The two other elements which particularly come to mind that cause it to stand out as a masterpiece are the production design and acting. All of these accomplishments help the film pioneer a path that would continue being forged and widened in the coming decades with dozens of other films carrying on in it's footsteps (*cough cough Star Wars, anyone). Two and a half hours where viewers across the world were introduced to elaborate space sequences, clinically futuristic sets, and visual effects which went beyond matte paintings and using backgrounds to simulate car chases.Īnd that's exactly why this film is so hallowed, it was the first motion picture to do so many things that others had either shied away from, or didn't have the technology or the vision to do, but perhaps most importantly Kubrick paints a realistic picture of space both with dozens of minute-spanning shots, and the lack of sound during most of the shots excluding the film's score which emphasize the isolation, loneliness and barren terrain of outer space.

Over the two and a half hour runtime, we see Kubrick's direction in full bloom, first via the surprisingly abstract prehistorical sequence involving tribes of man-apes fighting over a water hole, and then through the following three clusters of the film the Moon journey, the Jupiter mission, and finally Beyond Jupiter where we see the enigmatic ending which has been discussed and dissected over and over again in the pantheon of pop culture (I myself subscribing to the film being a giant painting of evolutionary theory, but that's not the point, here). I believe it would be outright mentally deranged to say that the world's enthusiasm for outer space at the tail-end of the '60s didn't help this film's reception at all, but I also think that Odyssey was such a success because for all it's hype and praise it's gotten over the years, it really IS as good as many people say. 2001 isn't as much of a film as it is a visual symphony which explores the ideas of the interstellar at a time when the world's interest in space was at an all-time high due to the all-mythical space race nearing it's last sprint.

Strangelove but i'm talking on a reputation level). It was a film that was made roughly over the course of a tenuous three years in which Stanley Kubrick proved himself one of the 1960s most quintessential directors with this film alone (yes, I'm aware of Spartacus, Lolita, and Dr. Now here's why I'm such a fan of it.Ģ001: A Space Odyssey came out a whopping 14 months before Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins won the space race for the United States via Apollo 11.

Over two hours tons of groundbreaking visual effects a psychedelic stargate sequence and interiors that look like something out of almost every film it's influenced.

Mystery of time and space review