2001: A Space Odyssey

Released: April 3, 1968

Studio: MGM

Genre: sci fi

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 60.54 Worldwide: --

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 409.68 Worldwide: 815.73

Directing: Stanley Kubrick

Screenwriting: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke

Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

Review:

“Man, from prehistoric times to a futuristic space age, is eerily defined in” ^VD “Kubrick’s metaphoric, thought-provoking, grandiose, science-fiction landmark film.” ^FS “Stunning images and imaginative script create an unforgettable viewing experience:” ^VD “the most spectacular and magisterial space movie of all time.” ^T98

The story centers around the investigation of the appearance on the Moon of a mysterious monolith whose radio signal leads to Jupiter. The audience learns that the first monolith appeared four million years earlier, giving insight to prehistoric ape-men how to use tools as killing weapons. Bowman (Dullea) and Poole (Lockwood), the astronauts on the mission, encounter “superior life and rebirth in some sort of embryonic divine form.” ^T95

The movie “is beautiful, infuriatingly slow, and pretty half-baked.” ^T95 So “why is this cold, oddly optimistic, overreaching sci-fi poem so interesting?” ^ML HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain), “the film’s major protagonist – an omniscient super-computer,” ^FS “has personal problems that make him a more engaging character than any of the humans in this or most other movies of the last few decades.” ^ML

The movie doesn’t make it clear how “the lurking, unambiguous danger of the rogue computer” ^T98 fits with the monoliths, which “seem to coax humankind to make evolutionary leaps and transcend bodily and technological limits.” ^FS “Nevertheless…Kubrick’s vision…demands attention as superior sci-fi, simply because it’s more concerned with ideas than…pyrotechnics.” ^T95 The movie “hit home mostly with acid trippers (dig that time warp) and intellectuals (deconstruct that star child).” ^RS The film “also boasts distinction of having put Richard Strauss into the Top 40 with ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra.’” ^LM