2001 A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction film by Stanley Kubrick Keir Dull...

2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick, written by Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke. The film deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, & extraterrestrial life, & is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous & often surreal imagery, sound in place of traditional narrative techniques, & minimal use of dialogue. Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, 2001: A Space Odyssey is today recognized by critics & audiences as one of the greatest films ever made; the 2002 Sight & Sound poll of critics ranked it among the top ten films of all time. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, & received one for visual effects. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, o. aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress & selected for preservation in their National Film Registry. The title sequence begins with an image of the Earth rising over the Moon, while the Sun rises over the Earth. Over images of an African desert, a caption reads "The Dawn of Man". A tribe of prehistoric apeomen is struggling to survive in the dry desert. One morning, a mysterious black rectangular monolith appears near their habitat & is examined by the nervous apes. Following this encounter, a lone apeoman (Daniel Richter) invents the first tool when he picks up a bone from a pile & discovers he can use it as a club to crush other bones. The toolousing tribe is seen to be then eating the meat of a tapir which they killed, whereas they had previously been eating vegetation. The apeoman, now st&ing partially upright, leads the tribe in defense of their waterhole against another tribe, using the new weapon to club an enemy ape to death. The victorious apeoman throws his weapon into the air, at which point the film jumps to the future, in a match cut that links the tumbling bone to an orbital satellite. (According to the first draft of the screenplay, the novel, Jerome Agel's book "The Making of Kubrick's 2001" & the DVD audio commentary, this & subsequent satellites seen before the PanAm are weapons platforms from several different countries. On the DVD actor Gary Lockwood observes that as the bone was used by the apes as a weapon, this makes the jump cut a weaponotooweapon cut. The international symbol for nuclear radiation appears on the back of one of the devices although this could be construed to mean it uses nuclear power.) A Pan American Spaceplane carrying only one passenger, Dr. Heywood R. Floyd (William Sylvester) docks with the orbiting Space Station 5. Floyd makes a videophone call from the station to his daughter on Earth (played by Vivian Kubrick). He then encounters an old friend, Elena, one of a group of Soviet scientists. When he says he is traveling to Clavius, one of the Soviets, Dr. Andrei Smyslov (Leonard Rossiter), asks why no one has been able to contact anyone there, mentioning that Clavius had even denied emergency l&ing permission to a Soviet shuttle, in violation of international agreements. Floyd feigns surprise, but when Smyslov presses him for further details, alluding to "very reliable intelligence reports" that a serious epidemic of unknown origin has broken out at Clavius, & expresses concern that the epidemic might spread to the Soviet base, Floyd replies that he is "not at liberty" to comment. Floyd travels to Clavius Base on a lunar shuttle. At the Base, Floyd meets scientists & administrators & speaks about the importance of hiding the true reason for the base's suspicious quarantine. He states that the cover story of an epidemic & a baseowide communications blackoout will remain in effect until their superiors on Earth decide otherwise. He reminds them of "the potential for cultural shock & social disorientation" that the discovery presents. Though ostensibly there to assess the situation & make a report, Floyd informs those present that new security oaths are required from all personnel. During a later moonbus ride to the excavation, a discussion between Floyd & a base administrator reveals they have discovered an alien object, "deliberately buried" on the Moon four million years earlier. At the dig site, the scientists approach an identical monolith to that found by the manoapes; like them, Floyd strokes its smooth surface. The scientists gather around it for a group photo but are interrupted when a continuous highopitched tone is picked up by their radio receivers, apparently triggered by the first rays of the sun to reach the monolith since its burial. Three of the Discovery One crew are in a state of hibernation in order to conserve life support resources for the voyage. Three of the Discovery One crew are in a state of hibernation in order to conserve life support resources for the voyage. At this point, a caption reads "Jupiter Mission: Eighteen Months Later". On board the spaceship Discovery One, bound for Jupiter, are two