2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY - Does the sequel 2010 THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT explain it all?

there has always been much discussion and confusion about the ending of stanley kubrick's 2001 as space odyssey but there is a sequel to this historic film in the form of peter heim's 2010 year we make contact which is based on arthur c clarke's follow-up novel 2010 odyssey 2. as a result i think the question should really be does the sequel provide all the answers i think it does so let's take a look [Music] my first experience of 2001 as space odyssey was a television broadcast in the late 1970s hardly the best introduction to one of the most historic and beautiful films of all time but it did introduce me to the controversial ending which no one at the time seemed to understand subsequent viewings of the film on vhs tape did nothing to enhance the enjoyment but it was evident that there was something special within the cropped poor quality imagery i was seeing there had been a sunnier vision super 8 release of 2001 in 1980 and eventually i was lucky enough to obtain one of these prints however as i pointed out in my previous video in 2001 a space odyssey it was not exactly the best super8 print ever produced however it did give me the opportunity to study the original widescreen frame and in particular to analyze that confusing ending i think it was early in 1985 that the sequel 2010 ue make contact opened at the empire leicester square and i remember how impressive it looked on that huge screen i couldn't believe it when kier dulai appeared reprising his role of david bowman and looking exactly as he had so many years before but i was aware the film was somewhat different in approach to that taken by stanley kubrick once again a super 8 feature release ensued which i was able to purchase and looking at it today it is easy to see that peter hyams needed his film to appeal to an audience in a new era and hence why the interplanetary space sequences had the quiet drone of spacecraft engines overlaid to them rather than the accurate silence of the kubrick film the narrative was also driven by the dialogue rather than the imagery and in general the whole nature of the sequel was more conventional a brief resume of the events of 2001 at the opening of 2010 led to the opening line of dialogue my god it's full of stars which was clearly not in 2001 but acted as an introduction to start explaining the inexplicable events at the conclusion of 2001. david bowman was apparently still communicating with mission control back on earth and that opening line was his last transmission this line might still have made little sense at the start of 2010 but it certainly did by the end of it the events of 2010 unfold in an easily comprehensible manner which is the antithesis of 2001 2010 is a voyage to investigate what happened to the jupiter discovery mission nine years earlier and the main character is once more dr haywood floyd this time he is played by roy scheider and he is a far more modern communicative person than he was in 2001 which portrayed him as far more formal exacerbated by the production being predominantly filmed from a distance floyd believes all the answers are out there and the monolith contains those answers along the way they discover something remarkable on jupiter's moon europa something which floyd is convinced his life and a warning of some sort increasingly he believes the monolith is behind everything the impression we are being given is that the monolith is a creation of some other form of intelligent life in 2001 it appears from nowhere and interacts with ancient man with the inference that it pushes man's intelligence forward in some way a man thereby suddenly comes to solve a problem in the form of using a bone as a weapon ultimately this leads to space travel and finding a buried monolith on the moon which is then awoken and transmits something in the direction of jupiter evidently this monolith was awaiting its discovery by man and had been programmed to send an alert once it had been discovered the discovery mission to jupiter was not informed about the events leading up to this point but we find out in 2010 that hal the on-board computer had been told and ordered to keep all knowledge of those events from the crew thereby explaining its irrational murderous behavior once in orbit around jupiter a giant version of the monolith is found orbiting the planet and dave bowman sets out in a small reconnaissance craft to investigate my god it's full of stars that's how we are served up the concluding act of 2001 a space odyssey that has caused such a mystery to so many ever since at the time the film was made i don't suppose stanley kubrick cared if it caused confusion because he just wanted to make a space film that was both accurate and different and he certainly achieved that by having both 2001 and 2010 as scope super 8 features for so many years i've been able to study both of these films over and over again and i've formed my own conclusions with regard to what we were shown at the end of 2001. roy scheider's dr haywood floyd wraps things up at the conclusion of 2010 with a narrative overlay which tells us we have been given a new lease and a warning by the landlord this corresponds with my own take on 2001 which is that the monolith represents the creator whatever that may be and i suspect it can mean different things to different people the giant monolith is still a little unclear to me but evidently it is the link between us and the creator dave bowman ventures out to the giant monolith and becomes one with a creator whereupon he is returned to earth as some sort of messenger that message seems to mirror the origin of christianity and i doubt that is a coincidence before getting there though bowman is subjected to a terrifying journey where