Puts the sci in sci-fi

Rating: Null/10 (1 April 2002)

2001: A Space Odyssey is arguably the greatest science fiction movie ever made. The reason I regard it as such is the fact that unlike so many other movies of the genre, this really has SCIENCE in it. It's incredible how many sci-fi movies have no science in them at all.
Observe the scenes on board the space station and the spacecraft Discovery. Most science fiction films don't explain how it is that there is gravity on spaceships and stations rather than weightlessness. This film shows how a makeshift gravity is produced by rotating the spacecraft to produce inertia around the inside of the ship. Who will ever forget that scene where Frank Poole is shown running around Discovery like a rodent? Observe those scenes where David Bowman and Frank Poole go outside in their spacesuits and spacepods to make reparations. In other space films there would be fancy sound effects and their jobs would have been completed quickly. In 2001, these scenes are done in complete silence and the jobs are completed in real time. This may make it seem less riveting than Star Wars, but you find yourself thinking; this is how it would actually be in real life.
Never has space been captured looking so large, cold, bleak, yet beautiful. In a Star Trek film, if you wanted to go some place you would just go into warp 4. Not so in this film. In 2001, it takes months for the Discovery to get to Jupiter and during that time the ship just seems to hang in mid air motionless. Kubrick really makes you feel the distances between planets.
For those viewers intending to watch 2001, I recommend only seeing it letterboxed. For best viewing, see it on the biggest screen possible preferably with the sound connected to the stereo and the lights dimmed. This is truly one of those films which you must allow to take you in as in the theaters.