A Few Words About A few words about...™ 2010 The Year We Make Contact -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

For those followers of the Kubrickian religion, the sequel to 2001 has arrived on Blu-ray, and Mr. Hyams film, love it or hate it, looks terrific on WB's Blu-ray.

Well terrific short of the most poorly exposed logo ever to hit the Blu-ray format. I sometimes have no idea what people are thinking, or how a disc can pass QC, but regardless, there is a logo.

For its fans, this is a disc that they've been waiting for, brought to Blu-ray with all of its quality intact -- save for the logo. As an aside, one of SK's absolutes re: the original was to have absolutely black star fields. Fortunately the blacks in 2010 work nicely.

RAH

 

[Michael Rogers]

By logo are you talking about the shockingly bad looking MGM Diamond Jubilee logo?

 

[Nelson Au]

I think so Michael, it was a shock when I saw how bad that logo looked!

 

[Powell&Pressburger]

At least the log wasn't replaced, would rather have it bad looking then replaced at all.

 

[Dave H]

Agreed...I was just going to post this.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I remember the logo always looking bad... in fact, I saw a 35mm print of 2010 projected last summer, and the logo looked pretty crappy there. I remember for a moment thinking "Oh crap, is this gonna be a bad print?" but the film itself looked far better than the logo.

 

[Nelson Au]

Guys, for the past several weeks, I’ve been on a bender of all things 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’ve reading about the past traveling shows where props and surviving costumes and new recreated models of the ships from the first film are on display. And I’ve been looking at the great Robert McCall artwork used on the film posters.

I did watch the 4K blu ray of 2001 last week on my new 4K OLED display. My first time seeing the film on a 4K disc. That was a great immersive experience as the display is a bit bigger then my old plasma.

I wanted to follow up with 2010: The Year We Make Contact. So it was the first time seeing this old blu ray on my new display. Again, I always enjoy watching this movie do it’s own thing verses the 1968 film. I did find it interesting to go straight from 2001 to 2010 as the differences were more jarring then I expected. Such as Roy Scheider‘s performance of Floyd as opposed to William Sylvester’s much more restrained performance.

My new display really showed the good and bad of the 2009 blu ray. Whether the deficiencies are due to the way Hyam’s filmed the movie, or any deficiencies are due to a poor transfer I don’t know. The blu ray though is miles ahead of the earlier DVD and laser disc where the blackness of space was more grey. Space is black! The photo chemical composites of Max and Curnow as they do the space walk still shows their faces in some shots appear too bright. Or however it’s described. But the effects shots are great looking. When Curnow and Max enter Discovery and walk into the pod bay, the shot is very grainy, they must have been pushing the exposure in that shot.

Shots done in the Leonov and on Earth appear nice, but I wondered if contrast could be improved. Some things don’t change, as I remembered when I first saw the film, the quality of the Discovery rebuilt sets are just lacking. The paint in the surfaces really look poor especially in the cockpit on the display panels. And using CRTs instead of the flat rear projection panels in 2001 really looks like a lower grade effort. They did do a very decent job recreating the Discovery pod bay. But they appeared to use some smoke, perhaps to help diffuse the shot. So not as clean and sharp as Kubrick’s film. But I’m nitpicking, the Leonov sets are great in comparison as these are new designs. There’s texture in the paint as if a roller was used to apply it in the Leonov pod bay. That’s always been visible though going back to DVD.

Overall, I wondered if a new remastering will ever be done. The 2009 disc is very watchable but I wonder if it can get better. Audio wise, I thought there was some nice use of the bass frequencies. But I didn’t really notice any surround effects. I thought I recalled on the DVD more directional effects.

Certainly the 2010 blu ray is a big difference from the 4K 2001 disc!

 

[Keith Cobby]

2001 is the space masterpiece, but this is a worthy successor. Great central performance from Roy Scheider, particularly at the beginning when he contemplates leaving his young son for the long journey from which he may not return. Peter Hyams made a fine film but we can only wonder how different it would have been had Stanley Kubrick agreed to make it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think “2010” the film is a wonderful adaptation of Clarke’s “2010” novel. I try not to think about it in terms of being a film exactly like “2001” because that’s not what it’s setting out to do. If Kubrick had accepted Clarke’s offer to work on a sequel together, no doubt it would have wound up being a different kind of story. But I love the idea of telling this from the perspective of the people on Earth, who obviously would have had no idea what went wrong with the Discovery mission.

I thought Mike Flanagan did a similarly outstanding job in making Doctor Sleep, based on Stephen King’s sequel novel to The Shining. It’s not an easy job to step into a world that’s already established, especially when the cinematic version diverges from the source material in ways that require some clever reconciling.

The “2010” Blu-ray is a major step up from the older, non anamorphic DVD. It’s likely from an IP rather than the original negative. 2010 was shot on 35mm film, rather than 2001’s 70mm, and the differences in film stocks, lenses, lighting and set design means they’ll never be a perfect match to each other. But the Blu-ray as best as I can recall is a very close match to the 35mm prints of the film that I’ve seen. Could it be improved? Probably, but I wouldn’t expect a revelation either. I think the transfer probably dates to a few years before the disc came out - I remember it played regularly on HDNet which was a big deal compared to that DVD.

