The granddaddy of modern science-fiction films.

Rating: 10/10 (22 May 2019)

When it comes to my experience with Stanly Kubrick's seminal sci-fi game changer, 2001: A Space Odyssey, it's sadly quite limited as I never watched the movie growing up and even if I had, I would have been bored to tears given the movie's glacial pace and it's complex themes about technology so for the longest time, 2001: A Space Odyssey was always a film that passed under my viewing radar until my dad showed it to me and while the visuals impressed me, I was less than impressed by the story. However, late last year, I rewatched it again with my dad and this time, I came to see it for what it is. From its thought-provoking themes and lavish visuals to it's acting and captivating musical score, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a triumph of not only filmmaking but also of visual storytelling. Without it, the world of science-fiction cinema would look very different and we wouldn't have films like Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, or Interstellar.
The film opens millions of years ago in Africa as a tribe of human-like apes are chased from their water hole by an enemy tribal. They wake up to see a high black monolith has appeared before them. With the item influencing their actions, the group learns how to use bones as weapons and drive the other tribe away. We then cut to millions of years later where a man named Heywood Floyd is flying to a massive space station above Earth on his way to a US outpost on the Moon. While there, he blocks questions from his friends about claims of a strange item found in a nearby crater. Floyd then travels in a Moonbus to the item. From there, the story keeps jumping ahead in time, showing us various sequences of mankind as he becomes more and more dependent on technology.
As an unsurpassed milestone in cinematic history with the likes of Citizen Kane and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 2001: A Space Odyssey has not only broken the genre traditions of many other sci-fi films, but has also given the world of film a whole new meaning by bypassing spoken delaying, but in no way does that mean that the film breaks all interpretation and debate. From its splendid ideas about the future to its aspiring execution, 2001: A Space Odyssey isn't a film that is focused on entertaining us with epic space battles and witty banter like Star Wars but rather to leave the viewer in wonder and to make them think. It's a movie that stays with you long after the end credits finish rolling, unlike some more recent films. What the viewer must grasp while watching 2001: A Space Odyssey is that it's not the kind of film where one understands what's going on nor does the film require flashy visual effects to keep the viewer's attention but as Kubrick put it, the film is supposed to an extremely individualistic viewing experience that reaches out to the viewer and project an inward feeling of awareness. To put that into terms, the film is more about discovering the more logical and precise areas of humankind while also being a game changer on both a visionary and technological level of filmmaking which makes for one hell of an felt, but to also excel in transporting the viewer to another world entirely through the magic of 2001: A Space Odyssey, that is pure artistic genius in its highest form.
Then 2001: A Space Odyssey was first released in 1968, it split moviegoers right down the line much in the same way films like Blade Runner and Star Wars: The Last Jedi would later do. People walking out of the film were common as many were simply baffled by the film's ultimate meaning and it's story and while it's completely clear why many at first hated or were left confused by what 2001: A Space Odyssey was presenting to them, Kubrick always did what he did best by establishing a second thought in the viewer's head as many left the theaters feeling baffled and even a bit downbeat, but the film sowed the seeds in people's minds that eventually grew over the years. In the late 60s when space exploration and alien life were the hot topics of the day, moviegoers whet into 2001: A Space Odyssey wanting answers. Will mankind ever reach the Moon? What does the future hold for us as a species? Are we alone in the universe? To their shock, 2001: A Space Odyssey did the exact opposite by leaving the viewer with even more questions to be answered rather than the other way around.
