So much of this film’s shot stasis and half-baked ideology can only be defended by a naive wonderment totally unconcerned with aesthetic merit.
Sounds like something Armond White would have written when he was 13. What does it even mean? It’s hardly one of my favorite films but to say 2001: A Space Odyssey has no aesthetic merit is to either not have seen it or not know what the word aesthetic means.
By aesthetic merit I don’t mean just the prettiness of the pictures, but the totality of effect a film can have. In the context of the film, syncing The Blue Danube to striking images in space for arbitrary lengths of time has little to no meaning whatsoever (and by meaning, I include interesting sensations). To burn into celluloid Paul Walker throwing thugs off a speeding vehicle (i.e. cool random action sequence in Fast Five) takes more imagination.
Perhaps the indignation of Tervarian’s peripheral plight serves as an enigmatic outcry for a modern retelling (i.e. he needs more CGI).
Pardon? I don’t think I’ve ever attributed a single problem with 2001 to the lack of present-day advanced CGI.
Oh, my grave apologies, sir. The Paul Walker innuendo threw me way off…
I can understand the look makes it, like many of science fiction in its era, a case of retro futurism. The uniforms of the women for example, especially in it being so gendered with pink, is dated but that is so minor.
It was actually on late last night. It is so gorgeous to look at in HD. Aesthetically it holds up and remains one of the major strengths for the film.
The year in the title, “2001”, was NOT intended to predict or represent the exact future date in which humans would be venturing into space with technology similar to that depicted in the film. Rather, that date was meant to symbolize the start to a new era, the beginning of a new century (as well as a new millennium) in which technological development will have met with human ambition, thereby making the necessary giant leap forward that “2001: A Space Odyssey” attempts to envision.
All science-fiction films in some way reflect the time period in which they were made. One can’t really imagine cultural changes in the future without somehow referencing the present-day. You can’t expect the dissolution of Pan-Am if you’re living in 1968, but you CAN envision audio-visual communication very similar to Skype (in the 1960s, television, telephones, and video cameras all existed). As far as technological development, it would be silly to think that the future is supposed to look just like this film imagines it. It’s just a film. And a damn excellent one. If people are disappointed by our present stage of space exploration, they should whine about it to the United States Congress.
Brad S.
^ LOL!