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2001: A Space Odyssey Reviews

Kelsey Adair

Although confusing, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a movie that made me think. Obviously, we don’t have the kind of technology Stanley Kubrick predicted we would have at this time, so the ultimate question remains unanswered: what will the future be like? Will humans ever colonize the moon? The most important question of all that was addressed in the film: What would happen if humans gave too much power to a computer? As the movie proves with its opening scene of curious primates, humans will always test their boundaries. Sometimes, however, they will go too far, which leads to their own demise. On the mission to Jupiter, all of the brain power rested with the computer HAL. HAL was designed to do all of the complicated work on board the space craft, such as keeping the hibernating crew members alive by monitoring their oxygen, finding any mechanical glitches on board, and even simple tasks like opening and shutting doors. What the crew members never realized was that HAL was able to think for himself. He was not under complete human control. HAL even seemed like another member of the crew because of his emotional attachment to the job. When Frank and Dave realized that HAL could be a danger due to a miscalculation, HAL decided to deal with matters himself to prevent from being turned off. Overall, 2001: A Space Odyssey was successful in leaving questions unanswered for the audience to ponder. I would have to say, however, that there were many parts of the movie that were not enjoyable for entertainment value. Many of the scenes were drawn out, which made them confusing. Kubrick probably could have portrayed the same thought-provoking questions in about half the time. My biggest criticism of the film would have been the last twenty minutes or so, which was confusing and completely unnecessary in the big picture.

Josh Berting

The 1968 film, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” is a look into the future of man and his continued reliance on the ever more advanced tools of his creation. The main plot of the film revolves around, “Hal 9000,” the super computer at the very heart of the spaceship Discovery, which is on an exploratory journey to Jupiter. After making a miscalculation, Hal begins to plot the deaths of the five human crew members, while fearing his own “death” from the hands of the growingly apprehensive crew. This film can be seen as very insightful and thought provoking, if additional research is done prior to or following the showing of the film. However, if you just watch the film, you will most likely find the drawn out scenes and ridiculous plot twists as being more confusing, and mind numbing than interesting and thought provoking. Though the movie has relatively good special effects, especially for being produced in the 1960’s, and a relatively good plot line, the monotony and confusion of the film bring the rating way down in my mind.

Brittany Burton

Although 2001: A Space Odyssey was a view of the "future", its plot, characters, and robot were a blast from the past. It seemed to me that the plot did not even come to view until half way through the movie. And then ended half an hour later. The robot, Hal 9000, was a good and suprising villain. Yet, the directors view of space travel using robots in the future was completely off. The most entertaining part was the twenty minutes when Hal killed everyone off. The special effects used were pretty good for its time period. People must think that just because they have good effects they can mess with the plot and overall tone of the story. The last thirty minutes of the movie were completely ridiculous. It looked like a giant lava lamp exploded in space. I hope that the sequels explain more because I had no idea what was going on. Especially regarding the stone in the beginning. Evil monkeys. Overall the entire thing was easier to understand than THX, but was less entertaining.

 

Kevin Caskey

2001: A Space Odyssey was a confusing movie that was drawn out far longer than it needed to be.  The crew is on a mission to the planet Jupiter with its supercomputer helper named HAL.  HAL is a computer that runs daily operations for the crew and various other tasks, including navigation, and piloting. It also keeps the hibernating crew members alive. HAL is a very advanced computer that is able to talk and hold intelligent conversations with the human beings around him. Although we do not have the kind of technologies that the movie suggested we would by now, it still was an interesting perspective into space travel.  While exploring a space that we as humans have not explored yet, it also asks us how much we should rely on computers to run essential parts of our lives.  The crew members are tested by this question as the movie progresses, until the end when something very strange happens.

 

Marco Flores

2001: A Space Odyssey is an award winning movie that begins with the evolution of knowledge (very symbolic) and ends with the main character as an embryo floating in space looking down at the earth. I mean, the special effects in the movie were remarkable and the first of its class. The musical score was very entertaining as well. Those are two of the only good aspects I noticed while watching the movie. The movie dragged out way too long and many parts could have been edited out, possibly making the movie much more understandable, because I was lost after the main character reached Jupiter. Up until that point, the movie was straight forward, with the mission to Jupiter to research the origins of a monolith found on the moon. The only reason this becomes confusing is because it is so hard to pay attention because each scene is unnecessarily long. HAL-9000, the supercomputer in charge of all functions of the spaceship, turned into a villian that killed the whole crew except for the main character, and besides HAL, the only other robotic functions were the mechanical ones from machines manned by humans. I award 2001: A Space Odyssey a solid 3.5 out of a possible 10. Well done movie selection commitee. Well done!

