Apparently it was in the book 2001, but the movie version of 2010.
I enjoyed both movies quite a bit. I had a bit more love for the weirdness of 2001.
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John Lithgow’s terrified astronaut performance, and the effects for spacewalk scene between the ships in 2010 is amazing and elevates the film.
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The Cold War stuff was in the novel as well, as I recall, but that was my memory playing tricks on me. Instead, there were Chinese in the race as well, who were killed when they landed on Europa and awoke a tendril monster.
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I totally forgot that part and am half-remembering it now as being frikkin’ awesome.
The scene where Roy Scheider illustrates the piggybacking method that he hopes will save them and arranges the pens in zero g also delights. Another kid-in-the-theater WTF moment, a subtle, tiny wondrous thing.
I am thinking this film needs rewatching!
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It was definitely forgotten by me. I was aware of the book sequels, but had no idea they’d filmed 2010 until this very moment. It’s certainly not a movie that gets talked about much.
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Did you get to see the 70mm prints that were touring around that time? 2001 is RIVETING at that scale! Our local classic repertory theatre had a fundraiser to have their own permanent 70mm copy struck a few years back, and they show(ed) it often. I never get tired of it.
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Yes, the 70 MM print and in a big theater, front row/neck craning seats.
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In the 80s I got to see it on the huge torus screen at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, the way Kubrick and Douglas Trumbull preferred it be viewed. A couple of my friends got stoned and laid on their backs on the floor right under the screen during the “light show” sequence at the end.
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This may or may not have anything to do with why the movies haven’t been made, but they are very, very far in quality from Clarke’s better works.
Clarke from the mid-1970s on got very… let’s say “precious.” In part he suffers from comparison with the generation of SF writers who were up-and-coming in the mid-70s—think Ursula K. LeGuin. But he also pretty clearly began writing to delight and flatter an audience of one. His protagonists in that period tend to be men answering roughly to his own description, who are continuously praised by other characters and the omniscient narrator for their various good qualities.
So a lot of the page-count of 2061 consists of silver fox Heywood Floyd indulging his dear friends in their foibles such as being gay, or thinking that Heywood Floyd is ever so much smarter than everyone else on their luxury cruise ship to Halley’s Comet. There’s a scene where they drink water mined from the comet, which gives them diarrhea—not sure how well that would film.
The actual plot deals with the interactions between three nonhuman, effectively unfilmable alien entities: the monolith, and Europan and Jovian life forms. The human characters are mostly just there to watch it happen.
Basically, it’s one of those things where a good production team could have made a decent movie about it by changing absolutely everything except the title, and then spent the rest of their lives getting trashed by outraged Clarke trufans.
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I watched it not too long ago, and it totally holds up. Some of the politics and tech are clearly a bit dated, but its still well crafted and looks pretty fantastic by 1980s standards.
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I remember watching a blooper reel, how often the pens would fall out of the invisible holder. I think it took twenty takes to get it in the can.
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The circumcision rant was 3001. (And it was Poole, not Floyd.)
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I’m old enough to have seen the original release of 2001 in it’s 70mm glory at the Cinerama theater in Boston (I was in 7th grade at the time). This was a much anticipated family event, so much so we even went to some “training” films at the theater so my dad could figure out the best seats in the house. I’ve yet to see 2010, although I did read the book. I suspect the problem with Clarke (as with Asimov) is that he did not actually write most of his later books, by then he was more of a brandname than a working author. It was almost always the case that the first book in what would become a series was usually well written and interesting, the rest would have the feel of writing by committee.
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Well darn. Seems it has been too many years since I read those books. And answers if I had ready 3001. Thanks for correcting my failed memories!
Easy as cake…
Saw both movies on cable tv movie channels as a young lad, I loved them both (never read any of the books). Their contrasting styles began my appreciation of the arts, I remember first being confused and intrigued as to why they were so different and even now decades later I still have conversations on the topic.
When the sequel to the Shining was announced I was thrilled, but I was later disappointed to hear how the super natural was going to be further explained, and of course the 2001/2010 comparison immediately came to mind. I never watched the shining sequel, I’m sure it’s ok but Im not sure it’s worth losing the more interpretive parts I love about the original.
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I think it was more like too many nuclear weapons.
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I watch this film just about every New Years Eve. The optimism that accompanies stepping back from the brink of nuclear annihilation along with the knowledge that we’re not alone befits the start of a new year.
Also, not to nitpick too much, as I’m happy to see someone discover both 2001 and 2010, but a couple of minutes with Google would have saved the “I’m guessing you’ve never seen this this film” theme that drags it down for me.
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apparently many people remember it from the first film
https://www.reddit.com/r/MandelaEffect/comments/6eyvfa/my_god_its_full_of_stars/
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I really liked some of the Cold War bullsh*t, since we were in the middle of the Cold War at the time. The opening scene where the Russian guy and the American are saying “let’s play a game - I’ll tell the truth for 3 minutes, and then you tell the truth for 3 minutes.” “Nyet - 30 seconds” “2 minutes”… And Lithgow’s performance. And the fun of the pen-in-zero-gravity. And of course there were monoliths and AIs doing stuff, but I’ve long forgotten that part.
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That part is so good that for years I mis-remembered it as being the ending of 2001
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