Why is there a black screen at times on 2001? (Possible spoiler alert)

[Grisle]

I don't get bored by this because of all of the awesome cinematography. I just realized I can hardly spell cinematography(copy and paste).

[frank_t]

Originally Posted by doctorsteve

The black picture is intentional.

Great flic, very underappreciated then and now. It's sad many would rather see I now pronounce you chuck and larry...

Not a mass-market movie, no doubt, but it's extremely well done.

By the time Eyes Wide Shut came around, I had to wonder what the hell happened to Kubrick.

[PS3_Kiwi]

Originally Posted by DrinkMore

Hmm. Maybe I really missed something, but the point of this movie was? The only thing that I can think of is he was playing on people's fascination with the future and man vs machine kinda thing.

Other than that - it was pretty - boring. Maybe during the time it was cool, but it was rather uneventful.

I agree with Drinkmore. Boring and uneventful.

[calcajun]

Boring and uneventful.

I thought so the one and only time i saw it in my teens.
Hows the picture look? I would think it should be beautiful on Blu.
Think i will put it in my rental queue.

[zz101]

Originally Posted by calcajun

I thought so the one and only time i saw it in my teens.
Hows the picture look? I would think it should be beautiful on Blu.
Think i will put it in my rental queue.

Pic looks great - lots of little details not previously visible such as text on computer screens and stuff. Also the colour is amazing.

[ScoBro828]

Originally Posted by DrinkMore

it was pretty - boring. rather uneventful.

It's a great story and an excellent movie.. shown in Blu-ray now an amazing picture. It's not smash and bang but it's not boring. It's Sci-fi. There was a time when sci-fi meant something different from what it means today.

But I think it's also a movie that you have to invest your time into and cannot have other things going on. It's not a movie for short attention span theater.

[CptGreedle]

It is so sad to see all these people saying this is a boring film.
Once again they do not understand the brilliance and the magnificence of this film. This is a time when digital watches did not exist, no one had yet even landed on the moon, there were no computer graphics in movies, and the art of the film was more important than action scenes.
The sets, the props, the acting, the artistic brilliance, the imagination of the author, all these things and more make this film absolutely amazing.
It is one of the best films ever made! It is not something that is appreciated by everyone, but i for one can not understand how people can not see the beauty of this film. It is simple and well thought out, and yet complex and deep.
I wish more people could appreciate this for what it truly is. It will always be toward the top of my "best movies ever" list.

[CptGreedle]

Originally Posted by ScoBro828

It's a great story and an excellent movie.. shown in Blu-ray now an amazing picture. It's not smash and bang but it's not boring. It's Sci-fi. There was a time when sci-fi meant something different from what it means today.

But I think it's also a movie that you have to invest your time into and cannot have other things going on. It's not a movie for short attention span theater.

I agree with you!
It is not an action thriller space movie, but it is not boring either.
It is also one of the true "Science Fiction" films, in that it uses fictional science that is actually so realistic it is sometimes forgotten that these things were not real. It focuses on the fictional science for the plot, a malfunctioning super computer. It is not one of the modern "sci-fi" films which have little imagination compared to this, and little science fiction at all (I call them "science fantasy", not "science fiction").

[Moefiz]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

It is so sad to see all these people saying this is a boring film.
Once again they do not understand the brilliance and the magnificence of this film. This is a time when digital watches did not exist, no one had yet even landed on the moon, there were no computer graphics in movies, and the art of the film was more important than action scenes.
The sets, the props, the acting, the artistic brilliance, the imagination of the author, all these things and more make this film absolutely amazing.
It is one of the best films ever made! It is not something that is appreciated by everyone, but i for one can not understand how people can not see the beauty of this film. It is simple and well thought out, and yet complex and deep.
I wish more people could appreciate this for what it truly is. It will always be toward the top of my "best movies ever" list.

I for one would love to see this movies in BLU...Its not a shoot em up action movie.It make you think as you are looking at it.The younger people on here will not like it, even a movie like Dog Day Afternoon where most of the action is in a bank extremly well acted..but its not for everyone.

