Content deleted Content added
m →Scientific accuracy: little less pov? |
→Post-production: adding section link for convenience |
||
Line 1:
{{short description|1968 film by Stanley Kubrick}}
{{About|the 1968 film|the novel|2001: A Space Odyssey (novel){{!}}''2001: A Space Odyssey'' (novel)|other uses|2001: A Space Odyssey (disambiguation)}}
{{Redirect|A Space Odyssey|other uses|Space Odyssey (disambiguation)}}
{{Good article}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Infobox film
| name = 2001: A Space Odyssey
| image = 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).png
| alt = A painted image of a space station suspended in space, in the background the Earth is visible. Above the image appears "An epic drama of adventure and exploration" in blue block letters against a white background. Below the image in a black band, the title "2001: a space odyssey" appears in yellow block letters.
| caption = Theatrical release poster by [[Robert McCall (artist)|Robert McCall]]
| director = [[Stanley Kubrick]]
| producer = Stanley Kubrick
| screenplay = {{Plainlist|
* Stanley Kubrick
* [[Arthur C. Clarke]]
}}
| based_on = <!-- The film does not officially credit any source material. Per [[Template:Based on]], "Do not use this field where the source material is ambiguous, i.e. in cases of films that are not clearly or officially based on one original work." -->
| starring = {{Plainlist|
* [[Keir Dullea]]
* [[Gary Lockwood]]
<!-- These two actors (Dullea and Lockwood) are the only cast members who are listed in the billing block of official posters for the film. -->
}}
| cinematography = [[Geoffrey Unsworth]]
| editing = [[Ray Lovejoy]]
| studio = [[Hawk Films|Stanley Kubrick Productions]]
| distributor = [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]
| released = {{Film date|df=yes|1968|4|2|[[Uptown Theater (Washington, D.C.)|Uptown Theater]]|ref1=<ref name="Release">{{cite web |last1=Coate |first1=Michael |title=The Original Reserved-Seat Roadshow Engagements Of "2001: A Space Odyssey" |url=https://www.in70mm.com/presents/1959_super_panavision/1968_2OO1/engagements/2001/engagements/index.htm |website=in70mm.com |access-date=12 July 2023 |archive-date=23 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230723191025/https://www.in70mm.com/presents/1959_super_panavision/1968_2OO1/engagements/2001/engagements/index.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>|1968|04|03|United States|ref2=<ref name="Release" />|1968|5|1|United Kingdom|ref3=<ref name="Release" />}}
| runtime = 139 minutes<ref name="nyt_review">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/14/arts/home-video-new-cassettes-from-kubrick-to-saint-exupery-162687.html |title=Home video; New cassettes: From Kubrick to Saint-Exupery |work=[[The New York Times]] |first=Janet |last=Maslin |date=14 April 1985 |access-date=30 July 2023 |archive-date=15 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230715001645/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/14/arts/home-video-new-cassettes-from-kubrick-to-saint-exupery-162687.html |url-status=live}}</ref>
| country = {{Plainlist|
* United Kingdom
* United States
}}
| language = English
| budget = $10.5 million<!-- Sources are in the box-office section where the cost is covered, and omitted from the infobox in accordance with WP:INFOBOXCITE -->
| gross = $146 million<!-- See Box office section for full breakdown and sources. Please note the Box Office Mojo total is not complete and does not include overseas grosses prior to 2001. -->
}}
'''''2001: A Space Odyssey''''' is a 1968 [[Epic film|epic]] [[science fiction film]] produced and directed by [[Stanley Kubrick]], who co-wrote the screenplay with [[Arthur C. Clarke]]. Its plot was inspired by several short stories [[Option (filmmaking)|optioned]] from Clarke, primarily "[[The Sentinel (short story)|The Sentinel]]" (1951) and "[[Encounter in the Dawn]]" (1953).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benson |first=Michael |title=Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the making of a masterpiece |date=2018 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-1-5011-6393-7 |edition=First Simon & Schuster hardcover |___location=New York |page=53}}</ref> The film stars [[Keir Dullea]], [[Gary Lockwood]], [[William Sylvester]], and [[Douglas Rain]], and follows a voyage by astronauts, scientists, and the sentient supercomputer [[HAL 9000]] to [[Jupiter]] to investigate an [[Monolith (Space Odyssey)|alien monolith]].
The film is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction of [[spaceflight]], pioneering [[special effects]], and ambiguous themes. Kubrick avoided conventional cinematic and narrative techniques; dialogue is used sparingly, and long sequences are accompanied only by music. Shunning the convention that major film productions should feature original music, ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' takes for [[2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack)|its soundtrack]] numerous works of [[classical music]], including pieces by [[Richard Strauss]], [[Johann Strauss II]], [[Aram Khachaturian]], and [[György Ligeti]].
Polarising critics after its release, ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' has since been subject to a variety of interpretations, ranging from the darkly apocalyptic to an optimistic reappraisal of the hopes of humanity. Critics noted its exploration of themes such as [[human evolution]], [[technology]], [[artificial intelligence]], and the possibility of [[extraterrestrial life]]. It was nominated for four [[Academy Awards]], winning Kubrick the award for his direction of the [[Academy Award for Best Visual Effects|visual effects]], the only Academy Award the director would receive.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVEeu1eNx34 |title=Stanley Kubrick Wins Special Effects: 1969 Oscars |website=[[YouTube]] |date=7 November 2012 |access-date=12 March 2024 |archive-date=12 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240312120909/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVEeu1eNx34 |url-status=live}}</ref>
The film is now widely regarded as one of the [[List of films considered the best|greatest and most influential films ever made]]. In 1991, it was selected by the United States [[Library of Congress]] for preservation in the [[National Film Registry]]. In 2022, ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' placed in the top ten of ''[[Sight & Sound]]''{{'}}s decennial critics' poll, and topped their directors' poll. A sequel, ''[[2010: The Year We Make Contact]]'', was released in 1984, based on the novel ''[[2010: Odyssey Two]]''. Clarke published a [[2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)|novelisation of ''2001'']] (in part written concurrently with the screenplay) soon after the film's 1968 release, for which Kubrick received co-writing credit.
{{TOC limit|limit=3}}
==Plot==
<!-- Please do not expand this section significantly without consensus, per the plot summary length guidelines at [[WP:FILMPLOT]] (2nd paragraph). Also, please note that there is a long-standing consensus on the Talk page to not include titles of space stations or space ships from Arthur Clarke's novel in this summary. Please make a case for changing this on the talk page and allow consensus to emerge before doing so.-->
In a prehistoric [[veld]], a tribe of [[Hominini|hominins]] is driven away from a water hole by a rival tribe, and the next day finds an [[Monolith (Space Odyssey)|alien monolith]]. The tribe learns how to use a bone as a weapon and, after a successful first hunt, uses it to drive the rival tribe away.
Millions of years later, Dr Heywood Floyd, Chairman of the United States National Council of Astronautics, travels to [[Clavius (crater)|Clavius]] Base, an American [[lunar outpost]]. During a stopover at Space Station Five, he meets Russian scientists who are concerned that Clavius seems to be unresponsive. He refuses to discuss rumours of an epidemic at the base. At Clavius, Floyd addresses a meeting of personnel to whom he stresses the need for secrecy regarding their newest discovery. His mission is to investigate a recently found artefact, a monolith buried four million years earlier near the lunar crater [[Tycho (lunar crater)|Tycho]]. As Floyd and others examine and photograph the object it emits a high-powered radio signal.
Eighteen months later, the American spacecraft ''[[Discovery One]]'' is bound for [[Jupiter]], with mission pilots and scientists Dr Dave Bowman and Dr Frank Poole on board, along with three other scientists in [[suspended animation]]. Most of ''Discovery''{{'}}s operations are controlled by HAL, a [[HAL 9000]] computer with a human-like personality. When HAL reports the imminent failure of an antenna control device, Bowman retrieves it in an [[extravehicular activity]] (EVA) pod, but finds nothing wrong. HAL suggests reinstalling the device and letting it fail so the problem can be verified. [[Mission Control]] advises the astronauts that results from their backup 9000 computer indicate that HAL has made an error, but HAL blames it on human error. Concerned about HAL's behaviour, Bowman and Poole enter an EVA pod so they can talk in private without HAL overhearing. They agree to disconnect HAL if he is proven wrong. HAL follows their conversation by [[lip reading]].
While Poole is floating away from his pod to replace the antenna unit, HAL takes control of the pod and attacks him, sending Poole tumbling away from the ship with a severed air line. Bowman takes another pod to rescue Poole. While he is outside, HAL turns off the [[life support]] functions of the crewmen in suspended animation, killing them. When Bowman returns to the ship with Poole's body, HAL refuses to let him back in, stating that their plan to deactivate him jeopardises the mission. Bowman releases Poole's body and opens the ship's emergency airlock with his [[remote manipulator]]s. Lacking a helmet for his spacesuit, he positions his pod carefully so that when he jettisons the pod's door, he is propelled by the escaping air across the vacuum into ''Discovery''{{'}}s airlock. He enters HAL's [[processor core]] and begins disconnecting most of HAL's circuits, ignoring HAL's pleas to stop. When he is finished, a prerecorded video by Heywood Floyd plays, revealing that the mission's actual objective is to investigate the radio signal sent from the monolith to Jupiter.
At Jupiter, Bowman finds a third, much larger monolith orbiting the planet. He leaves ''Discovery'' in an EVA pod to investigate. He is pulled into a vortex of coloured light and observes bizarre astronomical phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colours as he passes by. Finally, he finds himself in a large [[Neoclassical architecture|neoclassical]] bedroom where he sees, and then becomes, older versions of himself: first standing in the bedroom, middle-aged and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying in bed. A monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Bowman reaches for it, he is transformed into a [[foetus]]<!--Do not change to fetus; foetus is the correct British spelling--> enclosed in a transparent orb of light, which afterwards floats in space above the Earth.
