2001 on the Big Screen

[ManOnTheWave]

A local theatre ran it for one showing last summer and I missed it because of family stuff. No possible way I could have made it, but I really do regret it. There are just too many sequences in 2001: A Space Odyssey that deserve to be seen on a big screen. Hope it comes back this year.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I could've done without the bits where people were standing around normally in the zero-gravity parts of Discovery.

Who knows, perhaps everyone now wears grip shoes?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I've watched it on TV, and I really don't think there's any point in sitting through it at all except on a big screen.

 

[Set Harth]

I've always wanted to see 2061 on the big screen, maybe one day they'll get around to filming it. Although, I want it to be good. 2010 was a disappointment.

2061 was a disappointment.

 

[RevDMV]

How cool, I saw it at special showing at the Cinerama Dome in LA some time in the 80's. I forget who it was but someone involved in the production did a question and answer before the show.

As others have said there is just no way to compare seeing it on the big screen.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I saw it at the Cinerama Dome as well back in the 80's. We were probably there at the same time. That was the first time I saw it. I've seen it on tv since then but that pales in comparison to seeing it on the big screen.

 

[nightwind1]

Saw it when it premiered in 1968. In 70mm Cinerama.

The moon and Jupiter sequences looked 3-D in 70mm.

I've seen it in re-releases on standard movie screens and you just have no idea how much less you're seeing. Shame that Cinerama didn't stick around.

I saw it in re-release when I was in 8th grade, which would have been '74.

The theater was a Cinerama theater.

The same theater is also where I saw Logan's Run, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, Escape from New York, Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Return of the Jedi, Big Trouble in Little China, Terminator, Aliens...



I miss the River Hills Theater.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I've always wanted to see 2061 on the big screen, maybe one day they'll get around to filming it. Although, I want it to be good. 2010 was a disappointment.

If you want it to be good, the director will have to stray quite far away from the novel.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I got to see it in the theater in May 1971 for my 10th birthday. It was fantastic. Clarke was already my favorite writer then; I had read not only 2001, but Expedition to Earth, Childhood's End and Islands In The Sky, among others.

It's kind of amazing, in the current social climate, to think that there's a big-budget, epic movie like this that can only be best appreciated on the big screen-- and it has absolutely no violence or corruption whatsoever. It couldn't be made today. If somebody made 2001 today, it would be re-imagined so that the Monolith blows up the Moon, Discovery is on a mission of revenge, the interiors look like a factory basement with leaking steam pipes, Bowman is a drunk, Poole is a convicted child molester and their uniforms are leather bondage gear.

The best science-fiction film ever made, IMO.

Possibly the only Science Fiction film ever made.

There was an excellent book on the making of the movie that was in print, way back in the 70s, and it's likely that was mentioned. The book also contained various script elements that Clarke had written, but were ultimately left out of the film.

The Lost Worlds of 2001. I have it and refer to it often. The best parts are the lost chapters from the novel that describe the alien civilization behind the Monolith and their representative Clindar. "Skyrock," "Cosmopolis" et cetera. They are among the most exotic and wonderful descriptions of alien worlds that I've ever read.

 

[Christopher]

I've always wanted to see 2061 on the big screen, maybe one day they'll get around to filming it. Although, I want it to be good. 2010 was a disappointment.

If you want it to be good, the director will have to stray quite far away from the novel.

You know, that's something worth considering. Both of the movies to date had considerable input from Arthur C. Clarke. The original book and movie were parallel projects developed simultaneously, a full collaboration between Clarke and Kubrick, although the two versions of the story went in very different directions reflecting their creators' distinct sensibilities (the novel explains everything in meticulous detail, the film avoids explaining anything). 2010 was a book first, but Peter Hyams corresponded extensively with Clarke over email (which was still quite a novelty at the time), so the author still contributed a lot to the content of the film.

But now Clarke is no longer with us, so any further film adaptations would be unable to avail themselves of his participation and guidance. It just wouldn't be the same.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Hasn't Tom Hanks wanted to make film versions of 3001 and/or 2061 for awhile now?

Spoiler: 3001

Apparently Hanks wants to play Frank Poole in the 3001 film.

 

[lurok]

It's a great 'surrender' movie on the big screen. Just go with it.

 

[Procutus]

I've seen it on tv since then but that pales in comparison to seeing it on the big screen.

I have to agree, but that aside, it was enjoyable as hell watching it again last night after all these years (and the first time I've watched it on our widescreen).

Still a brilliant piece of work, despite the passage of time. And I still have a great fondness for ACC's four novels of this series, which by the nature of the written word, goes well beyond the visual and symbolic nature of Kubrick's movie.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

All of Clarke's novels are excellent, of course, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in the future society he envisioned in 3001...

Spoiler: 3001

The BrainCap? Forget it. You can't have personal freedom with something like that!

 

[Procutus]

If somebody made 2001 today, it would be re-imagined so that the Monolith blows up the Moon, Discovery is on a mission of revenge, the interiors look like a factory basement with leaking steam pipes, Bowman is a drunk, Poole is a convicted child molester and their uniforms are leather bondage gear.

Ain't that the truth!

The Lost Worlds of 2001. I have it and refer to it often. The best parts are the lost chapters from the novel that describe the alien civilization behind the Monolith and their representative Clindar. "Skyrock," "Cosmopolis" et cetera. They are among the most exotic and wonderful descriptions of alien worlds that I've ever read.

That's the one! Yeah, that book contained some great stuff. As you may have gathered, ACC was just about my favorite SF writer, and I have over two dozen of his books in our library. I'm also one of the people who actually liked 2010: Oddsey Two when it first came out. I was working for Waldenbooks at the time, and just about geeked out when I read in Publisher's Weekly that Del Rey had signed a deal with Sir Arthur to write this book. It was one of my most heavily anticipated novels-I-want-to-read from that time.

 

[Set Harth]

It's kind of amazing, in the current social climate, to think that there's a big-budget, epic movie like this that can only be best appreciated on the big screen-- and it has absolutely no violence or corruption whatsoever.

Absolutely no violence?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I would definitely call Frank Poole's death scene a violent one.

As for corruption: HAL was told of the Monolith's true purpose (i.e. the big one at the end of the film) but was ordered to keep it secret from the rest of the crew - and that directly led to HAL's breakdown and murder of the crew. That definitely sounds fishy to me.

 

[tighr]

I've always wanted to see 2061 on the big screen, maybe one day they'll get around to filming it. Although, I want it to be good. 2010 was a disappointment.

If you want it to be good, the director will have to stray quite far away from the novel.

I'm ok with that. There were enough scenes in the book that Clarke glosses over that could be re-imagined with some fantastic CGI, embellished in an action sense. Today's movie crowd wouldn't be able to sit through a film like 2001 if it were released today (same goes for Star Trek TMP).

The plot of 2061 is what I want to see on the screen, not a word-for-word telescript.

 

[Set Harth]

^ I would definitely call Frank Poole's death scene a violent one.

Ape violence!!!

 

[tighr]

But, as long as we're talking Clarke novels getting put up on the big screen, I'd rather see Childhood's End.