I’m starting this thread because this masterpiece by Stanley Kubrick is my favourite movie of all time. I remember the first time I watched this film at the age of 15 and how many hours I had to think about it. Every time I watch the movie I discover a new detail in the plot. I also love the incredible soundtrack. Summarized it‘s an unbelievably great piece of art
This is one of my all-time classics! I saw it on TV when I was a kid & loved it. When I got my first VHS VCR, It was the very first tape I bought so I could watch it without commercials. I also wanted to see it with better picture quality. When Laserdisc players came out, I bought one & when the "2001: A Space Odyssey" laserdisc was released I bought that too. Next came DVD's/ The day I bought my DVD player I bought three DVD's. Those three were "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Jailhouse Rock" & "Conspiracy Theory". When I worked at Walmart, one day I came in early to buy a couple DVD's. I had two in my hand when I looked across at an endcap with the Blu-Ray of "2001: A Space Odyssey". I immediately put one of the DVD's back & bought the remaining DVD & the Blu-Ray. A week later I bought my first Blu-Ray player. When I heard about the 4k UHD release of "2001: A Space Odyssey", I was at Best Buy on the release date & bought it. I now have it in UHD on VUDU streaming too. I lost my original tape in a flood but I still have all the disc versions. Once in a while I revisit the original DVD to play a sample & follow it by playing the $K UHD sample just to marvel at the day & night differences. I do have to be honest & say I like "2010: The year We Make Contact" too. Not as much as the original but I do like it.
On a Saturday in fall of 1968, my parents dropped me off at the train to NYC from CT. The girl I had met a week earlier on a youth fellowship hayride joined me at the Greenwich stop and we went on in to see this, on promise that she would be home by dinner. We were 15, one of my first dates. I must have seen this movie 20 times by the time I finished high school.
A new print was struck a few years ago under supervision of Christopher Nolan. It did a theatrical tour accompanied by Keir Dullea who spoke and took questions. Two things I learned. He didn’t screen test. Kubrick called his agent during the filming of Bunny Lake Is Missing to offer him the part which he took because he was thrilled to be in a Kubrick movie. Second, he was asked if the actors improvised in any of the scenes. He said it was his idea to knock the crystal glass to the floor in the final sequence before he looks up to see his much older self in bed. It was Gary Lockwood's idea to have HAL figure out their plan by reading their lips. I saw the print on a good sized screen in Brookline MA and wasn't particularly impressed. I thought the musical score in particular sounded distorted in spots, which could have been the theatrical sound system. The first time I saw 2001 was in its first theatrical release when I was in high school. I saw it in Cinerama at the Clairidge Theater in Montclair NJ. The next time I saw it was projected on overlapping bedsheets at a college film society. Visually, as you can imagine, the worst I've seen it but very memorable. I can't imagine seeing this on a square CRT in VHS or commercial television. That would be nearly as bad as the overlapping bedsheets. I had the 25th anniversary laserdisc presentation which was not bad but of course had all the problems of laserdiscs which were noisy players and had to interrupt the movie to flip the laser or worse change discs for long movies. But it was decent quality visually and even compared well with a DVD I saw. I sold my collection of laserdiscs and players. Now having a 4K player I picked up a copy of the 50th anniversary 4K UHD edition which has been reviewed favorably. It is outstanding. Visually even better than I recalled the new print being that I saw in Brookline. The matte work is very stable and clear when you look at the cockpits of the spaceships. The resolution is amazing. You can read all the meticulously done screens in every scene. If there's a problem at all it's in Kubrick's ultra scrubbed and clean set designs which for the interiors gives you a feeling more of being on a movie set than in outer space. The mindbending sequence of going through the stargate to Kubrick's bootlegged Ligeti music is as good as it will ever be. My one regret, easily remedied of course, is that I've never read the Clarke story it's based on.
I know the soundtrack, I know some of the scenes, however didn't watch the complete film yet (oh my god). But a Blu-ray copy is on my (large) wishlist.
