2001: A Space Odyssey useless beginning?

[Beta Man]

Originally Posted by Octavio

This kind of posts makes me lose my faith in Humankind

yeah. Did you think the article of affection in "Citizen Kane" was "dumb" (trying not to spoil here, but jeez, if you haven't seen Citizen Kane, crawl out from under the rock already!)

Are Black and White films intollerable to you?

Something's wrong with the world today something something something... Livin' on the EDGE!!! (not sure who sings that 80's craptastic song, but there you go!)

[horseflesh]

I put 2001 on for my 3 sons a few months ago (aged 6, 3 and 2 at the time ) and watching the overture & Dawn of Man segment it struck me that there is absolutely no way that a major studio these days would stump up a huge budget to make the 2001 that Kubrick did; 24 minutes with no dialogue??

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

I put 2001 on for my 3 sons a few months ago (aged 6, 3 and 2 at the time ) and watching the overture & Dawn of Man segment it struck me that there is absolutely no way that a major studio these days would stump up a huge budget to make the 2001 that Kubrick did; 24 minutes with no dialogue??

They might, if another Kubrick shows up...

He was a rare bird. I don't know of any other film by anybody that was as "out there", that actually got funded on such a huge scale.

[HDJK]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

...
Something's wrong with the world today something something something... Livin' on the EDGE!!! (not sure who sings that 80's craptastic song, but there you go!)

That would be Aerosmith

[Octavio]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

yeah. Did you think the article of affection in "Citizen Kane" was "dumb" (trying not to spoil here, but jeez, if you haven't seen Citizen Kane, crawl out from under the rock already!)

Are Black and White films intollerable to you?

Something's wrong with the world today something something something... Livin' on the EDGE!!! (not sure who sings that 80's craptastic song, but there you go!)

Are you asking to me if I dislike B&W films? or ur question was adressed to the OP?

Just in case: Many of my all time favs are in B&W. Movies like Los olvidados, The Exterminating Angel, The Wages of Fear, Ivan the Terrible, Persona, Double Indemnity, Casablanca, Rashomon, Ikiru, The Nights of Cabiria, Psycho, Dr. Strangelove, Modern Times, Great Expectations (Lean's version), Just to name a few.

[doctorsteve]

People used to see movies in things called Movie Theaters. They were big and dark at first. Then they projected the movie on to a big wall. The beginning of 2001 would have been really neat in one of those theater things...

[bferr1]

Guys, Mystique is talking about the overture at the beginning of the movie. Previous home video editions of "2001" had the word "Overture," but this was added for home video, never a part of the theatrical version.

Mystique, many epic-length films from the '30s through the '60s often had opening music and an intermission, and some (like "Gone with the Wind") even had Exit Music.

Here's what Wikipedia had to say about Overtures:

In motion pictures, an overture is a piece of music setting the mood for the film before the credits start. It does not underscore the credits or part of the plot but is seen as introductory music "in its own right". It is typically accompanied by a blank screen (played with the lights already dimmed and/or with closed curtains) or a still picture and can be several minutes long.

Notable examples are: Gone with the Wind (1939), Lawrence of Arabia, Oliver! (1968), King Kong, West Side Story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange. 1979 was the last time a major American studio made use of an overture (with the films Star Trek: The Motion Picture and The Black Hole, although the film Dancer in the Dark included an overture in the year 2000. Many of these (epic) films also featured entr'actes and exit musics, which, together with the overtures, have often been cut from TV and video releases and can only be found on recent "restored" DVDs. Some of these "incidental musics" were made for roadshow presentation and were cut afterwards for the wide release.

Here's a list (from Wikipedia):

The "Golden Age" Era
Show Boat (1929)
King Kong (1933)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Since You Went Away (1944)
Spellbound (1945)
Duel in the Sun (1946)
How The West Was Won (1946)
Joan of Arc (1948)

1950-1970
East of Eden (1955)
Oklahoma! (1955)
High Society (1956)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
South Pacific (1958)
Ben-Hur (1959)
The Alamo (1960)
West Side Story (1961) (An additional overture, which is not present in the stage version)
The King and I (1961 reissue)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Cleopatra (1963)
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
Disney's Mary Poppins (1964)
My Fair Lady (1964)
The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Battle of the Bulge (1965)
The Great Race (1965) (with chorus)
Grand Prix (1966)
The Happiest Millionaire (1967)
Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
Ulysses (1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Ice Station Zebra (1968)
Funny Girl (1968)
Oliver! (1968)
The Lion in Winter (1968)
Sweet Charity (1969)
Darling Lili (1970)
Ryan's Daughter (1970)

