I just finished watching the Digitally Remastered version of 2001: A Space Odyssey on DVD, and it remains one of my favourite films.
I first saw the film when I was about 13; my Dad and I watched it on VHS one Sunday evening together and we had a really good talk afterwards about what we thought the film “meant”.
Anyway, I distinctly recall Dave Bowman saying “My God, It’s Full of Stars!” just before the EVA Pod enters the Monolith/Wormhole/Whatever you think it is. This line was not in the DVD I just watched, and after a quick search on the 'net, there seem to be a lot of people like myself who absolutely insist they saw a version of the film with that line in it, either in the cinema upon original release, or later on one of the VHS releases.
I’ve never read the book the movie is based on and I didn’t see 2010: The Year We Make Contact until many years after I first saw 2001, which established its continuity (to me, at least) because they play the “My God, It’s Full Of Stars!” line as the film opens. However, the line(s) at the start of 2010 are distorted and completely different in inflection to the line I distinctly recall from 2001; which was spoken with a mixture of astonishment and amazement.
In short, I honestly don’t believe I’m mis-remembering it; that line was in the film I saw and it’s not in the DVD I just watched. The question is, has anyone else here seen a version of 2001 which contains that line?
Nope. But you’re not the only one who remembers it that way. I’ve always wondered about that, and finally chalked it up to a similar mass misremembering along the lines of “Play it again, Sam” or “But that’s the beauty of it…it doesn’t DO anything!” In all the versions I’ve seen, Dave is too awestruck to speak.
I can’t find it at the moment, but there’s a thread in GQ somewhere in which someone actually found that clip in some old movie. Someone really did say that line.
I agree. I saw the movie well before I read the book, and when I did read the book, I finally “got” it. The book complements the movie really, really well.
The book was one of those early examples of “a novel written to be a movie”-- Clarke and Kubrick collaborated on the film, and Clarke wrote the novel at the same time. Alas, there are multiple deviations between the early script, the completed novel, and the finished film-- including the “full of stars” line, which isn’t in the movie.
I saw it in the Capitol theater in NY where it opened, and where Kubrick set everything up, and that line was definitely not in the movie. There is no dialog at all after “Its origin and purpose, still a total mystery.” Kubrick did cut a bunch of stuff after opening night, but not that.
I saw it before the book came out and had no problem understanding it. I had read everything Clarke wrote, and also had the very informative Life magazine article on the movie - that helped a lot.
Actually we don’t even see Dave until after he is in the Stargate. The shots are of Jupiter’s moons, the monolith floating among them, Discovery’s pod bay doors opening and the pod emerging, then the impossible one of all the moons lined up and the monolith aligning with them. We pan up, and the stargate opens with the first effects superimposed on space. A bit later we see Dave’s head shaking from the trip. He never says anything even when he gets to the room, though.
You know what’s weirder than that? I distinctly remember Stay-Puft marshmallows from my childhood. (I was born in 1961.) I even remember the image of Mr. Stay-Puft on the bag. The only problem is that Stay-Puft marshmallows never existed; they – and Mr. S-P – were invented for use in Ghostbusters in 1984. I still can hardly believe it.
That’s that my Dad said, with a fatherly “It was the '60s, son” thrown in as well.
I’ve never touched any sort of illegal drug in my life and I still find 2001 to be a great film; the beauty is that you can interpret the last part of the film in pretty much any way you like and, according to Kubrick, you’re still likely to be correct.
> I saw it in the Capitol theater in NY where it opened, and where Kubrick set
> everything up, and that line was definitely not in the movie. There is no dialog
> at all after “Its origin and purpose, still a total mystery.” Kubrick did cut a bunch
> of stuff after opening night, but not that.
The world premiere of 2001 was at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C.:
How could you have seen any of the deleted scenes anywhere else except there?
I saw 2001 when it came out, and the line definitely wasn’t in there when I saw it.
It wouldn’t make any sense in the movie – If you recall, in the film Bowman doesn’t actually start his hourney by going into the monolith (as he does in the book) – the “Stargate/SlitScan” effect starts at a random point in space. And it doesn’t look at all like stars – it begins with streaks of light seeming to come outward (both upwards and downwards) away from a sort of “slit” in space. They’re brightly colored streaks, like neon tubes, and eventually become geometric patterns and the like, then go through a number of variations, but it never really does look even like your classic “moving starfield”, such as you had in TV’s Star Trek.
Of course, in the book Bowman does say something like the quoted line (which was used to introduce the 1984 film 2010, but that was Peter Hyams’ film, not Stanley Kubrick’s, and you can’t judge a film by its sequel, as I always say, especially if it’s by different folks.
You can’t really turn to Clarke’s novel, either. Clarke and Kubrick had different visions and standards, and I think it’s fair to say that Kubrick’s film and Clarke’s novel aren’t quite the same story. Assume they are at your peril.
