2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey was a film that influenced the science fiction films we see today. It paved the way films including Star Wars and Star Trek. It was a film made by Stanley Kubrick and was a prediction for what the future would be like from what they could guess in 1968. It didn’t really have much of a main actor or anything because it was mainly a piece of artwork and there wasn’t a whole lot of talking in it and it had quite a few time jumps which would go months or years into the future.
2001: A Space Odyssey was an outstanding film for when it was made and I bet in it’s time it was very impressive because I know that when I watched the first Star Wars as a kid I was really impressed but if it was a movie that was put out now I would be disappointed because the movie industry moves so fast that films are being improved at a rapid pace and therefore our movie expectations are much higher.
After watching this film I was disappointed because I thought that the ending was very poor and hard to understand and that the whole scene with the colors flying by was a very confusing part that I personally did not understand at all. I thought that the movie was pretty easy to understand until the end and for me personally the end of a movie usually makes me like or dislike the film and in this case it made me really dislike it.
In this film I really liked the use of some of the music because I felt like it gave it the epic feel that it needed. I noticed while watching this film that most of the music I heard wasn’t new to me and I was shocked because I expected for a film made in 1968 to have music I hadn’t heard before. The reason I feel that I have heard a lot of this music is because it is in a lot of new age movies which also surprised me because it goes to show me how much of an influence this film had on the science fiction genre of movies.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey I noticed that it used a lot of underlying humor including the very long and drawn out travel scenes and excessive use of the colorful traveling scene in the end. With these scenes I thought that they added quite a bit of humor to the film but it took away from it at the same time because even though they were funny, Kubrick used them way to many times and it just got old and boring after a while. After watching this it reminded me of a movie that I have seen many time and that is Space Balls. I noticed in Space Balls they used the same sort of humor where the ship would take a really long time to pass or get from one place to another and one that sticks out to me is the opening scene to Space Balls which uses the same angles and shape of the ship as 2001: A Space Odyssey but in Space Balls the ship was much longer and drawn out to provide more obvious humor.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey I did really like the use of imagination and creativity. I really liked the scene where the ship hostess went from walking on one surface to walking up the wall and onto the ceiling. I thought that this was a really neat idea to have compartments of the ship upside down. I also really liked the part where the astronauts went down a ladder on a spinning part of a ship which made me think how it was possible because you would think if it was spinning how could it be connected to anything for them to climb down into.
Overall I think this film was a very good experience for me because now I can connect some modern day movies to it but I wouldn’t want to see it again. I feel if I would watch it a second time I would be really bored because then the little things like the music or some of the creative ideas wouldn’t keep my attention nearly as much and I would just get bored with it quickly. So I think this movie is definitely good because it was a turning point in science fiction but I would have to say to today’s standards this movie is really not that good.
Write about films in the present tense.
ReplyDeleteYour essay so far is hard to follow. You don't provide a brief plot summary so that a reader who hasn't seen the film has a basis from which to understand your evaluation. Also, you don't back up your opinions with anything specific from the film. You talk about the music, but you don't say what title of the music is or who the composer is--it's a classical work, which is why you have heard it before.
When you talk about the humor, you provide no examples, so I have no idea what you mean. When you talk about the compartments of the ship being "upside-down" I'm not sure that you're understanding that there is no upside-down in space--which was the point Kubrick was making. You say you can connect some modern-day movies to the film, but you don't say which ones. Star Wars came out in 1977, so I wouldn't think you would be talking about that one.
You claim to judge the film by "today's standards,"but what are those exactly? Not all people today have the same standards. Many people today still consider it to be a great film, not just a great film for something created in 1968. You need to be more specific about the criteria you have chosen; you need to judge the film using your own criteria and take responsibility for your own opinions.
The film is not meant to be a literal prediction of the future: it's science fiction, a made-up story.