Would "2001: A Space Oddessy" have worked better as pure science fiction?

By which I mean having someone other than Kubrick direct, and hew it closer to Clarke’s novelization. Have it be more a straight “space adventure”, rather than an almost hallucinatory work of symbolism. I don’t dispute that Kubrick made a masterpiece, but could it/should it have been done differently?

The movie was pretty close to Clarke’s novel, lumpy. Even the ending, although Kubrick could have done a more coherent job of telling that part of the story.

In addition to agreeing with Brain, I feel that the material cannot be presented as standard Sci Fi fare.

It is by its nature a highly elliptical and cerebral work. It seems to demand a languid gentle layered presentation.

That’s what we got.

The movie is close to Clarke’s novel because Clarke worked closely with Kubrick. If Clarke had written the novel o his own it would’ve turned out far differently.

We know this for a fact – see Clarke’s book The Lost Worlds of 2001 for details. Clarke gives several discarded endings in that book.

Clarke had a bit of mystic in him, but if he’d been clearly dominant over the director, the result would’ve been closer to “pure science fiction”, I think. I probably would’ve liked it better.

As a matter of fact, Clarke’s novel was published after the movie was released and was essentially a novelization of it. The original inspiration for the movie was Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel,” which is about the discovery of the alien obelisk on the Moon and includes nothing about the Dawn of Time or the voyage to Jupiter.

Sorry, “Dawn of Man.”

Sexists.

It was published after the movie, but it was written concurrently with the screenplay. From the IMDB:

I think the question has already been answered, simply by comparing Kubrick’s approach to that of Peter Hyams in 2010. Hyams played it fairly straight, with a dead conventional narrative, and as I recall, followed the plot points of Clarke’s novel closely. Was it a decent movie? I’d say yes. Was it better than, or even as good as, 2001? I’d say it was nowhere near comparable.

The fact that 2001 IS a “hallucinatory work of symbolism”, with the bulk of the story told purely via images, music and sound effects, and whilst still getting the science right (at least as things were understood in the mid-'60s) is what makes it one of the greatest films ever made, IMO.

I suppose another way to approach the question would be to ask oneself, is there any reason whatever to remake this movie? I imagine both those like the film and those who despise it, would equally loudly say ‘no’.

Actually, there were several Clarke short stories which wound up in the movie. “The Sentinel” was the inspiration for the monolith, but the basic plot of an early alien civilization coming into contact with early humanoids was a different story, whose title escapes me at the moment. The ending of the story had the aliens leaving due to some galactic emergency or other, regretting that they couldn’t stay and help the proto-humans develop a civilization… that they would later call “Babelon”

I’m afraid even this part isn’t true. I was around at the time, and I recall the novel appearing in hardcover well before the release of the film.

Your memories are probably wrong.

The Making of Kubrick’s 2001, edited by Jerome Agel, is the must-have book on the subject. Interviews, dozens of contemporary reviews, stills with explanatory captions, letters from viewers, everything.

The movie was first screened for Life magazine on March 29, 1968. After several other press screenings and a “world premiere” Kubrick cut a few minutes and the final cut went into New York theaters on April 6.

The book doesn’t give an exact date for the book release, but does have a newspaper quote:

This makes a June date likely for the release. The New American Library U.S. edition is the true first, BTW, over the Hutchinson London edition.

I remember seeing it with my college friends when it first came into town that fall. Yes, it really took months for movies to make it across country in those days. This may be why you remember the book coming out first.

As for writing the novel, there are two quotes, not completely compatible with one another.

I don’t suppose there’s a director’s cut available on DVD?

In Clarke’s biography it was mentioned that the book was ready long before the movie, but was held until the release, much to Clarke’s annoyance. (He needed the money.)

I think I wrote down the date I bought it, which was very close to its publication date. BTW, the Life Magazine interview resulted in an extensive 2001 feature with lots of pictures, and a very clear explanation of what was going on.

Anyone who has read Childhood’s End shouldn’t be surprised at the ending of 2001. One of the reasons the movie works for me is that the hard sf in the beginning validates the “mystical” stuff at the end. However I have never thought of it as mystical, but as a concrete example of Clarke’s Third Law.

I don’t think so.

My friend’s parents had the book sitting in their house, and I recall trhinking that it looked interesting, and why hadn’t I heard about it. The release of 2001, of course, was widely heralded.

It’s irrrelevant to the initial point, though, which is that the book was co-written with the film, and its plotting was influenced by the film, (although Clarke obviously influenced the film, as well). It’s not like those film novelizations where the author has nothing to do with the film, and is simply handed a script and materials. The only other case I can think of that’s like this is Orson Scott Card’s novel for The Abyss, where card’s early chapters and notes were given to the actors during filming to help them establish their characters and backstory.

April 6! That’s my birthday! Hoo-ray! Now I can actually cite something cool that happened on my birthday. Before, all I had was America’s entry into World War I, while my best friend growing up shared a birthday with Thomas Edison.

IIRC, the cuts Kubrick made after the initial screenings amounted to about 15 minutes in total and were done because he felt that the film was running slightly sluggishly. I’ve never seen a detailed breakdown of what he snipped, but it was apparently mainly stuff like extraneous shots of pods manoeuvering. What resulted is the cut that Kubrick later approved of for re-releases and the like in the remainder of his life. By any standards, that’s the definitive version.
It’s possible that some future DVD might include the snippets as an extra, but it’s not as if what’s currently available is a mutilated version of what Kubrick wanted.

IIRC, there was also more of Dullea running around the Discovery’s ring.

Another thing cut, much earlier, was an introduction with interviews with noted scientists. Agel’s book has a lot about this.

Was anything that Kubrick did not a director’s cut - except for Spartacus, of course.

I still don’t understand why Clarke just didn’t have the Discovery go to Warp 1 in order to get to Jupiter. It’d make SO much more sense that way.

And where are the laser guns? Can’t have the future without the laser guns.

Stupid movie.

[/facetiousness]

One of the scenes cut shwed the astronauts playing “Petominoes” with HAL. In fact, they marketed the game as a 2001 tie-in, but got rooked because the scene was cut. There’s a picture of it in Agel’s book. Clarke ater used pentominoes as a theme (and as chapter headers) in one of his later books.

There were other scenes they considered, but didn’t show (Extraterrestrials, envisioned as light patterns actually generated by video feedback, a “City of Light” during the “Space Trip” at the end. The Star Child detonating those satelites you see at the beginning – which were supposed to be SDI-style orbiting weapons). Many weren’t even filmed.

Just so. Everything after Spartacus was wholly owned by Kubrick in all aspects. There wouldn’t have been a “Director’s Cut” of any of his works because he edited them. Sometimes sat next to someone else who did the scraping and glueing but he cut his movies, had complete control.

I got hired to do some test shots for “Eyes Wide Shut” in NYC while the film was in pre-production. Didn’t get to speak to him, but had to fax my resume ( :eek: :eek: :eek: ) over to London, along with references…
Stanley Kubrick was such a control freak, that he even owned his own camera bodies and lenses, tripods dollies and such. Incredible.

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