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2001/2010

The two films ran back-to-back on HDNet Movies the other night and I recorded them both on the HD-DVR. Just got a chance tonight to sit down and watch them

Wow.

2001 looks and sounds (5.1 DD remix) stunning. The space scenes are still better than anything anybody's put on film since, and you can see where George Lucas got so many of his ideas. (The forced-perspective and gently-sloping floors of the orbital waystation also bring to mind another, more colorful, spacestation.)

I haven't followed the history of the film in recent years, but I strongly suspect it was lovingly restored before being transferred to hi-def digital video. Even at a "mere" 720 progressive lines of resolution it looks fantastic. The large format film frame holds so much information that it brings out the best in any HD video format. You can almost read the instructions on the zero gravity toilet. (Which were real, and which were really spelled out on that sign. They were from a prototype that NASA was considering at the time. I think either Kubrick or Clarke ended up with the sign.) Nothing in the Death Star was more impressive than the docking bay of the space station or the Orion hanger at Clavius base, and nothing about the Death Star gave us the feeling that such a thing could be built, and by us, either.

2010 was a disappointment on more ways than I would have expected. The film was shot on regular 35mm stock with anamorphic lenses and either projected with correcting lenses or blown up to 70mm for theaters with the right projectors. So from the start the prints all had less information in each frame than the 2001 frames. And I don't think the film received anything like a full rstoration before being transferred to digital video.

The result was a markedly inferior presentation to 2001, The film looked grainy by comparison, not as sharp, the colors didn't "pop" the way they did in the earlier film.

Then there was the film itself - as overly literal as the original was deliberately obscure. The attempt to make the film "relevant" by trying to parallel contemporary events not only falls flat on its own terms, but it badly dates the film in a way the [i2001 with its vague hint of international tensions, isn't dated. It is simply laughable in 2006 to watch a film set in 2010 that features the Soviet Union as a going concern. The heavy-handed anti-Cold War can't-we-all-just-get-along message lost Clarke's much more subtle touches in the novel. And the mission iteslf was reduced to a kind of boys adventure in space. Despite all of which the film is watchable once you get past the dreadful first part. (Dana Elcar does the worst Russian accent in the history of Russian accents, the family drama is heavy handed, and nobody in his right mind would believe that Roy Scheider is playing the same character from 2010 nine years later. Nah, this is some other guy who happens to be named Heywood Floyd.)

Once they get out into space the peformances - especially Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow and Elya Baskin as Max - take over and you can sit back and enjoyed some rather dumbed down straight SF. Bob Balaban is annoying as hell as Dr. Chandra, and not just because Chandra is written as such a twit. Balaban adds his own bag of tics, gimmicks and quirks to raise Chadra from terrifically annoying to "why doesn't someone throw his ass out an airlock" levels in record time. Oh, Douglas Rain is back as the voice of HAL, and that's a good thing. (Although in a pinch they could have called me. I happen to do an excellent HAL impersonation. :))

So, to sum up: 2001 in HD is a revelation. 2010 is a much inferior to the parent film in the HD transfer department as it is in every other respect. Still, I wish I could save both HD versions to a hard disc archive to watch again. Instead I'll have to erase them soon to make room for other programming. (HD recordings are serious space hogs, and 2001 is longer than your average movie.)

Regards,

Joe
 
My HD TiVo has both movies saved. I will watch them when my night shifts end on Tuesday morning. :D
 
The two films ran back-to-back on HDNet Movies the other night and I recorded them both on the HD-DVR. Just got a chance tonight to sit down and watch them

Wow.

2001 looks and sounds (5.1 DD remix) stunning. The space scenes are still better than anything anybody's put on film since, and you can see where George Lucas got so many of his ideas. (The forced-perspective and gently-sloping floors of the orbital waystation also bring to mind another, more colorful, spacestation.)

I haven't followed the history of the film in recent years, but I strongly suspect it was lovingly restored before being transferred to hi-def digital video. Even at a "mere" 720 progressive lines of resolution it looks fantastic. The large format film frame holds so much information that it brings out the best in any HD video format. You can almost read the instructions on the zero gravity toilet. (Which were real, and which were really spelled out on that sign. They were from a prototype that NASA was considering at the time. I think either Kubrick or Clarke ended up with the sign.) Nothing in the Death Star was more impressive than the docking bay of the space station or the Orion hanger at Clavius base, and nothing about the Death Star gave us the feeling that such a thing could be built, and by us, either.

