9 ms·

I loved movies as a kid and I felt 2001 was such a classic I made my family watch 2001 last year. (every kid should know what "Dave" refers to in a calm compute

I loved movies as a kid and I felt 2001 was such a classic I made my family watch 2001 last year. (every kid should know what "Dave" refers to in a calm computer voice) Here's the comment's I got. "There sure is a lot of music" "This looks like a computer game" "Those are aliens!" (a blip of crystals in the sky during the transition for Dave, little genius) "They were happy about making tons of colors instead of a movie" "They sure like red and green" "Creepiest movie we've ever seen. It was boring, boring, boring, then scary." "I should have known as soon as the monkeys, stupid, stupid." (from patient wife) (I wrote all these down right after the movie)

brazzledazzle 9y ago
Whenever I get this reaction from my kids about something classic I feel indignant but most of all I feel old. Changing tastes in pop, trends and fashion can do that but the rejection of highly regarded things hurts the most.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I'm 29 and loved 2001, for what it's worth. It's not really just age, I don't think. I remember showing college friends Hard-Boiled (the John Woo film starring Chow Yun Fat) and they all got bored and stopped watching. Meanwhile I'm wondering how anyone could find a scene where there's a shootout involving guys on motorcycles with machine guns not to be simulating enough. I guess the mind of the cineaste works differently. On the other hand, I watched High Sierra recently and the pre-Bullit notion of a car chase scene was, uh, less than thrilling.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    Ugh, I hear you. That B-word is what really grinds my gears, and frankly makes me a little frightened at how society's tastes are seemingly permanently changing. Anything that doesn't have continuous in-your-face stimulation nowadays is boring. Nobody can tolerate a movie anymore if it has any "slow" parts. Everything has to be a Vin Diesel explosion-fest. Nobody can sit through a full 60-70 minute CD unless every song is 130BPM+ and full volume. Nobody but me even buys full albums anymore really, it's just 2 minute blips on iTunes. My own 5 year old daughter can't even make it through any of the old Disney movies that are specifically made for kids because as soon as the action slows down and the characters start talking, her mind wanders off and she wants to go do something else. We've lost the concept of sitting down for the sole purpose of enjoying a single work that is more complex than a 3 minute YouTube clip.
    - zimpenfish 9y ago
      > Nobody can tolerate a movie anymore if it has any "slow" parts. As someone (from several generations ago) who watches plenty of "slow" movies (try a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes or some of the early monster movies), I found 2001 to be profoundly boring and dull - to the extent that it's only one of three films that's caused me to fall asleep in the cinema (the others being "Transformers: The Last Knight" and "Avengers Apocalypse" - neither of which can be said to be "slow".)
      - fjsolwmv 9y ago
        2001 has a 9(?)-minute scene of nothing. It's intentionally boring, in a way like John Cage's 4'33". It's fine if you don't like it, but part of the point is to experience the feeling of slowness of space travel, and appreciate the pain. Compare to a horror movie "I don't like it because it makes my stomach turn" or a drama "I don't like it because it made me sad".
    - toyg 9y ago
      > Nobody but me even buys full albums anymore really Nobody but very few people even buys full symphonies anymore really, to play them themselves. Nobody can tolerate a piece of music if it doesn't have someone singing on it. Young people with their "songs" and their "Elvis"! > My own 5 year old daughter can't even make it Duh, of course she can't - she's a kid. But if you are saying that her inability is somehow due to consuming "bad media", or too much media... well, that's your fault as a parent, isn't it?
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        When recording technology was new there was a lot more interest in recordings of classical music in addition to pop.
- emsy 9y ago
  I don't mind "not getting" newer stuff. What I came to learn was that a) I liked a lot of mindless pop culture when I was young. b) There's still a lot of good, meaningful stuff released these days, it's just less popular. Of course this is subjective, but I doubt something like, for example, Pink Floyd would enjoy the same mainstream appeal today. What I find worrying about the comments on the movie was why it was disliked. It sounds like the movie doesn't contain enough "action" to spark interest.
  - rrrazdan 9y ago
    Counterpoint: Radiohead is a really popular band. I remember seeing a bbc introduction where Pink Floyd were introduced as a ‘pop band’ and you could see the derision on the presenters face.
    - maw 9y ago
