Young people, please be forgiving

Rating: Null/10 (1 July 2001)

In considering 2001,
1. See it on the big screen. This movie loses everything on video.
2. Remember it was made 33 years ago, before Woodstock and psychedelia and before anyone had set foot on the moon. A lot of the films you compare it with, such as Star Wars etc, look as they do because of this movie. As for its slowness, yes, it is slow, but attention spans have grown much shorter: we are used to technical events in TV adverts at a rate of 1/second or more. Just go into a trance or something.
Some of it has worn very well. The space effects are still pretty good - though planetary alignment as a plot device is pure astrology.
Some has not. The costumes are a joke. Hardie Amies designed clothes for the Queen, for heaven's sake! Futuristic he never was.
It's amusing to see what they didn't think of, such as self-opening doors, touch-screens and alphanumeric displays. (Imagine wiring up and testing a warning light that said "LIFE SUPPORT TERMINATED"...)
Kubrick has a nice dry sense of humour: the no-grav toilet instructions are still good, and I'm sure the 'eyes' on the space-helmets that make the men look like caterpillars coming out of an apple were deliberate.
In summary, be kind to this movie. It's amazing that a film looking forward 33 years to today has made so few big mistakes.