he has shown the universe and taken back to the very beginning of creation in the form of the big bang the split-screen special effects created by douglas trumbull represent light speed and traveling great distances while also moving back through time the birth of stars and planet formations can be discerned and also strange looking shapes that appear to represent spacecraft orbiting other worlds thereby suggesting intelligent life exists in abundance elsewhere ultimately bowman finds himself in a hotel room and it is clear this is more of a representation of what a hotel room looks like as interpreted by another worldly or alien intelligence from now on he is to spend his existence throughout eternity being looked after by the creator and we see his transformation from young man to old man before lying on his deathbed reaching out to a monolith that has appeared at the base of his bed then he is reborn and returned to earth as the climax and conclusion of one of the most important cinematic masterpieces of all time which no one understood dave bowman appears to dr haywood floyd in 2010 the ewing make contact but it is apparent that he is a shadow of the person floyd and we knew as dave bowman he has been permitted the time to give the people on the jupiter mission a warning that they must leave within two days but that is all other than something is going to happen something wonderful bowman's portrayal is the same representation of the bowman we saw transforming into an old man and then becoming a star child at the end of 2001 so it is clear he is no longer a human as we know humanity i did read both arthur c clarke's 2001 a space odyssey and 2010 odyssey 2 but that was a long time ago now and i have little recollection of the events in the 2010 novel as the film is based on the novel it certainly appears and mr clark had a clear interpretation of the events in 2001 and he was able to clarify them with 2010. i've not read the two further books 2061 and 3001 as i feel that everything was wrapped up satisfactorily at the conclusion of 2010 being as the empire where i saw 2010 is one of the main premier cinemas in the uk i was able to purchase the programme release with the film and when i then obtained a copy of the film on super 8 i also got the soundtrack which still sounds exceptional to this day the opening track is a pop representation of thus spake zarathustra or also sprach zarathustra and it is fabulous but so is much of the rest of the score which gives a desolate long distance feeling which represents the movie well 2001 has to be one of the most written about and analyzed films of all time and there have been some excellent books on the subject i was fortunate enough to be living in central london and a frequent customer at the cinema store on samartin's lane in the west end when gary lockwood came over gary played frank paul in 2001 and he was on a book signing tour so not only did i grab a copy of that but i also had one of his signed photographs featuring an iconic scene from 2001. he and kia both signed each other's photos for conventions and this print was no exception it was only later on that i realised kyra had also signed a forward in gary's book and thus both these items form a special part of my movie-related collection i will leave a link to my original video about 2001 a space odyssey in the description below this details why it looks so good on 4k uhd blu-ray disc as i record this the sequel has not yet been released in 4k but the blu-ray is of good quality there is slight sideways movement on the print used for the transfer throughout its running time which will predominantly be more distracting for those of us who project rather than watch on a television owing to the size differential but the image is sharp and the color and density are very good however compared to the super 8 print from kemsky of germany the blu-ray is a little brighter and the side effect of this is that the fabulous special effects on occasion do not look as good as they really are the definition is better on the blu-ray but the more natural and accurate look of the super 8 means i'll be watching on super 8 in the future the blu-ray here in the uk is part of the hmv premium collection and is therefore worth collecting anyway the premium collection titles come in fairly sturdy boxes and often have four postcards and a poster included and 2010 is no exception in this regard 2001 on 4k is among the best of all 4k releases so far there are better out there but similarly to the transfer of my fair lady another 65 millimeter production i was told the original camera negative was duped years ago much of the original negative for my fair lady was also duped but much had also turned to dust so quite how much of the original 2001 negative made it into the duplication process is unknown others believe the original negative for 2001 has survived despite apparently being the most used negative in history for the production of 70 millimeter release prints 35 millimeter general release prints do not come from the negative but from the inter positive which is two generations down from the negative as such a negative usually sees little use that was not the case for 2001 and it is still in demand today for 70 millimeter screenings around the world whatever is being used to produce these prints today seeing 2001 on 70 millimeter film is still a very special occasion and i urge anyone to take the chance if it is presented maybe sometime i'll see some of you at one of the few remaining cinemas able to screen 70 millimeter but until then or until the next video bye bye for now you

Channel: Movie Collector

Views: 21,241

Keywords: 4K UHD, BLU-RAY, 70mm, 35mm, SUPER 8, FILM CRITICISMS, FILM REVIEW, FILM ANALYSIS, STANLEY KUBRICK

Id: NHinyOgrnvM

Length: 12min 14sec (734 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 07 2021