 

Emily Hager

So, this movie was at least better than THX, but it was still kind of long and dull, and not very fun to watch. 2001: A Space Odyssey had some obvious strong points, and most of the movie was presented with a plot that made sense (I’m obviously excluding the final few minutes of acid trip/ fetus Dave). And although the mysterious black monolith was more puzzling than thought provoking for me, I could see where Kubrick was going with it, and I like the way he tried to portray other intelligent life- as mysterious, but advanced, and scary, but fascinating. It’s also really cool to watch this movie after the year 2001 because you can see how wrong most of the predictions were (we are no where near having commercialized flights to the moon). And those white hat things were just silly. But the best (and most relevant) part of this movie is the creepy, all knowing, all controlling Hal-9000. Now that is a seriously dangerous robot. He controls everything! So when he decides so, all those guys are dead and there’s nothing they can do. So the message of this film is kind of anti-technology for a sci-fi flick, because nothing but death and a bad acid trip come out of the technology in this film. Overall though, I thought it wasn’t too bad, and I liked Hal (as a fantastic villain) and I liked the message, just not the ending or the beginning.

 

Stephanie Herndon

I would say this movie was confusing, however, after watching the entire drawn-out film, I cannot say whether I am confused or just really bored. The movie had a very good storyline about a common fear in many people: the potential to create a machine that is smarter than the human race. Ironically enough, the movie was suppose to be foreshadowing into the year 2001, which is very close to the time when people actually feared all computers crashing because of the new millennium. Needless to say, the main point of the movie (fear of machines and dependency on computers/robots) was accurate to the fears people actually had during the start of the millennium.

When the movie came out, it was very technologically advanced for its time. I am sure the special effects were pretty new to the generation and the movie as a whole was seen as insightful. However, I found the movie to ramble on aimlessly. Many of the scenes seemed to go on with no point. If the scenes were more condensed, perhaps the movie would have been short enough to keep my attention and be entertaining.

At the end of the movie, the potentially thought-provoking film took a turn for the worst. The ending may have been very creative and intellectual, however it is nearly impossible to follow what the director was trying to show, thus making it confusing and ruining whatever monumental point the movie was suppose to raise. At the end, I couldn’t even tell you if the movie was suppose to be in support of technology or against the controlling powers of technology.

 

Dustin Houser

"2001: A Space Odessey" is a revolutionary film for a movie produced in 1968. The film has an interesting soundtrack, ranging from classical orchestra pieces and waltzs to erie voices moaning at various pitches. The director uses unique camera angles to accompany the erie settings and events. This film has picture quality and visual special affects that I imagine were unequalled at the time it was produced. The events that occur in this movie are somewhat unrealistic for its time period, however, modern technology makes many of the things in the movie very possible. HAL, the Hal-9000 super computer, operates on the same level, and possibly beyond what our super computers are capable of today. There were several long sequences with very little dialogue or action, and the plot was somewhat hard to pick up on and stay with. I would definitely rate this movie higher than "THX 1138," however, it doesn't outrank it by much. If you like trippy acid induced pyschadelic scenes, the ending is great ... prepare for Super-Fetus-Dave, given power by the almighty black monolith !!!! Have fun trying to figure out what's going on when no one's talking to let you in on the movie's hidden secrets, and enjoy the long scenes of hearing a grown man breath and a super computer beg for its life while singing a song about "Daisy."

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Earl Duncan Laing

After last weeks viewing of THX-1138, I felt that anything we watched would be better this time. My assumption was true, but I was almost wrong about there being a movie that was even worse than THX-1138. 2001: A Space Odyssey was almost as confusing as the movie before it. The plot jumped from what seemed like the Planet of the Apes to a futuristic space environment in the year 2001. Where THX-1138 lacked in any plot organization, 2001: A Space Odyssey, managed to catch my attention for at least a short time. In the middle of the movie, the events that sparked the betrayal of the crew’s robot HAL began to unfold. This part of the plot proved to be very interesting but only for a short amount of time. The movie then returned to its confusing and impossible to follow plot. The last thirty minutes I was completely lost and felt much like I did during the first half of the movie. The movie had a very artistic feeling to it and I felt that it had a lot of hidden meaning within it. Overall I was temporarily entertained for a short amount of time and fairly impressed with some of the visual effects.