==
{{castlist|
* [[Keir Dullea]] as Dr [[David Bowman (Space Odyssey)|David Bowman]]
* [[Gary Lockwood]] as Dr [[Frank Poole]]
* [[William Sylvester]] as Dr [[Heywood Floyd]]
* [[Daniel Richter (actor)|Daniel Richter]] as Moonwatcher, the chief man-ape
* [[Leonard Rossiter]] as Dr Andrei Smyslov
* [[Margaret Tyzack]] as Elena
* [[Robert Beatty]] as Dr Ralph Halvorsen
* [[Sean Sullivan (actor)|Sean Sullivan]] as Dr Roy Michaels<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.underview.com/asocast.html#Sean |title=The Underview on 2001: A Space Odyssey – Cast and Crew |access-date=30 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161108072130/http://www.underview.com/asocast.html#Sean |archive-date=8 November 2016}}</ref>
* [[Douglas Rain]] as the voice of [[HAL 9000]]
* Frank Miller as mission controller
* Edwina Carroll as lunar shuttle stewardess
* [[Penny Brahms]] as stewardess
* Heather Downham as stewardess
* [[Ed Bishop]] (credited as Edward Bishop) as Aries 1B lunar shuttle captain
* [[Alan Gifford]] as Poole's father
* [[Ann Gillis]] as Poole's mother
* Maggie d'Abo as stewardess (Space Station 5 elevator) ''(uncredited)''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.2001italia.it/2013/06/two-days-turned-into-four-weeks.html |title="Two days turned into four weeks": an interview with Maggie D'Abo, hostess in '2001' |work=2001italia.it|access-date=16 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190824194539/http://www.2001italia.it/2013/06/two-days-turned-into-four-weeks.html|archive-date=24 August 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Chela Matthison]] as Mrs Turner, Space Station 5 reception ''(uncredited)''<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://projects.thestar.com/2001-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick/ |title=2001: A Space Odyssey – 50 facts for 50 years |website=thestar.com|access-date=19 February 2021|archive-date=2 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210602213516/https://projects.thestar.com/2001-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick/|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Vivian Kubrick]] as Floyd's daughter, "Squirt" ''(uncredited)''<ref>{{cite web |author=Mondello, Bob |url=https://www.npr.org/2018/04/04/599579246/what-made-2001-a-space-odyssey-such-an-influential-film |title=What Made '2001, A Space Odyssey' Such An Influential Film |work=NPR |date=4 April 2018|access-date=7 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190830002321/https://www.npr.org/2018/04/04/599579246/what-made-2001-a-space-odyssey-such-an-influential-film|archive-date=30 August 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Kenneth Kendall]] as [[BBC]] announcer ''(uncredited)''<ref>{{cite web |author=Higham, Nick |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-20726319/broadcaster-kenneth-kendall-88-dies |title=Broadcaster Kenneth Kendall, 88, dies |work=BBC |date=14 December 2012|access-date=13 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190413153146/https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-20726319/broadcaster-kenneth-kendall-88-dies|archive-date=13 April 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>
}}
==
===Development===
After completing ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'' (1964), director [[Stanley Kubrick]] told a publicist from [[Columbia Pictures]] that his next project would be about [[extraterrestrial life]],<ref>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|p=11}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/11/12/how-about-a-little-game |title=Stanley Kubrick: The Master |first=Jeremy |last=Bernstein |magazine=The New Yorker |date=4 November 1966 |via=www.newyorker.com|access-date=8 November 2023|archive-date=6 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210106230532/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/11/12/how-about-a-little-game|url-status=live}}</ref> and resolved to make "the proverbial good science fiction movie".<ref name="Lost Worlds">{{harvnb|Clarke|1972|p=17}}</ref> How Kubrick became interested in creating a science fiction film is far from clear.<ref name="Baxter">{{cite book |last=Baxter |first=John |authorlink=John Baxter (author) |date=1997 |title=Stanley Kubrick: A Biography |page=[https://archive.org/details/stanleykubrickbi00baxt/page/200 200] |___location=New York |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=0-7867-0485-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/stanleykubrickbi00baxt}}</ref> Biographer [[John Baxter (author)|John Baxter]] notes possible inspirations in the late 1950s, including British productions featuring dramas on satellites and aliens modifying early humans, [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] (MGM)'s big budget [[CinemaScope]] production ''[[Forbidden Planet]]'', and the slick widescreen cinematography and set design of Japanese ''[[kaiju]]'' (monster film) productions (such as [[Ishirō Honda]] and [[Eiji Tsuburaya]]'s ''[[Godzilla (franchise)|Godzilla]]'' films and [[Koji Shima]]'s ''[[Warning from Space]]'').<ref name="Baxter" />
Kubrick obtained financing and distribution from the American studio MGM with the selling point that the film could be marketed in the ultra-widescreen [[Cinerama]] format, which MGM had recently used on ''[[How the West Was Won (film)|How the West Was Won]]''.<ref name="ChapmanCull2013-p97">{{harvnb|Chapman|Cull|2013|p=97}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|McAleer|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pU8qAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT140 140]}}</ref><ref name="Baxter" /> It would be filmed and edited almost entirely in southern England, where Kubrick lived, using the facilities of [[MGM-British Studios]] and [[Shepperton Studios]]. MGM had subcontracted the production of the film to Kubrick's production company to qualify for the [[Eady Levy]], a UK tax on box-office receipts used at the time to fund the production of films in Britain.<ref name="ChapmanCull2013-p98">{{harvnb|Chapman|Cull|2013|p=98}}</ref> In a draft version of a contract with Kubrick's production company in May 1965, MGM suggested [[Alfred Hitchcock]], [[Billy Wilder]] and [[David Lean]] as possible replacements for Kubrick if he was unavailable.<ref>{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/02/2001-a-space-odyssey-secrets-in-the-stanley-kubrick-archive |title=The Weirdest, Most Wonderful 2001: A Space Odyssey Secrets in the Stanley Kubrick Archive |first=Bruce |last=Handy |date=14 February 2018 |magazine=Vanity Fair|access-date=25 February 2024|archive-date=20 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230320123620/https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/02/2001-a-space-odyssey-secrets-in-the-stanley-kubrick-archive|url-status=live}}</ref>
===Pre-production===
Kubrick's decision to avoid the fanciful portrayals of space found in standard popular science fiction films of the time led him to seek more realistic and accurate depictions of space travel. Illustrators such as [[Chesley Bonestell]], Roy Carnon, and Richard McKenna were hired to produce concept drawings, sketches, and paintings of the space technology seen in the film.<ref name="scienceandfilm.org">{{cite web |url=http://scienceandfilm.org/articles/2656/graphic-films-and-the-inception-of-2001-a-space-odyssey |title=Sloan Science & Film |website=scienceandfilm.org|access-date=10 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160921180606/http://scienceandfilm.org/articles/2656/graphic-films-and-the-inception-of-2001-a-space-odyssey|archive-date=21 September 2016|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.2001italia.it/2013/10/the-art-of-roy-carnon.html |title=The Art of Roy Carnon |website=www.2001italia.it|access-date=10 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160920155423/http://www.2001italia.it/2013/10/the-art-of-roy-carnon.html|archive-date=20 September 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> Two educational films, the [[National Film Board of Canada]]'s 1960 animated short documentary ''[[Universe (1960 film)|Universe]]'' and the [[1964 New York World's Fair]] film ''[[To the Moon and Beyond]]'', were major influences.<ref name="scienceandfilm.org" />
According to biographer Vincent LoBrutto, ''Universe'' was a visual inspiration to Kubrick.<ref name="Stanley Kubrick" /> The 29-minute film, which had also proved popular at [[NASA]] for its realistic portrayal of outer space, met "the standard of dynamic visionary realism that he was looking for". Wally Gentleman, one of the special-effects artists on ''Universe'', worked briefly on ''2001''. Kubrick also asked ''Universe'' co-director [[Colin Low (filmmaker)|Colin Low]] about animation camerawork, with Low recommending British mathematician Brian Salt, with whom Low and [[Roman Kroitor]] had previously worked on the 1957 still-animation documentary ''[[City of Gold (1957 film)|City of Gold]]''.<ref name="Graham">{{cite book |last1=Graham |first1=Gerald G. |title=Canadian film technology, 1896–1986 |date=1989 |publisher=University of Delaware Press |___location=Newark |isbn=0-87413-347-5 |page=114 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lKKoJqjVn6QC&q=%22Brian%20Salt%22%20math&pg=PA114 |access-date=17 August 2016 |archive-date=14 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114041129/https://books.google.com/books?id=lKKoJqjVn6QC&pg=PA114&q=%22Brian+Salt%22+math |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Evans>{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Gary |title=In the national interest: a chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989 |date=1991 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |___location=Toronto |isbn=0-8020-6833-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/innationalintere0000evan/page/75 75] |edition=Repr. |url=https://archive.org/details/innationalintere0000evan |url-access=registration |quote=In the National Interest City of Gold. |access-date=16 August 2016}}</ref> ''Universe''{{'}}s narrator, actor [[Douglas Rain]], was cast as the voice of HAL.<ref name="Lacey">{{cite news |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/colin-low-a-gentleman-genius-of-documentary-cinema/article29193112/ |title=Colin Low: A gentleman genius of documentary cinema |last=Lacey |first=Liam |date=11 March 2016 |work=[[The Globe and Mail]] |access-date=15 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160317005445/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/colin-low-a-gentleman-genius-of-documentary-cinema/article29193112/|archive-date=17 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> For the role of Heywood Floyd, MGM suggested casting a well-known actor such as [[Henry Fonda]] or [[George C. Scott]].<ref>{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/02/behind-the-scenes-of-2001-a-space-odyssey-50-years-later |title=Behind the Scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Strangest Blockbuster in Hollywood History |date=14 February 2018 |magazine=Vanity Fair|access-date=8 June 2023|archive-date=24 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324212444/https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/02/behind-the-scenes-of-2001-a-space-odyssey-50-years-later|url-status=live}}</ref>
After pre-production had begun, Kubrick saw ''To the Moon and Beyond'', a film shown in the Transportation and Travel building at the [[1964 World's Fair]]. It was filmed in Cinerama 360 and shown in the "Moon Dome". Kubrick hired the company that produced it, Graphic Films Corporation—which had been making films for NASA, the [[US Air force|US Air Force]], and various aerospace clients—as a design consultant. Graphic Films' Con Pederson, [[Lester Novros]], and background artist [[Douglas Trumbull]] airmailed research-based concept sketches and notes covering the mechanics and physics of space travel, and created [[storyboard]]s for the space flight sequences in ''2001''. Trumbull became a special effects supervisor on ''2001''.<ref name="scienceandfilm.org" />
===Writing===
{{See also|2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)#Differences from the film{{!}}''2001: A Space Odyssey'' (novel)#Differences from the film|l1=Differences between the film and the novel}}
[[File:Arthur C. Clarke 1965.jpg|thumb|Arthur C. Clarke in 1965, photographed in the ''Discovery''{{'s}} pod bay]]
Searching for a collaborator in the [[science fiction]] community for the writing of the script, Kubrick was advised by a mutual acquaintance, Columbia Pictures staff member [[Roger A. Caras|Roger Caras]], to talk to writer [[Arthur C. Clarke]], who lived in [[Ceylon]]. Although convinced that Clarke was "a recluse, a nut who lives in a tree", Kubrick allowed Caras to cable the film proposal to Clarke. Clarke's cabled response stated that he was "frightfully interested in working with [that] ''enfant terrible''", and added "what makes Kubrick think I'm a recluse?"<ref name="Stanley Kubrick">{{harvnb|LoBrutto|1998|p=257}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|McAleer|1992|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=LW5aAAAAMAAJ&q=%22frightfully+interested+in+working+with+enfant+terrible%22+%22what+makes+Kubrick+think+I%27m+a+recluse%3F%22 176]}}</ref> Meeting for the first time at [[Trader Vic's]] in New York on 22 April 1964, the two began discussing the project that would take up the next four years of their lives.<ref name="Clarke">{{harvnb|Clarke|1972|p=29}}</ref> Clarke kept a diary throughout his involvement with ''2001'', excerpts of which were published in 1972 as ''[[The Lost Worlds of 2001]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Arthur Clarke's 2001 Diary |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0073.html |website=visual-memory |access-date=2 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150510060924/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0073.html|archive-date=10 May 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>
Kubrick told Clarke he wanted to make a film about "Man's relationship to the universe",<ref>{{harvnb|Clarke|1972|p=13}}</ref> and was, in Clarke's words, "determined to create a work of art which would arouse the emotions of wonder, awe ... even, if appropriate, terror".<ref name="Clarke" /> Clarke offered Kubrick six of his short stories, and by May 1964, Kubrick had chosen "[[The Sentinel (short story)|The Sentinel]]" as the source material for the film. In search of more material to expand the film's plot, the two spent the rest of 1964 reading books on science and anthropology, screening science fiction films, and brainstorming ideas.<ref>{{harvnb|Clarke|1972|pp=32–35}}</ref> They created the plot for ''2001'' by integrating several different short story plots written by Clarke, along with new plot segments requested by Kubrick for the film development, and then combined them all into a single script for ''2001''.<ref>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|p=61}}</ref><ref name="Benson's Book">{{cite book |last1=Benson |first1=Michael |title=Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece |date=2018 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-5011-6395-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7BkyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT255|author-link=Michael Benson (filmmaker) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180831174955/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7BkyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT255 |archive-date=31 August 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Clarke said that his 1953 story "[[Encounter in the Dawn]]" inspired the film's "Dawn of Man" sequence.<ref>{{cite book |title=Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke |last=Clarke |first=Arthur C. |publisher=Macmillan |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-312-87821-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/collectedstories00clar/page/460 460] |url=https://archive.org/details/collectedstories00clar/page/460}}</ref>
Kubrick and Clarke privately referred to the project as ''How the Solar System Was Won'', a reference to how it was a follow-on to MGM's Cinerama epic ''How the West Was Won''.<ref name="Baxter" /> On 23 February 1965, Kubrick issued a press release announcing the title as ''Journey Beyond The Stars''.<ref>{{harvnb|Hughes|2000|p=135}}</ref> Other titles considered included ''Universe'', ''Tunnel to the Stars'', and ''Planetfall''. Expressing his high expectations for the thematic importance which he associated with the film, in April 1965, eleven months after they began working on the project, Kubrick selected ''2001: A Space Odyssey''; Clarke said the title was "entirely" Kubrick's idea.<ref>{{harvnb|Clarke|1972|p=32}}</ref> Intending to set the film apart from the "monsters-and-sex" type of science-fiction films of the time, Kubrick used [[Homer]]{{'}}s ''[[The Odyssey]]'' as both a model of literary merit and a source of inspiration for the title. Kubrick said, "It occurred to us that for the Greeks the vast stretches of the sea must have had the same sort of mystery and remoteness that space has for our generation."<ref>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|p=25}}</ref>
{{quote box
| align = right
| width = 25em|How much would we appreciate ''[[Mona Lisa|La Gioconda]]'' today if [[Leonardo da Vinci|Leonardo]] had written at the bottom of the canvas: "This lady is smiling slightly because she has rotten teeth"—or "because she's hiding a secret from her lover"? It would shut off the viewer's appreciation and shackle him to a reality other than his own. I don't want that to happen to ''2001''.