[owa]

Originally Posted by DrinkMore

Hmm. Maybe I really missed something, but the point of this movie was? The only thing that I can think of is he was playing on people's fascination with the future and man vs machine kinda thing.

Other than that - it was pretty - boring. Maybe during the time it was cool, but it was rather uneventful.

You'll probably be happier with 2010 then. It's more traditional.

[glenn22]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

It is so sad to see all these people saying this is a boring film.
Once again they do not understand the brilliance and the magnificence of this film. This is a time when digital watches did not exist, no one had yet even landed on the moon, there were no computer graphics in movies, and the art of the film was more important than action scenes.
The sets, the props, the acting, the artistic brilliance, the imagination of the author, all these things and more make this film absolutely amazing.
It is one of the best films ever made! It is not something that is appreciated by everyone, but i for one can not understand how people can not see the beauty of this film. It is simple and well thought out, and yet complex and deep.
I wish more people could appreciate this for what it truly is. It will always be toward the top of my "best movies ever" list.

You can't understand why people think it's boring?? seriously? maybe we didn't land on the moon until a year later, but come on, this movie was a drug induced trip out fest. I got the impression during the whole movie that Kubrick was sitting in a room somewhere getting high and saying "holy crap, you know what would be really groovy man? if we had a GIANT baby at the end! yeah!"

To me, the only good part of the movie was the part with HAL 9000

I'd much rather see movies like Logan's Run or Tron come to Blu-ray, true classics, not hippy movies.

[alain turgeon]

Originally Posted by glenn22

You can't understand why people think it's boring?? seriously? maybe we didn't land on the moon until a year later, but come on, this movie was a drug induced trip out fest. I got the impression during the whole movie that Kubrick was sitting in a room somewhere getting high and saying "holy crap, you know what would be really groovy man? if we had a GIANT baby at the end! yeah!"

To me, the only good part of the movie was the part with HAL 9000

It is not a giant baby it is David Bowman returning to earth as a starchild.Anyway this is obviously a movie that's not for everyone.

[venusiansky]

From my perspective, the monolith is the main aspect of the story. It is sci-fi; a story about how this strange alien device manipulates and perpetuates life on Earth (Dawn of Man) to the unknown. The story of HAL the computer sort of adds to the movie, giving it a futuristic outlook to technology. The special effects were very innovative and influential for films to come. The dialogue can be dry at times, but that is just how the story flows. To me, it adds a natural aspect to it. Several of the scenes, such as the Dawn of Man, the Moon and the Jupiter sequences are some of the most intense pieces of film I have ever watched. It is a very artistic film.

[Grand Bob]

2001 is about the evolution of man (man-ape to man to immortal being). It says evolution happens in discrete jumps (coinciding with the appearance of the alien's monolith) rather than gradually. The monolith "inspired" man-apes, who were previously vegetarian, to kill, thus allowing them to survive until they became men. A monolith was intentionally buried on the moon with the knowledge that, when men became intelligent enough, they would eventually travel to the moon and excavate the monolith, which they made easy to find. When the sunlight hit the uncovered monolith on the moon for the first time in 4 million years, it sent a signal to Jupiter. A space craft was sent to survey the location of the radio transmission, but it turned out that the onboard computer was more "human" than the humans, who by now are very technically capable, but logical and emotionless. The surviving astronaut is shown wonders of the universe before undergoing the next stage in evolution. The room that the astronaut ends dying and being reborn in is created from his mind.

Portions of the movie were intentionally made to be "slow". Long periods of space travel are presumed to be boring, so it is depicted that way in the movie. There is no sound in space, so you don't hear any in the movie. Bureaucrats are stuffy and uninteresting in reality, so they are depicted that way, etc. Dialog was kept to a minimum and is for the most part nonessential (except for the message played when HAL "dies") because Kubrick said the movie was intended to be primarily a visual statement, more to inspire wonder than provide answers. Sorry for you guys who miss the explosions, sex, profanity, monsters, and people getting tortured to death - the purpose of this movie was to get you to think.

