2001 A space Odyssey

"No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information."

As a science fiction fan 2001 A Space Odyssey is a film I have always wanted to see unfortunately I was disappointed with the film when I finally saw it. On reflection however I'm really not sure how I feel about it. Stanley Kubrick is obviously a genius director and I cannot and would not dare fault his often stunning unique imagination. However I think the film is not for the general audience of today. The film on the surface lacks any real focus. A few ideas could be argued for example, to illustrate that despite intervention by evolutionary monoliths humans are still just apes. Another possible theme is the danger in scientific advancements such as Hal 9000 but this seems to have little coherence with the rest of the film. Some other small signs support this theory such as humans appearing lazy or stupid as they fall asleep on there computers that have made us redundant. So overall the focus of the film is difficult to pin down and I personally thought it was unsuccessful at dealing with any kind of subject matter. I found the film very difficult to watch as it was painfully slow and lingered on almost every beautiful image just a little too long with only repetitive classical music to accompany and entertain the audience. I do however believe that I feel this way because of the bombardment of CG images and fast paced, high concept blockbusters that have dulled the images and the ambiguous story telling of 2001. The form of the film relates massively to its content and the introduction of the monoliths at such large intervals with such little explanation makes the film a mystery and is one of the only reasons I managed to watch the film to the end. It is typical of Kubrick to narrate and write a story in such a way that the audience has to become active to achieve pleasure and whilst this is something to be admired it seems that t has maybe gone too fa in this instance.


Kubrick's visual style and content are interesting but for today's audience not enough to grant the viewer pleasure. The film visually is a masterpiece, the form cut of the bone ad ship for one example is excellent. 2001 was surely as usually regarded a large contributor to the modern conventions of science fiction cinema as Kubrick stylistically altered what we knew to be a genre as he often does. A good film to study however maybe not one for simple viewing.