Kurgan wrote:
"Making you think" and "letting your mind run away with the concepts" are what tends to mark good fantasy for me.
There's a difference between making you think and making you go 'OK what in Valen's name is that supposed to be about, it looks like somebody's acid trip'.
2001 was one of the few times where a novel based upon the movie as opposed to the other way round made a lot more sense than the movie did.
'Next time I let Superman take charge, just hit me. Real hard.'
'You're a princess from a society of immortal warriors. I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues.'
'No. No dating for the Batman. It might cut into your brooding time.'
'Tactically we have multiple objectives. So we need to split into teams.'-'Dibs on the Amazon!'
'Hey, we both have a Martian's phone number on our speed dial. I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt.'
'You know, for a guy with like 50 different kinds of vision, you sure are blind.'
It did, but that doesn't mean I didn't like the movie, or the ideas it made me think of after watching it.
Yes the extended "acid trip" was a bit much, but it wasn't so bad.
fun/fantasy movies existed before the overrated Star Wars came out. What made it seem 'less dark' was the sheer goofy aspect of it: two robots modeled on Laurel & Hardy, and a smartass outlaw with bigfoot co-pilot and their hotrod pizza-shaped ship, and they were sucked aboard a giant Disco Ball. -adw1
Someone asked me yesterday if Dracula met Saruman and there was a fight, who would win. I just looked at this man. What an idiotic thing to say. I mean really, it was half-witted. - Christopher Lee
Exact thoughts? "Did I just waste nigh-on two hours of my life watching that?". Really. Incredibly dull, pointlessly meandering. With only the HAL scene being even vaguely coherent. And really... even that was underwhelming. It was a nice moment, "open the pod bay doors" and all, but it kinda... fizzled and went nowhere.
This is what happens when you toss two geniuses together, let them run away with their own pretensions and leave no threatening goons to clue-by-four them around the head.
It WAS unique. That's for sure. Which is definitely a point in it's favor.
"Peace on Earth and goodwill towards men? We are the United States Goverment - we don't DO that sort of thing!" - Sneakers. Best. Quote. EVER.
Periodic Pwnage Pantry:
"Faith? Isn't that another term for ignorance?" - Gregory House
"Isn't it interesting... religious behaviour is so close to being crazy that we can't tell them apart?" - Gregory House
"This is usually the part where people start screaming." - Gabriel Sylar
Uraniun235 wrote:HAL's easily the most sympathetic of all the Discovery crew.
That may have been the point, you know.
As for all you guys complaining about "boredom", good grief. Not all great movies are fast paced action flics, you know. You are judging the movie on incorrect criteria. Of course, slow moving art pieces may not be your thing, but that's no reason to judge a specific movie of that type in terms other than its genre.
As for the "acid trip, bullshit ending", I liked that as well, though again, some people don't like to wrap their imaginations around surreal visuals when going to the cinema.
CotK <mew> | HAB | JL | MM | TTC | Cybertron
TAX THE CHURCHES! - Lord Zentei TTC Supreme Grand Prophet
And the LORD said, Let there be Bosons! Yea and let there be Bosoms too!
I'd rather be the great great grandson of a demon ninja than some jackass who grew potatos. -- Covenant
Dead cows don't fart. -- CJvR
...and I like strudel! -- Asuka
Lord Zentei wrote:You are judging the movie on incorrect criteria. Of course,
Nah, I disagree. The criteria in question here is "whether they enjoyed it or not.
slow moving art pieces may not be your thing, but that's no reason to judge a specific movie of that type in terms other than its genre.
Its genre is science fiction, and judged on those terms, it is a seriously mixed bag. Everything about the monolith is questionable.
As for the "acid trip, bullshit ending", I liked that as well, though again, some people don't like to wrap their imaginations around surreal visuals when going to the cinema.
And, for God's sake, take a look at when it was made! It's important to put things into their correct contexts, or nothing old makes sense. The "long boring space scenes" were necessary to establish the scene; in 2006 everyone knows "how space works." They also provided a great contrast with the "ultimate trip" scene at the end: concrete vs. abstract.
Lord Zentei wrote:You are judging the movie on incorrect criteria. Of course,
Nah, I disagree. The criteria in question here is "whether they enjoyed it or not.
In such terms one is judging the style more than the movie itself perse.
Currald wrote:
slow moving art pieces may not be your thing, but that's no reason to judge a specific movie of that type in terms other than its genre.
Its genre is science fiction, and judged on those terms, it is a seriously mixed bag. Everything about the monolith is questionable.
Its genre is also psychological thriller and art piece. Not all sci-fi need be like Star Wars.
Currald wrote:
As for the "acid trip, bullshit ending", I liked that as well, though again, some people don't like to wrap their imaginations around surreal visuals when going to the cinema.