| source = —Stanley Kubrick, ''[[Playboy]]'', 1968<ref name="auto">{{harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=328–329}}</ref>
}}
Originally, Kubrick and Clarke had planned to develop a [[2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)|''2001'' novel]] first, free of the constraints of film, and then write the screenplay. They planned the writing credits to be "Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick" to reflect their preeminence in their respective fields.<ref>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=24–25}}</ref> In practice, the screenplay developed in parallel with the novel, with only some elements being common to both. In a 1970 interview, Kubrick said:
{{blockquote|There are a number of differences between the book and the movie. The novel, for example, attempts to explain things much more explicitly than the film does, which is inevitable in a verbal medium. The novel came about after we did a 130-page prose treatment of the film at the very outset.{{nbsp}}... Arthur took all the existing material, plus an impression of some of the rushes, and wrote the novel. As a result, there's a difference between the novel and the film ... I think that the divergences between the two works are interesting.<ref name="Gelmis" />}}
In the end, Clarke and Kubrick wrote parts of the novel and screenplay simultaneously, with the film version being released before the book version was published. Clarke opted for clearer explanations of the mysterious monolith and Star Gate in the novel; Kubrick made the film more cryptic by minimising dialogue and explanation.<ref name="krusch">{{cite web |url=http://www.krusch.com/kubrick/Q12.html |title=What did Kubrick have to say about what 2001 "means"? |website=Krusch.com |access-date=22 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100927064037/http://www.krusch.com/kubrick/Q12.html |archive-date=27 September 2010 | url-status= live}}</ref> Kubrick said the film is "basically a visual, nonverbal experience" that "hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting".<ref>{{harvnb|Gelmis|1970|p=302}}</ref>
The screenplay credits were shared whereas the ''2001'' novel, released shortly after the film, was attributed to Clarke alone. Clarke wrote later that "the nearest approximation to the complicated truth" is that the screenplay should be credited to "Kubrick and Clarke" and the novel to "Clarke and Kubrick".<ref name="Clarke pp.31-38">{{harvnb|Clarke|1972|pp=31–38}}</ref> Early reports about tensions involved in the writing of the film script appeared to reach a point where Kubrick was allegedly so dissatisfied with the collaboration that he approached other writers who could replace Clarke, including [[Michael Moorcock]] and [[J. G. Ballard]]. But they felt it would be disloyal to accept Kubrick's offer.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/01/close-tears-he-left-intermission-how-stanley-kubrick-upset-arthur-c-clarke |title='Close to tears, he left at the intermission': how Stanley Kubrick upset Arthur C Clarke |website=www.newstatesman.com |date=8 January 2017 |access-date=7 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180207122341/https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/01/close-tears-he-left-intermission-how-stanley-kubrick-upset-arthur-c-clarke|archive-date=7 February 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> In [[Michael Benson (filmmaker)|Michael Benson]]'s 2018 book ''Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece'', the actual relationship between Clarke and Kubrick was more complex, involving an extended interaction of Kubrick's multiple requests for Clarke to write new plot lines for various segments of the film, which Clarke was expected to withhold from publication until after the release of the film while receiving advances on his salary from Kubrick during film production. Clarke agreed to this, though apparently he did make several requests for Kubrick to allow him to develop his new plot lines into separate publishable stories while film production continued, which Kubrick consistently denied based on Clarke's contractual obligation to withhold publication until release of the film.<ref name="Benson's Book" />
Astronomer [[Carl Sagan]] wrote in his 1973 book ''[[The Cosmic Connection]]'' that Clarke and Kubrick had asked him how to best depict [[extraterrestrial intelligence]]. While acknowledging Kubrick's desire to use actors to portray humanoid aliens for convenience's sake, Sagan argued that alien life forms were unlikely to bear any resemblance to terrestrial life, and that to do so would introduce "at least an element of falseness" to the film. Sagan proposed that the film should simply suggest extraterrestrial [[superintelligence]], rather than depict it. He attended the premiere and was "pleased to see that I had been of some help".<ref>{{cite book |title=Carl Sagan's cosmic connection: an extraterrestrial perspective |edition=2nd |first1=Carl |last1=Sagan |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-521-78303-8 |page=183 |access-date=27 January 2012 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lL57o9YB0mAC |chapter=25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330140644/https://books.google.com/books?id=lL57o9YB0mAC|archive-date=30 March 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> Sagan had met with Clarke and Kubrick only once, in 1964; and Kubrick subsequently directed several attempts to portray credible aliens, only to abandon the idea near the end of post-production. Benson asserts it is unlikely that Sagan's advice had any direct influence.<ref name="Benson's Book" /> Kubrick hinted at the nature of the mysterious unseen alien race in ''2001'' by suggesting that given millions of years of evolution, they progressed from biological beings to "immortal machine entities" and then into "beings of pure energy and spirit" with "limitless capabilities and ungraspable intelligence".<ref name="Playboy">{{cite journal |title=Stanley Kubrick: Playboy Interview |journal=Playboy |date=September 1968 |url=http://www.archiviokubrick.it/english/words/interviews/index.html |access-date=7 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715101917/http://www.archiviokubrick.it/english/words/interviews/index.html |archive-date=15 July 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
In a 1980 interview (not released during Kubrick's lifetime), Kubrick explains one of the film's closing scenes, where Bowman is depicted in old age after his journey through the Star Gate:
{{blockquote|The idea was supposed to be that he is taken in by godlike entities, creatures of pure energy and intelligence with no shape or form. They put him in what I suppose you could describe as a human zoo to study him, and his whole life passes from that point on in that room. And he has no sense of time.{{nbsp}}... [W]hen they get finished with him, as happens in so many myths of all cultures in the world, he is transformed into some kind of super being and sent back to Earth, transformed and made some kind of superman. We have to only guess what happens when he goes back. It is the pattern of a great deal of mythology, and that is what we were trying to suggest.<ref name="SF-20180706" />}}
The script went through many stages. In early 1965, when backing was secured for the film, Clarke and Kubrick still had no firm idea of what would happen to Bowman after the Star Gate sequence. Initially all of ''Discovery''{{'}}s astronauts were to survive the journey; by 3 October, Clarke and Kubrick had decided to make Bowman the sole survivor and have him regress to infancy. By 17 October, Kubrick had come up with what Clarke called a "wild idea of slightly [[Fagging|fag]] robots who create a [[Victorian era|Victorian]] environment to put our heroes at their ease".<ref name="Clarke pp.31-38" /> HAL 9000 was originally named Athena after the [[Athena|Greek goddess of wisdom]] and had a feminine voice and persona.<ref name="Clarke pp.31-38" />
Early drafts included a prologue containing interviews with scientists about extraterrestrial life,<ref name="Agel p.48">{{Harvnb|Agel|1970|p=48}}.</ref> [[voice-over]] narration (a feature in all of Kubrick's previous films),{{efn|Jason Sperb's study of Kubrick ''The Kubrick Facade'' analyses Kubrick's use of narration in detail. [[John Baxter (author)|John Baxter]]'s biography of Kubrick also describes how he frequently favoured voice-over narration. Only three of Kubrick's 13 films lack narration: ''Space Odyssey'', ''The Shining'', and ''Eyes Wide Shut''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Barham |first1=J. M. |title=Terror Tracks: Music and Sound in Horror Cinema |date=2009 |publisher=Equinox Press |___location=London, U.K.|chapter-url=http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/1956/ |isbn=978-1-84553-202-4 |pages=137–170 |url=http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/1956/ |chapter=Incorporating Monsters: Music as Context, Character and Construction in Kubrick's ''The Shining''|access-date=20 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170804133256/http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/1956/|archive-date=4 August 2017|url-status=live}}{{open access}}</ref>}} a stronger emphasis on the prevailing Cold War [[balance of terror]], and a different and more explicitly explained breakdown for HAL.<ref name="visual-memory_a">{{cite web |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0075.html |title=The Kubrick Site: Fred Ordway on '2001' |website=Visual-memory.co.uk |access-date=22 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120623062250/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0075.html |archive-date=23 June 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Clarke Novel" /> Other changes include a different monolith for the "Dawn of Man" sequence, discarded when early prototypes reflected light poorly; the use of Saturn as the final destination of the ''Discovery'' mission rather than Jupiter, discarded when the special effects team could not develop a convincing rendition of [[Rings of Saturn|Saturn's rings]]; and the finale of the Star Child exploding nuclear weapons carried by Earth-orbiting satellites,<ref name="Clarke Novel">{{cite book |title=2001: A Space Odyssey |last=Clarke |first=Arthur |year=1968 |publisher=New American Library |___location=UK |isbn=0-453-00269-2}}</ref> which Kubrick discarded for its similarity to his previous film, ''Dr. Strangelove''.<ref name="Agel p.48" /><ref name="Clarke Novel" /> The finale and many of the other discarded screenplay ideas survived in Clarke's novel.<ref name="Clarke Novel" />
Kubrick made further changes to make the film more nonverbal, to communicate on a visual and visceral level rather than through conventional narrative.<ref name="auto" /> By the time shooting began, Kubrick had removed much of the dialogue and narration.<ref name="Walker 1971 251">{{harvnb|Walker|1971|p=251}}</ref> Long periods without dialogue permeate the film: the film has no dialogue for roughly the first and last twenty minutes,<ref name="Ebert">{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/2001-a-space-odyssey-1968 |title=2001: A Space Odyssey Movie Review |date=12 April 1968 |access-date=10 June 2019 |author-link=Roger Ebert |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190404232622/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/2001-a-space-odyssey-1968|archive-date=4 April 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> as well as for the 10 minutes from Floyd's Moonbus landing near the monolith until Poole watches a BBC newscast on ''Discovery''. What dialogue remains is notable for its banality (making the computer HAL seem to have more emotion than the humans) when juxtaposed with the epic space scenes.<ref name="Walker 1971 251" /> Vincent LoBrutto wrote that Clarke's novel has its own "strong narrative structure" and precision, while the narrative of the film remains symbolic, in accord with Kubrick's final intentions.<ref>{{harvnb|LoBrutto|1998|p=[https://archive.org/details/stanleykubrickbi00lobr/page/310 310]}}</ref>
===Filming===
[[Principal photography]] began on 29 December 1965, in Stage H at Shepperton Studios, [[Shepperton]], England. The studio was chosen because it could house the {{convert|60|×|120|×|60|ft|adj=on}} pit for the [[Tycho (crater)|Tycho]] crater excavation scene, the first to be shot. In January 1966, the production moved to the smaller MGM-British Studios in [[Borehamwood]], where the live-action and special-effects filming was done, starting with the scenes involving Floyd on the Orion spaceplane;<ref>{{harvnb|Geduld|1973|p=24|ps=,}} reproduced in {{harvnb|Castle|2005}}<!--Castle is only given as a back-up, there is no digital access to this book available as of October 2019. This secondary archive ref may be dropped since there is no digital access for the page number.--> and {{harvnb|Schwam|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC&pg=PT22 22]}}.</ref> it was described as a "huge throbbing nerve center ... with much the same frenetic atmosphere as a Cape Kennedy blockhouse during the final stages of Countdown."<ref name="filming_2001">{{cite journal |last=Lightman |first=Herb A. |date=June 1968 |title=Filming 2001: A Space Odyssey |journal=[[American Cinematographer]]}} Excerpted in {{harvnb|Castle|2005}}<!--Castle is only given as a back-up, there is no digital access to this book available as of October 2019. This secondary archive ref may be dropped since there is no digital access for the page number.-->.</ref> The only scene not filmed in a studio—and the last live-action scene shot for the film—was the skull-smashing sequence, in which Moonwatcher ([[Daniel Richter (actor)|Daniel Richter]]) wields his newfound bone "weapon-tool" against a pile of nearby animal bones. A small elevated platform was built in a field near the studio so that the camera could shoot upward with the sky as background, avoiding cars and trucks passing by in the distance.<ref name="Richter 2002" /><ref>{{harvnb|Clarke|1972|p=51}}</ref> The ''Dawn of Man'' sequence that opens the film was shot at Borehamwood with [[John Alcott]] as cinematographer after [[Geoffrey Unsworth]] left to work on other projects.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/497964/ |title=Alcott, John (1931–1986) Cinematographer |work=BFI Screenonline |access-date=5 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181213131432/http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/497964/|archive-date=13 December 2018|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="front_projection" /> The still photographs used as backgrounds for the ''Dawn of Man'' sequence were taken at the [[Spitzkoppe]] mountains in what was then [[South West Africa]].<ref name="Chiasson">{{Cite news |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/23/2001-a-space-odyssey-what-it-means-and-how-it-was-made |title="2001: A Space Odyssey": What It Means, and How It Was Made |first=Dan |last=Chiasson |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |date=16 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221026101637/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/23/2001-a-space-odyssey-what-it-means-and-how-it-was-made |archive-date=26 October 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="___location">{{Cite web |url=https://www.movie-locations.com/movies/0/2001-A-Space-Odyssey.php |title="2001: A Space Odyssey": Locations |work=Movie-Locations.com |accessdate=25 July 2023|archive-date=25 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230725134407/https://www.movie-locations.com/movies/0/2001-A-Space-Odyssey.php|url-status=live}}</ref>
Filming of actors was completed in September 1967,<ref>{{harvnb|Richter|2002|p=135}}</ref> and from June 1966 until March 1968, Kubrick spent most of his time working on the 205 special-effects shots in the film.<ref name="Gelmis">{{harvnb|Gelmis|1970|p=308}}</ref> He ordered the special-effects technicians to use the painstaking process of creating all visual effects seen in the film "[[in-camera effect|in camera]]", avoiding degraded picture quality from the use of [[chroma key|blue screen]] and [[matte (filmmaking)|travelling matte]] techniques. Although this technique, known as "held takes", resulted in a much better image, it meant exposed film would be stored for long periods of time between shots, sometimes as long as a year.<ref>{{harvnb|Schwam|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC&pg=PT156 156]}}</ref> In March 1968, Kubrick finished the "pre-premiere" editing of the film, making his final cuts just days before the film's general release in April 1968.<ref name="Gelmis" />
