I grew up watching a lot of classic films especially Kubrick's works even as a kid I loved the visuals. When I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey the first time I thought it was brilliant but watching it now, I feel like the movie isn't as great as I originally thought it was. I've re watched the film a lot lately and for some reason I'm starting to think the movie is a bit overrated. I think the film itself is good don't get me wrong, I just feel like some people/critics tend to read way too deep into the movie that they start to give meaning to things that aren't supposed to be anything. I know good movies tend to leave it up to audience and fill in the holes for their own amusement but I also think that putting some sort of imagery and idea in a film and just leaving out in a blank isn't a good way to go also.
I think 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the best Sci-Fi movies ever created! For being a film made in the late 1960s, it was darn accurate in depicting humans and their technologies in space, being that Apollo 11 occurred after this movie was released so no human knew how a man would walk on the moon. Also, the story revolves around the speculation and conjecture that chimps may have been influenced in their evolution due to non-Earthly entities, which may explain why the human creation myths around the planet are so similar (ref. Joseph Campbell and Erich Von Daniken's works). In my opinion, the movie is really about evolved humans accelerating their own genetic past through time travel, much like the Interstellar movie but on a more epic level.
I know all too well that there are Nietzsche tenets lodged within the movie. However, it's very basic and open to interpretation. I would have to agree that the hype surrounding 2001: A Space Odyssey isn't normal. People who saw it would suddenly claim to be savants, as if they fully understood the message it was trying to relay. Still, to each his own. For me, it's a good philosophical movie. Nothing more, nothing less.
I have never been a fan of 2001 a Space Odyssey and this is coming from someone is a science fiction fan. Oh don't get me wrong I can see why some find this such a great film. Its visually beautiful and the special effects are breath taking, especially for the time in which it was done. The music in the movie is great and gives even more impact to the visuals, but unfortunately that's about it. To be honest I never understood the over all plot. Yes, I guess some have interpretations of what it means, but for me it was hard to follow. I felt like you know a movie is in trouble when a computer Hal 3000 is the most interesting character in it. Everyone else was kind of bland and just there. I never understood the movie over all, till years later when I saw the sequel 2010 and some of things that happened in it were explained to me. I know unpoular opinion but for me I liked this movie more and it did grab my interest.
@pafjlh I agree with a lot of what you said. I know Stanley Kubrick was supposedly some genius, but I have not "got" many of his movies, including Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut. In a weird way, I feel like he just put odd things together, threw in some strangely unrelated or just specifically weird scenes, only vaguely explained his vision or meaning behind his movies, and then sat back and made everyone else think they are stupid for not figuring it out. I often hear people sing the praises of his movies and go on about deep philosophical meanings behind them, but I have yet to hear a well thought out analysis of any of his movies in a way that makes any sense. And I am very into movies with deep meanings and I have always considered myself a deep thinker. I have thought deeply about his movies trying to figure out their meaning and what am I missing, and I always come up with nothing.
