2001: A Space Odyssey [DVD] [1968]

One of the greatest films ever made (some day the greatest sci fi film). Given a wonderful 4K clean up.

It's curious how all my favourite things - books, music, films, were discovered when I was age 15 or 16. I guess this is the age when such discoveries make the most significant shifts in the foundations of one's outlook? I was 11 when this came out, and space mad. I had huge scrapbooks of all the space race news, both Russia and America. And of course, the Apollo project was heading towards it's climax the following year, and the first manned round trip to the moon and back, Apollo 8, made it a particularly special Christmas that year. I had no adult willing to take me to see the movie, but all the same there was a huge flurry of media interest, with lots of newspaper and magazine articles, and making-of documentaries. I cannot believe there was ever a better time to be an 11 year old boy, obsessed with science. 2001 seemed so far away. I would be old by then, and after a lifetime of developments in space exploration, it seemed a near certainty that I too would have gone into space, and maybe to the moon or beyond by that time. People not born into that era cannot imagine how limitless the horizon seemed. I got to see the film eventually when I was 15 and of course, it blew my mind. I didn't really know how to describe the experience, but I knew that I had seen something that was more then just a film, more than just telling a story in pictures. As my mind was opening to the world of classical music I sensed that the way the film made use of music, in particular the awesomely, eerie, Ligeti vocal works, was something more than just incidental. It was as though the film itself was music, or meta-music, but I didn't have such concepts then, just spooky, ineffable feelings. The feelings the film puts you through: the dawn of mankind and the dawn of human thought. Yes, we could probably CGI the hominids better now, but they are pretty darned good for people in monkey suits. The bone is thrown up and turns into a spaceship - just like that! What a moment in cinema? What a way to make a statement that captures the entire history of our species? Space ships dance with balletic grace and zero gravity is portrayed more convincingly than in anything I have seen since. And space is huge and dangerous. The moon is bleak and cold but full of mystery. And then we move to the Discovery, Jupiter mission. We experience the ennui of deep space flight, with a minimal waking crew of two, filling in time with routine tasks, in the company of an eerily human-like Artificial Intelligence HAL. The remaining crew is in suspended animation in the iconically spooky sarcophagi, around the wall. As a programmer there are still days when I walk into work and switch on my machine and mutter "Good morning Hal - Good morning Dave". The introduction to HAL was to be the beginning of my life-long fascination with AI and with the mind-body problem in philosophy. That we do not have HAL-like intelligent machines is if anything, even more surprising than the way the promise of space-travel fizzled out. The battle of wits between HAL and Bowman is very cleverly conceived, still riviting, and introduced a new kind of villain into the movie landscape. In the final part of the film we have the prolonged psychedelic journey through some unspecified, trans-dimensional void, again accompanied by the amazing music of Mr Ligeti. At 15 I knew not what to make of this aspect of the film beyond finding it compellingly beautiful. With subsequent viewings and exposure to the more demanding but wonderful Russian movie, Solaris, I came to realise that the significance of this section was a depiction of an encounter between humanity and something way beyond it's comprehension, and that such an encounter might not be describable in terms of any conventional narrative. I'm guessing that the more disappointed reviews are coming from people who grew up with Star Trek, and Son of Star Trek, and are just wondering where the plot and explosions got lost. I just ask them to imagine growing up in a time when this movie seemed to be as much predictive documentary as a work of science fiction.

a spectacular film thats so hard to describe so i well tell you it looks and sounds stunning on blu ray, its a great buy and the first time you watch it be prepared to have your mind blown

As has been reported this disc does have an FBI warning at the beginning but is otherwise a UK release. The packaging is for the UK. I love this film, have done for 35 years so I won't comment on the movie itself except to say that 95% of the visuals could have been made yesterday and that the story is fiercely intelligent. And so to the Blu-Ray disc: The transfer is good. There are very few anomalies (and I don't mean Tycho Magnetic Anomalies), most of the anomalies that are present were built in, eg dirt on the rear projection screen in the Dawn of Man sequence. That brings me to my only real irritation with the film. If Stanley Kubrick was such a perfectionist (and he was) then why oh why did he allow the set designers to use a godawful backcloth screen to simulate the African terrain and sky? It's SO blaringly obvious that it's artificial because the viewer can see creases and imperfection in the fabric. It ruins the whole sequence. It was bad enough on DVD but with the extra resolution of Blu-ray it's just annoying. It's the one things that I wish someone would digitally correct. After that all is well. Yes they got the Earth from space wrong (too washed out) but the SFX are stunningly good and look marvellous in HD. It amused me to read IBM-Tele-Pad on the Discovery crew's flat screen TV pads (whilst they're eating). There's a multitude of fine detail revealed: the ancillary rooms inside the lunar shuttle docking area reveal figures and screens that I'd not noticed before. The Star-Gate sequence looks a LOT better now. The finer detail and improved colour range of HD really adds some wow factor to it. I'm still not convinced by the colour filtered landscapes though: they could have tried harder there. The audio is good. The soundtrack is good as it can be for a 40 year old film and despite being a little 'thin' is well within modern standards. Frame judder is a slight problem as reported by another reviewer but I'm wondering whether that was a limitation of the original effects rather than the transfer to Blu-Ray because the same scenes in SD in the extras reveal the same judder. The extras are many but none good. There's a very iffy Channel-4 documentary with some annoying talking heads discussing the film and various other small documentaries. None make the heart race. The best is a promotional film made for 'Look' Magazine in 1966 that was designed to interest potential advertisers in buying into a 'special' Space related supplement due to be published first quarter 68 on the back of the 2001 release. It shows some really interesting scenes of production, Kubrick on set etc and Clarke in the Grumman factory inspecting Lunar Modules. There's something weird about this release. Amazon had a release date that has been a gone with no stock. The other Kubrick related releases appeared on time but not this one leading me to think there's been a production problem. It is possible to obtain a copy elsewhere and if you like 2001 it's worth doing so.

