2001 a space odyssey is like that. Visually beautiful, even today, but almost no dialogue, and absolutely nothing is explained to the viewer.
One of the most interesting parts of the book was the reasons behind the AI, HAL, going off the rails, essentially he was an AI programmed to be honest and upfront, who was forced to lie, and was by far the most interesting character in the book.
None of this made it into the movie.
But I love this story…
In the original story, the monolith was a glowing diamond. The effects people couldn’t get it right, so they put a black rectangle on all the storyboards to indicate that they’d come up with a replacement eventually.
Sone day someone looks at the rectangle and says that it would look good. The build one and hell yes, ti looks great.
Movie comes out and all the critics and fans try to figure out what the monolith represents. Is it the Bible? A tombstone? What???
Years later, the original writer, Arthur Clarke, is doing a Q+A and some snotnosed punk stands up and tells Clarke that he’s figured it out.
The monolith is in the ratio 1 : 4 : 9, the squares of the first three numbers.
Clarke loves it, and puts it in the next book.
Worth mentioning that the book and movie were written at the same time and influenced each other.
Originally, Kubrick and Clarke had planned to develop a 2001 novel first, free of the constraints of film, and then write the screenplay. They planned the writing credits to be “Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick” to reflect their preeminence in their respective fields. In practice, the screenplay developed in parallel with the novel, with only some elements being common to both. Kubrick originally planned a novel, first, with a film adapted from it. They also decided to release the same story as a novel.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-making-of-2001-a-space-odyssey-jay-cocks/de3b7dea4dff974f
Nonfiction book, The Making of 2001.
If you’re interested in film making, or just exploring the creative process, this is a good read.
There’s a cute line near the end.
The editor asks a proofreader if they’d already seen the movie.
“Well, I thought I had.”
Sounds interesting, thank you.
I mentioned this in another comment below about Citizen Kane, but a big reason these hugely known “great” movies don’t standup today is explained in the TV Tropes page about why Seinfeld is Unfunny - basically that so many pieces of art were so revolutionary at the time, they they have been endless copied and reiterated over and over, so that modern audiences seeing the original piece of art don’t see it as anything special.
2001 A Space Odyssey was specially called out as an example:
2001: A Space Odyssey: Similar to Jaws 1, the so awesome, but now sadly so clichéd uses of “Also sprach Zarathustra”.
- One would be hard-pressed to find a scene from any Stanley Kubrick film that hasn’t been parodied/homaged to death.
- The famous “Star Gate” sequence, in which brilliant colors flash past the screen as the main character travels deep into space, required some extremely tricky cinematography and caused jaws to drop when the film was released in 1968. Thanks to the incredible advances in special effects since then, modern audiences often find the scene ordinary.
- Other purely FX scenes, like the docking sequence early in the film, had audiences riveted. By today’s standards, they’re downright boring.
I agree, and I’m usually good at appreciating movies in their original context. But some of these movies have, maybe inherently or due to the era, serious pacing issues. Watching a ship move across the screen for five minutes just isn’t that thrilling.
The star gate scene has essentially transcended parody and basically become visual language for someone transcending reality. I wonder if I can transcends into this post a fourth time?
We must have seen two different movies. Boring is the last thing I would call it. But to be fair I haven’t seen it in decades, and I could see how it would be boring if you were raised on Star Wars.
I loved that movie but I don’t fault people for not feeling the same.
It’s a contemplative film. If you don’t like to contemplate and muse, it’s likely not a film for you.
A lot of people hate being contemplative, they find it painful.
If you think 2001 is contemplative watch solaris the 1970s one in Russian…
i have. multiple times. love it.
Honestly, Arthur C. Clarke didn’t seem particularly interested in any of his human character in any book I’ve read. They’re just a means to an end.
I felt like reading the book took less time than watching the movie; it was so slow.
I feel these fall into some combination of 3 categories for me:
- Glad I finally watched it
- Bizarre view into the zeitgeist of the past
- Doesn’t hold up
But I’m also hyper aware of people who can’t separate fun movies from good ones so perhaps my line up has some natural filtering
Eh, personal taste is a thing. Not every film is going to resonate with everyone, even if there’s some pretty impressive or neat shit going on at some level, and that’s ok.
Do think it’s worth giving most movies a shot though, for no other reason than you can have a discussion around “I thought it sucked, and here’s why.”
Example: I love Eraserhead, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Pink Flamingos save exactly one scene, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and All That Jazz. I also completely understand the grounds on which someone else would say any of these suck badly, and welcome their contribution to the conversation.
As I once said, drunk, to some university student waiting for a bus outside a bar across the street from a movie theatre, who had just watched Un Chien Andalou: “You can appreciate the cultural value of a piece of art and still not like it. Don’t just feign praise because others do, you’re allowed to just straight up not like things, and the opposite is true too.”
people want social acceptance though, so they do, and will feign praise.
fastest way to be socially excluded in life is to have strong and distinct opinions from your peers.