I watched 2001 on VHS for the first time back in 1996 while in college. It completely blew me away to the extent that as soon as the end credits finished rolling, I immediately rewound the tape I rented from Blockbuster and watched it all over again a second time. The next day I drove to our local mall and purchased the widescreen version on VHS in a movie store that is now long gone. It was the very first DVD I purchased back in 1998. Truly a profound masterpiece of filmmaking that one could analyze for days afterwards. Being able to watch a remastered/restored version of 2001 on the cinema big screen is on my bucket list.
I first saw it with my parents during one of its re-releases, when I was 6 or 7 - and I loved it, although I can’t say I necessarily understood it.
I didn't understand it at all until I read the novelization. I didn't see it for years, because the Cinerama theater in Indianapolis had some exclusivity agreement which meant little ol' rural Indiana towns didn't get a print for some time. 70 miles away, and none of our theaters could get it!
Guy I knew said his father took him and his brother to see it on release at the theater. He was 8 and his brother a little younger. They were bored out of their minds because they were expecting flying saucers, aliens, monsters, scantily clad women.... Instead they got a buncha monkeys, a big slab and HAL.
I saw it in on its initial run at the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd. It was shown in Cinerama and with surround sound. I had just turned 15. My mother was downtown to do some shopping. She dropped me off to see the film. Afterward, I met her out front. I asked if she could do some more shopping. She said that she could. I borrowed more money from her and went back inside to see it again.
I did, decades ago. They were fun but not the movie by any means. It stands by itself, and to my way of thinking, works better if you don't know the explanations from the first book as to what's going on.
I have every iteration of 2001 on disc, but my favorite viewing of the film is seeing it in the year 2001 at the Castro theater in San Francisco. They setup everything, including the Overture, which played prior to the start, and as it got into the last minute before the start, each spotlight on stage slowly dimmed out until they were all out and the film started. What a classy way to introduce the film! There was even an intermission where it was suppose to be, with the music playing and lighting effects again. It was great because I could focus on the film, and I had a better understanding of it watching it there than seeing it on video at home. I had to convince a friend, who also liked the film to go see it. I had to say "how can you pass up this opportunity to see 2001 in the year 2001!"
Here in West Yorkshire is not necessarily where people would flock to watch films, but the Pictureville Cinema in the Bradford Media Museum has a Cinerama screen and, on occasion, has been known to show 2001 from a 70mm print on it. I went a good few years ago to see it. I don't imagine I will ever see a better presentation of it. The audience were even evicted and virtually forced to buy an ice cream for the intermission.
I saw it in 2001 as well in a big theatre. It was a press screening where I sneaked in, pretending to be a journalist friend of mine who was on the list, but couldn't make it. It was great, including all the pre- and interludes. Drinks too. And all free.
Watched the original and it's sequel multiple times. Read all the books. Volunteered at my high school's library for the sole purpose of accessing their, at the time, rare LaserDisc player so I could watch the special edition 2001 disc they had with all it's production stills and featurettes on my lunch breaks. If I ever had to write a paper on a film in school, it was my go-to, as it was so obtuse to most people I could write just about anything and there wouldn't be much argument against it. It's still one of my favorite movies. I watched it with my 11 year old son, though I fast-forwarded through some parts. He liked it quite a bit, which is great, as he now doesn't have an aversion to "old movies" like some of his friends do.
I saw it at SF’s Palace of Fine Arts theater, at the tender age of ~9, attending a friend’s birthday party (he was 10), around 1970. I had no f*’ing clue what I was watching. But the imprint was made, and I’ve greatly enjoyed every re-visit. There is an incredibly detailed article regarding the FX/camera techniques Kubrick used for the film in a cinema/industry monthly that I acquired at an art supply store many years ago. The effort put in was Herculean, and the visual result, near-perfect. Not sure I still have that.
I saw this on it's initial release at the Uptown theatre in Washington DC. My dad and my buddies father went with us. It was an all day adventure. The dad's let us sit in the balcony, I was mesmerised. I had the first book for years,(don't know what happened to it). Also that following Christmas Santa got me a copy of the OST. I recently bought the 4k version based primarily on reviews of the PQ. I have yet to see it.
A few years ago I was visiting friends in Houston and they suggested we go see 2001 at the Alamo Drafthouse. They'd never seen it AT ALL, let alone on a big screen. I'd seen it several times in a theatre, and was happy to do so again. Afterward, the wife turned to me and said, "You have some explaining to do."
