2010 BD

Re: 2010 BD

It's currently $13.99 at Amazon, which is an excellent price given the $28.99 list.

I haven't watched it all the way through, but from what I've seen, I agree with Jeff's evaluation. And considering that this never got a good treatment on DVD, the Blu-ray is a huge step up.

Re: 2010 BD

I remember watching the film when the old DVD was first released and thinking it is nothing like 2001, I like certain aspects of the film and cringe at others, I figured I should buy the new BD and of course I am too impatient to pre-order online etc so I picked up a BD at barnes and noble I got it 30% off plus addit 10% off and that was still near $20.00 - but I was fine with that no one forced me.

I watched the first bit of the film and it looked ok that interesting MGM Jubilee logo was cool to see... but wasn't very sharp at all. Some scenes looked better than others but I can't imagine how bad the old DVD looks now since it isn't even 16:9 enhanced.

I will agree with others who have noted that WB didn't seem to manipulate the image at all with DNR etc... this makes the purchase more pleasing for sure.

I wouldn't mind having some of the WB films like PROTOCOL and Private Benjamin released on BD in WIDESCREEN finally, I can deal with a artifacted image as long as no manipulation occurs with film grain etc. (Also like them released sep. with original poster art) Two packs looks a bit tacky anc cheap when BDs are nto cheap. :-)

The sound is decent enough , nice to hear the David Shire score again since the CD is OOP.
I recommend it is nostalgic.

Re: 2010 BD

That's the price I paid for it and I received it today. I hope to watch it sometime this coming week.






Crawdaddy

Re: 2010 BD

I'm waiting for mine to arrive, hopefully before the end of the week. I got mine for $13.99 also, but I see Walmart has it in stock for $14.99. I didn't think they would have it, so I ordered it online. Oh well, when it arrives, I will be watching it, as I enjoyed it the first time I saw it.

Re: 2010 BD

I enjoy this film and plan on picking it up. Thanks for posting some comments about the transfer and audio on the new blu ray. DVD Beaver did a review of the blu ray as well.

Re: 2010 BD

Count me in too as a fan of this film. Sure, it's unfair to compare it against Kubrick's 2001, I always enjoy it for what it is.

I like the dialogue in some places and Syd Mead is one of my favorite designers who was involved in the production design of the ships. Can't wait to see the BD.

Re: 2010 BD

It's nice to see this finally get a fair representation on disc. I, too, was disappointed by the lack of new extras, but what is there is definitely worth the $15 I spent on it.

- Mark

Re: 2010 BD

I watched my copy last night. It's a huge improvement over the non-anamorphic SD-DVD. The film is not a huge favorite of mine, but at $14, it's still a bargain as a complement to 2001.

Re: 2010 BD

It's the best $13.99 I've spent lately! I watch 2010 way more than the original. I have to be in the mood fopr classical music to even think about playing 2001. Back in the 90's I used to put on my Criterion LD of 2001 and cleaning house to the music. There's not that much dialog....43 minutes. Shoot, 2010 has atleast double that....yada-yada. It's more like a reg-lar movie than 2001.

I concur with the chior, it looks like no DNR was applied. That suits me. I was suprised how good the audio was.

Re: 2010 BD

I plan to get this. Saw it when it came out and did like it. Always like Roy Scheider and the effects are still terrific. There is some great moments in the movie (the spacewalk to Discovery being one). While the first one is a classic, this followup is a dependable, credible successor.

Re: 2010 BD

It's always easy to forget what a great actor Scheider and especially John Lithgow was before he got into TV. It's too bad, as he was a big movie star before then, and he's great here.

Re: 2010 BD

I watched it tonight. I thought the transfer was extremely film-like; grain well intact and while the image is a bit softer, there was still decent detail in many scenes. As far as the movie itself, I thought it was pretty good - however, I'm not sure I'll watch it very often and will probably sell or trade it.

Re: 2010 BD

I was happy to pick this up just for the sentimental reasons.

Primarily because this is the first DVD that I consider acceptable under the current home theater conditions. Back in 1998, I picked up a laserdisc of 2010 and was fine with that on a standard 19" TV. It looked good and sounded good, etc. With my current setup, the best I could do was have a box in the middle of the HDTV and sound coming out of the front speakers.

The new BD is a perfectly acceptable transfer for me, and it recreates the experience I remember of watching the film on the big screen when it first came out 25 years ago. The trailer is a little longer than I remember from the summer of 1984, but it has all the stuff I remember in it. I think I still have a 2010 hologram somewhere that I picked up at a Creation Convention in downtown Los Angeles in summer 1984...

