"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.
I like to get out. I like going to the movies. Especially the drive in.
I mention it mostly because I have a habit of downloading some of these old favorites and then realizing that their special effects and plots are badly dated. A movie is a product of its own era, like anything else. I used to love Cold War era big-budget movies like Ice Station Zebra. I watched it again recently and it just struck me how dated it was. That world just doesn't exist any more. Even movies like Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (his other great movie IMO) are very dated.
Do you plan to followup with the sequel, 2010, made by some other guy in the Eighties? It does somewhat complete the story line and follows Arthur Clarke's 2010 story line. I think maybe he wrote another one called 2060 or something like that, no movie was made of that one.
Of course, there is no denying that 2001 is considered one of the most influential films of all time. It regularly turns up in lists of the top ten best films of all time. It is the prototype of so many sci-fi films that have been made since the Sixties. If you make a space opera, the first movie they compare it to is 2001. And maybe 2001 is a good yardstick for the genre. So there is no doubt it is a classic.
But it is still pretty dated. PanAm space shuttles? Soviet scientists? Meh. But then you have the iconic shots with the apes and the obelisk, the space station with a Strauss waltz, etc. The 2010 sequel has even more Soviet scientists in it, Americans hitch a ride to Jupiter on a Soviet spacecraft to recover Discovery (the ship in 2001 with HAL shutdown). Still, 2010 is worth seeing at least once, just to complete the story arc. Hopefully, Disney won't buy the film rights and then ruin it all the way they have with Star Wars.