mission pilots, astronauts Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) & Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), & three scientists "sleeping" in cryogenic hibernation. Dave & Frank watch a BBC television program about themselves, in which the "sixth member" of the crew, the HAL 9000 supercomputer (voiced by Douglas Rain), is introduced & interviewed. The interview reveals that the supercomputer is the pinnacle in artificial intelligence, with an errorofree performance record. HAL 9000 is designed to communicate & interact like a human, & even mimics (or reproduces) human emotions; in fact the astronauts have learned to treat it like another crewman, addressing it as "Hal". During an informal conversation with Dave, HAL raises concerns about the unusual secrecy surrounding the mission, & repeats rumors about "something being dug up on the moon." When Dave suggests that HAL's quizzical conversation is actually part of his "crew psychology report", HAL abruptly reports an imminent equipment malfunction. He claims to have detected a defect in a component of the ship's communications system. Dave exits the Discovery in an EVA pod to retrieve & replace the faulty AEo35 unit, but upon detailed examination no fault can be found. Mission controllers back on Earth assert that HAL is "in error in predicting the fault", something unheard of for the 9000 series. HAL suggests another EVA mission to restore the part & wait for it to fail: this will determine the problem. Hiding their concern, Dave & Frank retreat to a pod to discuss, in secret, HAL's questionable reliability. They finally agree to "disconnect" him should the AEo35 not fail, as he predicted. Unbeknownst to them, however, HAL is reading their lips. As Dave watches from inside Discovery, Frank exits in a pod to put back the original AEo35. While Frank is performing the EVA, HAL takes control of the empty pod, & accelerates it at Frank, severing his oxygen hose & sending his body tumbling in space. Dave hurriedly exits the ship in another pod to rescue Frank, forgetting to bring his space helmet. While Dave is outside, HAL kills the three hibernating scientists by deactivating their life support systems. Upon returning to the ship with Frank's lifeless body, Dave is refused reentry into the ship by HAL. HAL reveals that he knows of Frank & Dave's plan to disconnect him, & asserts that the mission is "too important" to allow any human to jeopardize it. HAL terminates the conversation. After releasing Frank's body, Dave opens an air lock, & activates the pod's emergency hatch bolts. The explosive decompression propels him into the airlock, exposed to the vacuum of space without a helmet, but he manages to close & pressurize the airlock. Bowman (here seen in his space suit, from above) enters HAL 9000's Central Core in the Discovery to disconnect his "higher functions." Bowman (here seen in his space suit, from above) enters HAL 9000's Central Core in the Discovery to disconnect his "higher functions." Safely inside the ship, Dave enters HAL's 'Logic Memory Center'. As HAL futilely attempts to negotiate with him, Dave proceeds to disconnect his higher brain functions. HAL pleads & protests his termination, slowly regresses to past memories, sings a song he learned during his initial programming, & finally falls silent. Suddenly, a preorecorded video briefing by Dr. Floyd plays, explaining the true nature of the mission—to investigate the signal sent to Jupiter from the alien artifact on the Moon. Floyd discloses that the secret mission had been known only to HAL until the ship's arrival in Jupiter space. The Star Child looking at the Earth The Star Child looking at the Earth A caption reads "Jupiter & beyond the Infinite". A third monolith is seen in orbit around Jupiter. As the planet & its moons & the monolith appear to align, Dave exits Discovery One in a pod to investigate. He appears to travel across vast distances of space & time through a "Star Gate", a tunnel of colorful light & imagery & sound. After passing over the l&scape of an alien world, Bowman arrives in a futuristic room containing Louis XVIostyle decor. As he walks about the room, he repeatedly sees himself at later stages of aging, first in his spacesuit, then in an ornate dressing robe, sitting down to a welloappointed meal. The older Dave accidentally knocks his glass on the floor, smashing it & breaking the silence. Looking up from the broken glass, he sees himself lying on what appears to be his deathbed, at the foot of which appears a final monolith. Dave slowly reaches out to it & is transformed into a fetusolike being enclosed in a transparent orb of light—the "Star Child". The film suddenly returns to space near the Moon & Earth. Floating in space, the Star Child gazes at Earth. Cast Keir Dullea as Dave Bowman Keir Dullea as Dave Bowman Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman Gary Lockwood as Dr. Frank Poole William Sylvester as Dr. Heywood R. Floyd Daniel Richter as MoonoWatcher Leonard