      Is it? I'm a fan, but my perception is that for most people their career started and ended with Creep, and not only that, but the "you're so very special" cut of Creep.
      - yaseer 9y ago
        That might be 'most people' (i.e. the average pop music listener), but Radiohead still have a huge, huge fan following. They've sold tens of millions of records, and nearly every album has gone platinum (I believe the last two were merely gold...).
        csallen 9y ago
        I wonder if numbers like this are really a reliable indicator of what's going on. The world is big enough that you can be "niche" and still appeal to millions. I would also assume that fans of niche groups are more fanatical and supportive than fans of mainstream groups with broad appeal, which could equate to a much higher sales:fan ratio. Just speculating, though.
      - 9y ago
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  Sometimes appreciating something old requires digging into context. For example, most books released in the 1800s will seem like gibberish without an understanding of the sociopolitical climate. And then there's that whole situation where those same books were padded in a way that makes the modern one-book trilogy look concise because they were paid by the word. I couldn't enjoy 2001 until I knew about all the detailed model work that went into it. The uncut version is still super boring, but it's easier to stay awake knowing what to look for. It's kind of the same situation with the various '90s Star Trek series. I am no longer impressed by long scenes of a ship passing by planets, so the intros are boring.
  - laumars 9y ago
    The reruns of TNG you're watching and likely the HD remastered copies which had the CGI redone for Blu-ray. So it isn't really 90s effects you're watching. Furthermore I don't think those scenes you've described are there purely for the sake of impressing the audience. I think they are there to help explain the narrative. Like how in other - eg non sci-fi - shows you'll often get scenes of a car pulling up to a building to help explain that person has just arrived. Or scenes from outside a building to help explain to audiences where the following inside scene is based.
    - rainbowmverse 9y ago
      You're talking about establishing shots. I'm talking about the intros where the ship passes by planets and things with an orchestra booming from the cosmos for what seems like several minutes. It's the exact same thing in every episode and comes after the establishing scenes in the first 1-3 minutes. This is true of every single Star Trek series post-TOS, aside from Enterprise with its cheesy theme and clips from aviation history. (I haven't seen Discovery)
      - ambrosite 9y ago
        You mean, the opening credits/music? Well yeah, those are the same in every episode, but I assume almost everyone skips those after they've seen it the first few times. Even the Battlestar Galactica reboot had an opening credits sequence which I usually skipped.
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  2001 and most of Kubrick's other films are definitely part of "the canon" of films that everyone who appreciates film as art should see. Unfortunately, you can't just do a surprise screening of these films for your family or other audiences and expect them to be receptive. They will need to "discover" these things on their own. The best thing you can do is to make sure they have opportunities to see this stuff and to talk it up when possible. One of the best pleasures of being a teen is discovering, on your own, how rewarding a great film can be and developing "a taste" for films, music and other aesthetic experiences. You simply can't force this stuff.
  - RobertRoberts 9y ago
    It wasn't a surprise screening. I had been talking about watching it as a family for a few years. And my family enjoys movies that most simply do not. One of my kid's friends all said interstellar was boring, and he loved it. 2001, I think, is just a bit long in the tooth. If it's redone (properly, shot for shot, in the right spirit) with updated effects and sound, I think it would be way more impactful for modern audiences. (the monkey suits really require forced suspension of disbelief today, where in the past they did not) I even explained the theory behind the movie, Dave ending up in an environment he couldn't understand, like an animal in a zoo. We discussed this movie, it wasn't a throwaway experience. And to be blunt about Kubrik, he and the film makers were self indulgent in a few places. Where it wasn't art, it was conceit.
    - jerf 9y ago