[DrinkMore]

Hmm. Nothing against Kubrick and I am well aware AT THE TIME, this movie probably exceeded a lot of expectations and captured the imagination of people who saw it.

The PQ is excellent. The attention to every detail is great. The PQ is so good in fact - you can see the paint roller marks on one of the apes backgrounds (I believe they are paint roller marks?).

My main thing here is - like someone else said. It's like Kubrick was on a bad trip and this thing came out of his head during the time. I really don't glean much from the movie other than it was an enduring 2 hours and 30 minutes long.

Is there an article or something that tells me from Kubrick's own mouth what this movie is about and what his intentions were and NOT an interpretation from someone who saw it?





Again, I can see that when this movie came out - for it's time - it was way ahead of it. However, right now - it's just not prevalent anymore.

[Snowgod]

The movie was about you, or us. It was suppose to make you think, about where we came from and where we are going. What will we find on our journey and what may surprise us. Thought provoking films require that the viewer be so curious that they are trying to stay ahead or at least up with the films progress. If you are not one of these people, then you will be bored and lost.

[Manco]

Originally Posted by DrinkMore

Hmm. Maybe I really missed something, but the point of this movie was? The only thing that I can think of is he was playing on people's fascination with the future and man vs machine kinda thing.

Other than that - it was pretty - boring. Maybe during the time it was cool, but it was rather uneventful.

Simply put...it is the atheistic view of man. Man is not an end...just a means to an end serving only a small purpose in the broad spectrum of time.

[DrinkMore]

I understood most of what he was trying to convey - there were some things that just did not make sense.

I guess I went into it expecting a space adventure. Instead I get a theory on the evolution of man.

[Micker]

It is so sad to see all these people saying this is a boring film.
Once again they do not understand the brilliance and the magnificence of this film. This is a time when digital watches did not exist, no one had yet even landed on the moon, there were no computer graphics in movies, and the art of the film was more important than action scenes.

It's boring now, because we have landed on the moon, digital watches are ancient tech and CGI is even old. We expect much more from a film today. Hell, atari 2600 blew my mind in 1983, but it sucks today.

Some movies, that were groundbreaking when they were released, are not so exciting today. Take Midnight Cowboy for example. I heard so many great things about this movie. When my wife and I finally saw it a couple years ago, we both were floored at what a crappy movie it was. My friend borrowed it and turned it off half way through. I guess it was shocking when it came out, but today its message is lost. 2001 is the same type of thing, its old technology, that is supposed to be new and shocking technology. A computer that talks, space travel etc. is all boring technology today. The pc i'm typing on would make HAL look like a calculator, minus the faked humaness it had.

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by DrinkMore

Hmm. Nothing against Kubrick and I am well aware AT THE TIME, this movie probably exceeded a lot of expectations and captured the imagination of people who saw it.

The PQ is excellent. The attention to every detail is great. The PQ is so good in fact - you can see the paint roller marks on one of the apes backgrounds (I believe they are paint roller marks?).

My main thing here is - like someone else said. It's like Kubrick was on a bad trip and this thing came out of his head during the time. I really don't glean much from the movie other than it was an enduring 2 hours and 30 minutes long.

Is there an article or something that tells me from Kubrick's own mouth what this movie is about and what his intentions were and NOT an interpretation from someone who saw it?


Again, I can see that when this movie came out - for it's time - it was way ahead of it. However, right now - it's just not prevalent anymore.

go to kubrick2001.com. there is a nice little flash video that explains everything. i feel like after you watch it, you'll kind of say, oh i get it, hey, thats kind of cool. what i get from the movie more than anything is the vastness of space. its deep, its dark, its silent. kubrick doesn't seem to like to cut much out, so you see every inch of franks movement when he is fixing the thing on the ship, it takes him like 5 min. to get there, but you realize that if that every happenend in real life, you would simply be floating in absolutely nothing for 5 min. hearing on the sound of your breath. the movie is a bit creepy.