You are also 100% incorrect. The windows were not on the outer ring of the space station, they were on the sides. Go watch the movie again. I can't even believe you guys are arguing so vehemently about something that is clearly absolutely incorrect and can be confirmed by just popping in the DVD.
It bugs me when people call movies like 2001 the worst movie ever. Not because I really liked it, but because I've seen some really REALLY terrible movies and things like this don't rank anywhere near them.
I think maybe people expect too much from certain movies and that's what ruins it for them.
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Xebra sure feels the same way as Im. I gave this movie a chance, saw it for the first time. So there I was, laying in my bed, inserted the dvd in my dvd player and after picking the swedish subtitle, I began watching the movie. First screen: pitch black with music for a few minutes (2-3 minutes I believe, if not more). I instantly thought there was something awfully wrong with my dvd player so I had to walk 2 meters, check all the wires if everything was ok. Then I fastforwarded until the monkey scene. That was fun.. We get to see 10-15 minutes, monkies, smelling, eating, sleeping, waking and beating eachother with bones :) And boooom, there comes a huge rock from nowhere. Hi! whaaaaaaaaaam, we move a few thousand years forward to space age. Whats also annoying is the space scenes, where we spend like 15-20 minutes seeing a robot slowly... moving to left, moving its arm upwards, grabbing oh you get the picture. extremely dreadful movie.
I watched 2001 just two days ago and now find this hell of a discussion about it here. xebra, I don't share your views about this movie and since most has alerady been said, I can only add that it's one's interpretation that makes this movie stunning and worthwhile.
And there is a lot to see and understand. Kubrick has given a summary of the development of human intelligence (and to a little part technology), the risks of artificial intelligence and a speculation of the final evolutional step for human intelligence. I don't think that this is a boring diamond-crusted piece of shit, actually I consider it pretty interesting. But yes I know, it's not important what I think, since it's subjective (what a silly point of view to think that everything subjective is not worth telling.. after all it was xebra's subjective view that started this thread). I just thought you probably didn't grasp everything that this movie wanted to tell.
About the slowness: People in '68 (just like today) didn't know a whole lot about how life and work happen in space. They didn't realize that zero-gravity changes everything for humans, who are used to earth's gravity. The slowness simply conveys a REALISTIC feel for how we are forced to do things in space. Like someone else has said: You won't find zap zap Luke I'm your father aliens look like radioactive mutants and sell space peanuts in this movie.
The bone scene is not just about monkeys beating the crap out of each other with bones.
First they see the black monolith and go completely bonkers. Why? Because their soon-to-be-human brain grasps for the first time that things like design and crafting exist and they even consider it frightening and somewhat holy. This sparks their idea of using their little monkey brains, which later gets the monkey to THINK and use the bone as a tool (weapon).
The abilty to use tools and craft is what has defined being human for a long time (altough anthropologists still debate about WHAT it is that makes us human). That's why this scene is called "Dawn of mankind" (or something like that).
Everybody seemed to have understood the HAL scenes almost the same way, so no worries here.
The final scene admittedly is hard to understand/ interpret and not really well done from what I can tell. Someone else has already stated what it is about: Humans follow the unknown intelligence's call, that has in the monkey-age already given spark to human intelligence in the first place. By passing the second "test", which was space travel and being able to interpret the electromagnetic signals sent by the monolith on the moon in Jupiter's direction, they find the last monolith floating in space. The reward is the advancement into a new stage of being, which Kubrick/ Clarke saw.. as a child floating in space. Well yeah, whatever, but if anything one could try to understand that human development does not stop and that it keeps evolving. Into what we just don't know.
Erklärung der Relativität: "Wenn du deine Nase in meinen Po steckst, haben wir beide eine Nase im Po. Nur ich bin relativ besser dran."
Well all I can say is that I did get all that from the movie, and I still think it's a piece of crap. No matter what it depicts, it's still just plain boring.
I saw this movie for the first time about a month ago, and for a good portion of it, I just couldn't help but think "screen saver."
I found the movie to be thought-provoking in some areas, at best.
agopo:
I'm going to tentatively posit you didn't actually read this whole thread. I made a few comments related to my understanding of the film, and it is clearly different from the interpretation you think everyone subscribes to.
I think that vulgar estimation is much less entertaining than my own, as well. And despite the fact that I think the message of the film (or what I believe it to be) is fairly interesting, I still hate everything else about the movie so much that it's the worst one I've yet seen.
It is the same force which keeps a rollercoaster on the tracks during a loop - Centrifugal force.
On 2001 - I saw the film 5 years ago and I liked it...The end did weird me out a lot. The book 2001 was writen at the same time as the movie and actually came out after the movie was finished so a few things like the ending are explained more.
I like alot of Kubrik movies which I have seen - Full Metal Jacket, The Shining, the 2 minutes I watched of Dr. Strangelove.
It may come as a shock to you that he already knew what centrifugal force was. I wonder what sort of picture JXQ would come up with to explain this situation?