The film was announced in 1965 as a "Cinerama"<ref>{{harvnb|Krämer|2010|pp=32–33}}</ref> film and was photographed in [[Super Panavision 70]] (which uses a 65 mm negative combined with spherical lenses to create an aspect ratio of 2.20:1). It would eventually be released in a "[[Roadshow theatrical release|roadshow]]" 70 mm version and a later general release 35 mm version.<ref>{{harvnb|Krämer|2010|p=92}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Chapman|Cull|2013|p=97|loc=footnote 18}}</ref> Colour processing and 35 mm release prints were done using [[Technicolor]]'s dye transfer process. The 70 mm prints were made by MGM Laboratories, Inc. on [[Metrocolor]]. The production was $4.5 million over the initial $6 million budget and 16 months behind schedule.<ref name="budget">{{harvnb|Geduld|1973|p=27|ps=, reproduced in: {{harvtxt|Schwam|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC&pg=PT26 26]}}.}}</ref> For the opening sequence involving tribes of apes, professional [[mime]] Richter played the lead ape and choreographed the movements of the other man-apes, who were mostly portrayed by his mime troupe.<ref name="Richter 2002">{{harvnb|Richter|2002|pp=133–35}}</ref> Kubrick and Clarke consulted [[IBM]] on plans for HAL, though plans to use the company's logo never materialised.<ref name="Chiasson" />
===Post-production===
{{Hatnote|For cuts made after the film premiered, see [[#Theatrical run and post-premiere cuts|§{{nbsp}}Theatrical run]] below.}}
The film was edited before it was publicly screened, cutting out, among other things, a painting class on the lunar base that included Kubrick's daughters, additional scenes of life on the base, and Floyd buying a [[Galago|bush baby]] for his daughter from a department store via videophone.<ref name="visual-memory">{{cite web |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/brown3.html |title=2001's Pre- and Post-Premiere Edits by Thomas E Brown |access-date=27 January 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110926210804/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/brown3.html|archive-date=26 September 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> A ten-minute black-and-white opening sequence featuring interviews with scientists, including [[Freeman Dyson]] discussing off-Earth life,<ref>{{cite book |first=Freeman |last=Dyson|author-link=Freeman Dyson |title=Disturbing the Universe |url=https://archive.org/details/disturbinguniver00dyso |url-access=registration |date=1979 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/disturbinguniver00dyso/page/189 189–191] |isbn=0-330-26324-2}}</ref> was removed after an early screening for MGM executives.<ref>The text survives in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|p=27}}.</ref>
===Music===
{{See also|2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack){{!}}''2001: A Space Odyssey'' (soundtrack)|2001: A Space Odyssey (score){{!}}''2001: A Space Odyssey'' (score)}}
From early in production, Kubrick decided that he wanted the film to be a primarily nonverbal experience<ref>{{harvnb|Castle|2005|p={{page needed|date=July 2020}}}}</ref> that did not rely on the traditional techniques of [[narrative]] cinema, and in which music would play a vital role in evoking particular moods. About half the music in the film appears either before the first line of dialogue or after the final line. Almost no music is heard during scenes with dialogue.<ref name="LoBrutto" /> The film is notable for its innovative use of [[classical music]] taken from existing commercial recordings. Most feature films, then and now, are typically accompanied by elaborate [[film scores]] or songs written specially for them by professional composers. In the early stages of production, Kubrick commissioned a [[2001: A Space Odyssey (score)|score for ''2001'']] from Hollywood composer [[Alex North]], who had written the score for ''[[Spartacus (film)|Spartacus]]'' and also had worked on ''Dr. Strangelove''.<ref>{{cite AV media notes |title=Time Warp |type=CD Booklet |publisher=Telarc |id=Release# CD-80106}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vox.com/2018/4/26/17283314/2001-a-space-odyssey-music-stanley-kubrick-50th-anniversary |title=The music of 2001: A Space Odyssey is justifiably famous. The studio hated it. |first=Emily St |last=James |date=26 April 2018 |website=Vox|access-date=16 May 2023|archive-date=16 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230516193534/https://www.vox.com/2018/4/26/17283314/2001-a-space-odyssey-music-stanley-kubrick-50th-anniversary|url-status=live}}</ref> During post-production, Kubrick chose to abandon North's music in favour of the classical pieces which he had earlier chosen to guide North's score. North did not know that his score had been abandoned in favour of the [[Temp track|temporary music]] pieces until he saw the film at its premiere.<ref name="LoBrutto">{{harvnb|LoBrutto|1998|p=[https://archive.org/details/stanleykubrickbi00lobr/page/308 308]}}</ref>
==Design and visual effects==
{{See also|Technologies in 2001: A Space Odyssey{{!}}Technologies in ''2001: A Space Odyssey''}}
===Costumes and set design===
Kubrick involved himself in every aspect of production, even choosing the fabric for his actors' costumes,<ref>{{harvnb|Bizony|2001|p=159}}</ref> and selecting notable pieces of contemporary furniture for use in the film. When Floyd exits the Space Station{{nbsp}}5 elevator, he is greeted by an attendant seated behind a slightly modified [[George Nelson (designer)|George Nelson]] Action Office desk from [[Herman Miller (office equipment)|Herman Miller]]'s 1964 "[[Action Office]]" series.{{efn|Examples of the Action Office desk and "Propst Perch" chair appearing in the film can be seen in {{harvnb|Pina|2002|pp=66–71}}. First introduced in 1968, the Action Office-st[[cubicle]]" would eventually occupy 70 per cent of office space by the mid-2000s.}}<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-moral-life-of-cubicles |first=David |last=Franz |issue=19 |date=Winter 2008 |pages=132–139 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110223192348/http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-moral-life-of-cubicles|url-status=dead |title=The Moral Life of Cubicles |archive-date=23 February 2011 |website=The New Atlantis}}</ref>{{efn|Cubicles had earlier appeared in Jacques Tati's ''Playtime'' in 1967.}} Danish designer [[Arne Jacobsen]] designed the cutlery used by the ''Discovery'' astronauts in the film.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://io9.gizmodo.com/2001-a-flatware-odyssey-344966 |title=2001: A Flatware Odyssey |date=15 January 2008 |work=[[io9]] |access-date=25 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190526215806/https://io9.gizmodo.com/2001-a-flatware-odyssey-344966 |archive-date=26 May 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200802/1204149687.html |title=2001: A Space Odyssey – Modern Chairs & Products by Arne Jacobsen Bows at Gibraltar Furniture |first=Bradley |last=Friedman |date=27 February 2008 |website=Free-Press-Release.com |access-date=25 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110425230507/http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200802/1204149687.html |archive-date=25 April 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.designophy.com/newslog/article.php?UIN=1000000522 |title=2001: A Space Odyssey-Products by Arne Jacobsen |date=4 October 2007 |work=Designosophy |access-date=25 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501035106/http://www.designophy.com/newslog/article.php?UIN=1000000522 |archive-date=1 May 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref>
Other examples of modern furniture in the film are the bright red [[Djinn chair]]s seen prominently throughout the space station<ref name="Phil Patton">{{cite news |title=Public Eye; 30 Years After '2001': A Furniture Odyssey |first=Phil |last=Patton |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/19/garden/public-eye-30-years-after-2001-a-furniture-odyssey.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=19 February 1998 |access-date=26 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430011440/http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/19/garden/public-eye-30-years-after-2001-a-furniture-odyssey.html |archive-date=30 April 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Fiell2005">{{harvnb|Fiell|2005|p=un-numbered}}</ref> and [[Eero Saarinen]]'s 1956 pedestal tables. [[Olivier Mourgue]], designer of the Djinn chair, has used the connection to ''2001'' in his advertising; a frame from the film's space station sequence and three production stills appear on the homepage of Mourgue's website.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oliviermourgue.com/ |title=Olivier Mourgue, Designer: (born 1939 in Paris, France) |work=Olivier Mourgue |access-date=25 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110513021105/http://www.oliviermourgue.com/ |archive-date=13 May 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref> Shortly before Kubrick's death, film critic [[Alexander Walker (critic)|Alexander Walker]] informed Kubrick of Mourgue's use of the film, joking to him "You're keeping the price up."<ref>{{harvnb|Schwam|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC&pg=PT305 305ff]}}</ref> Commenting on their use in the film, Walker writes:
{{blockquote|Everyone recalls one early sequence in the film, the space hotel, primarily because the custom-made Olivier Mourgue furnishings, those foam-filled sofas, undulant and serpentine, are covered in scarlet fabric and are the first stabs of colour one sees. They resemble Rorschach "blots" against the pristine purity of the rest of the lobby.<ref>{{harvnb|Walker|1971|p=224}}</ref>}}
Detailed instructions in relatively small print for various technological devices appear at several points in the film, the most visible of which are the lengthy instructions for the zero-gravity toilet on the Aries Moon shuttle. Similar detailed instructions for replacing the [[explosive bolts]] also appear on the hatches of the EVA pods, most visibly in close-up just before Bowman's pod leaves the ship to rescue Poole.{{efn|Between the two lines large red letters reading at top "CAUTION" and at bottom "EXPLOSIVE BOLTS" are smaller black lines reading "MAINTENANCE AND REPLACEMENT INSTRUCTIONS" followed by even smaller lines of four instructions beginning "(1) SELF TEST EXPLOSIVE BOLTS PER INST 14 PARA 3 SEC 5D AFTER EACH EVA", et cetera. The instructions are generally legible on Blu-ray editions but not DVD editions of the film.<ref name=Agel-321-324>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=[https://archive.org/details/makingofkubricks00agel/page/321 321–324]}}</ref>}}
The film features an extensive use of [[Eurostile]] Bold Extended, [[Futura (typeface)|Futura]] and other [[sans serif]] [[typeface]]s as design elements of the ''2001'' world.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://typesetinthefuture.com/2001-a-space-odyssey/ |title=2001: A Space Odyssey: Typeset in the Future |first=Dave |last=Addey |date=11 February 2014 |access-date=23 February 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222012112/http://typesetinthefuture.com/2001-a-space-odyssey/ | archive-date=22 February 2014 | url-status=live}}</ref> Computer displays show high-resolution fonts, colour, and graphics that were far in advance of what most computers were capable of in the 1960s, when the film was made.<ref name=Agel-321-324 />
===Design of the monolith===
Kubrick was personally involved in the design of the monolith and its form for the film. The first design for the monolith was a transparent [[tetrahedron]]. This design was taken directly from the short story "The Sentinel", one of the stories that inspired the first segment of the film.<ref>{{harvnb|Kolker|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YpritcZXPFoC&pg=PA82 82]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/07/unseen-images-2011-space-odyssey-making |title=Weird, Unseen Images from the Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey |magazine=Vanity Fair |date=9 July 2014 |access-date=21 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706230658/http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/07/unseen-images-2011-space-odyssey-making|archive-date=6 July 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>
A London firm was approached by Kubrick to provide a {{convert|12|ft|adj=on}} transparent [[plexiglass]] pyramid, but due to construction constraints they recommended a flat slab shape. Kubrick approved, but was disappointed with the glassy appearance of the transparent prop on set. Art director Anthony Masters suggested making the monolith's surface matte black.<ref name="Benson's Book" />
===Models===
[[File:Stanley Kubrick in EYE (7527338298).jpg|thumb|Modern replica of the ''Discovery One'' spaceship model]]
To heighten the reality of the film, intricate models of the various spacecraft and locations were built. Their sizes ranged from about two-foot-long models of satellites and the Aries translunar shuttle up to the {{convert|55|ft|adj=on}}-long model of the ''Discovery One'' spacecraft. "In-camera" techniques were again used as much as possible to combine models and background shots together to prevent degradation of the image through duplication.<ref name="online excerpt">{{cite journal |last=Trumbull |first=Douglas |title=Creating Special Effects for ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' |url=http://cinetropolis.net/vintage-article-by-douglas-trumbull-on-creating-special-effects-for-2001-a-space-odyssey/ |journal=American Cinematographer |volume=49 |issue=6 |pages=412–413, 420–422, 416–419, 441–447, 451–454, 459–461 |date=June 1968 |via=Cinetropolis |access-date=7 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160613162305/http://cinetropolis.net/vintage-article-by-douglas-trumbull-on-creating-special-effects-for-2001-a-space-odyssey/ |archive-date=13 June 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Schwam|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC&pg=PT151 151ff]}}</ref>
In shots where there was no perspective change, still shots of the models were photographed and positive paper prints were made. The image of the model was cut out of the photographic print and mounted on glass and filmed on an [[animation stand]]. The undeveloped film was re-wound to film the star background with the silhouette of the model photograph acting as a matte to block out where the spaceship image was.<ref name="online excerpt" />
Shots where the spacecraft had parts in motion or the perspective changed were shot by directly filming the model. For most shots the model was stationary and camera was driven along a track on a special mount, the motor of which was mechanically linked to the camera motor—making it possible to repeat camera moves and match speeds exactly. Elements of the scene were recorded on the same piece of film in separate passes to combine the lit model, stars, planets, or other spacecraft in the same shot. In moving shots of the long ''Discovery One'' spacecraft, in order to keep the entire model in focus (and preserve its sense of scale), the camera's aperture was stopped down for maximum depth-of-field, and each frame was exposed for several seconds.<ref name="Bizony 2001, pp. 112-113">{{harvnb|Bizony|2001|pp=112–113}}</ref> Many matting techniques were tried to block out the stars behind the models, with film makers sometimes resorting to hand-tracing frame by frame around the image of the spacecraft ([[rotoscoping]]) to create the matte.<ref name="online excerpt" /><ref name="Bizony 2001, pp. 113–117">{{harvnb|Bizony|2001|pp=113–117}}</ref>
Some shots required exposing the film again to record previously filmed live-action shots of the people appearing in the windows of the spacecraft or structures. This was achieved by projecting the window action onto the models in a separate camera pass or, when two-dimensional photographs were used, projecting from the backside through a hole cut in the photograph.<ref name="Bizony 2001, pp. 112-113" />
All of the shots required multiple takes so that some film could be developed and printed to check exposure, density, alignment of elements, and to supply footage used for other photographic effects, such as for matting.<ref name="online excerpt" /><ref name="Bizony 2001, pp. 113–117" />
===Rotating sets===
[[File:2001 CENTRIFUGE SET.jpg|thumb|right|The "centrifuge" set used for filming scenes depicting interior of the spaceship ''Discovery'']]
For spacecraft interior shots, ostensibly containing a giant centrifuge that produces [[Rotational gravity|artificial gravity]], Kubrick had a {{convert|30|ST|adj=on}} rotating "ferris wheel" built by [[Vickers-Armstrong]] Engineering Group at a cost of $750,000 ({{Inflation|index=US|value=750000|start_year=1968|r=-5|fmt=eq|cursign=$}}{{Inflation/fn|US}}). The set was {{convert|38|ft}} in diameter and {{convert|10|ft}} wide.<ref>{{cite web |first=George D. |last=DeMet |url=http://www.palantir.net/2001/meanings/dfx.html |title=The Special Effects of '2001: A Space Odyssey'|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509060702/http://www.palantir.net/2001/meanings/dfx.html |archive-date=9 May 2008 |work=DFX |date=July 1999}}</ref> Various scenes in the ''Discovery'' centrifuge were shot by securing set pieces within the wheel, then rotating it while the actor walked or ran in sync with its motion, keeping him at the bottom of the wheel as it turned. The camera could be fixed to the inside of the rotating wheel to show the actor walking completely "around" the set, or mounted in such a way that the wheel rotated independently of the stationary camera, as in the jogging scene where the camera appears to alternately precede and follow the running actor.<ref name="Bizony 2001 138–144">{{harvnb|Bizony|2001|pp=138–144}}</ref>