 

Overall: 4/10

 

 

Kara Learman

With this being the second movie we watched, I was expecting something better than the first.  Well, I was wrong. Terribly wrong.  It is definitely a toss up as to which is the worst movie I’ve ever seen.  The plot in this film was very splotchy and disconnected. Things didn’t fit together well nor did they make sense.  The movie opens with a tribe of apes who one day find a large black monolith in their midst.  After a while, a long while, the ape tribes fight with one

wining due to the use of bones as a club.  From there it jumps to a satellite in space.  This section of the film contains spacemen who are traveling to the  moon to do research.  The find the monolith and are attempting to take a photo with it when a high pitched noise interrupts.  Now the film jumps eighteen years later, to the launching of Discovery One, on a mission to Jupiter.  Here enters the robot in the film, HAL. Through a series of events, the men on board  figure out HAL is not good. They try to shut him down but HAL overpowers them.  The next sequence of things is the most confusing part of the entire film.  After shutting down HAL, Bowman travels through a colorful tunnel of light toward Jupiter where he sees the monolith again.  He gets out to investigate and ends up inside a house, on Jupiter.  As he travels throughout the house, he grows old very rapidly.  Also the changes from his spacesuit to a Huge Hefner style robe.  He end on his death bed reaching out towards the monolith, shortly thereafter ending the movie with an image of “Fetus Dave.”  This movie had good props and mechanic contained in it and would have been much better if the plot hadn’t been so lacking.  This film would also receive a 1 in my book. 

 

 

Matt Lynch

2001: A Space Odyssey contains a decent plot line and would be a good movie if the plot was developed more and the random 70's drug induced scenes were cut out. There are 10 minutes of scenes that are supposed to represent time or space travel but are simply colors swirling around. Im sure this was very interesting to hippies who were already on drugs, however to the normal person today this is simply boring. Also there are scenes that are simply drawn out way to far. It takes the space pod at least 5 minutes to leave the ship. These scenes are boring and not necessary, they are simply included to show "impressive scenes in space." If these drawn out, unnecessary scenes were cut and they plot was developed more this movie could be a decent movie. But the movie is too slow moving and boring for anyone to enjoy it except hippies and crazy sci-fi nuts.

 

John Nunns

The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey was an award winning movie of its time.  It is obvious that our standards for movies have significantly risen since then.  Although the movie did have a decent plot overall, I found myself feeling more bored than drawn in.  There were scenes that definetly lasted too long that could of been summed up sooner which would of made the movie a little more enticing.  The special effects were also something that we no longer see as technologically advanced.  The use of colors to represent space travel is quite behind our time.  I would not reccomend this movie to anyone unless you're a sci-fi fanatic simply due to the fact that we are really too far ahead in our movie making skills to really appreciate a boring film such as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

As for the role of the robot, HAL, it is a super computer on the ship that operates at a level higher than anything we produced in 2001.  The computer plays an important role on the ship but later goes on to kill every crew member except the main character.  This betrayal can lead one to think of the risks of having robots and if they will do us more good or harm in the future.

 

Dee Parks

Thirty years have passed since I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time, and it is clear to me that my preferences have changed in those years. I have a memory of a pleasant evening in a theater with good friends, listening to great music and looking at outstanding special effects. When I watched the movie recently, I found it slow-moving, confusing, and somewhat boring. The colors are still pretty and the music is still inspiring, but the slow motion special effects made me want to put the player into fast forward mode. How the speed associated with today's technology has spoiled me!

 

It was interesting to try to step back in time and remember my ideas about the future back then. The movie was made during a time when average people knew nothing about computers, had never even seen a computer most likely. I remember people being afraid that computers could "take over" and do us all in. I remember discussions about the future of technology, the future of space travel, and we were convinced that by the turn of the century we could expect people to be traveling to other planets and even other galaxies. We had seen men land on the moon, after all! The movie played into the fears that many people had about the dangers of technology.

