When “2001” came out in 1968, I as thousands of science fiction fans drooled at the thought of such a huge film as nothing of note had been released since “War of the Worlds,” “The Time Machine,” and “Forbidden Planet.”
We were years away from “Star Wars,” so this was it. This is my review of “2001” that I wrote for a fanzine two friends of mine produced. As you’ll see, I was disappointed.
When I first heard of “2001,” I was ecstatic – “Wow! An SF film where someone was willing to spend lots of money to do it right for a change!” – and even happier when I further discovered that Arthur C. Clarke was writing the screen play with Stanley Kubric. I figured we were guaranteed a great film.
Well, I was wrong.
Besides the fact that the film had no plot, there were some technical lapses which surprised and confused and disappointed me.
Some of these were incredibly slipshod and designed, not to show a technically feasible situation or device, but to create something at which some slope head from Keodunk, Iowa would poke his date and say, “Gee, look-a-dat!” I continually got the feeling from the film that Clarke sold his soul to the Hollywood types looking for thrills, chills and brightly blinking lights.
OK, so it had no plot; the Great Lord Mota knows there are plenty of other productions which have survived such failings, but the technical things bugged me the most. For example: the transfer craft from the Earth Station to the Moon landed on a postage stamp – a hydraulic one at that. The thing is, the pad was far too small to be practical and the most ridiculous part was the huge clam shell roof over the landing pad which withdrew in orange slice sections sliding below the surface of the Moon. If this was a hanger for the craft, it would have to be pressurized or why bother to cover it? And, if pressurized, the huge volume of air to be pumped in and out each time and the invariable loss in each cycle would be expending great amounts of air and energy uselessly, with the worst being the former. Then, to top this off, or rather to lower it, the craft, pad and all, is brought down into the bowels of the station. Again, my question is “Why bother?” Why not leave the craft on the surface, naked, where it would be perfectly happy, or at most covered by the clam-shell, and just bring the crew down. Do you take your car up to your 38th floor apartment in the elevator with you when you go home at night? But then it had to be done this way, or else Myrtle would not have been impressed.
Then we have the trip across the Moon by “bus.” I just don’t understand how Clarke let this one get through. The only engines visible were some rather large ones below the bus-shaped craft – no rockets fore or aft – and judging from the noise level, there were no rockets firing which would mean a ballistic trajectory and thus under 0 g conditions, the the craft sped along at what seemed to be a constant altitude and inside the bus they were obviously under g conditions – they walked, put things down and were about to pour liquids when the camera cut away.
The ending I won’t even talk about as I’m sure everyone has his own interpretation of it, but I will say I feel somewhat unsatisfied by it, and this was not helped any by the absurd background music and yelling throughout the picture. I expected the Earth Station shuttle to start swinging in time to the “Blue Danube,” and the psychedelic transition was much too long and too much of a pretty thing.
Then there was the space station, very nice and very massive, with another ring under construction, but strangely enough, there was no work being done on it: no men, no materials. Was work on this stopped after a cutback on funds?
We weren’t told.
Despite the castigation I’ve given “2001,” I still enjoyed most of it and I don’t think I will ever forget that fantastic scene of the Lunar Eclipse seen from behind the Moon.
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