2001: A Space Odyssey

Although I had been shown 2001: A Space Odyssey once before, it was a long time ago (in a high school classroom), and I fell asleep on and off throughout the film, so I wouldn't really say I had truly seen it until yesterday, when Candace and I went to see it at a special screening at The Fox Theatre.

First off, let me say that the cinematography, especially for its time, was quite incredible. Also, I can certainly appreciate the use of art music (especially that of Ligeti), although I do feel the significance of this has been largely over-exaggerated by the new music community. Apart from this though, the film IS quite hard to wrap one's head around, and the four main sections (Dawn of Man, TMA-1, the Jupiter Mission, and Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite) all seem to end a bit abruptly with little in the way of connecting ligaments. Also the last section's trippy portion, complete with color-filtered aerial shots of different parts of Earth's terrain, is a bit too much in this time of much higher quality effects (plus, I never really got into trippy stuff and find this section to be wholly too long).

So, I would say I enjoy the two middle sections the best and easily found HAL to be the most interesting character. Also, was it just me or does William Sylvester's role as Heywood Floyd seem a little Shatner-like? Sure, it was a neat movie in many regards, but it's one I probably won't feel the urge to sit down and watch again for a very long time...

BTW: the trailer above shows WAY too much of the film, so I would advise against watching it if you have yet to see the movie.