2001: A Space Odyssey

Before I do anything less than serious with this one, here are some observations because I just have so much to say about this one. I haven't done bullet points on one of these yet so here ... we ... go!

• If you were to ever bet a friend if they could stay awake through a movie, this is the one you put your money on. Most people fall asleep right when the bone turns into a spaceship, but there are so many brilliant moments of silence in this, it’s nearly impossible to stay awake throughout.
• This is the first quality sci-movie. You know how I know War of the Worlds and The Day the Earth Stood Still aren't good? Because they were remade into movies with Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves and done better.
• Monkeys from 2001 vs. Monkeys from Wizard of Oz? Sorry, can't let that go.
• What I need to know is that if this movie was done this way to specifically entice the new generation of hallucinogen users. There have been times in my day when going to a movie stoned was quite the thing to do, and this has got to be the first of it’s kind.
• 25:40 … that’s how far this movie goes before someone talks. This is longer than watching Daniel Plainview mine silver in There Will Be Blood
• There's another long gap around the 34 minute mark. I see why Kubrick gets away with it though. For its time, this must have been so mesmerizing that just putting these images meshed with some classical music was good enough. I mean, girl walking upside down!!! Pods landing on the moon!!!
• HAL is so condescending. Love him.
• Star Wars doesn’t happen without this move. Lucas borrowed so much.
• Where does this guy get off playing HAL at chess? If someone roasted me at chess and said, “Thank you for a very enjoyable game” I wouldn’t trust that person. I can’t believe these “genius” astronauts don’t see it coming.
• The “fix the satellite” scene is bonkers. Simply bonkers. About 10 minutes of dude fixing satellite and counting. Sure you get space walking as a first … but damn. DAMN!!! They’re still fixing it.
• Then every time they get in these pods … silent city.
• “Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye." Great line. I'm going to say this to everyone who disagrees with me from here on in.
• Lastly, and in my nerdlingerness this is something I've always wanted to do, I've come up with a final tally of how much "Silence" is in this movie, and by that I mean long gaps with no dialogue. The movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes song, and by my fairly accurate estimate, the "Silent" scenes take up 93 minutes of the movie, meaning only 47 minutes of the movie contain dialogue. Yowzer. That's nearly 70 percent of the movie.

Man Vs. Machine Vs. Man Again (Part 2)

Film loves taking on the man vs. machine debate, whether it's Annakin Skywalker turning into Darth Vader, Terminator robots coming back in time to save man-kind in the future (or kill it), who'd win in a fight between a Japanese army versus Mecha-Godzilla, or even the context of Maxamilian being controlled by an evil doctor. YES THE BLACK HOLE I'M GOING THERE!

What's unique about 2001's debate, is that it isn't simply man versus machine, but it's if man programmed machine to turn evil, because man was smart enough to know the mission to Jupiter was too difficult, so it programmed HAL to turn evil once man got it close enough that it could complete the mission itself.

Though the plot of the movie is weak, the movie really takes off once man discovers an alien artifact on the moon and naturally, has to keep the discovery hidden to the point the astronauts flying to Jupiter don't even know about it. Whomever programmed HAL, did know because HAL did, and seeing this was kept away from the 'nauts, isn't this a cause of alarm that man knew man would fail, thus programming HAL to turn evil? 

What goes against this, is couldn't they have just programmed HAL to complete the entire mission? Why did humans need to be on board? If man was smart enough to know man would fail, why include him in the picture at all?

That's simple, because in case there were any problems along the way, as their were, it would've been difficult for HAL to fix, seeing he wasn't really capable of manual labor. Sure, he probably created every single problem the ship had, but going through that meteor belt between Mars and Jupiter (allegedly) surely could've caused exterior damage to this ship. Of course, this movie never addresses the meteor belt and seeing we barely even know what Mars has to offer, I'm pretty sure its unfair of me to judge Kubrick for not acknowledging a meteor belt that may or may not exist, especially in 1968.

In the end, man wins though, I guess. After HAL kills the hibernating 'nauts (weakest 15 minutes of fame ever), and kills the only other conscious traveller, he can't overcome Dave's wit to bust back into the ship and tear apart his memory. I say man wins, but what does he win? A free trip to Jupiter, alone in outer space. He basically wins one final acid trip before he dies. I'll take earth thanks.

The End of 2001 For Dummies (Part 3)

This is my last part in what has become the 2001 series. I joke about how slow and boring it can be, but seriously, this is my first movie that I've had 3 different parts on, so that's got to be worth something. That being said, I've never understood the ending despite seeing this movie countless times. The best way for me to break it down I decided, was a play by play of the events leading up to the end of the movie. Here it is, bam and ya say goddam! This is a dope jam.

"Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite"

1. Black Monolith now floating in space. If you’ve somehow made it this long, there’s no way you’re staying awake through this.

2. Planets aligned.

3. Trippy lights. Dave is seriously tripping balls right now.

4. Gases.

5. Land. Trippy grand canyonish area.

6. Trippy oceans.

7. Pod now in random room.

8. Dave is twitching.

9. Dave now all of a sudden outside the pod.

10. There's an old man eating dinner, that doesn’t seem too interested that an astronaut has just broken into his Jupiter hacienda.

11. He now approaches Dave, but now Dave is gone. Is this old man then Dave?

12. Drops a glass.

13. Now a new old man is lying in his death bed and both are on the screen at the same time. Old man eating dinner gone, and mysterious monolith is now front and center in the bedroom.

14. This naturally turns him into a baby in a bubble. So is the baby in the bubble, a new life, a new planet?

Still don't get it. Never will. Oh well.