 

Another interesting aspect of the movie for me was the kaleidoscopic use of color at the end of the film. Bright colors were in vogue with young people in the 1970's. It was a "psychedelic" time and the director of 2001: A Space Odyssey clearly played to his audience. But what is it that made all the slow-motion special effects more tolerable to us back then? Were we more patient? Did we have longer attention spans? I believe television, computers, and video games have changed us, made us unable to wait very long for the next piece of excitement in our entertainment.

 

Amanda Pudney

Though slightly better than THX, 2001:A Space Oddyssey was still somewhat lacking in plot and reason. I still don't, (and probably never will), understand the large rectuangular monolith that messed up the planetary alignment and caused a bizarre black hole. The best part of the film? For me, it was the devious character of Hal. Now Hal's a robot designed with emotion, reason, and logic; designed to act human. When humans feel threatened, they respond to the fight or flight instinct. When Hal felt threatened, he began to kill the members of the crew one by one. Though eventually outsmarted by a human, Hal pleads and begs not be destroyed. I found this interesting to consider. How close can robots get to human emotion? When is that line crossed? The interesting take on the futuristic technology was interesting as well. I found the new food interesting, as well as the gravity-defying boots and walls. My least favorite part of the film was the incredibly strange ending sequence. The strange journey through the black hole which was punctuated by scary views of Dave's face was too long and left so many unanswered questions. Where did Dave end up? What was that weird house? Why did he return to the fetus state? And why was he floating about space? In any case, the views of the future were interesting enough to keep the movie afloat for the most part. However, I think that seeing THX first made this film more enjoyable. Anything would have been more enjoyable.

 

Austin Reiter

A Space Odyssey? More like a space oddity if you ask me (or most of my classmates). Terrible puns aside, I don’t have much to speak highly of for this movie. There are apes. There are people. There are obelisks. There is a supercomputer named HAL. There are trippy light shows. And there are Fetus Daves. Confused? Don’t worry, so am I, and I’ve seen the movie. At any rate, 2001: A Space Odyssey takes place in the year 2001, which is portrayed in the movie as a time much more technologically advanced than 2001 actually came to be. Now, it’s at this point that I’d normally reveal the key points of the plot to you, but that may be kind of hard as I’m not so sure there was any overall plot in this movie at all. What I can tell you, however, is that 2001: A Space Odyssey sorely lacks smooth transitions between scenes, character development, and dialogue. And the overall plot (or lack thereof) mentioned before. The beginning of the movie seems to make an effort to conjure a storyline, but fails miserably. There’s something about a discovery that is made that must be kept secret regarding a mysterious black obelisk. But this is preceded by a scene in which two groups of apes are fighting over water, and is followed by a scene in which a supercomputer named HAL attempts to murder his human astronaut companions (and successfully does so to four of the five) in deep space. Then there are some crazy light shows and the progression of the only surviving astronaut, Dave, from a middle-aged man to an elderly gentleman to a… fetus? Yeah. Then the movie ends with ye olde Fetus Dave hovering in space watching over the Earth. “What the hell?” you ask? Well, that makes two of us.

 

Michael Salley

The most enjoyable portion of "2001: A Space Odyssey" in my personal opinion was the soundtrack - instantly recognizable classics such as Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and most famously, Johann Strauss's On The Beautiful Blue Danube accompanied long scenes of the ship slowly moving through space, or slowly docking with other ship pieces, etc. The soundtrack and special effects were almost the only things "2001" had going for it, as far as entertainment goes. The space scenes were very nicely done, the ships were very realistic, the music was perfectly synchronized with the scenes depicted... the movie was a sensory thrill from start to finish -- and equally, a mental sedative. Trying to make sense out of the plot of some parts of "2001" is a task best left to children and retirees, as the only members of our society with enough free time to possibly understand the movie. That said... the parts of the movie that directly connected to robots and technology were effective enough, so far as they went. The portrayal of HAL 9000, the robot/computer that had control over the ship and over its own thoughts - was originally that of a protector. HAL took care of everyone on the ship, was responsible for maintaining the lives of the men in stasis awaiting arrival at Jupiter, and also was entrusted with the responsibility of keeping the orders for the mission a secret from the astronauts on board until after their arrival. However, the role of HAL quickly turns into that of an attacker, as "he" seemingly randomly starts killing the astronauts one by one. The ship itself is the weapon; air locks drain atmospheres at bad times, life support systems are stopped, etc... HAL is quickly turned into an attacking monster whose technological advancement is used for nothing but advanced murder methods; HAL even reads lips through sealed airlocks and uses what it learns against the astronauts. This represents society's entirely reasonable fear of technological advancements proving to be hazardous. However, it is established in a sequel to this movie that "computers only do precisely what they are programmed to do" - this too is a lesson that society needs to take to heart with regard to technology. HAL was in fact not malfunctioning at all when "he" decided to kill all the astronauts - he had received conflicting instructions at the time of programming that resulted in a logic loop and practical paranoia. HAL should be taken as a lesson against careless use of technology that is advanced enough to cause harm to people if it is NOT used responsibly and wisely.