The shots where the actors appear on opposite sides of the wheel required one of the actors to be strapped securely into place at the "top" of the wheel as it moved to allow the other actor to walk to the "bottom" of the wheel to join him. The most notable case is when Bowman enters the centrifuge from the central hub on a ladder and joins Poole, who is eating on the other side of the centrifuge. This required Gary Lockwood to be strapped into a seat while Keir Dullea walked toward him from the opposite side of the wheel as it turned with him.<ref name="Bizony 2001 138–144" />
Another rotating set appeared in an earlier sequence on board the Aries trans-lunar shuttle. A stewardess is shown preparing in-flight meals, then carrying them into a circular walkway. Attached to the set as it rotates 180 degrees, the camera's point of view remains constant, and she appears to walk up the "side" of the circular walkway, and steps, now in an "upside-down" orientation, into a connecting hallway.<ref>{{harvnb|Bizony|2001|p=144}}.</ref>
===Zero-gravity effects===
[[File:Photo A scene from 2001. A Space Odyssey, a 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick 1968 - Touring Club Italiano 04 0826.jpg|thumb|Zero-gravity effect]]
The realistic-looking effects of the astronauts floating weightless in space and inside the spacecraft were accomplished by suspending the actors from wires attached to the top of the set and placing the camera beneath them. The actors' bodies blocked the camera's view of the wires and appeared to float. For the shot of Poole floating into the pod's arms during Bowman's recovery of him, a stuntman on a wire portrayed the movements of an unconscious man and was shot in slow motion to enhance the illusion of drifting through space.<ref>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=129–135}}</ref> The scene showing Bowman entering the emergency airlock from the EVA pod was done similarly: an off-camera stagehand, standing on a platform, held the wire suspending Dullea above the camera positioned at the bottom of the vertically oriented airlock. At the proper moment, the stage-hand first loosened his grip on the wire, causing Dullea to fall toward the camera, then, while holding the wire firmly, jumped off the platform, causing Dullea to ascend back toward the hatch.<ref name="2001:A Space Odyssey">{{cite video |people=Jan Harlan, Stanley Kubrick |date=October 2007 |title=2001:A Space Odyssey |medium=DVD |publisher=Warner Bros.}}</ref>
The methods used were alleged to have placed stuntman [[Bill Weston (actor)|Bill Weston]]'s life in danger. Weston recalled that he filmed one sequence without air-holes in his suit, risking asphyxiation. "Even when the tank was feeding air into the suit, there was no place for the carbon dioxide Weston exhaled to go. So it simply built up inside, incrementally causing a heightened heart rate, rapid breathing, fatigue, clumsiness, and eventually, unconsciousness."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/apr/05/stanley-kubrick-risked-stuntman-life-making-2001-a-space-oydssey |last=Alberge |first=Dalya |work=The Guardian |date=5 April 2018 |title=Stanley Kubrick 'risked stuntman's life' making 2001: A Space Odyssey|access-date=23 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181021155514/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/apr/05/stanley-kubrick-risked-stuntman-life-making-2001-a-space-oydssey|archive-date=21 October 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> Weston said Kubrick was warned "we've got to get him back" but reportedly replied, "Damn it, we just started. Leave him up there! Leave him up there!"<ref>{{cite web |last=Kaplan |first=Ilana |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/stanley-kubrick-2001-space-odyssey-stuntman-risk-life-filming-a8290286.html |work=The Independent |title=Stanley Kubrick 'risked stuntman's life' filming 2001: A Space Odyssey |date=5 April 2018|access-date=23 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180424093514/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/stanley-kubrick-2001-space-odyssey-stuntman-risk-life-filming-a8290286.html|archive-date=24 April 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> When Weston lost consciousness, filming ceased, and he was brought down. "They brought the tower in, and I went looking for Stanley{{nbsp}}... I was going to shove MGM right up his{{nbsp}}... And the thing is, Stanley had left the studio and sent Victor [Lyndon, the associate producer] to talk to me." Weston claimed Kubrick fled the studio for "two or three days. ... I know he didn't come in the next day, and I'm sure it wasn't the day after. Because I was going to do him."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.space.com/40173-space-odyssey-michael-benson-excerpt.html |last=Benson |first=Michael |publisher=space.com |date=3 April 2018 |title=Dangling on a Wire: A Tale from the Making of '2001: A Space Odyssey'|access-date=23 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928124017/https://www.space.com/40173-space-odyssey-michael-benson-excerpt.html|archive-date=28 September 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>
==="Star Gate" sequence===
{{Listen
| image = none
| filename = 2001 space travel.ogv
| title = Special effects in ''2001: A Space Odyssey''
| alt = The face of David Bowman with lights reflected in the visor of his helmet
| description = During the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" sequence, Bowman takes a trip through the "Star Gate" that involves the innovative use of slit-scan photography to create the visual effects.}}
The coloured lights in the Star Gate sequence were accomplished by [[slit-scan photography]] of thousands of high-contrast images on film, including [[Op art]] paintings, architectural drawings, [[Moiré pattern]]s, printed circuits, and electron-microscope photographs of molecular and crystal structures. Known to staff as "Manhattan Project", the shots of various nebula-like phenomena, including the expanding star field, were coloured paints and chemicals swirling in a pool-like device known as a cloud tank, shot in slow motion in a dark room.<ref>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=143–146}}</ref> The live-action landscape shots were filmed in the [[Hebrides|Hebridean islands]], the [[Mountains and hills of Scotland|mountains of northern Scotland]], and [[Monument Valley]]. The colouring and negative-image effects were achieved with different colour filters in the process of making duplicate negatives in an [[optical printer]].<ref>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|p=150}}</ref>
===Visual effects===
[[File:MatchCut.JPG|thumb|upright=1.1|A bone-club and orbiting satellite are juxtaposed in the film's famous [[match cut]] ]]
{{Blockquote|Not one foot of this film was made with computer-generated special effects. Everything you see in this film or saw in this film was done physically or chemically, one way or the other.|Keir Dullea (2014)<ref>{{cite web |last1=TIFF Originals |title=2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Q&A {{!}} Keir Dullea & Gary Lockwood {{!}} TIFF 2014 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FANUlAbf0cc |website=YouTube |date=12 November 2014 |access-date=25 October 2020 |archive-date=7 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107121040/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FANUlAbf0cc |url-status=live }}</ref>}}
''2001'' contains a famous example of a [[match cut]], a type of cut in which two shots are matched by action or subject matter.<ref name="dictionary">{{cite web |url=http://www.allmovietalk.com/?page_id=91 |title=The Film Buff's Dictionary |website=All Movie Talk |access-date=28 July 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140723172157/http://www.allmovietalk.com/?page_id=91|archive-date=23 July 2014|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Zizek">{{cite web |last=Roberte |first=Dariusz |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0108.html |title=''2001: A Space Odyssey'': A Critical Analysis of the Film Score |publisher=The Kubrick Site: Slavoj Zizek on Eyes Wide Shut |website=Visual-memory.co.uk |access-date=23 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180207205813/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0108.html |archive-date=7 February 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Monaco|2001|p=183}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ew.com/books/2018/04/02/space-odyssey-book-excerpt/|title=Why '2001: A Space Odyssey' was a masterpiece so ahead of its time|first1=David |last1=Canfield|date=2 April 2018 |website=EW.com}}</ref> After Moonwatcher uses a bone to kill another ape at the watering hole, he throws it triumphantly into the air; as the bone spins in the air, the film cuts to an orbiting satellite, marking the end of the prologue.<ref>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|p=196}}</ref> The match cut draws a connection between the two objects as exemplars of primitive and advanced tools respectively, and demonstrates humanity's technological progress since the time of early hominids.<ref name="filmjournal">{{cite journal |last=Duckworth |first=A. R. |date=27 October 2008 |title=Basic Film Techniques: Match-Cut |url=http://ardfilmjournal.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/basic-film-techniques-match-cut/ |journal=The Journal of Film, Art and Aesthetics |issn=2049-4254 |access-date=28 July 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718085250/http://ardfilmjournal.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/basic-film-techniques-match-cut/|archive-date=18 July 2011|url-status=live}}</ref>
''2001'' pioneered the use of [[Front projection effect|front projection]] with [[retroreflective]] matting. Kubrick used the technique to produce the backdrops in the Africa scenes and the scene when astronauts walk on the Moon.<ref>{{harvnb|Bizony|2001|p=133}}</ref><ref name="front_projection">{{cite web |url=http://www.thepropgallery.com/2001-a-space-odyssey-dawn-of-front-projection |title=2001: A Space Odyssey – The Dawn of Front Projection |work=The Prop Gallery |access-date=4 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180615063650/http://www.thepropgallery.com/2001-a-space-odyssey-dawn-of-front-projection|archive-date=15 June 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>
The technique consisted of a separate scenery projector set at a right angle to the camera and a half-silvered mirror placed at an angle in front that reflected the projected image forward in line with the camera lens onto a backdrop of retroreflective material. The reflective directional screen behind the actors could reflect light from the projected image 100 times more efficiently than the foreground subject did. The lighting of the foreground subject had to be balanced with the image from the screen, so that the part of the scenery image that fell on the foreground subject was too faint to show on the finished film. The exception was the eyes of the [[leopard]] in the "Dawn of Man" sequence, which glowed due to the projector illumination. Kubrick described this as "a happy accident".<ref name="Herb A. Lightman page2">{{cite web |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/2001a/page2.html |title=Front Projection for '2001: A Space Odyssey' |first=Herb A. |last=Lightman |work=American Cinematographer |access-date=20 September 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130102040441/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/2001a/page2.html|archive-date=2 January 2013|url-status=live}}</ref>
Front projection had been used in smaller settings before ''2001'', mostly for still photography or television production, using small still images and projectors. The expansive backdrops for the African scenes required a screen {{convert|40|ft}} tall and {{convert|110|ft}} wide, far larger than had been used before. When the reflective material was applied to the backdrop in {{convert|100|ft|adj=on}} strips, variations at the seams of the strips led to visual artefacts; to solve this, the crew tore the material into smaller chunks and applied them in a random "camouflage" pattern on the backdrop. The existing projectors using {{convert|4|×|5|in|cm|adj=on}} transparencies resulted in grainy images when projected that large, so the crew worked with MGM's special-effects supervisor [[Tom Howard (special effects)|Tom Howard]] to build a custom projector using {{convert|8|×|10|in|cm|adj=on}} transparencies, which required the largest water-cooled arc lamp available.<ref name="Herb A. Lightman page2" /> The technique was used widely in the film industry thereafter until it was replaced by blue/green screen systems in the 1990s.<ref name="Herb A. Lightman page2" />
The film earned an Oscar for best special effects, but the award went solely to Kubrick, with Douglas Trumbull not receiving acknowledgement for his work. This led to threats of legal action and the two men did not speak for a decade.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |title=Douglas Trumbull obituary |newspaper=[[The Times]] |language=en |url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/douglas-trumbull-obituary-dnsc08lmr |access-date=17 March 2022 |issn=0140-0460}}</ref>
==Soundtrack==
The initial MGM soundtrack album release contained none of the material from the altered and uncredited rendition of Ligeti's ''Aventures'' used in the film, but used a different recording of ''[[Also sprach Zarathustra]]'' (performed by the [[Berlin Philharmonic]] conducted by [[Karl Böhm]]) from that heard in the film, and a longer excerpt of ''[[Lux Aeterna (Ligeti)|Lux Aeterna]]'' than in the film.<ref name="La revolution">{{cite web |title=1968: La révolution Kubrick |work=Cinezik web site (French film magazine on music in film) |url=http://www.cinezik.org/reperes/kubrick/kubrick06.php | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091023074216/http://www.cinezik.org/reperes/kubrick/kubrick06.php | archive-date=23 October 2009 |access-date=29 September 2019| url-status= live |language=fr}}</ref>
In 1996, Turner Entertainment/[[Rhino Records]] released a new soundtrack on CD that included the film's rendition of "Aventures", the version of "Zarathustra" used in the film, and the shorter version of ''Lux Aeterna'' from the film. As additional "bonus tracks" at the end, the CD includes the versions of "Zarathustra" and ''Lux Aeterna'' on the old MGM soundtrack album, an unaltered performance of "Aventures", and a nine-minute compilation of all of HAL's dialogue.<ref name="La revolution" />
Alex North's unused music was first released in Telarc's issue of the main theme on ''Hollywood's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2'', a compilation album by [[Erich Kunzel]] and the [[Cincinnati Pops Orchestra]]. All of the music North originally wrote was recorded commercially by his friend and colleague [[Jerry Goldsmith]] with the [[National Philharmonic Orchestra]] and released on [[Varèse Sarabande]] CDs shortly after Telarc's first theme release and before North's death. Eventually, a mono mix-down of North's original recordings was released as a limited-edition CD by [[Intrada Records]].<ref name="Burt1995">{{cite book |first=George |last=Burt |title=The Art of Film Music |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4E9EdlJw_N8C&pg=PA126 |year=1995 |publisher=Northeastern University Press |isbn=978-1-55553-270-3 |page=126 |access-date=20 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160128231433/https://books.google.com/books?id=4E9EdlJw_N8C&pg=PA126 |archive-date=28 January 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>
== Theatrical run and post-premiere cuts ==
[[File:2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Trailer.webm|thumb|thumbtime=24|right|upright=1.6|Original [[Trailer (promotion)|trailer]] for ''2001: A Space Odyssey''.]]
The film was originally scheduled for a Christmas 1966 release, but was later delayed to early 1967, then later to October 1967.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://variety.com/2016/film/news/stanley-kubrick-birthday-2001-a-space-odyssey-1201822511/ |title=Stanley Kubrick & '2001': Over Budget and Behind Schedule — but a Radical Classic |first=Tim |last=Gray |date=26 July 2016|access-date=8 November 2023|archive-date=8 November 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231108080754/https://variety.com/2016/film/news/stanley-kubrick-birthday-2001-a-space-odyssey-1201822511/|url-status=live}}</ref> The film's world [[premiere]] was on 2 April 1968,<ref name="NUM" /><ref name="RT" /> at the [[Uptown Theater (Washington, D.C.)|Uptown Theater]] in Washington, D.C.,<ref>{{cite book |title=Space World |date=1988 |publisher=Palmer Publications, Incorporated |page=19 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fDgqAQAAIAAJ |language=en |access-date=29 March 2023 |archive-date=6 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406010857/https://books.google.com/books?id=fDgqAQAAIAAJ |url-status=live}}</ref> with a 160-minute cut.<ref name=AFI>{{AFI film|23399}}</ref> It opened the next day at the [[Loew's Capitol Theatre|Loew's Capitol]] in New York and the following day at the [[Warner Hollywood Theatre]] in Los Angeles.<ref name=AFI /> The original version was also shown in Boston.
