2010 BD (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

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!

 

[SilverWook]

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

 

[Nelson Au]

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

 

[Anthony Hom]

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?

 

[sestamuch]

It's about half the price.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

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!

 

[Cees Alons]

Cees

 

[Mark Hawley]

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.

 

[Nelson Au]

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.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

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.

 

[JamesTLewis]

Watched this for the first time today.. and found an error!

Chapter 22. Timecode 1:22:29 Roy Scheider says "yes"

The image glitches and breaks up. Tried this on a Panasonic BD35 and Playstation 3, same problem. Both machine firmwares are up to date, disc is spotless.

Another poster on a UK AV forum has confirmed he has found the same error. We both have The US BD disc.

Anyone else seen this or could verify if you have the same problem?

cheers in advance.

 

[Jeff Robertson]

I didn't notice anything on my previous viewings of the disc. I will fire it up later today and have a closer look.

Originally Posted by JamesTLewis

Watched this for the first time today.. and found an error!

Chapter 22. Timecode 1:22:29 Roy Scheider says "yes"

The image glitches and breaks up. Tried this on a Panasonic BD35 and Playstation 3, same problem. Both machine firmwares are up to date, disc is spotless.

Another poster on a UK AV forum has confirmed he has found the same error. We both have The US BD disc.

Anyone else seen this or could verify if you have the same problem?

cheers in advance.

 

[cineMANIAC]

I have a novel idea that the studios may want to look into: They have marketing teams, right? People that their only job is to conduct research to find out what customers want. I assume that these people are in the business of giving people what they want so how about actually asking people what they would like to see released on Special Edition DVD? I nominate 2010. A flawed film, yes, but one that deserves better treatment anyway. We don't need 3 commentaries or a 2-hr making-of documentary, just re-master the film and produce a brief featurette on the movie and it's place in the pantheon of cinema.

 

[Nelson Au]

James-

I checked out my blu ray of that sequence to which you refer. All I see is a slight jump in the image at the moment he says, "yes". It sort of looks like either a jump cut and some frames are missing, or the video tape it was sourced from had a slight glitch. I say video tape because the "jump" sort of looks like the image is also slightly tearing like a video image would. Just slightly, you really have to look for it to see it. But I don't see any image break-up.

So I checked the DVD too. The same jump appears at the same point. The jump looks the same as the blu ray.

Then I pulled out the old laserdisc from Image that came out about 1989. Guess what! The same jump appears at the same point on the laserdisc!

This tells me the 2010 blu ray disc was made from the same source as the laserdisc and DVD! Perhaps the original film elements always had that jump. But this little experiment does not explain why you see the image break-up.

What is interesting is, as I said in an earlier post, the Blu ray is a cleaned up image compared to the DVD. It's brighter and dust spots has been removed. So I don't know if the same source was used to master the blu ray release. That just tells me the jump is likely in the film.

Anyone else?

 

[Brandon Conway]

I see what you see Nelson (minus the DVD and LD comparison).

 

[JamesTLewis]

Originally Posted by Nelson Au

James-

I checked out my blu ray of that sequence to which you refer. All I see is a slight jump in the image at the moment he says, "yes". It sort of looks like either a jump cut and some frames are missing, or the video tape it was sourced from had a slight glitch. I say video tape because the "jump" sort of looks like the image is also slightly tearing like a video image would. Just slightly, you really have to look for it to see it. But I don't see any image break-up.

So I checked the DVD too. The same jump appears at the same point. The jump looks the same as the blu ray.

Then I pulled out the old laserdisc from Image that came out about 1989. Guess what! The same jump appears at the same point on the laserdisc!

This tells me the 2010 blu ray disc was made from the same source as the laserdisc and DVD! Perhaps the original film elements always had that jump. But this little experiment does not explain why you see the image break-up.

What is interesting is, as I said in an earlier post, the Blu ray is a cleaned up image compared to the DVD. It's brighter and dust spots has been removed. So I don't know if the same source was used to master the blu ray release. That just tells me the jump is likely in the film.

Anyone else?

Fantastic. I Have never owned this movie before, and I jumped at the chance when it came out on blu. From what you are describing.. It's exactly what I am seeing too. SO it's not an image "break up" at all! Thanks for all your hard work! Nice One!

I wonder if it's the only print available then?

Anyway.. Love the film to bits, and it's great to have it on Blu.. Jump and all!

 

[Nelson Au]

You're welcome! I like the movie too as you can probably tell!

 

[Jeff Robertson]

I see the same thing on my disc. It looks a lot like a brief "rewind". I never noticed it before it was pointed out here.

No breakup of the image follows though.

 

[JamesTLewis]

Olga Kowaite At WB customer services has passed this anomaly off to the Technical dept for some answers! Fingers crossed.

 

[Nelson Au]

Look forward to hearing what they come back to you with!