Not necessarily across all avenues. People often have friends in their lives that have a different opinion on some topics.
Personally, most of the time I find it’s how that difference of opinion is delivered that creates that exclusion - where it’s very easy to take, say, “this movie sucks, and here’s why I think that” as “you suck for liking this movie”.
Then of course there’s topics where that difference of opinion isn’t as trivial and delivery isn’t really the problem, but that’s a different conversation.
I’m not talking about individual relationships, I’m talking about community/group acceptance.
there is always more nuance and grace between people one on one, but in larger groups, that gets eliminated and your acceptance is largely a product of your ‘loyalty’ to orthodox belief-set of the group.
IME it’s less about delivery than how directly you are challenging the shared sacred belief around which the group identity is formed.
and ironically, often people who are cool one on one about something, are not cool in a group setting. plenty of my friends will denounce people ‘like x or don’t like x’ but then privately say admit the opposite is true of themselves to me personally. But one has to ‘keep up appearances’. You have to pretend to enjoy something for the sake of social expediency.
Just like at funerals nobody says anything bad about someone, even if they were a terrible person who did horrible things. There is a social contract at play that you only remember the good things about the person.
Eh… I’ve definitely seen what you describe borne out, but I’ve also seen cases where the contrarian/outlier is afforded a special status within that group. Not 100% sure how to account for that (aside from the specific nature of the contrarianism not really challenging the specific shared sacred belief involved?).
Edit: Noted that this comment was before the edit with additional discussion points, haven’t integrated those into this response but am reading for consideration.
Where I live people don’t tolerate contrarianism… but yeah some other cultures or places might.
Even in academia, contrarianism got you ostracized. It was a role only allowed for the ‘elder statesman’ of the group to perform.
You can like/dislike whatever you want.
I do find it amusing whenever I see how some people watch movies/tv. Barely even looking at the screen that has terrible audio quality while they consume brainrot. It’s why Netflix has characters say what they’re doing/thinking and reiterating plot points because they know most people can’t/won’t focus on the media alone.
my entire family is like this. everyone is dual-screened almost all the time.
and they consume mass-market netflix slop films and love them. they tend to hate anything more sophisticated or that requires an attention span as ‘boring’ or ‘weird’. even popular HBO sitcoms/dramas are ‘too much’ for them.
that said they still go to the movie theater and do engage there without their phones/tablets. but they only go for big budget action films.
I’m unsure if we’re heading into idiocracy, or we’re just getting old.
perhaps both?
people are objectively stupider than they were a decade ago.
Citizen Kane. I sat through that entire movie three times before I finally accepted it wasn’t for me. Now half the movies I start I don’t finish. Just because someone else likes something doesn’t mean I have to waste my time with it. Even if that someone is many respected film critics.
There’s actually a good reason for this! Explained in the TV Tropes page about why Seinfeld is Unfunny - basically that so many pieces of art were so revolutionary at the time, they they have been endless copied and reiterated over and over, so that modern audiences seeing the original piece of art don’t see it as anything special.
Citizen Kane is called out specifically as:
Citizen Kane, oftentimes trumpeted as “The Greatest Movie of All Time,” tends to inspire “what’s the big deal?” responses from modern viewers, especially since Post Modern movies have become the norm and the cinematography has influenced so many other films. And everyone knows what the twist at the end is.
Citizen Kane was also, in the context of Hollywood at that time, a big challenge to the cheery sugar sweet Hollywood stories. It was critical of the idea of The American Dream and the notion of “success”, namely that a man who is outwardly a public success like Kane could still be a failure in terms of personal ambitions and relationships. Its refusal to tack on an unconvincing Happy Ending similar to earlier serious films made it far harsher than other movies of that time. Subversions like this are much more common these days. The narrative structure where we see Kane at different parts of his life, all of them intercut with each other rather than following a straight chronological pattern from childhood to old age, was cited as an influence by the more radical film-makers of the 60s and 70s who enjoyed playing fast and loose with chronology.
I actually like Seinfeld. Larry David is great and the episodes and the* characters he created* give me a sense of calm and joy. It is a comfort show for me. [EDIT: Messy wording - sorry, on mobile.]
Yeah if you go to film school and learn about the context and all of the innovative filming techniques used, you’ll probably consider it the greatest of all time. Which is why it’s so highly rated by film critics.
But if you’re just a regular person, it’s not particularly interesting since you’ve seen many movies that were made later that used those same techniques and narrative structure.
I did enjoy all of the Simpson’s references in it tho.
I actually enjoyed it. I’m not a movie buff or film snob, but I do like to include some old movies, so the very slow pacing didn’t throw me. The imagery was good and I liked the cinematography. I wouldn’t say it’s a favorite but it was ok.
Yep. This was that one for me, too. I actually loved the ending, but it made me feel so bitter for the middle 109 minutes I had to sit through to get there! Never again.
Who told you you had to watch it?
I’ve done this a few times. The Quiet Girl, The Wild Pear Tree, The Taste of Things, I Wish, etc. None were my thing despite being able to tell they were well made.