Kubrick and editor Ray Lovejoy edited the film between 5 and 9 April 1968. Kubrick's rationale for trimming the film was to tighten the narrative. Reviews suggested the film suffered from its departure from traditional cinematic storytelling.<ref name="Frederick">{{cite news |url=https://variety.com/1968/film/reviews/2001-a-space-odyssey-1200421723/ |title=Review: '2001: A Space Odyssey' |last=Frederick |first=Robert B. |work=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |date=2 April 1968 |access-date=22 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180512164000/http://variety.com/1968/film/reviews/2001-a-space-odyssey-1200421723/|archive-date=12 May 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> Kubrick said, "I didn't believe that the trims made a critical difference. ... The people who like it like it no matter what its length, and the same holds true for the people who hate it."<ref name="visual-memory" /> The cut footage is reported as being 19<ref name=trim>{{cite magazine |magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |date=16 May 2020 |page=7 |title=Kubrick Trims '2001' by 19 Mins., Adds Titles to Frame Sequences; Chi, Houston, Hub Reviews Good}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/07/unseen-images-2011-space-odyssey-making |title=Weird, Unseen Images from the Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey |first=Bruce |last=Handy |date=9 July 2014 |magazine=[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]] |access-date=21 August 2019 |archive-date=6 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706230658/http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/07/unseen-images-2011-space-odyssey-making |url-status=live}}</ref> or 17<ref name=WarnersCut>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/2010/12/its-official-warner-bros-has-no-plans-for-deleted-2001-a-space-odyssey-vault-footage/ |title=It's Official: Warner Bros. Has No Plans for Deleted <nowiki><cite>2001: A Space Odyssey</cite></nowiki> [''sic''] Vault Footage |date=20 December 2010 |first=Hugh |last=Hart |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |access-date=26 September 2022 |archive-date=26 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220926185300/https://www.wired.com/2010/12/its-official-warner-bros-has-no-plans-for-deleted-2001-a-space-odyssey-vault-footage/ |url-status=live}}</ref> minutes long. It includes scenes revealing details about life on ''Discovery'': additional space walks, Bowman retrieving a spare part from an octagonal corridor, elements from the Poole murder sequence—including space-walk preparation and HAL turning off radio contact with Poole—and a close-up of Bowman picking up a slipper during his walk in the alien room.<ref name="visual-memory" /> Jerome Agel describes the cut scenes as comprising "Dawn of Man, Orion, Poole exercising in the centrifuge, and Poole's pod exiting from ''Discovery''."<ref name="auto3" /> The new cut was approximately 139 minutes long.<ref name = nyt_review />
According to his brother-in-law, [[Jan Harlan]], Kubrick was adamant that the trims were never to be seen and had the negatives, which he had kept in his garage, burned shortly before his death. This was confirmed by former Kubrick assistant [[Leon Vitali]]: "I'll tell you right now, okay, on ''Clockwork Orange'', ''The Shining'', ''Barry Lyndon'', some little parts of ''2001'', we had thousands of cans of negative outtakes and print, which we had stored in an area at his house where we worked out of, which he personally supervised the loading of it to a truck and then I went down to a big industrial waste lot and burned it. That's what he wanted."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.dvdtalk.com/leonvitaliinterview.html |title=Kubrick Questions Finally Answered – An in Depth Talk with Leon Vitali |author=<!-- Staff --> |website=Dvdtalk.com |access-date=22 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100801042359/http://www.dvdtalk.com/leonvitaliinterview.html |archive-date=1 August 2010 | url-status= live}}</ref> However, in December 2010, Douglas Trumbull, the film's visual effects supervisor, announced that [[Warner Bros.]] had found 17 minutes of lost footage from the post-premiere cuts, "perfectly preserved", in a Kansas [[salt mine]] vault used by Warners for storage.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.slashfilm.com/warner-bros-responds-17-minutes-lost-2001-space-odyssey-footage#more-94389 |title=Warner Bros. Responds: 17 Minutes of 'Lost' '2001: A Space Odyssey' Footage Found? |first=Peter |last=Sciretta |website=slashfilm.com |date=20 December 2010 |access-date=4 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813021914/http://www.slashfilm.com/warner-bros-responds-17-minutes-lost-2001-space-odyssey-footage/#more-94389 |archive-date=13 August 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="auto3">{{harvnb|Agel|1970|p=170}}</ref><ref name=WarnersCut /> No plans have been announced for the rediscovered footage.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sneider |first=Jeff |title=WB Uncovers Lost Footage From Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' |date=16 December 2010 |url=https://www.thewrap.com/deal-central/column-post/wb-uncovers-lost-footage-kubricks-2001-space-odyssey-23309 |access-date=20 December 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110816200554/http://www.thewrap.com/deal-central/column-post/wb-uncovers-lost-footage-kubricks-2001-space-odyssey-23309 | archive-date = 16 August 2011 | url-status = live}}</ref>
The revised version was ready for the expansion of the roadshow release to four other US cities (Chicago, Denver, Detroit and Houston), on 10 April 1968, and internationally in five cities the following day,<ref name="auto3" /><ref name="underview">{{cite web |url=http://www.underview.com/bhpalltrims.html#en05 |title=A Taste of Blue Food in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey |first1=Thomas E. |last1=Brown |first2=Phil |last2=Vendy |date=2 March 2000 |website=Underview.com |access-date=8 January 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110121005339/http://www.underview.com/bhpalltrims.html#en05|archive-date=21 January 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> where the shortened version was shown in [[70mm]] format in the 2.21:1 [[aspect ratio (image)|aspect ratio]] and used a six-track stereo magnetic soundtrack.<ref name="auto3" />
By the end of May, the film had opened in 22 cities in the United States and Canada and in another 36 in June.<ref name=nine /> The general release of the film in its 35 mm [[anamorphic]] format took place in autumn 1968 and used either a four-track magnetic stereo soundtrack or an optical monaural one.<ref name="in70mm" />
The original 70 mm release, like many Super Panavision 70 films of the era such as ''[[Grand Prix (1966 film)|Grand Prix]]'', was advertised as being in "Cinerama" in cinemas equipped with special projection optics and a deeply curved screen. In standard cinemas, the film was identified as a 70 mm production. The original release of ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' in 70 mm Cinerama with six-track sound played continually for more than a year in several venues, and for 103 weeks in Los Angeles.<ref name="in70mm">{{cite web |url=http://www.in70mm.com/news/2004/2001_in_70mm/index.htm |title=1968: A Roadshow Odyssey- The Original Reserved Seat Engagements Of '2001: A Space Odyssey' |first=Michael |last=Coate |website=in70mm.com |access-date=9 January 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430000932/http://www.in70mm.com/news/2004/2001_in_70mm/index.htm |archive-date=30 April 2011}}</ref>
As was typical of many high-budget films of the era, it was released both in a "roadshow" 70 mm version and a later 35 mm general release version. The entrance music, intermission music (and intermission altogether), and exit music were cut from most prints of the latter version, although these have been restored to most DVD releases.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.avrev.com/blu-ray-movie-disc-reviews/sci-fi-fantasy/2001-a-space-odyssey.html |title=2001: A Space Odyssey (Blu-Ray review) |first=Les Paul |last=Robley |date=1 February 2008 |work=Audio-Video Revolution |access-date=7 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514152019/http://www.avrev.com/blu-ray-movie-disc-reviews/sci-fi-fantasy/2001-a-space-odyssey.html |archive-date=14 May 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=1126 |title=2001: A Space Odyssey (Remastered) |work=dvd.net.au |access-date=7 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110201132037/http://dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=1126 |archive-date=1 February 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref>
==Reception and legacy==
===Box office===
In its first nine weeks from 22 locations, it grossed $2 million—equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|2|1962|r=2}} million in {{Inflation/year|US}}—in the United States and Canada.<ref name=nine>{{cite magazine |magazine=[[Daily Variety]] |date=7 June 1968 |page=3 |title=$2 Mil 'Odyssey' B.O. Gross To Date}}</ref> The film earned $8.5 million in theatrical [[gross rental]]s from roadshow engagements throughout 1968,<ref name="Hall">{{cite web |last=Hall |first=Sheldon |author-link=Sheldon Hall (film historian) |title=Introduction to 2001: A Space Odyssey |date=9 April 2011 |website=In70mm.com |url=http://www.in70mm.com/pictureville/2010/sheldon/index.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526092759/http://www.in70mm.com/pictureville/2010/sheldon/index.htm |archive-date=26 May 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |title=Big Rental Films of 1968 |magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |date=8 January 1969 |page=15}} This figure refers to rental revenue accruing to distributors.</ref> contributing to North American rentals of $16.4 million and worldwide rentals of $21.9 million during its original release.<ref>{{harvnb|Block|Wilson|2010|p=[https://archive.org/details/georgelucassbloc00alex/page/434 434]}}</ref> The film's high costs, of approximately $10.5 million,<ref name="NUM">{{cite web |title=''2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968) — Financial Information |url=https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/2001-A-Space-Odyssey#tab=summary |publisher=[[The Numbers (website)|The Numbers]]. Nash Information Services, LLC |access-date=2 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221127095518/https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/2001-A-Space-Odyssey#tab=summary |archive-date=27 November 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="budget" /> meant that the initial returns from the 1968 release left it $800,000 in the red; but the successful re-release in 1971 made it profitable.<ref name="Block (2010)">{{harvnb|Block|Wilson |2010|pp=[https://archive.org/details/georgelucassbloc00alex/page/492 492–493]}}</ref><ref name="Miller Camera">{{cite web |last=Miller |first=Frank |title=Behind the Camera on 2001: A Space Odyssey |website=tcm.com |publisher=[[Turner Classic Movies]] |url=http://www.tcm.turner.com/this-month/article/26711%7c0/Behind-the-Camera.html |access-date=24 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160128231433/http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/26711%7c0/Behind-the-Camera.html |archive-date=28 January 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Kolker|2006|p=83}}</ref> By June 1974, the film had rentals from the United States and Canada of $20.3 million (gross of $58 million)<ref name="Block (2010)" /> and international rentals of $7.5 million.<ref name=reissue>{{cite magazine |magazine=[[Daily Variety]] |date=31 July 1974 |last=Murphy |first=A.D. |page=1 |title='Odyssey' Test Run Revival Here Turns into Surprise B.O. Smash}}</ref> The film had a reissue on a test basis on 24 July 1974 at the [[Cinerama Dome]] in Los Angeles and grossed $53,000 in its first week, which led to an expanded reissue.<ref name=reissue /> Further re-releases followed, giving a cumulative gross of over $60 million in the United States and Canada.<ref name="BOM">{{cite web |title=''2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968) |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0062622/ |publisher=[[Box Office Mojo]]. [[IMDbPro]] |access-date=2 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191104034249/https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0062622/ |archive-date=4 November 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> Taking its re-releases into account, it is the highest-grossing film of 1968 in the United States and Canada.<ref>{{cite web |title=All Time Box Office: Domestic Grosses – Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm?adjust_yr=1 |publisher=Box Office Mojo. IMDbPro |access-date=9 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190901183428/https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm?adjust_yr=1 |archive-date=1 September 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> Worldwide, it has grossed $146 million across all releases,{{efn|[[Robert P. Kolker|Robert Kolker]] put the cumulative global gross of the film at $138 million as of 2006,<ref>{{harvnb|Kolker|2006|p=16}}</ref> although it has had several limited releases since then. The combined takings of the 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2018 reissues added a further $7.9 million to the gross.<ref name="BOM" />}} although some estimates place the gross higher, at over $190 million.<ref name="Miller Corner">{{cite web |last=Miller |first=Frank |title=2001: A Space Odyssey – Articles |website=tcm.com |publisher=[[Turner Classic Movies]] |url=http://www.tcm.turner.com/tcmdb/title/628/2001-A-Space-Odyssey/articles.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120212151721/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/628/2001-A-Space-Odyssey/articles.html |archive-date=12 February 2012 |access-date=2 October 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>
===Critical response===
[[File:Walt Crowley illustration for 2001 A Space Odyssey.jpg|thumb|Seattle writer [[Walt Crowley]] drew this cartoon to illustrate his favorable review in the Seattle underground paper ''[[Helix (newspaper)|Helix]]'', in which he accused mainstream critics of "approach[ing] [[Wassily Kandinsky|Kandinsky]] with a [[Norman Rockwell]] mentality."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Crowley |first1=Walt |author1-link=Walt Crowley |title="My Favorite Movie" |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Helix,_v.3,_no.10,_Jun._20,_1968_-_DPLA_-_f9ecebcefb9617a4b4bfe6acddc80869_(page_15).jpg |access-date=17 February 2024 |work=Helix |issue=v.3, no. 10 |date=20 June 1968 |page=16 |archive-date=16 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240416210543/https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Helix,_v.3,_no.10,_Jun._20,_1968_-_DPLA_-_f9ecebcefb9617a4b4bfe6acddc80869_(page_15).jpg |url-status=live}}</ref>]]
''2001: A Space Odyssey'' polarised critical opinion, receiving both praise and derision, with many New York–based critics being especially harsh. Kubrick called them "dogmatically atheistic and materialistic and earthbound".<ref name=THR>{{cite news |last=Higgins |first=Bill |title=Hollywood Flashback: In 1968, '2001: A Space Odyssey' Confounded Critics |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-flashback-1968-2001-a-space-odyssey-confounded-critics-1109385 |work=[[The Hollywood Reporter]] |publisher=[[Eldridge Industries]] |___location=Los Angeles |date=7 May 2018 |access-date=10 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180508112152/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-flashback-1968-2001-a-space-odyssey-confounded-critics-1109385 |archive-date=8 May 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Some critics viewed the original 161-minute cut shown at premieres in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington D.C.]], New York, and Los Angeles.<ref>{{harvnb|Agel|1970|p=169}}</ref> Keir Dullea says that during the New York premiere, 250 people walked out; in L.A., [[Rock Hudson]] not only left early but "was heard to mutter, 'What is this bullshit?{{'"}}<ref name=THR /> "Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?"<ref>{{cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968 |title=2001: A Space Odyssey movie review |date=27 March 1997 |access-date=14 January 2023 |website=RogerEbert.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130409153337/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968 |archive-date=9 April 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref> "But a few months into the release, they realised a lot of people were watching it while smoking funny cigarettes. Someone in San Francisco even ran right through the screen screaming: 'It's God!' So they came up with a new poster that said: '2001 – the ultimate trip!{{'"}}<ref>{{cite news |last=Hoad |first=Phil |title=How we made 2001: A Space Odyssey |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/12/how-we-made-2001-a-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick-hal |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=12 March 2018 |access-date=14 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180522144157/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/12/how-we-made-2001-a-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick-hal |archive-date=22 May 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