Re: 2010 BD

I just got my copy of 2010... really, for $13.99 on Amazon, you can't beat that. I would have paid that just to get an anamorphic SD version of it, so to get it in HD for that price, real bargain.

I was pleased by the quality of the disc - I don't think it's going to be anyone's reference title, but it looks better than it ever has on home video. I'm going from memory, but it appears to have come from the same transfer used for an HDNet broadcast last year. I actually got to see 2010 projected in 35mm last summer, and I think this Blu-ray does a great job of replicating that experience.

Re: 2010 BD

it's been a good time when i bought it for that price and watch it which have a really good quality for that price.. really incredible..

Re: 2010 BD

I watched my BD copy last night. I also took a moment to compare a few scenes from the non anamorphic DVD version. I've seen this film more times then I can count on that DVD and laserdisc before it.

I was surprised by how awful the Diamond Jubilee MGM logo looked at the start of the film on the BD. It was very soft! But so was the SD DVD too.

The overall picture is brighter on the BD. Film defects like dirt and specs are gone. Overall sharpness is much better. The scene in Floyd's home when he's having dinner with his wife Caroline and son Chris was much darker looking on the old DVD. The new BD brightens the sequence. Though it must have been filmed in low light conditions as Madolyn Smith still looked a tad under lit and soft in one shot.

One thing that distracted me a bit is the image during the live action sequences on board the Leonov. Perhaps Hyams intentionally did this, but the scene after Floyd wakes up and is in conference with the Russians and discussing their findings, looks like it was filmed with smoke so the lighting array above the table would give off a glow.

The miniature work really shines and shots of the Leonov are nice and sharp. The only bad part I noticed is the composite shots of Max and Curnow during the first space walk from the Leonov to the Discovery. You can see the shot of Curnow are an optical on top of the miniature effects as his exposure does not match. The old DVD hid this much better because it was so much darker.

One thing that glares at me when I watch this film and when I first saw it, is how the set builders only areas that failed the film was the recreation of the monitors on board the Discovery. The original 2001 film had those wonderful flat screens built into the console. As a way to ease filming for 2010 of those graphics on the screens, it's understandable they used CRT's in the place of the old back projection. But it looks so bad that the bezels are shown and you can see the curvature of the screens! Kubrick really nailed all the technical aspects of his film.

But as other have said, It's great to finally have this on BD now. Roy Scheider and the rest of the cast are great. A terrific movie.

Re: 2010 BD

I got the BD yesterday. What I notice the most that the interiors remind me so much of ALIEN.

The use of CRT's does date it but I get a kick about how Roy Scheider was using what can best be described as a laptop on the beach (I also like the little detail of the beer being in a packet, instead of a can).

I wonder how they managed to have Keir Dullea look essentially the same as he did in the 1960's in this movie.

Re: 2010 BD

Ah, yes the Apple IIc as a laptop Roy is using on the beach. Quite a advanced computer for 1984. Today he'd be using a Macbook Pro or Air!

I never noticed the beer packet until I saw it on the BD, some really fun product placements in the movie. The Omni magazine gag with Clarke and Kubrick on the cover is a really good one too.

Re: 2010 BD

You mean Time magazine. The Monolith was on the Omni cover.

It's too bad they couldn't recreate the "hub" set of the Discovery. It's noticeable by it's absence, but then again maybe Dave was hiding in there the whole time. I've never been able to decide if the last EVA pod in the bay is a goof or not.

Re: 2010 BD

Opps! I slipped again!

Speaking of the rotating portion of the Discovery set, I imagine Hyams didn't have the budget or time to build that!

I re-watched a large portion of 2001 on BD last night. The thing that strikes me about the sphere portion of the Discovery is the scale and how did they fit all those rooms, plus the rotating portion in there! I suspect it was all a little out of proportion. But then the lens that Kubrick used to film the centrifuge portion probably makes it look bigger then it was. That's okay, it's a movie. Though one of the most technically well done and accurate films of all time!

Re: 2010 BD

I've seen a cutaway cross-section diagram of the Discovery in a Japanese book, but I have no idea of the source. The centrifuge is nestled between the command deck and the pod bay.
The blueprints on this page suggest a different position for it.
Atomic Rocket: Decks: Deck Plans

Re: 2010 BD

That's great Bill, thanks for the link. It's how I imagined it would be.

