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2001: A Space Odyssey

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MV700002
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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Additional Information

Additional Information
Let the Awe and Mystery of a Journey Unlike Any Other Begin

An epic drama of adventure and exploration

Man's colony on the Moon... a whole new generation has been born and is living there... a quarter-million miles from Earth.

The Ultimate Trip.


A mind-bending sci-fi symphony, Stanley Kubrick's landmark 1968 epic pushed the limits of narrative and special effects toward a meditation on technology and humanity. Based on Arthur C. Clarke's story The Sentinel, Kubrick and Clarke's screenplay is structured in four movements. At the "Dawn of Man," a group of hominids encounters a mysterious black monolith alien to their surroundings. To the strains of Strauss's 1896 Also sprach Zarathustra, a hominid invents the first weapon, using a bone to kill prey. As the hominid tosses the bone in the air, Kubrick cuts to a 21st century spacecraft hovering over the Earth, skipping ahead millions of years in technological development. U.S. scientist Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) travels to the moon to check out the discovery of a strange object on the moon's surface: a black monolith. As the sun's rays strike the stone, however, it emits a piercing, deafening sound that fills the investigators' headphones and stops them in their path. Cutting ahead 18 months, impassive astronauts David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) head toward Jupiter on the spaceship Discovery, their only company three hibernating astronauts and the vocal, man-made HAL 9000 computer running the entire ship. When the all-too-human HAL malfunctions, however, he tries to murder the astronauts to cover his error, forcing Bowman to defend himself the only way he can. Free of HAL, and finally informed of the voyage's purpose by a recording from Floyd, Bowman journeys to "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite," through the psychedelic slit-scan star-gate to an 18th century room, and the completion of the monolith's evolutionary mission.With assistance from special-effects expert Douglas Trumbull, Kubrick spent over two years meticulously creating the most "realistic" depictions of outer space ever seen, greatly advancing cinematic technology for a story expressing grave doubts about technology itself. Despite some initial critical reservations that it was too long and too dull, 2001 became one of the most popular films of 1968, underlining the generation gap between young moviegoers who wanted to see something new and challenging and oldsters who "didn't get it." Provocatively billed as "the ultimate trip," 2001 quickly caught on with a counterculture youth audience open to a contemplative (i.e. chemically enhanced) viewing experience of a film suggesting that the way to enlightenment was to free one's mind of the U.S. military-industrial-technological complex. ~

2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 British-American epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and was partially inspired by Clarke's short story "The Sentinel". Clarke concurrently wrote the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey which was published soon after the film was released. The story deals with a series of encounters between humans and mysterious black monoliths that are apparently affecting human evolution, and a space voyage to Jupiter tracing a signal emitted by one such monolith found on the moon. Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood star as the two astronauts on this voyage, with Douglas Rain as the voice of the sentient computer HAL 9000 who has full control over their spaceship. The film is frequently described as an "epic film", both for its length and scope, and for its affinity with classical epics.[2][3]
Produced and distributed by the American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the film was made almost entirely in England, using both the studio facilities of MGM's subsidiary "MGM British" (among the last movies to be shot there before its closure in 1970)[4] and those of Shepperton Studios, mostly because of the availability of much larger sound stages than in the United States. The film was also co-produced by Kubrick's own "Stanley Kubrick Productions". Kubrick, having already shot his previous two films in England, decided to settle there permanently during the filming of Space Odyssey. Though Space Odyssey was released in the United States over a month before its release in the United Kingdom, and Encyclopædia Britannica calls this an American film,[5] other sources refer to it as an American, British, or American-British production.[6]
Thematically, the film deals with elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life. It is notable for its scientific accuracy, pioneering special effects, ambiguous imagery that is open-ended, sound in place of traditional narrative techniques, and minimal use of dialogue.
The film has a memorable soundtrack—the result of the association that Kubrick made between the spinning motion of the satellites and the dancers of waltzes, which led him to use The Blue Danube waltz by Johann Strauss II,[7] and the symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, to portray the philosophical concept of the Übermensch in Nietzsche's work of the same name.[8][9]
Despite initially receiving mixed reactions from critics and audiences alike, 2001: A Space Odyssey garnered a cult following and slowly became a box office hit. Some years after its initial release, it eventually became the highest grossing picture from 1968 in North America. Today it is near-universally recognized by critics, filmmakers, and audiences as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. The 2002 Sight & Sound poll of critics ranked it among the top ten films of all time,[10] placing it #6 behind Tokyo Story. The film retained sixth place on the critics' list in 2012, and was named the second greatest film ever made by the directors' poll of the same magazine.[11] Two years before that, it was ranked the greatest film of all time by The Moving Arts Film Journal.[12] It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and received one for its visual effects. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[13]
In 1984, a sequel directed by Peter Hyams was released, titled 2010: The Year We Make Contact.


The film's world premiere was on April 2, 1968, at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C. It opened two days later at the Warner Cinerama Theatre in Hollywood, and Loew's Capitol in New York. Kubrick then deleted 19 minutes of footage from the film before its general release in five other U.S. cities on April 10, 1968, and internationally in five cities the following day,[124][125] where it was shown in 70mm format, with a six-track stereo magnetic soundtrack, and projected in the 2.21:1 aspect ratio. The general release of the film in its 35mm anamorphic format took place in autumn 1968, with either a four-track magnetic stereo soundtrack or an optical monaural soundtrack.[126]
The original 70 mm release, like many Super Panavision 70 films of the era such as Grand Prix, was advertised as being in "Cinerama" in cinemas equipped with special projection optics and a deeply curved screen. In standard cinemas, the film was identified as a 70 mm production. The original release of 2001: A Space Odyssey in 70 mm Cinerama with six-track sound played continually for more than a year in several venues, and for 103 weeks in Los Angeles.[127]
The film was re-released in 1974, 1977, and again in 1980.[128] Once 2001, the film's timeset, arrived, a restoration of the 70mm version was screened at the Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, and the production was also reissued to selected movie houses in North America, Europe and Asia.