I think before tackling this film you really need to put out of your mind that this is a Sci Fi movie. If you are expecting something like Star Wars for example you will be dissapointed for this movie is about Kubrick's theolgocial ponderings but happens to be set in Space. The HAL computer (IBM misplaced by 1 letter) represents the pinnacle of human creation and as man chases after a potential Alien life, events take a turn for the worst. Kubrick is asking the deepest (and essentialy unanswerable questions) where does man come from? Where is he going? There are entire essays written on the meanings and interpretations of this film and i am not going to provide much of answer here. Reviewers and cinema goers for over 30 years have been divided in opinion by this film. Some find it boring. Too long and confusing. Others find it a deep and moving film. Both are true. If you do not appreciate Kubricks movie it will bore you. If you do appreciate it the film you don't want it to end. I doubt many will challenge that the film is confusing (or should i say thought provoking?) Indeed Kubrick himself has refused to explain it and famously encouraged speculation as to the meanings. The Blu Ray version make the film look fresh and crisp, it is hard to believe that this film is from the 60's. To try to explain what the movie is about is beyond this brief article. But in an attempt i will cover a few basics. If you have not seen the film i don't really think there is anything here to spoil it for you. In fact it may help. In essence the film begins with primative man picking up a bone and using it as a weapon against another tribe of primates. (The monolith appears moments before this happens but i personally believe that the monolith is viewing mans development rather than influencing it - a view not commonly accepted i hasten to add) The ape throws the bone into the air and the most famous cut scene in the history of films follows. The satellite orbiting the earth. The meaning is clear. Look how far we have come. Look what we can now do. We have progressed from apes to space travel. But one of the satellites we see is part of the (uninvented at the time of filming) Star Wars defence program. Armed with nuclear weapons. So ask the questions again. How far have we come? With all our progress we have simply made a bigger weapon. How far have we come? Man however cannot function well in space. We need instructions on how to use the toliet, on how to walk, we eat baby food. Are we regressing? At the centre of this is HAL (Terminater / Skynet #1 ???) HAL misfunctions and kills all of the crew. Leaving Dave alone in Space. He travels through dimensions / space / time by going into the monolith. Arriving in a room where at first we think Dave is viewing an older version of himself. But he is not, it is very clever editing and represents Daves life spent in the room. We do not know how long Dave is there. If his life is accelerated or we are just seeing the small clips of it that Kubrick chooses. Either way i believe that Kubrick is trying to tell us something about the speed with which our own life passes us by. Dave finally dies and the final scene shows an infant in a bubble in space looking down on earth. The end. Kubrick is asking the deepest of questions - if there is life after death and if so what would it be like. Of course to try to answer this and commit it to film would be much less impactive than leaving the viewer to make up his own mind. (Is the earth the same earth that Dave inhabited in his previous human form?) These are only my own opinions and much is open to interpretation. I personally believe that this is the greatest film ever made. If you have never seen it i encourage you to try it. You may hate it (plenty have done, including well respected film critics) but you may watch the greatest film of your life. Isn't that worth a go?

I must admit it took me three times to attempt to watch this all the way through. It is incredibly slow and drawn out, working more as a piece of art; a collection of ideas than a coherent, enjoyable film. It some ways it feels like the sort of epic silent films of F. W. Murnau or Fritz Lang, rather than the Science Fiction adventure films like Star Wars or the Alien series. In fact, although it was hugely influential of George Lucas and co, Kubrick's style here could not be more different - relying on long, sweeping views of space stations, set to classical music - all of which are beautiful, but very ponderous and without the context to keep most people interested throughout. The more I'm watching it however, the more I'm slowly falling in love with this film, and it very much rewards repeat viewings. The cinematography and effects still look absolutely beautiful, and its difficult to imagine this came out in the '60's, as it is way before its time. The segment of the film with the rogue computer 'Hal,' is very effecting and suspenseful, calling to mind the work of Hitchcock before and Ridley Scott afterwards - great scenes in which the simmering, mono-toned computer threatens the crew 'all so politely' still feel great. Overall, I would say this is an acquired taste and takes a great deal of effort to get into, but it is well worth it, and is one of the most interesting films I've seen from that era; a real milestone in film history.