After 1970
1776 (1972)
Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
That's Entertainment! (1974)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Disney's The Black Hole (1979)
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Kingdom of Heaven (2005) (Roadshow and Director's Cut versions)

Missing from the list: "Spartacus" (1960)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overture#Film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...with_overtures

[Beta Man]

Originally Posted by Octavio

Are you asking to me if I dislike B&W films? or ur question was adressed to the OP?

.

Sorry... directed.... with a very much split-tongue, at the OP

Citizen Kane is one of the all-time greats, I can re-watch numerous times..... but if it's not a crappy remake of a classic, with added CGI etc, it's a big risk for the studio, so they stick to the sure-fire money-makers, and we, as film fans, suffer because of this...... Why re-do the superman films, they were GREAT! Why remake the Ocean's 11 movie, there will never be another Rat-Pack!!!!

[Beta Man]

almost forgot about the score of the original King Kong.... BRILLIANT!

[Octavio]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

Sorry... directed.... with a very much split-tongue, at the OP

Citizen Kane is one of the all-time greats, I can re-watch numerous times..... but if it's not a crappy remake of a classic, with added CGI etc, it's a big risk for the studio, so they stick to the sure-fire money-makers, and we, as film fans, suffer because of this...... Why re-do the superman films, they were GREAT! Why remake the Ocean's 11 movie, there will never be another Rat-Pack!!!!

No problem, mate


Yeah, remakes from classics "usually" sux. i.e: Why to remake "The Manchurian Candidate"? or "Miracle on 34th Street"?

But the one that it's a crime and should be banned is the remake of "Psycho" arghhh Vince Vaughn playing the iconic role of "Norman Bates"???
At least Anthony Perkins didn't see that travesty

[ajc68]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

Citizen Kane is one of the all-time greats, I can re-watch numerous times.....

I can't wait for this to come out on BD. And when the kids get introduced to it, I'm sure we'll have at least 17 threads complaining about the black bars (pillar box) in the film.

[dad2erin]

Originally Posted by Octavio

This kind of posts makes me lose my faith in Humankind

Mine was lost a long time ago.

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by Mystique

I just got around watching 2001: A Space Odyssey after buying it from Amazon's BOGO a few months or so ago and man that movie is pretty weird. What I felt was so useless was the first three minutes of the film, where the screen was blank and music was playing. What was the intent of that? To waste time? Overall the movie was pretty hard to get into and I never really did.

I'm really suprised nobody has posted Kubrick's genius with the first 3 minutes:

(1) OPENING SEQUENCE: lasted 3 mins = from the beginning of earth to start of man: we know its 4 billion (ie. 4000 million years) from history, or 20'ish billion years per second

(2) SHOT OF BONE FLYING TO FLYING SHIP: lasted fraction of second = from start of man to 2001: we know its 4 million years from history: consistent with the time scale of (1)

Kubrick shows in awesome power that we've been around for a fraction of a second, compared to the world being around for 3 mins or so.

[haushausman]

The whole movie is about humans and there obsession with tools.

That should help clear things up a bit.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Mystique

I just got around watching 2001: A Space Odyssey after buying it from Amazon's BOGO a few months or so ago and man that movie is pretty weird. What I felt was so useless was the first three minutes of the film, where the screen was blank and music was playing. What was the intent of that? To waste time? Overall the movie was pretty hard to get into and I never really did.

It wasn't uncommon in the 50s and 60s for the epic films to have an overture and intermission (a la live theater).

The purpose of the overture is to tell people to get to their seats, the film is beginning. But, nowdays we have 10-15 minutes of commercials to show them.

Now, in the case of 2001 specifically, I believe the concept is of the void before "creation", and then "genesis" (the opening scene of Earth, Sun and space) and then into the Dawn of Man.

Any sufficiently advanced civilization would be considered gods to primitives. And here we have a creature about to be touched by "god" and "evolved" into modern man.

Gary

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

It wasn't uncommon in the 50s and 60s for the epic films to have an overture and intermission (a la live theater).

