Heh. I have a HAL T-shirt, which I wore when I went to a Terry Pratchett book signing. He remarked on it. (Monstrous Regiment was the book.)
Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t been released in 4K Ultra-HD yet.
Since this thread got bumped anyway, I thought I would throw in a recommendation for Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece by Michael Benson (this was published a couple of months ago, but last week I finally made it to the top of the library waiting list). I thought I knew a lot about 2001, but this book contains tons of surprises (surprises to me, anyway).
If you love 2001, I guarantee you will enjoy this book.
How does it compare with Clarke’s The Lost Worlds of 2001?
That’s an interesting question. Benson’s book has a much broader scope; he describes a lot of things that Clarke didn’t know much about because he wasn’t directly involved. And the things Clarke was involved in are discussed much more thoroughly, because Benson interviewed Clarke and got a lot more detail out of him.
Of course, Lost Worlds has Clarke’s story material that didn’t make it into the film or the novel, so it’s still well worth having.
Looks great - thanks!
Harkins theaters in Phoenix are showing it on the big screen this week.
I still think it’s glacially paced, but I’m in! Never saw it on the big screen before.
Regarded in the film business as “The 10-Million Year Edit”.
Great story. Kubrick shot the bone turning over and over in the air, hand-held, walking back to the studio building one day. He had someone throw it into the air, and kept doing takes as it entered the frame, rolled, etc etc until he thought he had it.
Of course, if he didn’t, it was simple to re-shoot. Here’s the moments leading up to the edit and the cut..
Talk about visual economy…
Here’s my earlier thread on meeting Keir Dullea (who played Bowman in 2001), in which he said, “From the very first weapon to maybe the last… only Stanley would think of that.”
For once I was able to get out of the house and to the cinema to catch it again last week. It held up well, much more enjoyable on the big screen too.
Thanks for reminding me. I heard him interviewed on Science Friday, and was impressed.
BTW, I went to the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, and they had a great 2001 section, including interviews providing info I didn’t know before. If it is touring and winds up in your area, go.
For instance, the woman who played the stewardess on the Pan Am shuttle to the space station was interviewed. When she auditioned she had a heavy cold and took cold medicine which made her wobbly. The actresses were asked to walk down a carpet for their audition. She wobbled all over the place, which was exactly what Kubrick was looking for in a zero-G environment, so she got the part.
BTW, I read a book of his on vintage sf films up to 1949. The guy has seen everything. Recommended for trivia buffs - also well written.
One of the neatest things in that exhibition was a scale model of the maze from The Shining…made by Adam Savage (Mythbusters).
Did it mention this bizarre documentary?: Room 237 - Wikipedia
I think maybe in one of the labels, but I’m not sure. I’m familiar with that but haven’t seen it. It’s not my favorite Kubrick movie.
They did have some clips from his first feature on a fighter and his first movie, which are is now available on Netflix DVD. That also includes an industrial he did for the Seaman’s union, which was amusing in that he lingered on some pinups far more than the approved script probably called for.
w of the video toasters today would make it easier. Back then, this is how it was done: One frame at a time.
Dang it. It was supposed to say, Not Photoshop but the use of video toasters at the beginniing there.
Saw it in Phoenix. it was a 70mm print. They had the full road show effect. Overture music, intermission music.
Observations: the images of the moon look amazing, they look like photographs; the images of the earth look like…paintings. A limitation of being made before good quality cameras made it into space. Jupiter isn’t bad, but it lacks all the detail we now know is there.
The space based scenes are still amazing. Tumbling Poole still looks real.
The star gate sequence is still boring, unintelligible at any speed, and interminable.
After seeing all the footage from life on the ISS, having the 2001 space ship designers go to all the trouble to simulate gravity with Velcro slippers seems so silly. Everyone loves to fly in space. No one would “walk”. (I know - it was because you couldn’t film in zero-g. But it looks silly.) No one would use the ladder from the Discovery bridge to the pod bay - they’d just float.
The ferris wheel living bay is, however pretty cool. I think it’s too small, though. You’d get motion sickness moving around because your feet are going at too great a different speed than your head.
Also, the Discovery sphere is obviously much bigger on the inside than the outside. There’s no way that all fits.
The moonbase suffers from the “UFO” problem. It just isn’t smart to land or launch fully fueled interplanetary spacecraft right on top of the inhabited parts of the space station!
What does the desk clerk for the Hilton do all day? It isn’t like there are ships coming in every hour. He could be replaced with a computer terminal. 
“HIL, open the room door. HIL.” “I’m sorry, Dr. Floyd, I can’t do that.”
Speaking of Dr. Floyd, what a government asshole. “We’re going to maintain the stupid cover story for the indefinite future. Your families will just have to worry that you’re all dying of some horrible space disease in the meantime. Oh, and you all have to sign loyalty oaths. In ink. have a nice day.”
The ISS is designed to be in space all the time. Both the Orion shuttle from Earth to the Station and the Aries ship to the moon spend a good bit of their time in gravity, and have to be serviced in gravity. So they wouldn’t have serviceable parts on the ceiling. The Orion is also too small for a flight attendant to be soaring over the heads of passengers, throwing food at them or something. And the passengers for the most part are not going to be trusted floating around weightless on the way to the john. Grip shoes just make everything easier.
The space station is a bigger problem. Why deign the docking area so you have to rotate the Orion at just the right speed to enter it. In the book the station is designed more logically. But it sure looks great.
That wasn’t the desk clerk for the Hilton, but security for the entire station. I assume she does something else when no ships are expected. I’ve worked at plenty of big companies with guards at every door, and most of them do nothing all day. But she doesn’t have to worry about unexpected visitors dropping in.
That was kind of the point. Remember Kubrick’s previous movie was Dr. Strangelove. Floyd was not nearly this much of a jerk in the book, and maybe Clarke made him the hero of 2010 as a reaction.
Remember also that it was the fixation on secrecy that made HAL go crazy.