One thing that makes 2001: A Space Odyssey stand out from various other science-fiction films is its surprising lack of dialog. Earlier versions of the film included much more but Kubrick cut a lot of it out of the final cut. What's left over is what Stanly intended to use in telling his story. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a film that goes out of the way to show us things happening on-screen in a visual way. The film lets the viewer figure out the message of the film on their own rather than beating the moral into our heads as well as conveying its topical and rational ideas wholly through the filmmaking elements of picture and sound rather than clunky dialog. I only wish this kind of visual storytelling would be applied to movies like Terminator Genisys. When there is spoken dialog in 2001: A Space Odyssey, it's repetitive, uninteresting and all but insignificant to the film's story. During the scene of the shuttle flying to the Clavius base, the dialog is boring small-talk while Heywood Floyd's conversation while flying to the Moon is just as dull and pointless so much so that the musical score completely drowns out the conversation. Without hesitation, the dialog in 2001: A Space Odyssey is the least important thing in the overall story that we are being shown onscreen. This is most clearly seen at the beginning and the end of the film, each of which are spend out over a 20 minute period without any spoken dialog in sight. The movie is flanked by a single-minded disregard for dialog as if Stanly Kubrick is telling us to just watch and not be overloaded with dialog. Both scenes show the most vital story beat in the movie: the strange monolith by some means propels mankind's evolution forward drastically, first from ape to human, then from man to star child. This kind of evolution is visually stripped of spoken words, as Kubrick encourages us in different ways.
Unlike some other sci-fi film scores, the music for 2001: A Space Odyssey is all classical, picked especially for the movie and repeated frequently. Kubrick delves into each piece of music to find vivid significance and even learns on these tracks to draw from their cinematic power. The main classical themes for the film are Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss and a few harmonious tracks from Gyorgy Ligeti. The track Also Sprach Zarathustra has become as synonymous with motivational and phenomenal moments as John Williams' music has become with opening film scores. The section of the score used by Kubrick is the beginning fanfare of the score titled Sunrise. Particularly, Strauss's musical piece hints to Fredrick Nietzsche's abstract essay of the same name that deals with ideas such as mankind's rise to something greater than themselves as well as monumental philosophical questions as well. Both questions are right at home in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where both Hal 9000 and the star child can be seen as a superman as well as the theme of the world riddle type question of life's meaning, the leadership of mankind, and the essence of the universe. Kubrick using this piece of music is the perfect way to convey the messages of 2001: A Space Odyssey without the need to explain it to the viewer. Likewise, Stanly also uses The Blue Danube waltz by Johann Strauss to relay a completely unattached idea but it's much more simple as in space, there's nowhere else to go but in circles. Indeed, space is all about rotating around massive celestial bodies, and 2001: A Space Odyssey shows the viewer this continuously throughout the film. The Blue Danube can be heard in its complete form during the course of the film. the first two-thirds play from the entrance of the weapons satellite to Dr. Floyd arriving at the space station and the last third plays as he approaches the Moon. Using such a lofty piece of music to show outer space travel as being stylish, fantastic and like being in a never-ending dance is a brilliant move by Kubrick as it not only shows us how far technology has come in the past 40 years but also how the regulars onboard the space fight view it with a feeling of indifference much like how we view air travel today. Lastly, there are several musical pieces from Gyorgy Ligeti that also help shape the film and its story. All these musical segments share familiar merits, and appear in 2001: A Space Odyssey as a musical topic to guide the Monolith and Stargate sequences. Displaying thick layers of sound qualities rather than using more classic melodies, these musical moments stand up to traditional meaning and show us the mysterious nature of the Monolith, its power, its beginnings, and the beings who created it. Kubrick uses these musical setpieces in the film because each track commutates an unattached look at the film's various themes without the need for dialog. Zarathustra presents the philosophical questions of the film while The Blue Danube transforms space travel into a graceful dance while Ligeti encourages us to find the actuality of a mysterious force without leaving so much as a hint. Kubrick's usage of music in 2001: A Space Odyssey is nothing short of fantastic as it not only helps tell the story but also provided a foundation for film composers like John Williams and Vangelis to build upon in later years. Simply put, without the music of 2001: A Space Odyssey, sci-fi movie scores would look and sound completely different.
Another well-defined aspect of 2001: A Space Odyssey lies in the austerity of its soundtrack. Throughout the film, Stanly Kubrick abandons intricate mixes and discord in favor of the most basic of ideas. When the film starts, it's