and Heath Ledger MAKE those movies.
-
2001 seriously lacked a human dramatic element for me. HAL was actually the most interesting character in the whole movie, and he didn't get to shine until the late part of the movie. But I see his direct influence (and his cold, unintentional menace) in Ash in Ridley Scott's ALIEN.
first off, kubrick is a genius. probably the best filmmaker to never get honored by the academy but he didn't really give a sh*t. some have mentioned other great kubrick films, my favorite would be barry lyndon. clockwork orange is masterful as well, and the script is completely symmetrical which is impressive.
2001 is considered a classic because it never gets dated. think about it, all that footage u saw in space was done with models and a blue screen(not positive about the blue screen). they didn't have the editing or computer graphics that we do today. honestly, it's even done better than some of the films today, which is impressive to say the least.
the score. excellent. like i said earlier, cinema music is a lost art. 2001 had an incredible score that really accented the space scenes. we hear the famous monolith song even today in pop culture.
hal. one of the greatest computer villains of all time. he probably spawned every single other computer villain after him. the red visuals they played with hal as he was going insane were very compelling as well.
This is ironic on so many levels.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
"I've always been a fan of reality by popular vote" - Stephen Colbert (in response to Don McLeroy)
GPolukranos, Kill ALL the Things!G
Rob Ager's analysis is quite interesting too if you have the patience for it, probably not if you didn't for 2001 though
It is not my favorite Kubrick though
well the movie received critical acclaim for its accuracy regarding physics and space, lol it's other movies that have clouded our perception of what space travel really is. u say the movie is boring, endless, doesn't hook? the same could probably be said about space. space isn't some glorious shoot-out like star wars perceives it to be. it's boring, black, lonely, and endless, something the film captures very well. no sound, as someone mentioned earlier, so kubrick decidedly limited the dialogue in the film, and instead let the score do the speaking.
this movie is a natural beauty. as time goes on, more people begin to recognize its brilliance, b/c it is well made and doesn't play on corny animation or cgi. filmmakers appreciate the actual time and labor put into the production, which is ENORMOUS when u compare it to a film that moves quickly but is all CGI: lets say transformers, which will probably have no replay value 5 years from now.
lol anyway yes the book and screenplay were written simultaneously, and i do believe the film has garnished much more praise today than it had received when it first opened. but most of kubrick's films do tend to shine after the fact.
Cinematography and pacing are two very different aspects of a film. It is possible for amazing cinematography to be badly mispaced and, thus, boring.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Nothing you mention here means a damn thing when it comes to how watchable the movie is. Sure, it's art, and it's art I can appreciate but it's a boring movie with abhorant pacing. It's a form of entertainment first and foremost and the movie fails at being entertainment.
Also don't think about bringing Star Wars into this, anyone with a brain can figure out the two movies are not comparable at all. I've seen many great movies that moved at glacial speeds and enjoyed them greatly. I've also enjoyed my fair share of Kubrick films.
"I've always been a fan of reality by popular vote" - Stephen Colbert (in response to Don McLeroy)
GPolukranos, Kill ALL the Things!G