 

Jamie Stevens

2001: A Space Odyssey has to be one of the worst productions I have ever seen. It’s travel through a robot-turned-evil was painfully slow and often went off on tangents that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the original plot. The people who made this film obviously thought that we would be further along in our technological advances by now considering humans can not even travel to Jupiter. The movie itself suffered from confusing scenes, psychedelic colors, and directors who had to have been on drugs.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 10

 

Jesse Talbott

 2001, A Space Odyssey is a movie that depicts life in outer space. I guess in 1968 everyone thought we'd be in space by now, and obviously they were way off.  They were also wrong when they thought of making half of a three hour movie in long, drawn out scenes of boring silence.  The movie did pick up, however, when the ship's onboard supercomputer, HAL 9000, feels threatened by the crew and starts killing them off one by one.  Once you finally grasp the plot though, the film spirals into one huge visual acid trip that is very typical of any 70's movie.  The end seems to be written by someone on LSD, as Dave's pod is suddenly parked inside his own house and he begins to age 50 years in fifty seconds.  Other than that, the movie itself was reletively good, when I was paying attention.  The visual effects were stunning for a movie of its time, but they wasted it on twenty minutes of a spaceship trying to dock.  Another thing that bothered me was that obelisk.  I thought that thing started on earth, so how did it get on Jupiter?  And where the hell did fetus Dave come from, and how did he get back into outer space when his ship is parked in the house?  Think you're confused?  Watch this movie, and you surely will be, if you dont fall asleep first.  If I had to rate it, I would give A Space Odyssey five out of ten points, for it only kept me entertained half the time.

Jeanne-Claire White

 

If you like staring into space for long periods of time, this is the movie for you. 2001: A Space Odyssey was one of the most random films that I have seen. Some of the random moments include a trip through a colorful space galaxy (20 minutes long), introduction with crazy gorilla men with the only audio being grunts (30ish minutes), and a few other random moments that people will have to discover for themselves. The duration of the movie was two hours and twenty minutes; however, it definitely could have been shorten to an hour and twenty minutes without losing any part of the storyline. It had an interesting plot, and it was ranking high on my movie scale until the ending. The ending of the movie made no sense in my mind, and it left me with a feeling of absolute confusion. The main gist of the movie is a crew of 6 is on a mission to Jupiter, but the 6^th member is the all-knowing robot/computer HAL-9000. Despite his cheerful voice and capability of human feelings, HAL is a robot that casts a deep darkness over humans’ expectations of technology. Although HAL is extremely helpful, he kills the crew members and tries to have complete control over the mission. I do not want to spoil the “great” ending, so a few more enticing points were the audio track, special effects, and feeling like you are stuck in time forever.

 

Mike Wittmer

2001: A Space Odyssey is not only advanced for the year it was released, but is also scientifically realistic according to scholars.  The fact that sound does not travel in space is accurately portrayed.  Along with the visual effects, the soundtrack fit very nicely.  At first you might think classical music like that wouldn’t fit into a space movie, but it coincides nicely with the “final frontier” space exploration side of the film.  However, it falls short for the most part as far as providing an entertaining movie.  There are countless scenes that are just simply too long.  I believe the director was counting on the idea of space travel being so new in the 70s that the mere image of a spaceship would be entertaining enough.  Go out and rent it if you’re a big sci-fi fan and want to see how the movies have developed over the years, but 2001 just doesn’t have enough appeal to the average viewer.