Stuff in 2001 was put together by years of background work done by Kubrick with NASA experts. He employed real engineers to experiment and recreate the backdrop with some sense of plausibility. Speculations are American govt, & Nasa had funded Kubrick to do this film as a propaganda machine for people believing into their moon/space travel which would later be staged by Kubrick in film studios.
Some of the mechanical sets, or authentic makeup for the Apes, for example, were designed to perfection. He outdid everything prior to this and IMO, will stand the test of time as the pinnacle of the genre. Revamped the genre when it was going through a phase of shoddy production values, plastic aliens and parodies of themes. He made something that works on one unassuming simplification - visual images accompanied with music that works like a silent musical.
The film could be seen and experienced solely like a symphony.
Then there is a question of authenticity in this experience, the logical step was to not show the Alien. This, IMO, is sheer genius. We talk about genre subversions, like Reservoir dogs being a heist film without heist, and so on. But this is something else. The idea of far-evolved superior species watching, guiding, and monitoring our cosmical-evolution is a potent one. Yet, you are not allowed to fixate aliens into fixed dimensions, an image that would ultimately be World-ly when it could be anything but that. Thus arrived the "Monolith", as mysteriously bland as a visualized simulacrum of an 'Alien'. The implanting of Monolith at various evolutionary junctions of Humans is to be seen (& is shown in the film) from bird's eye view and not from a human standpoint POV (Kubrick never shows the "Monolith" through eyes of primitive apes or the fully developed human but placed among the vicinage.). The lack of first-person perspective and the resulting emotional insulation/detachment is absolutely vital IMO, to speculate on a wider, interesting and 'grander' concept. So, "Enna solla vareenga" I think not. Although the suggestions and subliminal interpretations had feigned such an image.
Sticking to innovativeness(most of which remains discreet) and proportionate quality, it out scales almost all digial recreations since then. CGI with green screen was developed by Lucas, which to be honest is a big innovation and changed cinema forever. With limitless potential to provide 'grandness'. But then, as Bowman encounters the Jupiter monolith which triggers a Stargate sequence that eventually ports him into another side of universe. Entrapped by the human prison or zoo if you will, & guarded by Alien (who we still don't see) till his death. The talent in canvassing this, without much distortion, into images is cinematic genius.
Lucas had been inspired by 2001 as a kid. Spielberg as well. Such genre masters, Sci-Fi revolutionists concede 2001 to be mind-blowingly put together, improbable & inconceivable without a genius. A landmark moment that redefined and expanded the genre. As was "Paths of Glory" to War, "Barry Lyndon" to Period piece, "Lolita" to romance, "Dr,Strangelove" to cold-war, "Shining" to horror, "A clockwork Orange" to ultraviolence.
Originally Posted by kid-glove
Stuff in 2001 was put together by years of background work done by Kubrick with NASA experts. He employed real engineers to experiment and recreate the backdrop with some sense of plausibility. Speculations are American govt, & Nasa had funded Kubrick to do this film as a propaganda machine for people believing into their moon/space travel which would later be staged by Kubrick in film studios.Phew!
Reply With Quote
j/k
Bookmarks