MGM/CBS Home Video released the film on VHS and Betamax home video in 1980.[131] MGM also published letterbox laserdisc editions (including an updated edition with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound), in 1991 and 1993. (Although Turner Entertainment had acquired the bulk of MGM's film library, the MGM company had a distribution deal with Turner.) There also was a special edition laserdisc from The Criterion Collection in the CAV format. In 1997, it was re-released in VHS, and as part of the "Stanley Kubrick Collection" in both VHS format (1999) and DVD (2000) with remastered sound and picture. In some video releases, three title cards were added to the three "blank screen" moments; "OVERTURE" at the beginning, "ENTR'ACTE" during the intermission, and "EXIT MUSIC" after the closing credits.[132]
It has been released on Region 1 DVD four times: once by MGM Home Entertainment in 1998 and thrice by Warner Home Video in 1999, 2001, and 2007. The MGM release had a booklet, the film, trailer, and an interview with Arthur C. Clarke, and the soundtrack was remastered in 5.1 surround sound. The 1999 Warner Bros. release omitted the booklet, yet had a re-release trailer. The 2001 release contained the re-release trailer, the film in the original 2.21:1 aspect ratio, digitally re-mastered from the original 70 mm print, and the soundtrack remixed in 5.1 surround sound. A limited edition DVD included a booklet, 70 mm frame, and a new soundtrack CD of the film's actual (unreleased) music tracks, and a sampling of Hal's dialogue.
Warner Home Video released a 2-DVD Special Edition on October 23, 2007 as part of their latest set of Kubrick reissues. The DVD was released on its own and 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, and the documentary A Life in Pictures. Additionally, the film was released in high definition on both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc


Upon release, 2001 polarized critical opinion, receiving both ecstatic praise and vehement derision. Some critics viewed the original 161-minute cut shown at premieres in Washington D.C., New York, and Los Angeles,[1] while others saw the 19-minute-shorter general release version that was in theaters from April 10, 1968 onwards.[125]
Positive
In The New Yorker, Penelope Gilliatt said it was "some kind of great film, and an unforgettable endeavor...The film is hypnotically entertaining, and it is funny without once being gaggy, but it is also rather harrowing."[134] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times opined that it was "the picture that science fiction fans of every age and 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 landmark for a spacemark, in the art of film."[135] Louise Sweeney of The Christian Science Monitor felt that 2001 was "a brilliant intergalactic satire on modern technology. It's also a dazzling 160-minute tour on the Kubrick filmship through the universe out there beyond our earth."[136] Philip French wrote that the film was "perhaps the first multi-million-dollar 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 high-water mark of science-fiction movie making, or at least of the genre's futuristic branch."[137] 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."[138] Roger Ebert gave the film four stars in his original review, believing the film "succeeds magnificently on a cosmic scale."[55] He later put it on his Top 10 list for Sight & Sound.[139] Time provided at least seven different mini-reviews 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 and future of mankind, brilliantly directed by Stanley Kubrick. The special effects are mindblowing."[140]
Negative
Pauline Kael said it was "a monumentally unimaginative movie,"[141] and 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."[142] Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote that it was "somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring."[143] Variety's 'Robe' believed the film was a "Big, beautiful, but plodding sci-fi epic ... A major achievement in cinematography and special effects, 2001 lacks dramatic appeal to a large degree and only conveys suspense after the halfway mark."[144] 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."[145] (Sarris reversed his opinion upon a second viewing of the film, and declared "2001 is indeed a major work by a major artist."[146]) John Simon felt it was "a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes or machines ... and dreadful when it deals with the in-betweens: humans...2001, for all its lively visual and mechanical spectacle, is a kind of space-Spartacus and, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story."[147] Eminent historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. deemed the film "morally pretentious, intellectually obscure and inordinately long ... a film out of control".[148] It has been noted that its slow pacing often alienates modern audiences more than it did upon its initial release.[149]
Science fiction writers
Science fiction writers had a range of reactions to the film. Ray Bradbury was hostile, stating that the audience does not care when Poole dies. He praised the film's beautiful photography but disliked the banality of most of the dialogue.[150] Both he and Lester del Rey were put off by the film's feeling of sterility and blandness in all the human encounters amidst all the technological wonders, while both praised the pictorial element of the movie. Del Rey was especially harsh, describing the film as dull, confusing, and boring, predicting "It will probably be a box-office disaster, too, and thus set major science-fiction movie making back another ten years." However, the film was praised by science-fiction novelist Samuel R. Delany who was impressed by how the film undercuts the audience's normal sense of space and orientation in several ways. Like Bradbury, Delany picked up on the banality of the dialogue (in Delany's phrasing the characters are saying nothing meaningful), but Delany regards this as a dramatic strength, a prelude to the rebirth at the conclusion of the film.[151] Without analyzing the film in detail, Isaac Asimov spoke well of Space Odyssey in his autobiography, and other essays. The film won the Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation, an award heavily voted on by published science-fiction writers.


Release Date: April 4 , 1968


Distrib: MGM

Boxoffice: $56,715,371 2013: $353,280,500

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