The sci-fi movie by definition

Rating: 10/10 (23 February 2016)

This is for me THE sci-fi movie by definition, and I support my pitch with the following facts: # the movie has the ambition to tell the story of human kind from its very remote beginning four million years ago up to its far future; a huge ambition, an almost unbearable burden, but 2001 succeeds: the movie is at the same time highly epic and iconic... # epic: the story is a fantastic journey: four million years ago, a mysterious, superior entity has come on earth to chose the best among all pre-human beings (actually an ape, Moonwatch) to transition his species into its future, i.e. mankind as we know it. Four million years later, the same mysterious entity appears again and again it comes to select the best among all men (Dave Bowman) to do what his precursor had done millions of years before, i.e. to carry his species to the next level. The final amazing journey across time and space, culminating in the birth of the new species, symbolised by the huge phoetus- egg that Bowman has turned in, is a unique filmic experience # iconic: 2001 has changed sci-fi cinema for ever, sci-fi movie have never been the same since. The cinematographic solutions that Scott and his crew have created for 2001 have set new standards for any future sci-fi movie: just think of the way of portraying spaceships, moving very slowly against the infinite background of the deep space instead of being bullet-like objects as they had been shown up to then. Other visuals have been adopted by movies like the fantastic Interstellar (which I loved a lot!): think of the spinning space station, the docking scenes, and even the key visuals of the journey across the wormhole (is this Cooper or David Bowman...?). I watched 2001 back in 1969, and I keep watching it every now and then; another amazing thing of this movie is how watchable still is nearly 50 years after its production, even more so for a sci-fi movie, most of which become obsolete