      "If it's redone (properly, shot for shot, in the right spirit) with updated effects and sound, I think it would be way more impactful for modern audiences." Yeah, as much as some people would like to jump on us for being "uncultured" if we say so, there have been certain unavoidable changes in the world that fundamentally change how a modern person can't help but see the movies. 2001 wants to send a message that this is a very high-tech world, and went to a lot of effort to do so, and I'd say is certainly an integral part of the foundation of that part of the movie. But how is my nine-year-old supposed to get that on a gut level when he turns off 2001, and picks up Mario Odyssey, something that is in some sense literally millions of times more advanced than the technology shown in the movie, and is real-time interactive to boot? The context has fundamentally shifted. Even I, growing up in a time and seeing it for the first time when at least the difference was less glaringly obvious, can't help but now see a weird and thoroughly unintentional disharmony between what the film is trying to portray the world as, and what the images actually say to me now. It doesn't "ruin" it, but it would be silly to claim that it is doesn't affect the movie experience at all, either, when so many other similarly-sized details are routinely understood to be important.
- jandrese 9y ago
  For what its worth, when I saw 2001 as a kid I thought it was boring too. Tastes havn't changed that much.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I'm double-replying, which might be bad form, but I think you might be interested to hear that the initial reception to the film had a lot of the same problems. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968 https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-... > I attended the Los Angeles premiere of the film, in 1968, at the Pantages Theater. It is impossible to describe the anticipation in the audience adequately. Kubrick had been working on the film in secrecy for some years, in collaboration, the audience knew, with author Arthur C. Clarke, special-effects expert Douglas Trumbull and consultants who advised him on the specific details of his imaginary future -- everything from space station design to corporate logos. Fearing to fly and facing a deadline, Kubrick had sailed from England on the Queen Elizabeth, doing the editing while on board, and had continued to edit the film during a cross-country train journey. Now it finally was ready to be seen. > To describe that first screening as a disaster would be wrong, for many of those who remained until the end knew they had seen one of the greatest films ever made. But not everyone remained. Rock Hudson stalked down the aisle, complaining, “Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?'' There were many other walkouts, and some restlessness at the film's slow pace (Kubrick immediately cut about 17 minutes, including a pod sequence that essentially repeated another one). > The film did not provide the clear narrative and easy entertainment cues the audience expected. The closing sequences, with the astronaut inexplicably finding himself in a bedroom somewhere beyond Jupiter, were baffling. The overnight Hollywood judgment was that Kubrick had become derailed, that in his obsession with effects and set pieces, he had failed to make a movie. To be fair, it is certainly a long way from a movie like The Killing.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Reminds me of first impressions to “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” Weird, strange, boring, lots of pointless cinematography, but it really is excellent.
- ashark 9y ago
  That one's all feel. It's gritty and realistic, but unsettling and dreamlike at the same time. Take out the pointless cinematography and that goes away :-)
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Sure, I know that now. But I didn't know that when I was 10 years old :)
hungerstrike 9y ago
I think I've had all the same thoughts about 2001. However, I'm surprised you got your family to sit through it. I don't know any kids under say 10 who could pay attention long enough. Heck, I don't know many adults that could either these days!
- ryanlitalien 9y ago
  I tried, I couldn't get past 20 minutes. There is absolutely no way my kids (both under 10) could sit through it either.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    You might be surprised, my kids loved it.
  - skywhopper 9y ago
    The _interesting_ 20 minutes are much closer to the end. If you are going to skip most of the movie, skip to the "Jupiter Mission" title card and watch until things get pyschedelic.
- mikestew 9y ago
  Saw it in the theater when I was six or eight (not exactly sure which re-release I saw). Loved it, couldn't wait to see it again. Oh, for sure I didn't get most of it. But even as a kid I viewed it as I think Kubrick intended: an experience of sight and sound. Did I "get" the pre-human monolith sequence? No, I was a kid. Psychedelic sequence? Nope, but it sure was pretty. Space baby? "I dunno", said my little skull full of mush. The consequences of an artificial intelligence that is given conflicting objectives, all while placed in a new environment that it might not have been prepared for? Umm, that would be a "no" for that eight year old. I was still a little sad when HAL got unplugged, though. So I dunno, I'd say it depends on the kid. Might also depend on the era in which it's viewed, because I viewed it shortly after we had first landed on the moon. After forty years of Star Wars, maybe it doesn't seem so cool anymore.
