2001 Special Edition coming? (1 Viewer)

[Holadem]

I would love a commentary on 2001. I have come to realize lately that the best commentaries are done by third parties such as Roger Ebert or some other film scholar, rather than the creators, as the former tend to focus more on analysis than jokes and anecdotes (this guy showed up waisted on the set... three fingers were broken in the making of this part... it was freezing that morning... who gives a shit?).

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Holadem

 

[Patrick McCart]

Perhaps a supplemental DVD called "Beyond 2001: A Space Odyssey" could be released.

Even the Criterion didn't have many extras (outside of text/photo based stuff and the trailer and interview)...

Perhaps a making-of documentary could be made which has people explaining the visual effects, symbolism, etc of the film.

 

[Steve Christou]

I wasn't that impressed with the remastered edition of 2001, I probably expected too much, it could have been a lot better. Cleopatra (1963) and North by Northwest were more impressive transfers IMO and they are older films.

A film with 2001's reputation deserves more, a full-on 2-disc special edition would be more than welcome, with the film presented in superbit format on the 1st disc, and if possible squeeze in a commentary or trivia track. An option to play the film with Alex North's rejected score playing on a seperate audio track might be interesting.

Channel 4 produced a good 60mins documentary on 2001, that could be included on the 2nd disc, along with any deleted scenes, hilarious outtakes, photo galleries, trailers, music videos etc etc.

 

[Michael Harris]

It would seem to me that Warner lost a great marketing opportunity to produce an SE of "2001" in, dare I say it, AD 2001. Oh well.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

It would seem to me that Warner lost a great marketing opportunity to produce an SE of "2001" in, dare I say it, AD 2001. Oh well.

Yeah, that was the time to do it, alright; they missed the boat.

I love this film. The first time I saw it was on late night TV in widescreen and I was pulverized - obsessed for months. It's an astonishing film.

The 1hr documentary that was shown on Channel 4 here in Britain, hosted by James Cameron was, in my humble opinion, very disappointing. Ponderous and hokey; why was the actress who played the 'stewardess' interviews?! But it has some good moments. The original 1967/68 featurette is superb and I wish that it was on the current DVD. Great voice-over!

I believe that Kubrick stated he didn't like special features on the Laserdiscs, VHS and DVD editions of his film, and even though some of his film have special features, I doubt that you'll be seeing SE DVDs of his films any time soon.

There was a docu on A Clockwork Orange that was shown on Channel 4 a few years back and it is superb.

As much as I love all of Kubrick's films, I am perfectly happy with the current DVDs.

2001 will be one of the first films I buy on HD-DVD.


Gordy

 

[Kevin M]

I suppose you could get Douglas Trumbull to do a commentary track concentrating on the effects of the film plus a few behind the scenes stories....however I have an interview with him from a 1978 issue of Fantastic Films that was less than complementary on some of the wacky things that Kubrick did on the set in order to achieve the semblance of "meaning" in a story that was at best incomplete until well after the film was 80% in the can, Clark has similar (although a bit more complementary) stories to tell in his book The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1972).
It would be interesting to hear some musings from other people on the set as well as Trumbull...
(From the august 1978 Interview in Fantastic Films)
Trumbull: "...they fall through holes in the ground and end up in a cavern and then in a strange room. They're both in the strange room and then this giant twenty foot tall green man comes out"
FF: Is this for real?
Trumbull: "Sure. Kubrick spent a lot of time trying to make this big tall green man. They sort went off in all directions, from rubber monsters to all kinds of other things, trying to do these extraterrestrials...in a sense it was always a giggle because we had unlimited time & unlimited money to fool around and have a good time."

..some pretty weird stuff.

 

[Rich Malloy]

It would seem to me that Warner lost a great marketing opportunity to produce an SE of "2001" in, dare I say it, AD 2001. Oh well.

Warners barely got "2001" on the bigscreen for the year 2001, and I think that only came when everybody started wondering why they'd dropped the ball by not doing it.

But to give credit where it's due, I'm just nuts about the remastered Kubrick boxset. It's not perfect, but it's so damn good, and I watch these DVDs more than just about any others in my collection. I hope I'm not labeled a heretic for saying so, but I'm also crazy for the 5.1 remixes. The music cues in "The Shining" never sounded so good, and "FMJ" is one of the finest sound (re)designs I've heard. The depth of the soundstage during the battle scenes is quite impressive.