In ''[[The New Yorker]]'', [[Penelope Gilliatt]] said it was "some kind of great film, and an unforgettable endeavor ... The film is hypnotically entertaining, and it is funny without once being gaggy, but it is also rather harrowing."<ref name="Gilliatt">Gilliatt, Penelope (5 April 1968). "After Man", review of ''2001'' reprinted from ''The New Yorker'' in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=209–213}}.</ref> [[Charles Champlin]] of the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' wrote that it was "the picture that science fiction fans of every age and in every corner of the world have prayed (sometimes forlornly) that the industry might some day give them. It is an ultimate statement of the science fiction film, an awesome realization of the spatial future ... it is a milestone, a landmark for a spacemark, in the art of film."<ref name="Champlin">Champlin, Charles (5 April 1968). Review of ''2001'' reprinted from ''Los Angeles Times'' in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=213–215}}.</ref> Louise Sweeney of ''[[The Christian Science Monitor]]'' felt that ''2001'' was "a brilliant intergalactic satire on modern technology. It's also a dazzling 160-minute tour on the Kubrick filmship through the universe out there beyond our earth."<ref name="Sweeney">Sweeney, Louise. Review of ''2001'' reprinted from ''The Christian Science Monitor'' in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=227–231}}.</ref> [[Philip French]] wrote that the film was "perhaps the first multi-million-dollar supercolossal movie since [[D. W. Griffith]]'s ''[[Intolerance (film)|Intolerance]]'' fifty years ago which can be regarded as the work of one man ... ''Space Odyssey'' is important as the high-water mark of science-fiction movie making, or at least of the genre's futuristic branch."<ref name="French">French, Philip. Review of ''2001'' reprinted from an unnamed publication in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=237–239}}.</ref> ''[[The Boston Globe]]''{{'s}} review called it "the world's most extraordinary film. Nothing like it has ever been shown in Boston before or, for that matter, anywhere ... The film is as exciting as the discovery of a new dimension in life."<ref name="Adams">Adams, Marjorie. Review of ''2001'' reprinted from ''The Boston Globe'' in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|p=240}}.</ref> [[Roger Ebert]] gave the film four stars in his original review, saying the film "succeeds magnificently on a cosmic scale".<ref name="Ebert" /> He later put it on his Top 10 list for ''[[Sight & Sound]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=BFI | Sight & Sound | Top Ten Poll 2002 – How the directors and critics voted |last=Ebert |first=Roger |url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/voter.php?forename=Roger&surname=Ebert |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090903062342/http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/voter.php?forename=Roger&surname=Ebert |archive-date=3 September 2009 |url-status=dead |access-date=27 July 2009}}</ref> ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' provided at least seven different mini-reviews in various issues in 1968, each slightly more positive than the preceding one; in the final review of 27 December 1968, the magazine called ''2001'' "an epic film about the history and future of mankind, brilliantly directed by Stanley Kubrick. The special effects are mindblowing."<ref name="Unknown">Unknown reviewer. Capsule review of ''2001'' reprinted from ''Time'' in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|p=248}}.</ref>
Others were unimpressed. [[Pauline Kael]] called it "a monumentally unimaginative movie".<ref>{{cite news |title=How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love 'Barry Lyndon' |date=11 January 1976 |last=Hofsess |first=John |url=http://partners.nytimes.com/library/film/011176kubrick-lyndon.html |access-date=30 June 2013 |work=The New York Times| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130127160904/http://partners.nytimes.com/library/film/011176kubrick-lyndon.html| archive-date=27 January 2013| url-status=live}}</ref> [[Stanley Kauffmann]] of ''[[The New Republic]]'' described it as "a film that is so dull, it even dulls our interest in the technical ingenuity for the sake of which Kubrick has allowed it to become dull".<ref name="Kauffman Lost">{{cite magazine |first=Stanley |last=Kauffmann |title=Lost in the Stars |magazine=The New Republic |date=4 May 1968 |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/132297/lost-stars |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050403160335/http://krusch.com/kubrick/Q16.html |archive-date=3 April 2005}}</ref> The Soviet director [[Andrei Tarkovsky]] found the film to be an inadequate addition to the science fiction genre of [[filmmaking]].<ref name="Benson's Book" /> [[Renata Adler]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' wrote that it was "somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring".<ref name="Adler">Adler, Renata. Review of ''2001'' reprinted from ''The New York Times'' in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=207–8}}.</ref> [[Variety (magazine)|''Variety'']]{{'}}s Robert B. Frederick ('Robe') believed it was a "[b]ig, beautiful, but plodding sci-fi epic ... A major achievement in cinematography and special effects, ''2001'' lacks dramatic appeal to a large degree and only conveys suspense after the halfway mark."<ref name="Frederick" /> [[Andrew Sarris]] called it "one of the grimmest films I have ever seen in my life ... ''2001'' is a disaster because it is much too abstract to make its abstract points."<ref name="Sarris">Sarris, Andrew. Review of ''2001'' quoted from a [[WBAI]] radio broadcast in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|pp=242–3}}.</ref> (Sarris reversed his opinion upon a second viewing, and declared, "''2001'' is indeed a major work by a major artist."<ref>{{cite web |title=Hail the Conquering Hero |url=http://www.filmcomment.com/article/hail-the-conquering-hero-andrew-sarris-profiled |date=1 May 2005 |access-date=12 January 2007 |website=FilmComment.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120623223203/http://www.filmcomment.com/article/hail-the-conquering-hero-andrew-sarris-profiled |archive-date=23 June 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref>) [[John Simon (critic)|John Simon]] felt it was "a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes or machines ... and dreadful when it deals with the in-betweens: humans ... ''2001'', for all its lively visual and mechanical spectacle, is a kind of space-''Spartacus'' and, more pretentious still, a [[shaggy God story]]."<ref name="Simon">Simon, John. Review of ''2001'' reprinted from ''[[The New Leader]]'' in {{Harvnb|Agel|1970|p=244}}.</ref> Historian [[Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.]] deemed the film "morally pretentious, intellectually obscure and inordinately long ... a film out of control".<ref name="myth">{{cite video |people=Joyce, Paul (director) Doran, Jamie (producer) Bizony, Piers (assoc. producer) |year=2001 |title=2001: The Making of a Myth |medium=Television production |publisher=Channel Four Television Corp. |___location=UK |time=15:56 |ref=ID}}</ref> In a 2001 review, the BBC said that its slow pacing often alienates modern audiences more than it did upon its initial release.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/09/18/2001_review.shtml |title=BBC – Films – review – 2001: A Space Odyssey |work=BBC |date=29 March 2001 |access-date=22 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111225002936/http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/09/18/2001_review.shtml |archive-date=25 December 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref>
On review aggregator [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film has a rating of 90% based on 164 reviews, with an average rating of 9.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "One of the most influential of all sci-fi films – and one of the most controversial – Stanley Kubrick's ''2001'' is a delicate, poetic meditation on the ingenuity – and folly – of mankind."<ref name="RT">{{Cite web |title=''2001: A Space Odyssey'' |date=2 April 1968 |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/2001_a_space_odyssey |publisher=[[Rotten Tomatoes]]. [[Fandango Media]] |access-date=9 April 2025 |archive-date=7 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807100940/https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/2001_a_space_odyssey |url-status=live}}</ref> Review aggregator [[Metacritic]], which uses a [[weighted average]], has assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100, based on 25 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".<ref>{{Cite web |title=''2001: A Space Odyssey'' Reviews |url=https://www.metacritic.com/movie/2001-a-space-odyssey |publisher=[[Metacritic]]. [[Fandom, Inc.]] |access-date=14 September 2021 |archive-date=7 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807100907/https://www.metacritic.com/movie/2001-a-space-odyssey |url-status=live}}</ref>
''2001'' was the only science fiction film to make ''Sight & Sound''{{'s}} [[The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012|2012 list of the ten best films]],<ref name="bfi2012">{{cite news |last=Christie |first=Ian |author-link=Ian Christie (film scholar) |others=et al. |url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time |title=The 50 Greatest Films of All Time |work=[[Sight & Sound]] |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |orig-year=September 2012 |date=7 August 2017 |access-date=2 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301135739/http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time |archive-date=1 March 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and tops the [[Online Film Critics Society]] list of greatest science fiction films of all time.<ref>{{cite web |title=''2001: A Space Odyssey'' Named the Greatest Sci-Fi Film of All Time By the Online Film Critics Society |work=[[Online Film Critics Society]] |date=12 June 2002 |url=http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com/pages/pr/top100scifi |access-date=15 December 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061126071451/http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com/pages/pr/top100scifi |archive-date=26 November 2006 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2012, the [[Motion Picture Editors Guild]] listed it as the 19th best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The 75 Best Edited Films |journal=Editors Guild Magazine |date=May 2012 |volume=1 |issue=3 |url=https://www.editorsguild.com/magazine.cfm?ArticleID=1102 |access-date=20 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304232326/https://www.editorsguild.com/magazine.cfm?ArticleID=1102 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> Other lists that include the film are ''[[50 Films to See Before You Die]]'' (#6), ''The Village Voice'' 100 Best Films of the 20th century (#11), and Roger Ebert's Top Ten (1968) (#2). In 1995, the [[Holy See|Vatican]] included it in a [[Vatican's list of films|list of 45 important films]], under the category of "Art".<ref>{{cite web |title=USCCB – (Film and Broadcasting) – Vatican Best Films List |work=USCCB web site |url=http://archive.usccb.org/movies/vaticanfilms.shtml |access-date=1 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070418125227/http://www.usccb.org/movies/vaticanfilms.shtml |archive-date=18 April 2007 | url-status= live}}</ref> In 1998, ''[[Time Out (magazine)|Time Out]]'' conducted a reader's poll and ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' was voted as ninth on the list of "greatest films of all time".<ref>{{cite web |work=[[AMC (TV channel)|AMC Filmsite.org]] |url=http://www.filmsite.org/timeout2.html |title=Top 100 Films (Readers) |publisher=American Movie Classics Company |access-date=17 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140718213202/http://www.filmsite.org/timeout2.html |archive-date=18 July 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'' voted it no. 26 on their list of ''100 Greatest Movies of All Time''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time |url=http://www.filmsite.org/ew100.html |publisher=[[Filmsite.org]]|access-date = 19 January 2009|url-status = live|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140331185517/http://www.filmsite.org/ew100.html|archive-date = 31 March 2014}}</ref> In 2017, ''[[Empire (film magazine)|Empire]]'' magazine's readers' poll ranked it 21st on its list of "The 100 Greatest Movies".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/best-movies/ |title=The 100 Greatest Movies|access-date=20 March 2018|archive-date=6 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706075658/https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/best-movies/|url-status=live}}</ref> In the ''Sight & Sound'' poll of 480 directors published in December 2022, ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' was voted as the Greatest Film of All Time, ahead of ''[[Citizen Kane]]'' and ''[[The Godfather]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/2001-a-space-odyssey-named-greatest-movie-of-all-time/ |title='2001: A Space Odyssey' named the greatest movie of all time by 480 filmmakers |date=2 December 2022|access-date=5 December 2022|archive-date=5 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205152806/https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/2001-a-space-odyssey-named-greatest-movie-of-all-time/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="S&S2022" />
===Science fiction writers===
The film won the [[Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation]], as voted by science fiction fans and published science-fiction writers.<ref name=hugo /> [[Ray Bradbury]] praised the film's photography but disliked the banality of most of the dialogue and believed that the audience does not care when Poole dies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brosnan |first=John |url=https://archive.org/details/futuretense00john |title=Future tense : the cinema of science fiction |date=1978 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-312-31488-0 |___location=New York |page=179 |author-link=John Brosnan |access-date=12 January 2024 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref> Both he and [[Lester del Rey]] disliked the film's feeling of sterility and blandness in the human encounters amidst the technological wonders, while both praised the pictorial element of the film. Reporting that "half the audience had left by intermission", del Rey described the film as dull, confusing, and boring ("the first of the [[New Wave (science fiction)|New Wave]]-Thing movies, with the usual empty symbols"), predicting "[i]t will probably be a box-office disaster, too, and thus set major science-fiction movie making back another ten years".<ref name="delrey196807">{{Cite magazine |last=del Rey |first=Lester |date=July 1968 |title=2001: A Space Odyssey |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v26n06_1968-07#page/n193/mode/2up |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction |pages=193–194 |access-date=6 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330143620/https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v26n06_1968-07#page/n193/mode/2up |archive-date=30 March 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>
[[Samuel R. Delany]] was impressed by how the film undercuts the audience's normal sense of space and orientation in several ways. Like Bradbury, Delany noticed the banality of the dialogue (he stated that characters say nothing meaningful), but regarded this as a dramatic strength, a prelude to the rebirth at the conclusion of the film.<ref>Samuel R. Delany's and Lester del Rey's reviews both appear in the 1968 anthology ''The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 2'' edited by Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss. Both are also printed on ''The Kubrick Site'':<br />{{cite web |last=Lester |first=del Rey |title=2001: A Space Odyssey: A Review |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0045.html |date=1968 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709013211/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0045.html |archive-date=9 July 2011 |access-date=5 March 2022}}<br />{{cite web |last=Delany |first=Samuel R. |title=A Review of 2001: A Space Odyssey |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0044.html |date=1968 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819033153/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0044.html |archive-date=19 August 2011 |access-date=5 March 2022}} <!--citation clean-up needed here--></ref>
Without analysing the film in detail, [[Isaac Asimov]] spoke well of it in his autobiography and other essays. [[James P. Hogan (writer)|James P. Hogan]] liked the film but complained that the ending did not make any sense to him, leading to a bet about whether he could write something better: "I stole Arthur's plot idea shamelessly and produced ''[[Inherit the Stars]]''."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://io9.com/5586134/rip-hard-science-fiction-writer-james-p-hogan |title=R.I.P. hard science fiction writer James P. Hogan |first=Charlie Jane |last=Anders |work=io9 |date=13 July 2010 |access-date=17 June 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140227040133/http://io9.com/5586134/rip-hard-science-fiction-writer-james-p-hogan|archive-date=27 February 2014|url-status=live}}</ref>
===Awards and honours===
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable"
! scope="col" |Award
! scope="col" |Category
! scope="col" |Nominee(s)
! scope="col" |Result
! scope="col" |Ref.