What I love about the reviews for this film is not what they say about the film, but what they say about the audience. Almost without exception, they are either five star or one star, hardly any in between. I always feel a film or book can be judged by this kind of reaction. Truly great and truly awful creations will always engender extreme reactions. One review I liked on the negative side was from the one person in the world who seems to have actually read the book on which this film was based, at least he has reasons to dislike the movie, and wasn't just bored or bemused. It is certainly true that Kubrick chose to remove a voice over from the last segment of the film, which would have explained the ideas behind the images, but for me that would have destroyed the effect. This is undoubtedly Kubrick's masterpiece. It combines all his preoccupations with humanity and technology and is an epic, a huge visceral journey through time and space, and it has no equal. CGI would have sped up the filmaking process, and possibly Kubrick would have loved using it, but frankly, the film is more remarkable for being one of the few sci fi films that actually feel real and yet uses conventional movie making techniques. It has a hypnotic quality, its pacing is daringly slow, the story is teased out at a pace that makes demands on the viewer, and it repays concentrated viewing. The basic idea of the film isn't hard to understand, the message frankly isn't difficult, but on first viewing it is a little hard to fathom as the three acts of the film are so long and so far apart, and the missing voice over means you have make the conceptual leap at the end of the film. This though, is what makes it great, and what makes Kubrick (at this point in his career anyway) such a great director. You, the viewer, have to actually do some work to enjoy it. If you're bored, then go and watch Star Wars. I'll buy a blu-ray player simply to see this movie in HD, something no-one has been able to do up to now. Every print I've seen in the cinema has been poor, and normal DVD is good, but still not as a good as a fine-grain negative transfer. There has to be in any medium, even a literal medium like cinema, room for metaphor and pure visual spectacle. In a world of puerile rom-coms and buddy movies, where even Steven Segal has a career, those of use that like a well crafted, thought provoking couple of hours are being badly served by cinema. Inception was a dumb travesty of a movie masquerading as an intelligent story, but is the nearest equivalent to 2001 in recent times. At least we have HBO. There was a time when films like 2001 actually got made, and thankfully, someone thinks it worth releasing. Those that enjoy it, relish it, those that don't can do what I do with Adam Sandler movies. Ignore it. No one is forcing you to watch it.

Watching this film on Blu-Ray has made me realise just how ahead of it's time it was. I mean, 1968?... Stanley Kubricks masterpiece questions the human response to change, uncertainty, but above all our inept desire to persue answers to questions that are completely beyond us. As the protagonist for this iconography, a large, dark rectangular 'object' (that is completely without identity) becomes the subject of interest to space travelers in the year 2000, when the mysterious monument is discovered on a planet far away. After the mysterious disappearances of various space-men whom come to contact with this site, no-one is quite sure what power it holds. Fast forward to 2001, when a new space cruiser is planning to investigate the site. Featuring the latest "HAL 9000" computer; a system so sophisticated that it can 'think' for itself, our new crew members have no reason to fear as the planet approaches. But as they soon learn, self-awareness comes at a price, and the events ahead lead to an ending where only the individual whom is watching can decide what to make of the final outcome. It's so unique that few documents i've read (regarding the end) have dared summarize what the writer believes the hypothesis to be. As Kubrick said himself, however, "It is what you make it". '2001' features so many iconic scenes and variously adapted characters that it's hard to escape it's impact on the film industry. It broke away from the standard conventions of film-making to present an experience that has never been matched in the field of Sci-Fiction. The atmosphere (or lack of it, in fact) of space is captured flawlessly through things as simple as someone breathing in their space-helmet with no other sound, or the clinical silence of space, which catalyses even the most dramatic scenes of solitude and eeriness. It was also the film that Kubrick made a particular piece of classic music famous once more, possibly in the same vein as Disney's 'Fantasia' did. The special effects are also extremely impressive given their age, but are only complimented by the beautiful directing; something which Kubrick was a perfectionist at with his work. Their is only one section of that film that exposes a few flaws, and that is the "ape" scene in the beginning, where the back-drop for projection is clearly visible. This purely down to the high quality of the film though, and I do find it quite amusing when other individuals have a spat over how it looks... This was 1968, who cares if you can see a bit of material in the background? The otherwise beautiful exposure of this Blu-Ray technology leaves every detail highlighted in the film - every individual hair on a persons head, every mark... It's just incredible. Theirs also some documentaries and other features available on the disc, which is the least I would have expected given the discs capacity. All in all, this is an excellent value blu-ray title and, as a film, will indefinitely remain priceless.