2010 was a disappointment on more ways than I would have expected. The film was shot on regular 35mm stock with anamorphic lenses and either projected with correcting lenses or blown up to 70mm for theaters with the right projectors. So from the start the prints all had less information in each frame than the 2001 frames. And I don't think the film received anything like a full rstoration before being transferred to digital video.

The result was a markedly inferior presentation to 2001, The film looked grainy by comparison, not as sharp, the colors didn't "pop" the way they did in the earlier film.

Then there was the film itself - as overly literal as the original was deliberately obscure. The attempt to make the film "relevant" by trying to parallel contemporary events not only falls flat on its own terms, but it badly dates the film in a way the [i2001 with its vague hint of international tensions, isn't dated. It is simply laughable in 2006 to watch a film set in 2010 that features the Soviet Union as a going concern. The heavy-handed anti-Cold War can't-we-all-just-get-along message lost Clarke's much more subtle touches in the novel. And the mission iteslf was reduced to a kind of boys adventure in space. Despite all of which the film is watchable once you get past the dreadful first part. (Dana Elcar does the worst Russian accent in the history of Russian accents, the family drama is heavy handed, and nobody in his right mind would believe that Roy Scheider is playing the same character from 2010 nine years later. Nah, this is some other guy who happens to be named Heywood Floyd.)

Once they get out into space the peformances - especially Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow and Elya Baskin as Max - take over and you can sit back and enjoyed some rather dumbed down straight SF. Bob Balaban is annoying as hell as Dr. Chandra, and not just because Chandra is written as such a twit. Balaban adds his own bag of tics, gimmicks and quirks to raise Chadra from terrifically annoying to "why doesn't someone throw his ass out an airlock" levels in record time. Oh, Douglas Rain is back as the voice of HAL, and that's a good thing. (Although in a pinch they could have called me. I happen to do an excellent HAL impersonation. :))

So, to sum up: 2001 in HD is a revelation. 2010 is a much inferior to the parent film in the HD transfer department as it is in every other respect. Still, I wish I could save both HD versions to a hard disc archive to watch again. Instead I'll have to erase them soon to make room for other programming. (HD recordings are serious space hogs, and 2001 is longer than your average movie.)

Regards,

Joe
That's pretty cool. I watched Uncle Buck on VHS-ELP the other day...
 
2010 is a degenerate abortion of a film.

C'mon GKE, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. :) OK, 2010 sucks. But I think your description would better fit, oh, say, Batman and Robin - compared to which 2010 is Citizen Kane.

Regards,

Joe
 
No. Batman & Robin is a lame sequel to a freakin' comic book story, and so, in the end, who really gives a shit? Wereas 2001 is one of the most (and to me THE most) inspiring and beautiful movies ever produced. 2010 is basically "just another movie," racked with Hollywood cliches, and thus an inappropriate sequel to a film that was a completely different animal. That is, basically, the makers of 2010 just didn't get it.
 
You can almost read the instructions on the zero gravity toilet. (Which were real, and which were really spelled out on that sign. They were from a prototype that NASA was considering at the time. I think either Kubrick or Clarke ended up with the sign.)

I remember someone telling me once that he saw an extended cut on a *really* big screen, and that they stayed with that shot long enough for you to read all the instructions. :eek:
 
Also, aren't there several logic errors in 2010 as to how it regards zero-G and artificial gravity by rotation?

The Russian ship in the movie has a rotating section to produce gravity, just like B5. In fact, the ship looks almost like an early prototype for an Omega Class Destroyer.

However, isn't there a point in which a manned probe is launched from the zero-G section except that the scene leading up to the launch includes people walking around the hangar bay as if there was gravity in that section?

Later when the Russian ship links with the ship from the first movie, it has to stop its rotating section or else it would collide with the tethered ship. According to this, there should be no more artificial gravity. And yet, people seem to be walking around as if there is still gravity.

