2001 A Space Odyssey -Minor Spolier

Cafe Society
21

Yes.

I’ll admit it. I skip it.

I have seen it with the intro, and have no problem with it. However, it isn’t one of those movies (for me, anyway) that I need to see each and every part for me to enjoy.

I enjoy it just fine without the opening. I remember when I saw it the first time thinking “what in the hell am I watching?” And hating it. But after seeing the complete movie, the first part made sense and on subsequent viewings I watched the beginning and enjoyed it. I really didn’t get it the first time I saw it… I was a small kid and Kubrick was way over my head.

Aging has a way of making you understand and appreciate things that you just can’t grasp as a kid. But I am not like the others in this thread that feel like I have missed something if I skip it now. It isn’t a movie I consider one of my personal masterpieces, so I don’t feel like I am cheating the Director’s vision.

22

I think I first saw it on broadcast TV, possibly even on the 19" B&W set we had for so long. But I had read the book several times (the version that goes to Saturn), so it was not that much a heresy to see it that way. Except for the damn commercials.

23

I had the same experience; saw it in a theater when I was 7 or 8 and was bored to tears, but never forgot it, either. A couple decades later I saw it again in the same theater, and was blown away.