movie review - 2001: A Space Odyssey
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Before I write this, I'll clarify that I think there's a good chance that the director of this movie faked the original moon landing on behalf of the US government during the Cold War competition with the Soviets. I've watched a compelling Youtube video that was provided to me by a friend who follows rather a lot more conspiracy theories, and have to say I found the basic idea that Kubrick used the same techniques in that effort and this movie pretty compelling. So that's why I watched this one again.
The movie starts in the past, when some kind of precursor to the human race was scratching about in the dirt. A mysterious black obelisk then appears, shining coldly. It's dimensions are 1:4:9 and it stands upright. The pre-humans start going crazy, and one of them makes the leap into using tools - by brandishing a weapon that the ape-dudes then use to re-take a water-hole from which rivals had evicted them. The obelisk stands there, watching over them. Some time later, humanity is reaching out to the stars. They find another obelisk on the moon, and then detect more around Jupiter. They send a manned mission accompanied by a synthetic intelligence named Hal. There are .. mixed results.
I liked the unusual story, the downright amazing visuals, the distinctive pacing and minimal use of dialog. There's zero exposition in this movie. I feel like this is one of the strongest uses of the cinema media and that some day this is how better movies will be made, and think that this is the high water mark for all of Science Fiction. I cannot overstate what an engrossing thing this is. If you want to know why anyone could think that someone might be able to fake the moon landing, watch this movie. If you want an idea as to how they did it, watch that analysis on Youtube.
Strongly recommended. A favorite.