2001: A Space Odyssey is a 4K/UHD Release possible? (1 Viewer)

[Charles Smith]

The nearly-new 35mm print I ran back in 2004 was pillarboxed and had a DTS track in addition to Dolby Stereo. It was the best 35mm print I'd seen of the film and, I'm proud to say, I ran it L-O-U-D!

Wish I'd been there!

 

[john a hunter]

2001 had rightly the finest complement I can think for a film when a critic (don’t know who) said

“2001 ravishes the eye while gnaws at the brain”.

What more could you ask for from a work of art?

I would place 2001 in the handful of films which are among the finest ever made.

Happy to know that I would be far from alone.

 

[Steve Christou]

"Not a cinematic landmark. It compares with, but does not best, previous efforts at science fiction... It actually belongs to the technically-slick group previously dominated by George Pal and the Japanese." (Variety)

“The movie is so completely absorbed in its own problems, its use of color and space, its fanatical devotion to science fiction detail, that it is somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring.” (Renata Adler, New York Times)

"A shaggy god story." (John Simon)

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Wish I'd been there!

It was a wonderful night with Keir Dulles and Gary Lockwood on hand to do a q&a after the film. I think they talked for at least 60 minutes. I was so happy when I came downstairs after putting on the last big reel and found them alone in the lobby setting up their autograph table. It gave me the opportunity to chat privately, which was a thrill. We were interrupted by Gary saying "Sorry, but I want to see this" when he heard the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" music start. I ushered them inside and stood behind the back row with them, watching the final 20 minutes of the film.

 

[Charles Smith]

Where was this? At the Lafayette?

 

[questrider]

I'm going to try and check out the Music Box Theatre's new 70mm print over the week of the Fourth of July.

https://www.musicboxtheatre.com/films/2001-a-space-odyssey

Never seen it in the theater. It should be worthwhile!

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Where was this? At the Lafayette?

Yes, September 2004.

 

[john a hunter]

"Not a cinematic landmark. It compares with, but does not best, previous efforts at science fiction... It actually belongs to the technically-slick group previously dominated by George Pal and the Japanese." (Variety)

“The movie is so completely absorbed in its own problems, its use of color and space, its fanatical devotion to science fiction detail, that it is somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring.” (Renata Adler, New York Times)

"A shaggy god story." (John Simon)

You missed another gem from these geniuses-Pauline Kael "monumentally unimaginative"

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I'm not a fan of Pauline Kael. I don't think she even liked movies. She insisted that she had never seen a film twice in her life and that movies didn't have to be rewatched. I think she's someone in love with the sound of their own voice and that if you actually look at her writing, there's very little "there" there.

(I'm not saying that every movie demands multiple viewings, but for someone, a professional film critic no less, to say that no film could ever be worth viewing twice is so ridiculous that I'm flabbergasted.)

 

[Matt Hough]

I do think Pauline Kael had some insights into films that I found pleasurable to read, but like all critics, she was not infallible and had her weaknesses and failings. She was a very poor judge of musicals, for example, and often let her enthusiasms for her favorites like Brando, Streisand, Altman, and De Palma, for example, not allow her to see weaknesses in their work.

She was a guest lecturer for a film appreciation class that I took back in the 1970s, and she was certainly an interesting speaker with some unique ideas, but I also found her often contrary with people who sought her opinions and more negative than positive in general about movies.

 

[Osato]

I'm going to try and check out the Music Box Theatre's new 70mm print over the week of the Fourth of July.

https://www.musicboxtheatre.com/films/2001-a-space-odyssey

Never seen it in the theater. It should be worthwhile!

I saw it a few years back at the Merle hay mall cinema in Des Moines, Iowa. It was breathtaking and a reminder of how films are made for a big screen!!!
I saw so much detail and thing so that I previously had missed!

You'll really enjoy seeing it in a theater setting!

I like the film but understand those who don't care for it. It's been a number of years since I've watched it myself.

 

[Henry Gondorff]

The newer 70mm prints, such as one I recently saw at the Somerville Theater outside Boston, are lacking when compared to the original Cinerama mag prints from o-neg, but still worth seeing if you're going to watch it at all.

I saw it about a dozen times at least in Cinerama, before and after the cuts. And yes, the cuts improved the pacing. Kubrick just trimmed the interminable length of some scenes. He didn't want talk about the picture being draggy getting around, although I know some still think it is.