And, for God's sake, take a look at when it was made! It's important to put things into their correct contexts, or nothing old makes sense. The "long boring space scenes" were necessary to establish the scene; in 2006 everyone knows "how space works."
I'm not entirely sure where you are going with this: are you suggesting that the long space scenes were to show "how space works"?
Currald wrote:They also provided a great contrast with the "ultimate trip" scene at the end: concrete vs. abstract.
Ya.
CotK <mew> | HAB | JL | MM | TTC | Cybertron
TAX THE CHURCHES! - Lord Zentei TTC Supreme Grand Prophet
And the LORD said, Let there be Bosons! Yea and let there be Bosoms too!
I'd rather be the great great grandson of a demon ninja than some jackass who grew potatos. -- Covenant
Dead cows don't fart. -- CJvR
...and I like strudel! -- Asuka
I'm enjoying an nice, warm comforting feeling knowing that a lot of intelligent, rational and sci-fi clued in people out there also found this film to be an overly long, ill-explained piece of tripe. Its nice to not be alone.
If Kubrick wasn't already dead I'd be happy to fix it. I once badgered my parents to let me video this "classic" when the BBC showed it on late night TV after reading the book, so I could watch it. I stayed in on a Saturday all exciting to watch it. I was almost in tears at the end (forgive me, I was young) I felt so betrayed. It could have been so good...
The acid trip was one of the best parts. Something was actually happening on the screen for a few minutes.
First saw it when it was first released. I was age ten, sitting in the Pacific Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, a humongous screen, I was blown away!
Now I watch it whenever it is on.
But I have to agree about the stargate at the end, it has become boring to watch sometimes...
And there should never be sound in space. So much more dramatic to die out in the silent cold black. And it made the emergency entry into Discovery feel so much more like a truly deadly situation.
In it's day it was a fabulous visual spectacle. I first saw this when I was about 16 and I was blown away. The 'stargate' sequence is a lot more effective in the cinema than on a TV screen.
SF doesn't have to be just about rayguns and space battles.
I wasn't blown away when I saw it on the small screen. My dad seems to think it is the BEST SCIFI EV4R! though. I did find it interesting, but mych too confusing for my 14 year old mind. I kept wondering 'wait, what does THAT mean?'
Commander of the MFS Darwinian Selection Method (sexual)
I generally thought it was over all an interesting film but some of the scenes were too drawn out. They spent TOO MUCH time showing off their special effects of the period. Same problem as Star Trek TMP.
"everytime a person is born the Earth weighs just a little more."--DMJ on StarTrek.com
"You see now you are using your thinking and that is not a good thing!" DMJay on StarTrek.com
"Watching Sarli argue with Vympel, Stas, Schatten and the others is as bizarre as the idea of the 40-year-old Virgin telling Hugh Hefner that Hef knows nothing about pussy, and that he is the expert."--Elfdart
Faqa wrote:The tedium of space travel is not entertaining, and does not make the movie any better.
That's funny, given the current environment of furious masturbation over "omg so gritty so realistic" in modern television.
There's a difference between realistic and gritty, and realistic and 'nothing whatsoever happens'.
Not that I believe modern TV has a particularly good grip on what actually is realistic, mind you.
'Next time I let Superman take charge, just hit me. Real hard.'
'You're a princess from a society of immortal warriors. I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues.'
'No. No dating for the Batman. It might cut into your brooding time.'
'Tactically we have multiple objectives. So we need to split into teams.'-'Dibs on the Amazon!'
'Hey, we both have a Martian's phone number on our speed dial. I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt.'
'You know, for a guy with like 50 different kinds of vision, you sure are blind.'
Spartan wrote:Horrible pacing, and extremely boring compare to the book. Watching them run multiple laps in the ship; just wow. Every single scene dragged
He made like two or three laps. The point was to set the scene. Where the fuck is he? How come he isn't floating around; they're in space, ain't they? Etc.
Plus, and this isn't in Kubrick's defense, that was a major special effects (we'd call it a practical effects scene today) scene, and I suspect Kubrick wanted to show it off.
Spartan wrote:Horrible pacing, and extremely boring compare to the book. Watching them run multiple laps in the ship; just wow. Every single scene dragged
He made like two or three laps. The point was to set the scene. Where the fuck is he? How come he isn't floating around; they're in space, ain't they? Etc.
It sure as hell shouldn't take two or three laps to get that point across. That was one of the main problems with the movie: it seemed as if it was written under the assumption that its audience was made up of complete and utter morons who needed to have every single plot point pounded into their heads with a sledgehammer, until the end when they just decided "fuck it" and threw a bunch of crap onto the screen that not only didn't provide any answers, it didn't even provoke any questions other than "what the hell were they thinking" and "how the hell is this movie so popular?"
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