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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

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.

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.