And theatrical programs. Find one person on this thread who even remembers those sold in the lobby, also a la live theater.

(Heck, find one person on this thread who remembers ritzy downtown theaters being studio-owned or independently-owned movie palaces that showed ONE movie in their entire building, and made it a "prestige" production for the big-city dwellers....
Every theater palace in Boston has since either disappeared over the last thirty years, or else converted to a live theater or office space, except for one former hotel, which is now a 15-screen cineplex.)

'77 was one of the last gasps of "Old-school" studio movies, and you can even find Fox theatrical programs of Star Wars's big city showing, if you search the right eBay collectors.
Whether that was indeed the last Theatrical Program ever produced for a big-studio presentation (and, indeed, one of the last Theatrical Roadshow presentations studios ever backed, before the '78-'83 Cineplex Renaissance), I will leave to more experienced film historians to answer.

The purpose of the overture is to tell people to get to their seats, the film is beginning. But, nowdays we have 10-15 minutes of commercials to show them.

Now, in the case of 2001 specifically, I believe the concept is of the void before "creation", and then "genesis" (the opening scene of Earth, Sun and space) and then into the Dawn of Man.

Which is in the "planet" opening shot

The music, OTOH, was the Overture. To get you in your big-ticket seats, just like the musical "Sound of Music" overture, the "Bridge Too Far" overture, the "Bridge on the River Kwai" overture, or even the "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" overture.
That was class, back then...They didn't even show a Pepsi ad.

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

It wasn't uncommon in the 50s and 60s for the epic films to have an overture and intermission (a la live theater).

The purpose of the overture is to tell people to get to their seats, the film is beginning. But, nowdays we have 10-15 minutes of commercials to show them.

Now, in the case of 2001 specifically, I believe the concept is of the void before "creation", and then "genesis" (the opening scene of Earth, Sun and space) and then into the Dawn of Man.

Any sufficiently advanced civilization would be considered gods to primitives. And here we have a creature about to be touched by "god" and "evolved" into modern man.

Gary

Exactly right.

[U4K61]

Originally Posted by Mystique

I just got around watching 2001: A Space Odyssey after buying it from Amazon's BOGO a few months or so ago and man that movie is pretty weird. What I felt was so useless was the first three minutes of the film, where the screen was blank and music was playing. What was the intent of that? To waste time? Overall the movie was pretty hard to get into and I never really did.

Better Theaters.

2001 was from a more elegant age with much grander and opulent theaters then todays edited down version. It was an artistic event on 70mm that no 1080p home theater comes close to duplicating. If you are under 30, it's going to take some stretch of imagination to understand, that despite all the technical advances whose clarity never makes it to the big screen, the movie going experience was much better back then then it is today.

A Few Good Ones Still Around:

• Radio City Music Hall
• Arc Light Cinemas

Back to The Odyssey

[Deciazulado]

btw, those wanting to see 2001 in 70mm living 'round MN, they're playing it tomorrow and Thursday at the Heights Theatre. Tonight too but it's too late unless you have a DeLorean

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Craig Ruchman

2001 was from a more elegant age with much grander and opulent theaters then todays edited down version with a cheep plastic screen hung above two exit doors. It was an artistic event that no 1080P home theater comes close to duplicating. If you are under 30, it's going to take some stretch of imagination to understand, that despite all the technical advances whose clarity never makes it to the big screen, the movie going experience was much better back then then it is today.

I remember being a college kid in NYC (first full-time city living) back in '83, back before the Cineplex Plague (three screens!) in the suburbs reached out to the cities:

Back then, most theater chains barely extended beyond the immediate state (left over from the days when MGM and UA owned their own chains, and independently-owned theaters had to bid for the rights to show movies), and downtown theaters in the big cities were still the old movie-palaces from the 60's...
I remember taking a fall break going down to 57th St. to see "Krull" or "Christine", or even a sneak preview of "Right Stuff", in "regular" old surviving downtown theaters...with curtains...with balconies...that would put even the highest class "stadium seating" shopping-mall cineplex closet to SHAME. As well they deserved.

In 1983, it was just Going to a Movie.
Nowadays, thinking back, we didn't know just how soft we had it, at the end of an era...The same people who weren't there would nowadays drool at the privilege of doing the same thing at a Disney El Capitan screening-stunt for $20 bucks a pop.