A space ODYSSEY ???

Rating: 1/10 (5 January 2007)

The Odyssey by Homer is one of the early masterpieces of art/literature. It's bold, to say the least, to name this movie after it.
I'm not shocked nor disgusted by the ending. I wouldn't mind how slowly this movie moves on (well, not much), I would accept the musical score and the lack of action. I wouldn't miss an intelligent plot and the usual kind of acting, if this product wouldn't be so shallow in regard of philosophic content and "meaningfullness".
The floating of the spaceships in space and effects like those are quite well done, but what is shown here was NOT ahead of its time. For instance, revolving, ring- shaped space- stations as a concept had been proposed decades before the making of this movie. Even the furniture (remember the conference with the Russians), that was supposed to help to induce a sense of futurism in the average viewer, was just contemporary stuff (or derived from it).
Science fiction authors had already written very thoughtful short stories and novels about the possibility of artificial intelligence, its evolution (perhaps independently from the developers) and the eventual consequences to mankind. The computer in this movie is a very simple schematic "bad guy" in comparison.
All the other stuff about the "black box(es)" seems to be not much more than empty mysticism. Thinking that the age of enlightenment was about 200 years ago...
Why was this movie made? The "2001..." project was started with a couple of years after Kennedy made his announcement about "conquering" the moon. "2001..." can be seen as part of the efforts to awaken and keep up the public interest in the so called "race to the moon". (I do not say that the American people NEEDED to be pushed to accept the enormous costs of the Apollo- program). However, from a documentary I have seen I take it, that many spectators were very impressed, especially when watching "...space odyssey" put on extra large screens by 70mm- projectors.
The mystic content might have even been pointed to people, who expected the Apollo astronauts would pass an old man with a beard (or an old woman, or who or what ever), trying to deliver a surrogate. Just guessing...
"Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid. ... Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. ... There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet is was the schoolboy who said 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so.'
-Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar"
Mark Twain, from "Following The Equator"