arximboldi 9y ago
In 10 years they will love it and they will brag in front of their hipster friends for having watched it as young kids :-)
ambrosite 9y ago
If you think that's bad, I've even heard people say that the original Star Wars movie is too slow and boring for them to sit through. As for 2001, it is a very meaningful film to me, but it does not surprise me that kids would have trouble with it. I think you really need to be an adult, and be prepared to think and put your own interpretation on it, in order to appreciate it.
- ashark 9y ago
  > If you think that's bad, I've even heard people say that the original Star Wars movie is too slow and boring for them to sit through. This is how we get the JJ "uh oh, two characters talked for more than 30 seconds, better cap this bit with an action scene even if it does precisely nothing to provide characterization, exposition, or advance plot" Abrams school of film-ruining.
  - ambrosite 9y ago
    Don't get me started on JJ; I still haven't been able to get through any of his Star Trek films. The same person who said the original Star Wars is slow and boring also said that he cannot watch any movie that was made before the year 2000, because filmmaking styles have changed too much and he finds all of the older films boring. Personally, I have trouble watching anything that was made after 2000.
    - ashark 9y ago
      Hey, at least this era gave us the improbably-awesome Mad Max: Fury Road. In any sane universe that would've made every other action filmmaker go "oh, that's how you write and film engaging modern-feeling action that's meaningful to the film itself and its characters and, therefore, to the audience. If it's possible to keep that up for practically an entire film—and, apparently, it is—I can and must do it in my action scenes". We don't live in a sane universe, unfortunately. But at least we have MM:FR.
      - nasredin 9y ago
mac01021 9y ago
I've never been sure what to make of that movie. The writer/director obviously know how to make a high-quality, engrossing movie, as demonstrated by everything that happens on Discovery One during the middle part of the movie. But the final segment does such a terrible job at communicating to the audience what is going on in the narrative. Did they cut a bunch of content because the movie was getting too long? Does Kubrick just not care whether the viewer can follow the story he's telling?
- wdbbdw 9y ago
  I'd recommend reading the novel; it's a wonderful read. Clarke wrote it alongside the screenplay (which he cowrote with Kubrick), and it helps clarify some of the more mystical happenings at both the beginning and the end of the film. Kubrick, via wikipedia[1]: "There are a number of differences between the book and the movie. The novel, for example, attempts to explain things much more explicitly than the film does, which is inevitable in a verbal medium. The novel came about after we did a 130-page prose treatment of the film at the very outset. This initial treatment was subsequently changed in the screenplay, and the screenplay in turn was altered during the making of the film. But Arthur took all the existing material, plus an impression of some of the rushes, and wrote the novel. As a result, there's a difference between the novel and the film ... I think that the divergences between the two works are interesting." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)
  - ambrosite 9y ago
    The novel and the film are two different things. I actually don't like Clarke's novel because I disagree with the interpretation he put on the film (even though the screenplay was based on one of his previously published short stories).
  - leephillips 9y ago
    Also read Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", upon which 2001 is based.
- yodsanklai 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
valuearb 9y ago
If it makes you feel better, i made my 8 and 11 year old daughters watch it, and they loved it. i was afraid it was going to be too slow because of my childhood memory, but surprisingly it wasn’t. We then watched the Soderberg cut, cause i always thought 2001 had too much dead space. Again, surprisingly, we all agreed the original was way better. Soderburgh took too much out.
mcguire 9y ago
It's something you have to think about for a while... That being said, the colors comment is true.
venomsnake 9y ago
That is your mistake. You should have forbidden your kids from seeing 2001 and they would have devoured it.
conradfr 9y ago
Maybe that's my ADHD but I was bored as well when watching it (I think I was ~25yo?), except for the Dave bit.
- qbrass 9y ago
  The movie is paced really slow. A lot of it was to show off the special effects. I find Blade Runner to be similar. It was a good call at the time, since that's what got them awards, but I'd like to see both of them with the non-critical bits sped up to see if it improves my viewing experience.

