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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

2001: A Space Odyssey (movie)

2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick was to be the "the proverbial good science fiction movie" in his words.  To this day it still stands up to the test of time both visually and story wise. I saw this movie first as a kid, and it was really, really boring.  Now having seen it again some years later I realize this movie is really quite amazing.  If you haven't already seen it, you really should, the movie is not just for Science Fiction fans, but really is for anybody who enjoys a great movie with both depth and subtlety.

In a time before computers were used extensively for movie special effects, 2001 stands out as being visually stunning. 

On the surface, the plot is one of Discovery (which also happens to be the name of the ship they are on) and going off into uncharted areas.  The on board Artificial Intelligence, HAL9000 or just HAL for short knows the true nature of the mission and is instructed in private to maintain the integrity of the mission at all costs.
One of the many camera "eyes" that HAL uses to monitor everything that goes on in the ship.
HAL always speaks in the pleasant manor he has been instructed and programmed to talk in.  The ship's crew eventually begin to think that maybe HAL might be malfunctioning because he thought the communications array would be going down shortly.  When they talk about deactivating HAL, all of the crew that were in hibernation have their life support cut off.  

But I digress, there's a lot of complexity and...well stuff to this movie, more so that can be adequately explained in a blog post.  

17 comments:

  1. Ah I love this.
    So many references to this movie that can be made...

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  2. The monolith alone stands out in peoples' minds as a very recognizable object.

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  3. I can't let you do that, Dave. XD
    Cool blog, I will follow you :)

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  4. This a fantastic movie. THe music and effects were amazing. I am in wonder that it was made nearly 70 years ago. I love to listen to pink floyds meddle song echoes and watch the last 20 minutes of this masterpiece.

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  5. A true classic! An extremely wonderfully made movie. The depth of this movie is absolutely amazing, it is definitely one of the best movies ever made.

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  6. This was a good movie. I actually have HAL as my sms tone...

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  7. This movie is FULL of symbolism. There are plenty of great resources on the net describing it.

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  8. 2001 is one of my all time favorite movies, great blog

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  9. I can't believe I still haven't seen this movie! I've been hearing about it for years and I just never got around to it. But it's on my list of must-sees now.

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  10. There's a link in the post to it. Somebody posted it on youtube in 13 parts.

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  11. Love this movie! Thanks for posting the link!

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  12. This is one of my favorite movies. Liked your post. Followed.

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  13. This is number 1 on my list of movies to see. I've seen so many references in various TV shows that I am ashamed I haven't seen it yet.

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