This is me for pretty much every movie. I recognize the art, but the medium is just not my bag. Would much rather read a novel about it.
I think it’s a generational thing.
I’m old enough to remember sitting through movies waiting for that one good scene.
These days, there are people who watch everything at 1.5X speed because everything else is boring.
I watch almost everything at 1.5x speed or greater, but it’s because I’m wasting time, and if I’m gonna waste time, I’m gonna do it efficiently.
I appreciate the joke, but seriously, to me it seems like going to a fine restaurant, ordering a full meal, and then throwing it all in a blender.
I once watched ‘Gosford Park’ and kept speeding it up because it was driving me crazy.
Eventually I decided to let it play out the way it was meant to be seen, and I enjoyed it.
I like movies so much, I watch them at half speed! Twice as much movie!
C-O-O-O-O-O-L
B-E-A-N-S.
From what I can tell, some people are told by the movie “this character is important to the story,” and they say “okay, then they’re important to me,” and that’s all that needs to happen for them to be invested. Other people, myself included, will be told that the character is important and instead ask “okay, but why should they be important to me?”
A movie that doesn’t convince us to care will never be interesting, no matter how engaging it would be if we just cared for no reason. A lot of old movies didn’t bother getting people engaged because back then just the idea of watching a movie was itself engaging, so it wasn’t necessary to do more than that.
Movies should be watched with friends. Especially if it’s a classic movie that a friend loves.
Some of the most fun I had in college was anime club movie nights, where the leads of the club would pull up these 80s era bootlegs that some guy who graduated two years ago had learned Japanese to help fansub. Not because “Grave of Fireflies” or “Angel’s Egg” or “Aeon Flux” were as much fun as a cutesy Miyasaki film or DBZ or FMA, but because they gave us hours of “what the fuck did I just watch?” conversations to have over beers at 2am.
Movies are a fundamentally social experience. You’re not meant to watch these things on a cell phone in a closet.
i agree generally speaking, but we enjoy watching movies we anticipate to be bad (such as red riding hood starring henry cavill). we enjoy poking fun at movies.
I prefer watching the majority of movies alone so I can focus entirely on the movie without distractions.
Some movies absolutely do benefit from watching with friends, but not all of them.
I hate watching movies with friend when I’m not sure I’ll like it. If I don’t like it, I’m not good at pretending it was a good movie. I’ll do everything in my power to not hurt their feelings, or be rude or anything like that. I’ll probably tell them it was good. But in the moment watching it they’ll probably be able to tell, and then THEY feel bad, and then I feel bad, and now nobody is having a good time watching the movie.
Now if we go into it with the understanding the movie is bad and we are all here go laugh at it, then it’s always better with friends.
If it’s something they love, I’ll watch it by myself and lie to them later.
I love bringing bad movies to movie night and making fun of terrible effects, clunky dialogue, bad acting, and extras who look at the camera.
If you want you could try saying softer things like “I didn’t love it, but” and follow with conversation about aspects you did enjoy. That way you both get a better picture of your tastes and can make better recommendations.
Any Christopher Nolan film, the godfather, every marvel movie, I’m sure there are more which might upset some people.
Memento is one of my favorite movies ever. I wish I could erase it from my mind to watch it from scratch again
Tennet, Oppenheimer, the godfather I agree. Interstellar is a good movie but just that
Haven’t actually seen memento, maybe I will give it a try just to see if there is a Nolan film that I like.
OK tenet I get, but the batman films and interstellar ??? Those are not boring.
I had that batman begins on disk as a kid, much much preferred watching Black Pearl. I’ve seen interstellar probably 3 or 4 times at other people’s houses. All I can remember is that its trite and they were trying to get home and “this little maneuver…”. Nolan is a vibes based film maker and his vibes don’t vibe with me.
For me it’s Inception and Momento. Interstellar I cut out early, the batman movies I’ve never seen and probably won’t.
They’re fine. Heath Ledger is great. Never saw the 3rd one.
I am upset 🤨
The green knight
For me it’s Inglorious Basterds. Jesus christ, most of the movie people are just talking complete, boring bullshit. I think I’m just too autistic to catch the tension vibes or something, so it’s just not working
Just an aside: It’s funny to read this and have an old post from someone who’s also (by their own admission) pretty autistic come to mind, where they were so taken by Inglorious Basterds that they actively refused sexy times because it was critical the other party watch this movie.
Viva la difference! Both positions are valid.
Weird that Inglorious Basterds is one of the few movies I’ve had “sexy times” while watching. Getting a BJ while watching Hitler getting machine gunned gave me a greater appreciation for the movie.
I can think of few finer things in life.
There will be blood…
So good.
There will be snoring
There will be old men yelling at clouds
That wasn’t a bad movie by any means, but I wouldn’t blame someone for not liking it.
It was just overhyped to me at that time. It’s not bad or anything.
Put it on my jellyfin crank it up to 2x every time i’m bored