brazzledazzle 9y ago

Whenever I get this reaction from my kids about something classic I feel indignant but most of all I feel old. Changing tastes in pop, trends and fashion can do that but the rejection of highly regarded things hurts the most.

emodendroket 9y ago
I'm 29 and loved 2001, for what it's worth. It's not really just age, I don't think. I remember showing college friends Hard-Boiled (the John Woo film starring Chow Yun Fat) and they all got bored and stopped watching. Meanwhile I'm wondering how anyone could find a scene where there's a shootout involving guys on motorcycles with machine guns not to be simulating enough. I guess the mind of the cineaste works differently. On the other hand, I watched High Sierra recently and the pre-Bullit notion of a car chase scene was, uh, less than thrilling.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Ugh, I hear you. That B-word is what really grinds my gears, and frankly makes me a little frightened at how society's tastes are seemingly permanently changing. Anything that doesn't have continuous in-your-face stimulation nowadays is boring. Nobody can tolerate a movie anymore if it has any "slow" parts. Everything has to be a Vin Diesel explosion-fest. Nobody can sit through a full 60-70 minute CD unless every song is 130BPM+ and full volume. Nobody but me even buys full albums anymore really, it's just 2 minute blips on iTunes. My own 5 year old daughter can't even make it through any of the old Disney movies that are specifically made for kids because as soon as the action slows down and the characters start talking, her mind wanders off and she wants to go do something else. We've lost the concept of sitting down for the sole purpose of enjoying a single work that is more complex than a 3 minute YouTube clip.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > Nobody can tolerate a movie anymore if it has any "slow" parts. As someone (from several generations ago) who watches plenty of "slow" movies (try a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes or some of the early monster movies), I found 2001 to be profoundly boring and dull - to the extent that it's only one of three films that's caused me to fall asleep in the cinema (the others being "Transformers: The Last Knight" and "Avengers Apocalypse" - neither of which can be said to be "slow".)
    - fjsolwmv 9y ago
      2001 has a 9(?)-minute scene of nothing. It's intentionally boring, in a way like John Cage's 4'33". It's fine if you don't like it, but part of the point is to experience the feeling of slowness of space travel, and appreciate the pain. Compare to a horror movie "I don't like it because it makes my stomach turn" or a drama "I don't like it because it made me sad".
  - toyg 9y ago
    > Nobody but me even buys full albums anymore really Nobody but very few people even buys full symphonies anymore really, to play them themselves. Nobody can tolerate a piece of music if it doesn't have someone singing on it. Young people with their "songs" and their "Elvis"! > My own 5 year old daughter can't even make it Duh, of course she can't - she's a kid. But if you are saying that her inability is somehow due to consuming "bad media", or too much media... well, that's your fault as a parent, isn't it?
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      When recording technology was new there was a lot more interest in recordings of classical music in addition to pop.
emsy 9y ago
I don't mind "not getting" newer stuff. What I came to learn was that a) I liked a lot of mindless pop culture when I was young. b) There's still a lot of good, meaningful stuff released these days, it's just less popular. Of course this is subjective, but I doubt something like, for example, Pink Floyd would enjoy the same mainstream appeal today. What I find worrying about the comments on the movie was why it was disliked. It sounds like the movie doesn't contain enough "action" to spark interest.
- rrrazdan 9y ago
  Counterpoint: Radiohead is a really popular band. I remember seeing a bbc introduction where Pink Floyd were introduced as a ‘pop band’ and you could see the derision on the presenters face.
  - maw 9y ago
    Is it? I'm a fan, but my perception is that for most people their career started and ended with Creep, and not only that, but the "you're so very special" cut of Creep.
    - yaseer 9y ago
      That might be 'most people' (i.e. the average pop music listener), but Radiohead still have a huge, huge fan following. They've sold tens of millions of records, and nearly every album has gone platinum (I believe the last two were merely gold...).
      - csallen 9y ago
        I wonder if numbers like this are really a reliable indicator of what's going on. The world is big enough that you can be "niche" and still appeal to millions. I would also assume that fans of niche groups are more fanatical and supportive than fans of mainstream groups with broad appeal, which could equate to a much higher sales:fan ratio. Just speculating, though.
    - 9y ago
rainbowmverse 9y ago
Sometimes appreciating something old requires digging into context. For example, most books released in the 1800s will seem like gibberish without an understanding of the sociopolitical climate. And then there's that whole situation where those same books were padded in a way that makes the modern one-book trilogy look concise because they were paid by the word. I couldn't enjoy 2001 until I knew about all the detailed model work that went into it. The uncut version is still super boring, but it's easier to stay awake knowing what to look for. It's kind of the same situation with the various '90s Star Trek series. I am no longer impressed by long scenes of a ship passing by planets, so the intros are boring.
- laumars 9y ago
