2001 is the quintessential space exploration film. Its scope spans in time
from millions of years ago to thirty three years from 1968, the year the film
came out, and in space from Earth, to the Moon, to Jupiter, and to the stars.
It is a visual treat, with scenes of space ships flying to the sound of the
Blue Danube Waltz, of astronauts working at a lunar settlement, of a nuclear
powered ship on a voyage to Jupiter, and of a psychedelic journey to the stars.
As such, the film holds up, even though the year 2001 is now in the past and
people have not been to the Moon in over thirty years, not to mention Jupiter.
One thing that detracts from the film is the bland, almost dispassionate way
the characters of that now alternate 2001 behave. Indeed, the pre men of the
first sequence seem more human than the humans who fly around in space ships.
That possibly was a sly comment by director Stanley Kubrick on what he saw as
the “dehumanizing” effects of technology. Even the computer character, HAL
9000, is positively scary in a kind of urbane Hannibal Lecter way when he
decides to murder his human crew mates, calmly, logically, and remorselessly.
Then, of course, much of the movie was incomprehensible if one did not read
the book by Arthur C. Clarke, which one supposes is a good marketing ploy. What
was and where was that hotel room where Dave Bowman found himself in at the end
of his LSD-style interstellar voyage? What was the purpose of turning him into that
celestial, glowing fetus that we saw in the last scene floating toward Earth?
Those and other questions were the subjects of endless discussions in that year
before the Apollo moon landing.
2001 led to a much inferior sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, which
was loosely based on Clarke’s novel by the same name. The story had more to do
with the politics of 1984, the year the film came out, than with what might
have been in the year 2010.