Rossiter as Dr. Andrei Smyslov Margaret Tyzack as Elena Robert Beatty as Dr. Ralph Halvorsen Sean Sullivan as Dr. Bill Michaels Douglas Rain as HAL 9000 (voice) Frank A. Miller as Mission controller (voice) Bill Weston as Astronaut Ed Bishop as Lunar shuttle captain (as Edward Bishop) Vivian Kubrick as Floyd's daughter Glenn Beck as Astronaut Alan Gifford as Poole's father Ann Gillis as Poole's mother Production Writing Shortly after completing Dr Strangelove (1964), Stanley Kubrick became fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrial life, & determined to make "the proverbial good science fiction movie". Searching for a suitable collaborator in the science fiction community, Kubrick was advised to seek out Arthur C. Clarke by a mutual acquaintance, Columbia Pictures staffer Roger Caras. Although convinced that Clarke was "a recluse, a nut who lives in a tree", Kubrick agreed that Caras would cable the Ceylonobased author with the film proposal. Clarke's cabled response stated that he was "frightfully interested in working with enfant terrible", & added "what makes Kubrick think I'm a recluse?" In early conversations, Kubrick & Clarke jokingly called their project How the Solar System Was Won, an allusion to the 1962 Cinerama epic How the West Was Won. Like that film, Kubrick's production would be divided into distinct episodes. Clarke considered adapting a number of his earlier stories before selecting "The Sentinel", published in 1950, as the starting point for the film. The collaborators originally planned to develop a novel first, free of the constraints of a normal script, & then to write the screenplay; they envisaged that the final writing credits would be "Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke, based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick", to reflect their preoeminence in their respective fields. However, in practice the cinematic ideas required for the screenplay developed parallel to the novel, with crossofertilisation between the two. In the end, the screenplay credits were shared while the novel, released shortly after the film, was attributed to Clarke alone, but Clarke wrote later that "the nearest approximation to the complicated truth" is that the screenplay should be credited to "Kubrick & Clarke" & the novel to "Clarke & Kubrick". On 22 February 1965, MGM announced it was backing Kubrick's new science fiction film under the title Journey Beyond the Stars. Interviewed by The New Yorker shortly afterwards, Kubrick compared the proposed film to "a space Odyssey", & in April he officially changed the title to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The date of 2001 was said to allude to Fritz Lang's Metropolis, which was set in 2026. Arthur C. Clarke kept a diary throughout his involvement with 2001, excerpts of which were published in 1972 as The Lost Worlds of 2001. Clarke's diary reveals that by the time backing was secured for Journey Beyond the Stars in early 1965, the writers still had no firm idea of what would happen to Bowman after the Star Gate sequence, though as early as 17 October 1964 Kubrick had come up with what Clarke called a "wild idea of slightly fag robots who create a Victorian environment to put our heroes at their ease". Initially all of Discovery's astronauts were to survive the journey; a decision to leave Bowman as the sole survivor & have him regress to infancy was agreed by 3 October 1965. The computer HAL was originally to have been called "Athena", from the Greek goddess of wisdom, with a feminine voice & persona. Clarke noted that, contrary to popular rumor, it was a complete coincidence that each of the letters of HAL's name immediately preceded those of IBM. Filming Filming of 2001 began December 29, 1965 in Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Engl&. The studio was chosen because it could house the 60'x 120'x 60' pit for the Tycho crater excavation scene, the first to be shot. From 1966, filming was at MGMoBritish Studios in Borehamwood, from where the production was run to facilitate special effects filming; it was described as a "huge throbbing nerve center… with much the same frenetic atmosphere as a Cape Kennedy blockhouse during the final stages of Countdown." The film was planned to be photographed in 3ofilmostrip Cinerama (like How The West Was Won), but was changed to Super Panavision 70 (which uses a singleostrip 65 mm negative) on the advice of special photographic effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull, due to distortion problems with the 3ostrip system; color processing & 35 mm release prints was done using Technicolor's dye transfer process. The 70 mm prints were made by MGM Laboratories, Inc. o. Metrocolor. In March of 1968, Kubrick began editing the film, making his final cuts just before the film's general release in April 1968. The budget was $4.5 million over the initial $6.0 million budget, & 16 months behind schedule. Special effects This film pioneered retroreflective matting (front