  The reruns of TNG you're watching and likely the HD remastered copies which had the CGI redone for Blu-ray. So it isn't really 90s effects you're watching. Furthermore I don't think those scenes you've described are there purely for the sake of impressing the audience. I think they are there to help explain the narrative. Like how in other - eg non sci-fi - shows you'll often get scenes of a car pulling up to a building to help explain that person has just arrived. Or scenes from outside a building to help explain to audiences where the following inside scene is based.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    You're talking about establishing shots. I'm talking about the intros where the ship passes by planets and things with an orchestra booming from the cosmos for what seems like several minutes. It's the exact same thing in every episode and comes after the establishing scenes in the first 1-3 minutes. This is true of every single Star Trek series post-TOS, aside from Enterprise with its cheesy theme and clips from aviation history. (I haven't seen Discovery)
    - ambrosite 9y ago
      You mean, the opening credits/music? Well yeah, those are the same in every episode, but I assume almost everyone skips those after they've seen it the first few times. Even the Battlestar Galactica reboot had an opening credits sequence which I usually skipped.
crispyambulance 9y ago
2001 and most of Kubrick's other films are definitely part of "the canon" of films that everyone who appreciates film as art should see. Unfortunately, you can't just do a surprise screening of these films for your family or other audiences and expect them to be receptive. They will need to "discover" these things on their own. The best thing you can do is to make sure they have opportunities to see this stuff and to talk it up when possible. One of the best pleasures of being a teen is discovering, on your own, how rewarding a great film can be and developing "a taste" for films, music and other aesthetic experiences. You simply can't force this stuff.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  It wasn't a surprise screening. I had been talking about watching it as a family for a few years. And my family enjoys movies that most simply do not. One of my kid's friends all said interstellar was boring, and he loved it. 2001, I think, is just a bit long in the tooth. If it's redone (properly, shot for shot, in the right spirit) with updated effects and sound, I think it would be way more impactful for modern audiences. (the monkey suits really require forced suspension of disbelief today, where in the past they did not) I even explained the theory behind the movie, Dave ending up in an environment he couldn't understand, like an animal in a zoo. We discussed this movie, it wasn't a throwaway experience. And to be blunt about Kubrik, he and the film makers were self indulgent in a few places. Where it wasn't art, it was conceit.
  - jerf 9y ago
    "If it's redone (properly, shot for shot, in the right spirit) with updated effects and sound, I think it would be way more impactful for modern audiences." Yeah, as much as some people would like to jump on us for being "uncultured" if we say so, there have been certain unavoidable changes in the world that fundamentally change how a modern person can't help but see the movies. 2001 wants to send a message that this is a very high-tech world, and went to a lot of effort to do so, and I'd say is certainly an integral part of the foundation of that part of the movie. But how is my nine-year-old supposed to get that on a gut level when he turns off 2001, and picks up Mario Odyssey, something that is in some sense literally millions of times more advanced than the technology shown in the movie, and is real-time interactive to boot? The context has fundamentally shifted. Even I, growing up in a time and seeing it for the first time when at least the difference was less glaringly obvious, can't help but now see a weird and thoroughly unintentional disharmony between what the film is trying to portray the world as, and what the images actually say to me now. It doesn't "ruin" it, but it would be silly to claim that it is doesn't affect the movie experience at all, either, when so many other similarly-sized details are routinely understood to be important.
jandrese 9y ago
For what its worth, when I saw 2001 as a kid I thought it was boring too. Tastes havn't changed that much.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
emodendroket 9y ago
I'm double-replying, which might be bad form, but I think you might be interested to hear that the initial reception to the film had a lot of the same problems. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968 https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-... > I attended the Los Angeles premiere of the film, in 1968, at the Pantages Theater. It is impossible to describe the anticipation in the audience adequately. Kubrick had been working on the film in secrecy for some years, in collaboration, the audience knew, with author Arthur C. Clarke, special-effects expert Douglas Trumbull and consultants who advised him on the specific details of his imaginary future -- everything from space station design to corporate logos. Fearing to fly and facing a deadline, Kubrick had sailed from England on the Queen Elizabeth, doing the editing while on board, and had continued to edit the film during a cross-country train journey. Now it finally was ready to be seen. > To describe that first screening as a disaster would be wrong, for many of those who remained until the end knew they had seen one of the greatest films ever made. But not everyone remained. Rock Hudson stalked down the aisle, complaining, “Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?'' There were many other walkouts, and some restlessness at the film's slow pace (Kubrick immediately cut about 17 minutes, including a pod sequence that essentially repeated another one). > The film did not provide the clear narrative and easy entertainment cues the audience expected. The closing sequences, with the astronaut inexplicably finding himself in a bedroom somewhere beyond Jupiter, were baffling. The overnight Hollywood judgment was that Kubrick had become derailed, that in his obsession with effects and set pieces, he had failed to make a movie. To be fair, it is certainly a long way from a movie like The Killing.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

