Author Topic: 2001: A Space Odyssey - 50th anniversary April 3, 2018  (Read 10296 times)

Offline catdlr

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Unrestored ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ returning to theaters

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LOS ANGELES — An unrestored 70mm print of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey” is coming to select U.S. theaters in May in celebration of the film’s 50th anniversary.

Warner Bros. Pictures says Wednesday that the cut will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 12 before launching in select U.S. theaters on May 18. Filmmaker Christopher Nolan will introduce the film at the Cannes premiere, where members of Kubrick’s family will also be in attendance. Kubrick died in 1999.

The studio says that the unrestored film, created from the original camera negative, will allow audiences to experience it as they did upon the film’s release in 1968.

Warner Bros. will also later in the year release the film for home viewing in 4K resolution.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/unrestored-2001-a-space-odyssey-returning-to-theaters/2018/03/28/82c869a8-32c7-11e8-b6bd-0084a1666987_story.html?

Cannes Film Festival article:
http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/infos-communiques/communique/articles/cannes-classics-to-celebrate-the-50th-anniversary-of-2001-a-space-odyssey
« Last Edit: 03/29/2018 07:02 am by catdlr »
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Re: 2001: A Space Odyssey - 50th anniversary April 3, 2018
« Reply #1 on: 03/29/2018 01:03 pm »
The movie premiered in Washington on April 2 and New York City on April 3.

Online hartspace

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Re: 2001: A Space Odyssey - 50th anniversary April 3, 2018
« Reply #2 on: 03/29/2018 06:51 pm »
Given the way the announcement is worded, I'm wondering if this might be the original 160-minute premiere version of the film before Kubrick made his 19-minutes of post-premiere cuts.  I imagine if it was, they'd probably say that, but the wording of the announcement seems a bit odd.
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The studio says that the unrestored film, created from the original camera negative, will allow audiences to experience it as they did upon the film’s release in 1968.
In any case, seeing it in the theater again would be great.  I saw it originally in April 1968 (at 11 years old) at Washington's Uptown Theater in Cinerama and 2001 remains, to this date, my favorite movie.

Offline eric z

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Re: 2001: A Space Odyssey - 50th anniversary April 3, 2018
« Reply #3 on: 03/29/2018 07:39 pm »
Hi Hartspace- I was there, too! I'm not sure if it was the premiere, but it was an afternoon showing and was one of the last and best times I had with my Dad - before the dreaded "Stepmom-era" set in!. I had read the book, since I read everything by the Big  Three [Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein] that I could. One of the best things my parents did for me was getting me reading early in the game. We talked about that ending for weeks!

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Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #4 on: 04/02/2018 09:36 pm »
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3463/1

Fifty years after the future arrived: the astronauts of 2001: A Space Odyssey
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, April 2, 2018

Fifty years ago today, April 2, 1968, the future started. Or maybe not. That was the day that Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered in Washington, DC. At the time, movies did not premiere simultaneously on hundreds or thousands of screens. Instead, they sometimes rolled out, city by city, and Washington was the first American city to premiere the film. According to Gary Lockwood, who played astronaut Frank Poole in the movie, the Washington premiere did not go particularly well. A new book on the movie explains that audience members started “streaming” out of the Uptown Theater before the movie was even finished.

The next day the actors and other people associated with the movie hopped on an airplane to fly to New York City for the film’s debut there. Lockwood ended up sitting next to Arthur C. Clarke, who had written the short story that the movie was based upon and collaborated—not always amicably—with director Stanley Kubrick. Lockwood said that Clarke was in a gloomy mood because of the poor reception to the film in Washington. Lockwood told Clarke that he was incredibly lucky, because it was only then, at that precise moment in time, that the technology to realistically depict spaceflight and a director as skilled as Kubrick both existed to take Clarke’s story and turn it into something amazing. But the New York premiere did not go any better, and reportedly hundreds of people walked out of the theater before the film ended.

Offline Nomadd

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #5 on: 04/03/2018 12:51 am »
 The premier was before people discovered that you had to read the book and watch the movie stoned.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #6 on: 04/03/2018 01:31 am »
The premier was before people discovered that you had to read the book and watch the movie stoned.

I don't think anybody read the book, but I had a professor who said that there was a point in the film where you were supposed to drop acid and lay on the floor at the front of theater.

