To put it succinctly...

Rating: 9/10 (21 July 2006)

After perusing the negative comments, I refuse to accept criticism from A) any person who was not at least alive when the movie was released, or better yet, wasn't at least 13 in 1968. You could not possibly appreciate living in that period of humanity, and the huge changes that were taking place. Space exploration was still huge, and we were thisclose to getting Armstrong to the moon. And if you're trying to compare the effects then from today--you're really lost. No CGI, no Industrial Light and Magic, nothing like it came before. More importantly, B) any person who bases their opinion after viewing it on a 20 or 30 or 35" TV----they're probably the same ones who wrote that "Jaws" was a a boring film and couldn't see the shock value in it. Just to reiterate---THESE ARE MOVIES--THEY ARE MEANT TO BE SEEN IN A THEATRE!!