There is even a point in which Sheider's character holds up a pen and a couple other objects that end up floating in mid air, implying that gravity is off. And yet, nothing leading up to that scene or even the characters walking out at the end of the scene imply there is any loss of gravity.

I guess the explanation could be that they have magnetic shoes that hold them upright & perpendicular to the floor. But it just doesn't look convincing. Other than Sheider floating that pen in mid air, there seems to be no other indication that they're in zero-G.

Maybe I missed something, but with 2001 doing such a good job regarding artificial gravity in a realistic way, 2010 seems to use a rotating ship section more as an homage to the first movie rather than any scientifically based concept.
 
The book and the film of 2001 were kind of written simultaneously, complementing each other, while having scientists advise the science of it. And so it was a multi-discipinarian effort to explore the possibilities of human imagination and exploration grounded in stark reality.

2010 is the typical Hollywood formula of caring more about the drama than anything.

(Not that I necessarily have a problem with the typical Hollywood formula in general- it made a lot of fantastic flicks. It just has not place in the Space Odyssey universe)
 
My first DVD movie was 2010. I saw 2001 when I was 12, and it's stuck with me in the 11 years since then, while I remember almost nothing of 2010 except that I thought it was pathetic. I envy you being able to watch it in HD. Wish you could transfer it to my hard drive, Joe, I bought a 500 gigger a couple weeks ago for my tuner card.
 
Joe,

I didn't realize this was going to be on HDNet so thanks for letting me know, I just TIVO'd it and you are right, it is spectacular and gives you a much greater sense of awe than Star Wars did for its time.

I'm hoping someone can help remember if it was on this forum or not...but there was a great thread a while back where this movie was discussed, and some of the finer points that Kubrick delivered via imagery. Also about the movie itself and many hidden meanings. I can't find the discussion though, anyone remember where that was?
 
I so wish my cheesey little condo didn't face north so I could have DirecTV and an HD-TiVo. I'm stuck with Adelphia cable and a Scientific Atlantic HD-DVR that would very much like to be a TiVo, but whose software just sucks to badly to make the grade. (And Adelphia doesn't even take advantage of all the features SA does offer, disabling a number of them rather than devote extra resources to supporting them. I'm actually hoping that Time-Warner merger goes through just to get Adelphia out of bankruptcy limbo and get things moving forward again. Right now they're in nationwide holding pattern, doing what they can to keep existing subscribers but basically not adding any new channels, dropping any old ones or making any service improvements - in short not spending a dime until some kind of new management can come in to replace the ones that were hauled off to prison. :))

I was flipping around the dial last night and came across Dave Bowman telling HAL to open the pod bay doors and the next thing I knew the Star Child was turning towards me and the closing credits started rolling. I had just set down the remote and sat there mesmerized watching the final part of the movie for the second time in less than a week. :) There are cetain films I just have to stop and watch, even if I've seen them a dozen times, even if I own them, even if they're running in SD, panned and scanned on that marginal local UHF channel that comes in fuzzy even on cable. (Patton is on, ]The Final Countdown is another. Almost any western with Clint Eastwood or John Wayne would also make the list. 2001 actually wouldn't make that list. :D But I think I've found a new category of "movies I have to watch if I happen upon them in HD" :)

Regards,

Joe
 
They filmed the Final Countdown when I was stationed on the Nimitz. I got to meet Katharine Ross and Charles Durning after they filmed the scenes in sickbay. I also see a lot of my old shipmates in the film.
 
They filmed the Final Countdown when I was stationed on the Nimitz. I got to meet Katharine Ross and Charles Durning after they filmed the scenes in sickbay. I also see a lot of my old shipmates in the film.

"As my great-grandfather used to say, 'Cool'." :D

Joe
 
Supposedly, Kubrick was so horrified by the pan 'n' scan broadcast of 2001 he once saw that he decided to never film in wide ratios again, in fear of how others would butcher his work.

I personally don't buy that, or at least not as the main reason he went to narrower screens. I believe the idea that as a photographer he was more comfortable with the square ratios and just did 2001 in widescreen as an exception and because the subject matter called for it.
 

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