Offline slavvy

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Re: 2001: A Space Odyssey - 50th anniversary April 3, 2018
« Reply #7 on: 04/03/2018 07:20 am »
In 2001 I attended a concert in the huge Berliner Philharmonie hall where they played all the music from the movie. And composer György Ligeti (trippy music at Stargate scenes) attended in person. I still get goosebumps when listening to his 'Atmosphères'.

Offline Svetoslav

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Re: 2001: A Space Odyssey - 50th anniversary April 3, 2018
« Reply #8 on: 04/03/2018 10:57 am »
When I was a kid I first read the book, which told us a story about a trip to Saturn.

Later, I watched the movie and was disappointed of course :)

But I still love Arthur Clarke's first odyssey.

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #9 on: 04/03/2018 01:03 pm »
Jeff Foust's book review is also up:

http://thespacereview.com/article/3462/1


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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #10 on: 04/03/2018 01:07 pm »
Such a visually interesting work of art:

Offline brihath

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #11 on: 04/03/2018 01:39 pm »
I remember seeing this movie in the summer of 1968.  The film was visually stunning, but I can understand how people might leave during the star gate sequence, as the movie didn't really explain to the audience what was occurring.  Within the first two years, I went to seven showings of the film, two of them in Cinerama.  Between showings, I reread the original story by Arthur C. Clarke, "The Sentinel" and the 2001 book, which was based upon the screenplay and was released in July 1968 (Signet Books) following the movie's premiere.  Keep in mind that production of this movie occurred before we had any high quality photographs from space and did a creditable job of depicting what views from orbit look like.

The opening sequence remains in my mind one of the most memorable in Sci-Fi film history along with Star Wars Episode IV.

Offline Lar

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #12 on: 04/03/2018 04:12 pm »
The premier was before people discovered that you had to read the book and watch the movie stoned.
Clarke wrote in a companion book to the novelization of 2001 that many people tried to give him acid, saying he would enjoy his movie more if he was tripping[1]. He said he flushed it down the toilet every time.

I've seen it multiple times and love it. The visuals are just amazing, and at this remove, the anachronisms like the PanAm and old Bell System logos are charming rather than jarring.

1- I can neither confirm nor deny that I was tripping at least once, but I suspect I am not the only one that isn't quite sure they remember the 70's well enough to be sure....
« Last Edit: 04/03/2018 04:14 pm by Lar »
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Offline JQP

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #13 on: 04/03/2018 04:19 pm »
I've watched 2001 more times in the last few years than I ever did before hitting 40. Now that I'm more familiar with the film, I'm often surprised how influential the visuals were; Star Wars, Alien, Spaceballs, Outland, Mission to Mars, etc. A heck of a lot of the sci-fi movies I have longer familiarity with look a heck of a lot more derivative now. Star Wars' entire look was ripped off from 2001 (and suffered from the departure in Phantom Menace and onward). The Death Star is just the sphere on the front of the Discovery One. A lot of the readouts and display screens in sci-fi movies for the next 30 years were lifted straight out of 2001.

That's all without attributing the "aliens as gods" thing to the film, which has become a sci-fi cliche.

Truth be told I usually skip past the prehistoric sequence and stop watching once the acid sequence starts.

« Last Edit: 04/03/2018 04:31 pm by JQP »

Offline the_other_Doug

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #14 on: 04/03/2018 05:06 pm »
The premier was before people discovered that you had to read the book and watch the movie stoned.
Clarke wrote in a companion book to the novelization of 2001 that many people tried to give him acid, saying he would enjoy his movie more if he was tripping[1]. He said he flushed it down the toilet every time.

I've seen it multiple times and love it. The visuals are just amazing, and at this remove, the anachronisms like the PanAm and old Bell System logos are charming rather than jarring.

1- I can neither confirm nor deny that I was tripping at least once, but I suspect I am not the only one that isn't quite sure they remember the 70's well enough to be sure....

I can actually and completely truthfully state that I never took acid and watched 2001.  Which would likely surprise some people who know me.

It's a landmark film, but it fails as narrative storytelling in one major area.  Unfortunately, that major area is both one of the biggest science fictional elements of the story, and was one of Clarke's repeating elements in at least two of his works.

That element is physical transformation.  The final resolution is of a massive physical transformation of the main viewpoint character, into a form that is commonly associated with helplessness -- that of an infant.

The natural human psychological reaction to such a transformation is a sort of a fascinated revulsion.  It certainly makes the viewer uncomfortable, which is why such physical transformations in film most commonly occur in horror films, and usually not to your viewpoint character.  Only to the monsters -- and those films end when your viewpoint character triumphantly evades or escapes the curse of transformation.