Re: 2010 BD

I wondered that, too. That is assuming that after Dave re-entered Discovery, he remotely brought his pod back into the bay, which he took out again later, is the one left in there in the right position? Or did he take the other pod?

Re: 2010 BD

It's about half the price.

Re: 2010 BD

The pod is a goof -- or not, depending on who you ask. There was an excellent book published around the time the film first came out called "The Odyssey File" which contained early email correspondence between Peter Hyams (writer/director) and Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2010). Hyams asked Clarke a lot of questions about continuity and the like. The issue comes that the novel and film of 2001 are substantially different in certain sequences (for instance, how HAL tries to kill Dave), which results in some discrepancies. Essentially, Clarke told Hyams to go with whatever made the best movie, and if there were minor continuity errors, so be it.

That said, here's the pod situation as best I can figure it out.

Pod 1 (the left pod) was taken out of the ship (offscreen) by Poole; when HAL kills Poole, this pod drifts into space, and we're led to believe that it's lost. I suppose in theory Dave could have gone after it later, but I think it's pretty clear that that pod is gone.

Pod 2 (the center pod) was taken out of the ship (onscreen) by Bowman to retrieve Poole. When HAL locks Bowman out, Bowman uses the emergency airlock to re-enter Discovery. The explosive bolts blow the door to the pod, although we're never show exactly what happens next. I always assumed that pod was lost; presumably the door was floating in space in one direction, the pod itself in another, and who knows if Bowman had the ability to retrieve and repair the pod. I always assumed the second pod was lost after Bowman's re-entrance to Discovery.

The third pod... here's where there's a little bit of a continuity issue. We're shown that the left and center pods have been taken out and most likely lost in space, so there should be one pod remaining - the one to the right (from inside the pod bay -- from the outside of the ship, this would be the left). However, when we see Bowman leave Discovery for the last time, the pod comes out of the center door in the pod bay. There should have been only one pod remaining, the final pod, and that should have been the one that Bowman took on his final journey.

So it's up to the viewer to decide if Bowman retrieved the center pod and re-used it when he left the ship for the last time, or if it was a continuity error on Kubrick's part.

In terms of 2010, the pod being in the Discovery bay is both correct and incorrect, depending on how you want to look at it. In terms of being the sequel to the film, there shouldn't have been any pod in the pod bay, as Bowman should have used them all. Taking into account the possible continuity error in the first film, if there was a pod remaining at all, it should have been the right pod, and not the center one we're shown. HOWEVER, in the novel 2001, when Poole is killed outside the ship, Bowman doesn't go after him. So one pod is lost by Poole, and two remain. Bowman takes one of the remaining pods when he leaves Discovery for the last time, thus leaving one pod left in the pod bay.

In the novel 2010, the use of the extra pod in Discovery became a minor plot point, which is why I'm assuming Clarke decided to keep it in the book. (In most of the other areas where book and film of 2001 were different, in the 2010 novel Clarke for the most part went with the film's version of events rather than the novel's.) The pod doesn't actually serve a plot purpose in the film of 2010, so it didn't "need" to be there.

I was hoping someday I'd have a chance to recycle all of that useless information!

Re: 2010 BD

Cees

Re: 2010 BD

I always assumed the pod that's still in the bay in 2010 is the pod Bowman used to retrieve Poole. When Max and Curnow first enter the Discovery, Curnow shines his light through the pod and it's pretty obvious its missing its door even though Curnow reports that it seems intact.

Assuming he may need another pod somewhere down the line, not to mention knowing that they're probably pretty expensive, and planning on replacing the door at a later time, he either remote piloted it back into the bay (HAL obviously had that ability, and HAL was still somewhat in control of the ship as Bowman just cut his higher brain functions) or he went out and got it himself.

Re: 2010 BD

Mark, you bring up a very good point that I had not realized. As Curnow and Max pass that pod and shine a light in, I always thought how bad the scratches are on the glass window looked when it looked so pristine in 2001. (Bad set construction or the pod got dirty after 9 years!) I had not remembered that the doors were all closed in 2001 as Bowman had to ask HAL to open the doors!

So it makes sense that Bowman or HAL retrieved the pod that had the blown hatch.

Re: 2010 BD

Hmm... I don't know if I ever paid attention to the pod missing a door, I'll have to take a closer look at that next time I spin it up.

I have to say, if I had been Bowman... no hope of rescue, being trapped out there... rescuing the pod probably would be the least of my concerns, considering what had happened the last time I left the ship... then again, Bowman would be far better trained than I am and probably wouldn't have minded as much.