2001: A Space Odyssey Joshua Guy
10/29/14
2nd
period
2001: A Space Odyssey
is a movie directed and written by Stanley Kubrick. This movie is excellent as
it is one of Roger Ebert’s “Great Movies” list. It is shocking how the movie
moves through scene by scene not focusing on the film but more on the small,
eye-catching detail. The movie will leave you in a state of wonder yet can get
confusing at times. 2001 is an instant classic to any fan of science fiction.
This movie will inspire you with its breath taking views and its stunning
audio. Let’s take a closer look into 2001: A Space Odyssey.
2001:
A Space Odyssey includes many classical works of music. They include “Blue
Danube Waltz”, “Also sprach Zarathustra”, and “Atmospheres”. These works give
way to beautiful scenes of space. One of the most notable of these is at one
point as a spacecraft is landing in a space station; the slow Blue Danube Waltz
gives way to magnificence of the scene. Instead of fast paced timid song, it
goes for the cautious, slow song. This shows the great artistry that went into
the making of this movie. One other musical detail is the reuse of songs that
describe the same feeling, especially supernatural or awe-filled moments.
2001
was released in 1968, actually one year before we ever traveled the moon. This
really is awesome, because we had only begun space flight. Kubrick did an
amazing job imagining the surface of the moon and the cosmos. It was kept
largely in secret, so that Kubrick could take his time and not be rushed to a
deadline, he took many precautions in keeping it happen. At its preview it was
more or less a disaster, it wasn’t a visual or auditory faux pas, but a problem
with the speech. The movie focuses more on visually impressing rather than the
actual acting or dialogue. After that it was well received being awarded many
impressive accomplishments. As well being one of the most known movies in the
world.
2001:
A Space Odyssey begins on Earth at “The Dawn of Man”. This shows primates
finding the obviously extraterrestrial rock (one of the few key plot elements),
where they find how they can shape and manipulate things around them. This
leads to the invention of the tool and eventually the launch of spacecraft.
This is known as the biggest flash forward in film. Next we see a scene where a
spacecraft is landing on a space station; here we see that man is losing
control of tools in outer space. We see his pens floating in no gravity; he has
to learn to walk again due to no gravity, and eats baby food. This shows the
slip of man’s control on his tools. As we continue on we see a conference,
minor details in the actual plot. It really is almost there as a placeholder as
it doesn’t necessarily need to be there to move the plot. Kubrick lives it to
our imagination why there is business on the moon. We zoom across the moon to
where the same mysterious rock from earlier in time, has been found on the
moon. It sends a signal towards Jupiter.
Next, we move eighteen months later onto a
spaceship where two men are aboard a spacecraft, there are three in hibernation
mode. The craft is piloted and governed by a computer named, HAL 9000. Soon, we
see one of the most notorious moments in film history the two men find that HAL
has gone irrational and started to turn against them. As man finally loses grip
over technology, HAL kills the three hibernating men and one of the crewmen.
One is left alive and that is Dave. Dave is the main character from there on as
he whisked on a journey, but before he can he must kill HAL. This ends with
some of the most dialogue in the movie. HAL begs for mercy and claims fear.
This helps nothing as Dave kills HAL ending with a song “Daisy”. Next, we skip
to a picture of Jupiter and see the rocks flying through the air. Man had conquered
technology and is now being whisked away to his final challenge. Watching he
die of old age, it shows Dave progressively getting older in a quaint room possibly
out of this dimension. We see an older version knock down a glass; I would like
to elaborate on this, because the glass breaks though the wine stays in the
same place. Possibly referring to how Dave is there spiritually but not
completely physically. Next we see Dave die and a fetus with a green orb around
it takes us to the credits. This fetus in donned the name “Starchild” and shows
that man has made the next evolutionary step.
Kubrick amazes
us with his spectacular views of space. It seems almost impossible as only satellite
images and very few man photos had ever been taken of the cosmos. It’s
impressive that he could create such things. Stunning space stations and space craft’s
take hold of your imagination and give us one of the most visually satisfying
movies in the world. Instead of focusing in on the acting he takes a look at
the minor details, like is this color good with this color or are these lines
perfect. He grabs your attention elsewhere and doesn’t really need a dialogue for
this movie to make sense. This alone should whoa us and if that was not enough
his visual representation of space is amazing.
2001: A Space
Odyssey is to this day one of the best movies to be created. It stuns us with
its beautiful music and then grabs our attention with awe-filled moments of
space. Kubrick did an amazing job directing and writing this that it instantly
became a classic. He gave us more than a movie, but actually a lesson. He shows
that we need intelligence and not exactly our flesh. His amazing shots of the
cosmos still woe people today. He gives us almost a silent film, but still delivers
one of the most powerful movies. He didn’t include much dialogue, but for a
movie this great it isn’t needed. Today, I can say this is my all-time new
favorite movie. I recommend that anyone who has not seen this to watch it and
if you have take another look you may find something new.
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