Review of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Jake Thayres T — 13 Apr 2016

2001 A Space Odyssey:

After watching 2001 A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick, I have to admit that I was completely impressed by it all, and that I enjoyed it. I found Douglas Rain's depiction of HAL 9000, better known as just HAL, to be amazing and the dialog between him and Dave, played by Keir Dullea, to be perfect. Also, the title for the movie was a good fit. It being 2001, when the movie took place, it being in space, and it being an odyssey, a series of experience that gives knowledge or understanding to someone, in which the someone it Dave.

The plot, for those who haven't seen it, is a bit complicated, so I will give you some of the important detail. It begins with showing us, the viewer, the dawn of man, and how the homosapiens acted. It then continued to show a monolith that all the homosapiens going mad and frantically moving around and touching it. It moves on to showing how we evolved into more advanced homosapiens, by that I mean humans, exploring space. There humans found an object that they had no idea what it was or who built it and it was the monolith. Then the movie jumps 18 months later on a mission. It then introduces three major people HAL 9000, Dave, and Poole and the rest of the people are in cryo-stasis. Eventually it ends up just being Dave when the monolith shows up again. While there is more later on in the story that is best seen rather than told, but there will be more major spoilers later in this review.

The movie had some of the best cinematography I have seen. First off, the shots of space and the scenery really set a theme of being out of control, which will be explain in a later paragraph, and a feeling of loneliness. Throughout the prologue of the movie, by that I mean before the Jupiter Mission, people were looking for signs of extraterrestrial life and even though they found what could be a sign, there is no way of being one hundred percent sure. Aloes, during the Jupiter Mission, there were only three people who were not in status. Furthermore, after the death of HAL, Dave ended up leaving in his pod into the vastness of space and eventually saw older and older version of him alone, in a white room, until reaching death. Plus, the amazing visual effect is something that everyone needs to witness. Finally, the music was amazing and help set the jaw dropping scale of everything.

Also, I will briefly talk about the short story, this is roughly based on, and the symbolism. First off, I am just mention this movie is based off of a short story call The Sentinel, but it is just roughly based off of it. The only real thing that stayed, roughly, was the pyramid that is the monolith. Though the monolith doesn't do everything that the pyramid did, the monolith, in this movie, wonders around the place and I believe I know why. The monolith tells the truth that they are living in a fictional world. While I can't fully explain it in this essay, I will cover a couple of the important reasons I say that. One, in the first screen to an audience, so to improve it, the monolith was originally displaying images and video to everyone. Also, when Dave was on his death bed, in the white room, and reached out to touch the monolith, it became the only scene in the film to have the camera shot ignore a wall that should have been in front of it. This movie has done everything to keep with continuity and not breaking the fourth wall, so this can't be an accident.

This is one of the best made films of all time. There is zero reason why you shouldn't read it, if you haven't already.