We're well past the point of arguing, or grousing, about the ending. With 2001, it's the journey, not the destination. AND it contains the most brilliantly conceived, original and clinically dispassionate multiple-murder scene ever committed to film. Talk about in COLD blood. I'm still chilled, if you will, by the inspired picture and sound editing of that sequence. Not a word of dialog nor a drop of blood.
LIFE FUNCTIONS TERMINATED_______________

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That terrified me when I was a kid, and still gives me chills. Those guys went into those hibernation pods thinking they'd wake up at Jupiter without feeling the passage of time, putting their complete trust in HAL and the system, and just never wake up. They weren't threatening HAL; he could have left them alone indefinitely. And maybe most horrifying, they look the same dead as alive. Not bad for a "G" rated movie.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

You missed another gem from these geniuses-Pauline Kael "monumentally unimaginative"

Well, I love 2001 but I recognize that it is not a film that is going to connect with many people...particularly now. So, when people point to those reviews I think you have to put them into context of the time they were written, what films they may have been comparing 2001 to, and just the idea that not all films are for everybody. Just because somebody likes or dislikes a film I don't think it is a reflection of their intelligence. I think Kael liked there to be dramatic interplay between people and enjoyed that in films and 2001 really does not make that a focus. We get interaction between apes and then the most drama you get is the interaction between Bowman and HAL and that is openly cold. So, I am just guessing the film was a slog for Kael...and it is for a lot of people.

Kubrick films in particular are films that are not going to please the widest possible range of people because they are not made to do this. Kubrick had to satisfy himself when making his pictures and so his standards needed to be met first and foremost and then he felt if he had made something interesting then audiences would find that too.

I have shown 2001 to groups of people maybe a half dozen times over the years and in general...sadly...the response was mostly negative. In fact the more recent the showing the more negative the response. Now, that's not to say all younger people or an audience of today dislike it, I've met some that love it the same way I do, but most of the ones I have watched it with are baffled that so many people speak of the film so highly.

The pacing of 2001 is, quite obviously, slow. However, this is because Kubrick really wanted people to immerse themselves in the images he was creating. He was allowing you the opportunity to take these things in and absorb them. This is the complete opposite of films today that pretty much want to turn just about anything into an action film with stuff zipping all over the frame in different directions. So, if you are used to manic editing and things flying in all directions...2001 is going to be nearly like looking at still photography.

Kubrick himself admitted that 2001 was, for him, an attempt at more pure visual storytelling. So, the key aspects of how the story is told are how the visuals, sound and the music merge and really I think this film is an epic demonstration of telling a story in this manner. Leone did this too. I mean just watch the train station opening of Once Upon a Time in the West and we are watching Kubrick level visual storytelling.

I think when people were writing reviews back then, meaning at the time 2001 came out, they were much more accustomed to there being dialogue exchanges that pushed the story forward. However, in 2001 the dialogue is not what is driving the story and that is intentional and at the time, back then, I think many people probably found that irritating. Plus what is said in the film mostly does not assist you in understanding the story and what the film is driving at. So, people used to looking for clues in the dialogue are going to be unhappy with this.

I once took part in a round table kind of discussion of 2001 and one of the guys there made a big deal about all the dialogue in the film that takes place in Dr. Floyd's section of the picture. Calling all of it pretty much meaningless. He was particularly disappointed that on the shuttle ride to the excavation site on the moon that the characters discuss lunch.

It was funny but his main point was that if Kubrick was going to have dialogue there he should have inserted dialogue that focused on the matter at hand...this bizarre discovery...and that they should have at least been discussing that. However, he seemed to miss that what Kubrick was expressing was that professionals, scientists, typically are going to react in a professional manner and that even when exploring a new and bizarre discovery they still are going to be human and pause for lunch. Plus the point that Kubrick is making here is he is NOT going to have the characters explain things to you through the dialogue and instead you are going to have to observe what is happening...pretty much in the same way the characters are observing what is happening.

Anyway, my point is I just don't expect everybody to love this picture. It is a film that I think encourages individuals to have their own sort of experience with it and this is not something very many films do. That is not going to ever be something that is palatable to a massive audience. I even think there are a lot of people that while they will say they appreciate the film they do not really enjoy it...and that's fine. I mean if you don't like strawberry ice cream why would you like it if somebody kept feeding you strawberry ice cream?

 

[Dick]

"Not a cinematic landmark. It compares with, but does not best, previous efforts at science fiction... It actually belongs to the technically-slick group previously dominated by George Pal and the Japanese." (Variety)

“The movie is so completely absorbed in its own problems, its use of color and space, its fanatical devotion to science fiction detail, that it is somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring.” (Renata Adler, New York Times)

"A shaggy god story." (John Simon)

2001 has been a divisive film from Day One. You loved it or you hated it, with little in between. To say it was "not a cinematic landmark" is to deny the film its proper place as one of the more controversial releases of the 60's, which became an instant cult classic (admittedly attracting a large proportion of the hippie drug culture seeking a big visual and aural high), and whose reputation and popularity has only grown during the past nearly fifty years. The film would almost certainly have played as a road show for a good deal longer than it did had MGM not squeezed it out of Cinerama theaters with its inferior ICE STATION ZEBRA.