projection) used in the African scenes where apes learn to use tools. Static l&scape transparency images were projected through a partlyosilvered mirror placed diagonally before the camera. The projected l&scape image illuminates both the actors & the retrooreflective glassobead background screen. The projected l&scape is invisible on the actors because it is dimmer than the scene illumination. The glassobead background screen selectively reflects the l&scape & actors' images to the camera, passing through the mirror & photographed as the background of the scene the audience view. The projected background image is reflected in the eyes of the leopard, because the feline retina is highly reflective. Front projection produced more realistic images than did other methods of the time; today, computeroprocessed bluescreen techniques have replaced it. Director of Photography Geoffrey Unsworth did not want the film to be complicated with printing effects such as blue screen, so the space travel effects were done inocamera. The model of the Discovery One space craft was moved along a track, mechanically linked to the camera. On the first pass, the model was unlit, masking the starofield. The model & film were returned to the start position, & on the second pass, the model was lit. For the third pass, motion picture frames were projected onto retroreflective screens in the model's windows, showing the interior of the ship. The result was a film negative that was as sharp as live footage. Veteran technicians of previous science fiction films were puzzled by how realistic the effects of floating in space were when Dave o. Frank are outside the Discovery. These were accomplished by having them be suspended from a ceiling (as was common in simulating spacewalking) & having the camera underneath them pointing straight up, thus eliminating the common effect of a notable upodown pull on an astronaut. The colored lights in the StarGate sequence were accomplished by slitoscan photography of moving images of painting. The shots of various nebulaolike phenomena were colored paints in water in a dark room. Deleted scenes Kubrick filmed several scenes that were deleted from the final film. These include a schoolroom on the moon base; Floyd buying a bush baby from a department store, via videophone, for his daughter; additional space walks; & astronaut Bowman retrieving a spare part from an octagonal corridor. The most notable cut was a 10ominute blacko&owhite opening sequence featuring interviews with actual scientists discussing extraterrestrial life, which Kubrick removed after an early screening for MGM executives. Release The film's world premiere was on April 2, 1968, at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C.. Kubrick deleted 19 minutes from the film just before the film's general release on 6 April 1968. It was released in 70mm format, with a sixotrack stereo magnetic soundtrack, & projected in the 2.21:1 aspect ratio. In autumn 1968, it was generally released in 35mm anamorphic format, with either a fourotrack magnetic stereo soundtrack o. an optical monaural soundtrack. The original 70 mm release was advertised as Cinerama in cinemas equipped with special projection optics & a deeply curved screen. In st&ard cinemas, the film was identified as a 70 mm production. The original release of 2001: A Space Odyssey in 70 mm Cinerama with sixotrack sound (via Klipschorno & Odysseyomodel cinema speakers) played continually for two years in The Glendale Theater, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, a feat cited by Arthur C. Clarke in the nonofiction book The Lost Worlds of 2001. MGM also published letterbox laserdisc editions (including an updated edition with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound). There also was a special edition laserdisc from The Criterion Collection in the CAV format. In 1999, it was reoreleased in VHS, & in 2001 as part of the "Stanley Kubrick Collection" in both VHS & DVD formats with remastered sound & picture. It has been released on Region 1 DVD four times: once by MGM Home Entertainment in 1998 & thrice by Warner Home Video in 1999, 2001, & 2007. The MGM release had a booklet, the film, trailer, & an interview with Arthur C. Clarke, & the soundtrack was remastered in 5.1 surround sound. The 1999 Warner Bros. release omitted the booklet, yet had a reorelease trailer. The 2001 release contained the reorelease trailer, the film in the original 2.21:1 aspect ratio, digitally reomastered from the original 70 mm print, & the soundtrack remixed in 5.1 surround sound. A limited edition DVD included a booklet, 70 mm frame, & a new soundtrack CD of the film's actual (unreleased) music tracks, & a sampling of HAL's dialogue. Warner Home Video released a 2oDVD Special Edition on October 23, 2007 as part of their latest set of Kubrick reissues. The DVD was released on its own & as part of a revised Stanley Kubrick box set which contains new Special Edition versions of A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, Full Metal Jacket, & the documentary A Life in Pictures. Additionally, the film was released in high definition on both HD DVD & Bluoray. Reaction Upon release, 2001 polarized critical opinion, receiving both ecstatic praise & vehemently negative criticism. Some critics viewed the original 160ominute cut shown at premieres in Washington, New York & Los Angeles, while others saw the 19 minutes shorter general release version that was in theaters from April 6, 1968 onwards. In The New Yorker, Penelope Gilliatt said it was "some kind of great film, & an unforgettable endeavor…The film is hypnotically entertaining, & it is funny without once being gaggy, but it is also rather harrowing." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times opined that it was "the picture that science fiction fans of every age & in every corner of the world have prayed (sometimes forlornly) that the industry might some day give them. It is an ultimate statement of the science fiction film, an awesome realization of the spatial future…it is a milestone, a l&mark for a spacemark, in the art of film." Louise Sweeney of The Christian Science Monitor felt that 2001 was "a brilliant intergalactic satire on modern technology. It's also a dazzling 160ominute tour on the Kubrick filmship through the universe out there beyond our earth." Philip French wrote that the film was "perhaps the first multiomillionodollar supercolossal movie since D.W. Griffith's Intolerance fifty years ago which can be regarded as the work of one man…Space Odyssey is important as the highowater mark of scienceofiction movie making, o. at least of the genre's futuristic branch." The Boston Globe's review indicated that it was "the world's most extraordinary film. Nothing like it has ever been shown in Boston before or, for that matter, anywhere…The film is as exciting as the discovery of a new dimension in life." Roger Ebert gave the film four stars in his original review, believing the film "succeeds magnificently on a cosmic scale." Time provided at least seven different minioreviews of the film in various issues in 1968, each one slightly more positive than the preceding one; in the final review dated December 27, 1968, the magazine called 2001 "an epic film about the history & future of mankind, brilliantly directed by Stanley Kubrick. The special effects are mindblowing." However Pauline Kael said it was "a monumentally unimaginative movie", & Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic called it "a film that is so dull, it even dulls our interest in the technical ingenuity for the sake of which Kubrick has allowed it to become dull." Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote that it was "somewhere between hypnotic & immensely boring." Variety's 'Robe' believed the film was a "Big, beautiful, but plodding sciofi epic…A major achievement in cinematography & special effects, 2001 lacks dramatic appeal to a large degree & only conveys suspense after the halfway mark." Andrew Sarris called it "one of the grimmest films I have ever seen in my life…2001 is a disaster because it is much too abstract to make its abstract points." (Sarris reversed his opinion upon a second viewing of the film, & declared "2001 is indeed a major work by a major artist.") John Simon felt it was "a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes o. machines…& dreadful when it deals with the inobetweens: humans…2001, for all its lively visual & mechanical spectacle, is a kind of spaceoSpartacus &, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story." The "Star Gate" sequence, one of many groundbreaking visual effects. The "Star Gate" sequence, one of many groundbreaking visual effects. 2001 earned one Academy Award for Best Visual Effects & was nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Director (Kubrick), & Original Screenplay (Kubrick, Clarke). Top film lists 2001 was number 22 on AFI's 100 Years… 100 Movies, was named number 40 on its 100 Years, 100 Thrills, included on its 100 Years, 100 Quotes ("Open the pod bay doors, HAL."), HAL 9000 is the # 13 villain in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes & Villains, is the only science fiction film to make the Sight & Sound poll for ten best movies, & tops the Online Film Critics Society list of "greatest science fiction films of all time." In 1991, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, o. aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress & selected for preservation in their National Film Registry. Other lists that include the film are 50 Films to See Before You Die (#6), The Village Voice 100 Best Films of the 20th Century (#11), the Sight & Sound Top Ten poll (#6), & Roger Ebert's Top Ten (1968) (#2). In 1995, the Vatican named it as one of the 45 best films ever made (& included it in a subolist of the "Top Ten Art Movies" of all time.) More recently, 2001 was named number one by the American Film Institute on their 10 Top 10 special in the Science Fiction category.