I remember her now. In the book she was his first girlfriend and the love of his life, but they never married. She had earlier been the girlfriend of Bowman’s older brother, who died in a diving accident.
Only one week left in 2010. Did anyone here see the movie this year or plan to do so soon. I have it on my Netflix queue right now and will hopefully get it in the next day or two.
Anyway I agree with what a lot of people here have said. As a standalone sci-fi flick it’s pretty decent, but doesn’t get the respect it deserves due to the comparisons with 2001: A Space Odyssey.
None of the usual suspects on cable have shown it, at all, which has surprised me (Encore, AMC, TNT, not even SyFy). In the past year however I have seen 2001, Dune (Lynch version) & Planet of the Apes aired on these stations. Very strange.
I’m pretty sure it was on TCM at least once this year.
Still worth a look, but Clarke’s book is much better.
Yeah, I remember seeing it on TV too. Didn’t think to resurrect this thread at the time. 
Almost a year late. The movie itself shows a connection from a rotating area (the Discovery crew quarters) to a non-rotating area (the pod bay.) I believe the classic von Braun-Ley space station had a non rotating docking bay at the hub (not a big hole, as it is here.) It is easy to do. My Christmas tree stand, which is nearly 50 years old, lets the tree and lights rotate while having a stable outer ring where you plug it in.
As for being screwed, in a non-rotating docking situation, you can move off, and will unless you are unlucky. Inside the hub any mistake will smash you against some wall or other. And I thought of one more problem. During Neil Armstrong’s Gemini mission, there was a problem with a thruster and they and the Agena nosecone they were hooked to spun. This almost made him black out. I don’t think the Orion spacecraft was spinning that fast, but it would be fast enough to be noticeable, and not something you’d want during a critical docking maneuver.
Unrelated to this post, I saw 2010 in the theater, but I also saw it on TCM on a show where a celeb talks about his favorite movie. The celeb here was Larry King, who said he liked 2010 better than 2001. 'nuff said.
Agree with most of the previous observations about 2010.
What was surprising to me was just how much Peter Hyams, the director, has lost from his fastball. Hisimdb page details just how bad his current movies have been (A Sound of Thunder, Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, The Musketeer.) Strange, for a guy who directed pretty decent middle of the road movies in the late 70’s and 80s like Running Scared, 2010, Outland, and Capricorn One
Got it in the mail and saw it last night. What got me the most, aside from the retrograde Cold War politics, was the clunky laptops they had, as well as the CRTs they were still using. In that regard, 2001 was probably more accurate, as I seem to recall most of the TV screens in that film being flat.
TCM has 2010 on the schedule for Feburary 8 2011.