"Unrestored" version will feature no digital tricks, remastered effects, or revisionist edits"
If you’re half crazy all for the love of Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, you’re in luck. To mark its 50th anniversary, Warner Bros.’ is opening its archives’ pod bay doors to present a theatrical re-release of the film.
Docking in select theaters on May 18th, WB’s reissue is an “unrestored” 70mm print “struck from new printing elements made from the original camera negative,” according to a studio statement (via The Wrap). “This is a true photochemical film recreation. There are no digital tricks, remastered effects, or revisionist edits.” That means the movie will be presented in a way that’s as close to Kubrick’s original vision as possible.
This new 70mm print will make its debut at Cannes Film Festival with an introduction from Christopher Nolan. The director called the chance to introduce one of his favorite works of cinema in “all its analog glory… an honor and a privilege.”
A fully restored version of 2001 will also be available on DVD and Blu-ray later this year. Revisit the original trailer below.
That's because it is boring. The overall plot is good -- an intelligent, self-learning computer figures out it has to take over the ship it's on, with the background of explaining man's origins -- but..... it's boring.
Many movies from that era are. Space travel at that time was the latest craze with the Apollo program & moon landings, and the emphasis of the movie was to dramatize space travel. They did that, but by today's evolved cinematic standards, 2001 is boring.
By contrast, Star Wars came along some 9 years later and recast space travel as routine and common, and added excitement which was doubtless key to it's success.
Not that 2001 is a bad movie. It is what it is, and it still has a certain classical charm to it, especially with the sound track.
By contrast, Star Wars came along some 9 years later and recast space travel as routine and common, and added excitement which was doubtless key to it's success.
2001 was far more realistic about what space travel is like. Star Wars is just fantasy space opera.
2001 was far more realistic about what space travel is like. Star Wars is just fantasy space opera.
Indeed, REAL space travel is certainly boring, stuck in a relatively small spaceship with nothing to do but monitor systems and maintain life support. If the idea is to make a movie about space travel as it would be in real life, the result will be a boring movie, and in that respect, 2001 certainly overplayed the excitement.
But people don't go to the movies to get a dose of realism. If they want that, they can stay home. Documentaries are an exception, but 2001 was of course no documentary.