In this case, the counterpoint between the infant and its imputed power (and had the original book's ending been carried to film, that baby's power would have been more obvious) is one of the strong points of the piece.  But people -- especially in Western society -- are made extremely uncomfortable by this kind of physical transformation.

So, the resolution carries the character completely through his death (at least his life as we could understand it and relate to it had ended) and into a phase that we could, suddenly and jarringly, in no way relate to.  That violates narrative storytelling, in that it flips the story from denouement into second climax and then stops, at a point where the audience is jarred out of any ability to relate to the character any further.

That's where it fails as narrative storytelling.  Well, there and where Kubrick made the stylistic choice to present Bowman's Stargate experiences in a presentational rather than representational fashion, using metaphor to suggest experiences that couldn't actually be comprehended by the viewpoint character.  It's a valid artistic choice, but served more to confuse the average moviegoer than impress him/her with its insight into incomprehensible experiences.  ;)

Of course, these factors also make 2001 one of the most interesting and challenging --and successful -- pieces of science fiction cinema ever filmed, in that sf is supposed to be able to use manipulation of the genre itself and creation of discomfort in its audience to make its points.  But... it takes an educated and sophisticated reader/viewer to overcome the natural revulsion caused by scenes of physical transformation and savor the underlying meanings and metaphors.

Which is, at least IMHO, why the film had a mediocre critical reaction upon release, but has attained cult status.
-Doug  (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Offline AS_501

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #15 on: 04/03/2018 05:37 pm »
When asked about complaints that the movie plot was incomprehensible, Arthur C. Clarke responded "Stanley and I are laughing all the way to the bank."

Some wondered if the display screens on the various spacecraft and Clavius base used that new technology known as "Computer-Generated Graphics."  Sorry, they were just animations.

Discovery was supposed to have large heat radiators for the reactors.  But Kubrick and Clarke realized they might be confused for wings, so they were removed.

We 1960s space buffs were already pumped up by the Apollo program when this amazing movie came along.

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Offline Archibald

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Re: 2001: A Space Odyssey - 50th anniversary April 3, 2018
« Reply #16 on: 04/03/2018 06:47 pm »
When I was a kid I first read the book, which told us a story about a trip to Saturn.

Later, I watched the movie and was disappointed of course :)

But I still love Arthur Clarke's first odyssey.

Same for me.

Also Hunt for Red October "that movie is crappy, they cut 2/3 of the novel, including the Forgers shooting the Tomcat, damn"

 I probably saw the movie as a kid (wasn't born by a long shot in 1968, but my parents saw it and were amazed by it, like their entire generation aparently) but can't remember clearly, and then I red the novel  in May 2001 (that was intentional) and liked it - because I'm a space nerd since the craddle and I prefer a lot of detail rather than the movie mystery. If you read the novel Floyd entire trip is highly detailed. Hell, the novel actually makes some more sense than the movie.

Which doesn't mean I don't like the movie. The space waltz remains unbelievably cool and realistic, even in those days of intensive CGI. I re-watched it recently, and it still really hold its own even today.
« Last Edit: 04/03/2018 06:51 pm by Archibald »
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Offline JQP

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #17 on: 04/03/2018 06:54 pm »
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When asked about complaints that the movie plot was incomprehensible, Arthur C. Clarke responded "Stanley and I are laughing all the way to the bank."

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/01/close-tears-he-left-intermission-how-stanley-kubrick-upset-arthur-c-clarke

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"Close to tears, he left at the intermission": how Stanley Kubrick upset Arthur C Clarke

With all respect to Clarke, I'm glad the voice-overs didn't make it into the film. Voice-overs almost always suck, and they probably would have ruined 2001. Blade Runner is far better without them. Speaking of voice-overs, the piece says more than once that "almost" all of the voice-overs were removed from the film, but I can't recall even one voice-over in the versions I've seen.
« Last Edit: 04/03/2018 06:56 pm by JQP »

Offline dougkeenan

Can we go to Howard Johnson's after the movie? :)

Just a kid when I saw it first - and to me the highlight was the HoJo meal afterwards!


Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Fifty Years Ago Today: 2001: A Space Odyssey Premiered
« Reply #19 on: 04/03/2018 07:34 pm »
Am I one of the few that actually read the book before ever seeing the movie?

Of course, having read Ready Player One twice, I am debating if I'll ever watch the movie.
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