Regarding the bass, it’s always been notable as a heavy bass movie. I remember reviews of the laserdisc way back when even noted that.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks for the comments guys. Agreed it’s a Hyams film. I was checking the cast list and I had no idea that Candice Bergen did the voice for Sal 9000!

In thinking about the film quality we are seeing in this blu ray, I’m beginning to think you’re right Josh. I’ve also seen this film in the theater. It’s been a long time, but I’m thinking we are seeing a pretty close facsimile of the film in this blu ray. It’s likely the film stock used and cinematography that give it the look it has.

 

[JoshZ]

In thinking about the film quality we are seeing in this blu ray, I’m beginning to think you’re right Josh. I’ve also seen this film in the theater. It’s been a long time, but I’m thinking we are seeing a pretty close facsimile of the film in this blu ray. It’s likely the film stock used and cinematography that give it the look it has.

Keep in mind that Peter Hyams does his own cinematography, and he's a big fan of shooting in natural light as much as possible. He doesn't care for the typical look of studio lighting. As a result, he often shoots on high-speed film stocks with the camera aperture wide open, and frequently needs to push the exposure in the lab if shots come out too dark. Most of his movies have a common grainy and drab appearance.

2010 of course was mostly shot on soundstage sets, not outdoors, but even then he tried to keep most of the lighting confined to diegetic sources you can see in the scenes, rather than big overhead lighting rigs.

Most of the model and effects shots in 2010 (shot by an FX crew) are notably much sharper, clearer, and better lit than the footage with actors that Hyams shot himself.

 

[Robert Crawford]

In some regards, I enjoy watching 2010 more than 2001. I know I'm in the minority, but I always enjoyed 2010. Not so much 2001, when it first came out as I thought it was boring as hell. It took years for that film to grow on me.

 

[Keith Cobby]

2001 is a 'marmite' film (as I suppose all great masterpieces are) and although I love it, many people (my wife included) think it's like watching paint dry.

We visited the Mona Lisa in the Louvre some years ago, and we both thought 'is that it', a small and fairly insignificant painting!

 

[Robert Crawford]

2001 is a 'marmite' film (as I suppose all great masterpieces are) and although I love it, many people (my wife included) think it's like watching paint dry.

We visited the Mona Lisa in the Louvre some years ago, and we both thought 'is that it', a small and fairly insignificant painting!

Many people see the beauty of such a masterpiece while others look at it as a painting of some homely woman. The subjectivity of art appreciation is still underestimated by many people.

 

[benbess]

....We visited the Mona Lisa in the Louvre some years ago, and we both thought 'is that it', a small and fairly insignificant painting!

OT....

Obviously no painting can live up to the reputation that the Mona Lisa has.

But look at the background landscape behind Mona Lisa. Is that Italy? No. Is it even planet Earth? Not clear. This is taken to a greater extreme in Leonardo's Madonna of the Rocks.

Leonardo da Vinci studied many things, including human anatomy, as well as landscapes and weather patterns. He once wrote that a landscape can be thought of as a bit like the human body, with the mountains and rocks as bones, and the rivers and lakes somewhat similar to the liquids in a person. In making this painting he might have been thinking of the possible hidden parallels between these two very different things.

Once he made a study of the "Brownian motion" of water as it's poured into a large body of water. He later made a painting of a woman whose curls in her hair are very similar to his studies of water motion. Leonardo was often looking for the hidden connections between seemingly very different things.

Making a painting like this takes many sittings, each sitting being a couple of hours. During that time Leonardo and the woman of the Mona Lisa would have conversed. It can be imagined that they even shared secrets. Her subtle smile makes us almost feel as if she is reacting to us, as if she might know our secrets.

"We now return you to your regularly scheduled program."

 

[JoshZ]

The one trip I made to The Louvre, the entire crowd of mostly tourists rushed straight to the Mona Lisa as soon as the museum's doors opened. It was hard to get much of a look at the painting itself, much less to study it in detail. I think it's pretty much inevitable that it would underwhelm in those circumstances.

 

[Dick]

In some regards, I enjoy watching 2010 more than 2001. I know I'm in the minority, but I always enjoyed 2010. Not so much 2001, when it first came out as I thought it was boring as hell. It took years for that film to grow on me.

Bet you didn't have the chance to see it on a Cinerama screen when first released. Even the slower moments were overwhelming and beautiful, and kept my full attention.

 

[sbjork]

Bet you didn't have the chance to see it on a Cinerama screen when first released. Even the slower moments were overwhelming and beautiful, and kept my full attention.

My father saw it on the 103ft wide Cinerama screen at the Cooper Theatre in St. Louis Park, MN, and came away thoroughly unimpressed. So that wasn't necessarily a panacea.

I've always been insanely jealous of that experience being wasted on him. I was born in '67, so I never had the chance.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Bet you didn't have the chance to see it on a Cinerama screen when first released. Even the slower moments were overwhelming and beautiful, and kept my full attention.

I didn't see it on a Cinerama screen as the closest such screen to me in 1968, was an hour long train raid to NYC. So a regular movie screen was the best I had at that time and it just bored me. Perhaps, I was too young to appreciate the movie as I think you are a few years older than I.

 

[bujaki]

I didn't see it on a Cinerama screen as the closest such screen to me in 1968, was an hour long train raid to NYC. So a regular movie screen was the best I had at that time and it just bored me. Perhaps, I was too young to appreciate the movie as I think you are a few years older than I.

You are younger than springtime.