2001 vs 2010 -- from visionary to misguided bravery

Rating: 9/10 (26 July 2006)

With all the controversy and endless conjectures generated from Kubrick's original, I think it was both a brave attempt and a misguided move for 2010 to have been made, and for no reason other than that any questions 2001 can provoke the audience to ask are not meant to be answered in our time. That remains to me an ingenious decision and marks Kubrick as a visionary in that he managed to create a story that compels the audience to create their unique thirst to want to know more.
Prior to the time 2001 was made, there have not been many major Hollywood films that dare to take the approach of using lack-of-clarity as the intended pay-off. Kurosawa did it in 1950 with Rashomon as a break-through, but it is an entirely different topic than that of 2001--a story that, at the time it was made, the available science and technology could only provide conjectures to what belies in space travel, and the mysteries to the world outside our atmospheres... those myths still remain today.
Remember the film was conceived and made before mankind had ever set foot on the moon. With all the research Kubrick invested in with consultants and Arthur C. Clarke, he knew it was better to have more questions unanswered, than to risk giving answers history and science could soon prove wrong... this is probably his greatest achievement as a story-teller with 2001: A Space Odyseey. If you watch the film again, try to count how many items, as well as technologies shown within are completely off based on what we actually have in application today. Aside from brand logo's, and maybe the details to how computer interfaces may differ from what we have today, there is nothing shown in the movie you can argue as "outdated" or are completely wrong. If that is not the work of a visionary, I don't know what is. While I don't know if Kubrick himself deserves all the credit, as he certainly had the help from the best talents available, to accept the challenge and be able to convince a major studio such as MGM to entrust a production of that scale, and have enough sense to understand that sometimes it is better to not try to provide an answer when you may not even know what the question is, that is genius at work.
It is not difficult to come up with a story and make a film that is confusing, and there are plenty of those for us to forget. What Kubrick & co. came up with is confusion that is at the same time compelling and thought-provoking... not to mention his film in many ways influenced designs in the future. Citing Dr. Strangelove as another example, he created the concept of a "WAR ROOM" that had even Ronald Reagan asking to see when he became President of the United States, which to his disappointment, didn't really exist.
2010 is a good film, but it will always be derivative, always in the shadow of 2001, and always pale by comparison. Think of X-files the TV-series in its first 3 seasons, and how everything went downhill when it became a movie, the fault was not in the production value or lacking in writing talent, but the mere fact that the "payoff" that served to be the original and strongest hook was its ability to make us keep big bold question marks floating in our heads.
Imagine LOST having a resolve... that would be the end to the magic.
By making 2010, detractors of the narrative approach to 2001 will be satisfied, while fans of the original will object... and by virtue of its attempt to provide answers, it adds an expiration date to the story. Little did they know then that in just 6 years after the film was made, the COLD WAR would be a has-been.