Reminds me of first impressions to “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” Weird, strange, boring, lots of pointless cinematography, but it really is excellent.

ashark 9y ago
That one's all feel. It's gritty and realistic, but unsettling and dreamlike at the same time. Take out the pointless cinematography and that goes away :-)
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Sure, I know that now. But I didn't know that when I was 10 years old :)

hungerstrike 9y ago

I think I've had all the same thoughts about 2001. However, I'm surprised you got your family to sit through it. I don't know any kids under say 10 who could pay attention long enough. Heck, I don't know many adults that could either these days!

ryanlitalien 9y ago
I tried, I couldn't get past 20 minutes. There is absolutely no way my kids (both under 10) could sit through it either.
- valuearb 9y ago
  You might be surprised, my kids loved it.
- skywhopper 9y ago
  The _interesting_ 20 minutes are much closer to the end. If you are going to skip most of the movie, skip to the "Jupiter Mission" title card and watch until things get pyschedelic.
mikestew 9y ago
Saw it in the theater when I was six or eight (not exactly sure which re-release I saw). Loved it, couldn't wait to see it again. Oh, for sure I didn't get most of it. But even as a kid I viewed it as I think Kubrick intended: an experience of sight and sound. Did I "get" the pre-human monolith sequence? No, I was a kid. Psychedelic sequence? Nope, but it sure was pretty. Space baby? "I dunno", said my little skull full of mush. The consequences of an artificial intelligence that is given conflicting objectives, all while placed in a new environment that it might not have been prepared for? Umm, that would be a "no" for that eight year old. I was still a little sad when HAL got unplugged, though. So I dunno, I'd say it depends on the kid. Might also depend on the era in which it's viewed, because I viewed it shortly after we had first landed on the moon. After forty years of Star Wars, maybe it doesn't seem so cool anymore.