Reading reviews from 1968, one will find there is no consensus. But the polarized critics, most of them completely baffled, seemed largely to be missing the point, trying to fit the plot into a neat and tidy little genre box which ultimately could not contain its scope. That neither Kubrick nor Arthur C. Clarke was willing to categorize or explain it despite constant inquiry (although the latter kind of did so with his subsequent novel sequels) says a lot about the public's generally puzzled reaction to the "meaning" of 2001, which today seems to be the very point of its existence. The film is about The Unknown. How can a critic's review explain The Unknown in five hundred words or less?

"Open to interpretation" in film is a wonderful experience for open-minded viewers, but it doesn't sit well with people seeking concrete answers to metaphysical questions. And even in its day, when people had longer attention spans, it pushed the envelope for those who expected some action, rather than a stately, leisurely-paced trip into space with less than dynamic characters (exception: HAL). My (very belated) reply to Renata Adler's review is: Unburden your narrow critical parameters by simply taking in the (still) unparalleled beauty and wonder of what you see and hear, and challenges to your narrow beliefs of what film should be, and let the experience of watching 2001 wash over you like a tone poem, and leave you contemplating something you had never before considered, and for which no easy answers apply.

 

[Alf S]

I lean toward the hate, but hate is a strong word. I more or less dislike the film because it bored me to tears every time I'd try to watch it. I recall having to watch it in a Film Studies class in college and writing about it. I think most of the class (1980's) disliked it and were also bored by it.

However, I will agree that it is an amazing piece of film-making, especially for its day and is an important part of cinematic history, you'd be foolish not to at least admit that.

If I tried to show it to my kids for example, I know pretty much for a fact that they wouldn't make it 15 minutes before walking away from it.

 

[titch]

Well, I love 2001 but I recognize that it is not a film that is going to connect with many people...particularly now. So, when people point to those reviews I think you have to put them into context of the time they were written, what films they may have been comparing 2001 to, and just the idea that not all films are for everybody. Just because somebody likes or dislikes a film I don't think it is a reflection of their intelligence. I think Kael liked there to be dramatic interplay between people and enjoyed that in films and 2001 really does not make that a focus. We get interaction between apes and then the most drama you get is the interaction between Bowman and HAL and that is openly cold. So, I am just guessing the film was a slog for Kael...and it is for a lot of people.

My experience of many classic films changes as I get older and see them again. The first time I saw 2001 was on the Criterion laserdisc rigged up to a 29 inch TV back in 1989. I read up about it first, I tried very hard to like it, but I found it tedious. Of all Kubrick's films I had seen up to that point, 2001 was the one I liked the least. I saw it again a couple of times during the 90's and after I knew what to expect, I started to appreciate it a good deal more. I then went to London and saw it on a new 70 mm print at the Curzon Mayfair, then London's biggest screen, in April 2001. It was a profound experience for me, but my friends, who came with me to see it for the first time were baffled as to why I was raving about it! 2001 was one of the first blu-ray discs I purchased when I bought a projector and I hope one day that a 4K version will be released. 2001 is not the only classic I thought overrated, the first time I saw it. I found Citizen Kane boring and I hated the Wizard Of Oz too!

 

[Worth]

I'm a fan of the film, but I don't entirely disagree with "...the movie is so completely absorbed in its own problems, its use of color and space, its fanatical devotion to science fiction detail, that it is somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring."

 

[Henry Gondorff]

One of the things I remember about the original Cinerama showings is how the voice of HAL was put through every speaker in the theater, making it as ubiquitous as it was in the space station.

I'm glad someone made the point of mentioning that the roadshow run was cut short by the release of Ice Station Zebra, a real shame because the film had finally found its audience and was doing exceptional repeat business.

As to those who recall people walking out of the film in befuddlement, I remember taking my then-girlfriend to see it for her first time after my praising it ad infinitum. It was a beautiful 70mm screening during the (year) 2001 reissue. About halfway through the Dawn Of Man sequence, she leaned over and whispered in my ear: "There ARE going to be people in this, aren't there?"

 

[Nelson Au]

I've posted this website before, but maybe it's worth posting again. A very enterprising 2001 fan built a very well done site with animations that explains 2001. You may or may not agree with it. But it's done well.

http://www.kubrick2001.com/