Paul Humphreys rambles on....

My favourite sci-fi book - quite possibly. Years ago I used to read more sci-fi than I do now. Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov were the two authors I liked most. But 2001 is a classic. I fear I may offend by saying the rest of the series 2010/2061 and 3001 were not as good as the first but I suppose they completed the tale. The idea of the monolith and its bigger brother is an awsome concept and how life on earth was manipulated by these higher beings. The journey by Discovery ( what an apt name for that doomed spaceship ) as Hal becomes more unreliable and paranoid is brilliant. The final words of Bowman as he tumbles into the monolith "My god its full of stars" has you on the edge of your seat.

If the book is excellent the film is just perfect. It complements the book very well (the book of course was written from the screenplay) and even when I see it now it does not seem dated.

Comments:

What amazes me about the film (I recently bought the DVD), is how good the special effects are. Having seen documentaries on the efforts George Lucas went through to get the special effects done for Star Wars, which was made almost ten years after 2001, suggests the effects in 2001 must have been a real challenge.

Add to the whole 2001 hype, it was released in the spring of 1968, just when the Apollo program was reaching its maximum hype. The premiers for 2001 were April 2nd (Washinton D.C.), 3rd (New York), and 4th (Los Angeles). The second and last unmanned test flight of the Saturn V moon rocket was launched April 4th, 1968. Wow, what a week!

The Apollo 8 mission around the moon in December of 1968 must have made 2001 seem that much more realistic.

Posted by Mark on April 22, 2005 at 09:43 AM PDT #

..and of course both came from a short story byArthur C Clarke entitled 'The Sentinel' in his anthology ..'Expedition to Earth'

Posted by malcolm on July 03, 2005 at 04:26 AM PDT #