arximboldi 9y ago

In 10 years they will love it and they will brag in front of their hipster friends for having watched it as young kids :-)

ambrosite 9y ago

If you think that's bad, I've even heard people say that the original Star Wars movie is too slow and boring for them to sit through. As for 2001, it is a very meaningful film to me, but it does not surprise me that kids would have trouble with it. I think you really need to be an adult, and be prepared to think and put your own interpretation on it, in order to appreciate it.

ashark 9y ago
> If you think that's bad, I've even heard people say that the original Star Wars movie is too slow and boring for them to sit through. This is how we get the JJ "uh oh, two characters talked for more than 30 seconds, better cap this bit with an action scene even if it does precisely nothing to provide characterization, exposition, or advance plot" Abrams school of film-ruining.
- ambrosite 9y ago
  Don't get me started on JJ; I still haven't been able to get through any of his Star Trek films. The same person who said the original Star Wars is slow and boring also said that he cannot watch any movie that was made before the year 2000, because filmmaking styles have changed too much and he finds all of the older films boring. Personally, I have trouble watching anything that was made after 2000.
  - ashark 9y ago
    Hey, at least this era gave us the improbably-awesome Mad Max: Fury Road. In any sane universe that would've made every other action filmmaker go "oh, that's how you write and film engaging modern-feeling action that's meaningful to the film itself and its characters and, therefore, to the audience. If it's possible to keep that up for practically an entire film—and, apparently, it is—I can and must do it in my action scenes". We don't live in a sane universe, unfortunately. But at least we have MM:FR.
    - nasredin 9y ago

mac01021 9y ago

I've never been sure what to make of that movie. The writer/director obviously know how to make a high-quality, engrossing movie, as demonstrated by everything that happens on Discovery One during the middle part of the movie. But the final segment does such a terrible job at communicating to the audience what is going on in the narrative. Did they cut a bunch of content because the movie was getting too long? Does Kubrick just not care whether the viewer can follow the story he's telling?

wdbbdw 9y ago
I'd recommend reading the novel; it's a wonderful read. Clarke wrote it alongside the screenplay (which he cowrote with Kubrick), and it helps clarify some of the more mystical happenings at both the beginning and the end of the film. Kubrick, via wikipedia[1]: "There are a number of differences between the book and the movie. The novel, for example, attempts to explain things much more explicitly than the film does, which is inevitable in a verbal medium. The novel came about after we did a 130-page prose treatment of the film at the very outset. This initial treatment was subsequently changed in the screenplay, and the screenplay in turn was altered during the making of the film. But Arthur took all the existing material, plus an impression of some of the rushes, and wrote the novel. As a result, there's a difference between the novel and the film ... I think that the divergences between the two works are interesting." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)
- ambrosite 9y ago
  The novel and the film are two different things. I actually don't like Clarke's novel because I disagree with the interpretation he put on the film (even though the screenplay was based on one of his previously published short stories).
- leephillips 9y ago
  Also read Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", upon which 2001 is based.
yodsanklai 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

valuearb 9y ago

If it makes you feel better, i made my 8 and 11 year old daughters watch it, and they loved it. i was afraid it was going to be too slow because of my childhood memory, but surprisingly it wasn’t. We then watched the Soderberg cut, cause i always thought 2001 had too much dead space. Again, surprisingly, we all agreed the original was way better. Soderburgh took too much out.

mcguire 9y ago

It's something you have to think about for a while... That being said, the colors comment is true.

venomsnake 9y ago

That is your mistake. You should have forbidden your kids from seeing 2001 and they would have devoured it.

conradfr 9y ago

Maybe that's my ADHD but I was bored as well when watching it (I think I was ~25yo?), except for the Dave bit.

qbrass 9y ago
The movie is paced really slow. A lot of it was to show off the special effects. I find Blade Runner to be similar. It was a good call at the time, since that's what got them awards, but I'd like to see both of them with the non-critical bits sped up to see if it improves my viewing experience.