|-
! rowspan="4" scope="row"| [[41st Academy Awards|Academy Awards]]
| [[Academy Award for Best Director|Best Director]]
| [[Stanley Kubrick]]
| {{nom}}
| style="text-align: center;" rowspan="4"|<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1969 |title=The 41st Academy Awards {{!}} 1969|date=14 April 1969 |website=[[Academy Awards]] {{!}} [[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]]|access-date=30 July 2019|archive-url=https://archive.today/20160910175650/https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1969|archive-date=10 September 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay|Best Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen]]
| Stanley Kubrick and [[Arthur C. Clarke]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for
| [[Anthony Masters]], [[Harry Lange]] and [[Ernest Archer (art director)|Ernest Archer]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best
| Stanley Kubrick
| {{won}}
|-
! rowspan="5" scope="row"| [[22nd British Academy Film Awards|British Academy Film Awards]]
| [[BAFTA Award for Best Film|Best Film]]
| Stanley Kubrick
| {{nom}}
| style="text-align: center;" rowspan="5"|<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bafta.org/print/awards/film/nominations/film-awards-nominations,183,BA.html?year=1968 |date=28 March 1968 |title=Film Nominations 1968 |work=[[British Academy of Film and Television Arts]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131006010330/http://www.bafta.org/print/awards/film/nominations/film-awards-nominations,183,BA.html?year=1968 |archive-date=6 October 2013|url-status=dead |access-date=16 October 2012}}</ref>
|-
| [[BAFTA Award for Best Production Design|Best Art Direction]]
| Anthony Masters, Harry Lange and Ernest Archer
| {{won}}
|-
| [[BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography|Best Cinematography]]
| [[Geoffrey Unsworth]]
| {{won}}
|-
| [[BAFTA Award for Best Sound|Best Sound Track]]
| Winston Ryder
| {{won}}
|-
| United Nations Award
| Stanley Kubrick
| {{nom}}
|-
! scope="row"| [[Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos|Cinema Writers Circle]]
| Best Foreign Film
| ''2001: A Space Odyssey''
| {{won}}
| style="text-align: center;"|<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cinecec.com/cec.html |title=Premios del CEC a la producción española de 1968 |work=[[w:es:Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos|Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos]] |language=es |date=29 January 2019 |access-date=16 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425232140/http://www.cinecec.com/cec.html|archive-date=25 April 2012|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
! scope="row"| [[David di Donatello]] Awards
| [[David di Donatello for Best Foreign Film|Best Foreign Film]]
| Stanley Kubrick
| {{won}}
| style="text-align: center;"|<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://film.iksv.org/en/the-38th-istanbul-film-festival-2019/2001-a-space-odyssey |title=2001: A Space Odyssey |last=madebycat.com |website=İKSV |language=en |date=7 April 2019 |access-date=10 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190710135056/http://film.iksv.org/en/the-38th-istanbul-film-festival-2019/2001-a-space-odyssey|archive-date=10 July 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
! scope="row"| [[21st Directors Guild of America Awards|Directors Guild of America Awards]]
| [[Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film|Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures]]
| Stanley Kubrick
| {{nom}}
| style="text-align: center;"|<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dga.org/Awards/History/1960s/1968.aspx |title=Awards / History / 1968 – 21st Annual DGA Awards |work=[[Directors Guild of America]] |date=2 February 1969 |access-date=16 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160128231433/http://www.dga.org/Awards/History/1960s/1968.aspx|archive-date=28 January 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
! scope="row"| [[Hugo Award]]s
| [[Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation|Best Dramatic Presentation]]
| Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke
| {{won}}
| style="text-align: center;"|<ref name="hugo">{{cite web |url=http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/1969-hugo-awards/ |title=1969 Hugo Awards |work=[[World Science Fiction Society]] |date=28 August 1969 |access-date=16 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703111100/http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/1969-hugo-awards/|archive-date=3 July 2013|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
! rowspan="2" scope="row"| [[Kansas City Film Critics Circle]] Awards
| Best Film
| ''2001: A Space Odyssey''
| {{won}}
| style="text-align: center;" rowspan="2"|<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kcfcc.org/1960s.html |title=Winners: 1960s |work=Kansas City Film Critics Circle |date=18 December 1968 |access-date=16 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120503233832/http://www.kcfcc.org/1960s.html|archive-date=3 May 2012|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
| Best Director
| Stanley Kubrick
| {{won}}
|-
! scope="row"| [[Laurel Awards]]
| Best Road Show
| ''2001: A Space Odyssey''
| {{won}}
| style="text-align: center;"|<ref name="laurel">{{cite book |title=Movie awards: the ultimate, unofficial guide to the Oscars, Golden Globes, critics, Guild & Indie honors |last=O'Neil |first=Thomas |publisher=Perigee Book |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-399-52922-1 |page=306}}</ref>
|-
! scope="row" | [[National Board of Review Awards 1968|National Board of Review Awards]]
| [[National Board of Review Awards 1968|Top 10 Films]]
| ''2001: A Space Odyssey''
| {{draw|10th place}}
| style="text-align: center;"|<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nbrmp.org/awards/past.cfm?year=1968 |title=Awards for 1968 |date=10 January 1969 |work=[[National Board of Review of Motion Pictures]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101125221611/http://nbrmp.org/awards/past.cfm?year=1968 |archive-date=25 November 2010|url-status=dead |access-date=16 October 2012}}</ref>
|-
! scope="row"| [[Writers' Guild of Great Britain]] Awards
| Best British Original Screenplay
| Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke
| {{nom}}
| style="text-align: center;"|<ref name="wggb">[https://writersguild.org.uk/writers-guild-awards-1968/ WRITERS' GUILD AWARDS 1968] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231021134212/https://writersguild.org.uk/writers-guild-awards-1968/ |date=21 October 2023 }} [[Writers' Guild of Great Britain]]. Retrieved 20 October 2023.</ref>
|}
In 1969, a [[United States Department of State]] committee chose ''2001'' as the American entry at the [[6th Moscow International Film Festival]].<ref name="Moscow1969">{{cite web |url=http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1969 |title=6th Moscow International Film Festival (1969) |access-date=20 December 2012 |work=MIFF |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116194825/http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1969 |archive-date=16 January 2013}}</ref>
''2001'' is ranked 15th on the [[American Film Institute]]'s ''[[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)|100 Years... 100 Movies]]'' list from 2007<ref>{{cite web |title=AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies |edition=10th Anniversary |url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/100Movies.pdf |website=afi.com |publisher=[[American Film Institute]] |date=16 June 1998 |access-date=9 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606072909/http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/100Movies.pdf |archive-date=6 June 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref> (up from #22 on AFI's [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies|original list from 1998]]),<ref>{{cite web |title=AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies |url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/movies100.pdf |website=afi.com |publisher=American Film Institute |date=16 June 1998 |access-date=9 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412113202/http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/movies100.pdf |archive-date=12 April 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> was no. 40 on its ''[[AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills|100 Years... 100 Thrills]]'',<ref>{{cite web |title=AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Thrills |url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/thrills100.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140328082214/http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/thrills100.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=28 March 2014 |website=afi.com |publisher=American Film Institute |date=16 June 1998 |access-date=9 October 2019}}</ref> was included on its ''[[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes|100 Years... 100 Quotes]]'' (no. 78 "Open the pod bay doors, HAL."),<ref>{{cite web |title=AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes |url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/quotes100.pdf |website=afi.com |publisher=American Film Institute |date=16 June 1998 |access-date=9 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110313150615/http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/quotes100.pdf |archive-date=13 March 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref> and ''HAL 9000'' was selected as the 13th greatest villain on AFI's ''[[AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains|100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains]]'' list.<ref>{{cite web |title=AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Heroes & Villains |url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/handv100.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140328082215/http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/handv100.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=28 March 2014 |website=afi.com |publisher=American Film Institute |date=16 June 1998 |access-date=9 October 2019}}</ref> The film was voted the 47th most inspiring film on the ''[[AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers|100 Years... 100 Cheers]]'' list<ref>{{cite web |title=AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Cheers |url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/cheers100.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150421022651/http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/cheers100.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=21 April 2015 |website=afi.com |publisher=American Film Institute |date=16 June 1998 |access-date=9 October 2019}}</ref> and the no.{{nbsp}}1 science fiction film on AFI's ''[[AFI's 10 Top 10|10 Top 10]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=AFI's 10 Top 10: Top 10 Sci-Fi |url=http://www.afi.com/10top10/category.aspx?cat=7 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140328081240/http://www.afi.com/10top10/category.aspx?cat=7 |url-status=dead |archive-date=28 March 2014 |website=afi.com |publisher=American Film Institute |date=17 June 2008 |access-date=9 October 2019}}</ref>
==Interpretations==
{{Main|Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey{{!}}Interpretations of ''2001: A Space Odyssey''}}
Since its premiere, ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' has been analysed and interpreted by professional critics and theorists, amateur writers, and science fiction fans. In his [[monograph]] for BFI analysing the film, Peter Krämer summarised the diverse interpretations as ranging from those who saw it as darkly [[Apocalypse|apocalyptic]] in tone to those who saw it as an optimistic reappraisal of the hopes of mankind and humanity.<ref name="auto1">{{harvnb|Krämer|2010|p=8}}</ref> Questions about ''2001'' range from uncertainty about its implications for humanity's origins and destiny in the universe<ref>See especially the essay "Auteur with a Capital A", by James Gilbert, anthologized in {{harvnb|Kolker|2006}}.</ref> to interpreting elements of the film's more enigmatic scenes, such as the meaning of the monolith, or the fate of astronaut David Bowman. There are also simpler and more mundane questions about the plot, in particular the causes of HAL's breakdown (explained in earlier drafts but kept mysterious in the film).<ref>{{harvnb|Schwam|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC&pg=PT86 86]}}</ref><ref name="SF-20180706">{{cite web |last=Pearson |first=Ben |title=Stanley Kubrick Explains The '2001: A Space Odyssey' Ending in Rediscovered Interview |url=https://www.slashfilm.com/2001-a-space-odyssey-ending/ |date=6 July 2018 |work=[[Slashfilm]] |access-date=7 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706174351/https://www.slashfilm.com/2001-a-space-odyssey-ending/ |archive-date=6 July 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="SYFY-20180705">{{cite web |last=Slayton |first=Nicholas |title=In Lost Interview, Stanley Kubrick Explains The Ending of 2001: A Space odyssey |url=https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/in-lost-interview-stanley-kubrick-explains-the-ending-of-2001-a-space-odyssey |date=5 July 2018 |work=[[SyfyWire]] |access-date=7 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706010257/http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/in-lost-interview-stanley-kubrick-explains-the-ending-of-2001-a-space-odyssey |archive-date=6 July 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="NYT-20180418">{{cite news |last=Handy |first=Bruce |title=Sometimes a Broken Glass Is Just a Broken Glass |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/opinion/2001-a-space-odyssey-broken-glass.html |date=5 April 2018 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=7 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180407140425/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/opinion/2001-a-space-odyssey-broken-glass.html |archive-date=7 April 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
===Audiences vs. critics===
A spectrum of diverse interpretative opinions would form after the film's release, appearing to divide theatre audiences from the opinions of critics. Krämer writes: "Many people sent letters to Kubrick to tell him about their responses to ''2001'', most of them regarding the film—in particular the ending—as an optimistic statement about humanity, which is seen to be born and reborn. The film's reviewers and academic critics, by contrast, have tended to understand the film as a pessimistic account of human nature and humanity's future. The most extreme of these interpretations state that the foetus floating above the Earth will destroy it."<ref>{{harvnb|Krämer|2010|p=7}}</ref>
[[File:Dr. Strangelove - Riding the Bomb.png|thumb|left|Closing scene of ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'' and Kubrick's sardonic fulfilment of a nuclear nightmare]]
Some of the critics' cataclysmic interpretations were informed by Kubrick's prior direction of the [[Cold War]] film ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'', immediately before ''2001'', which resulted in dark speculation about the nuclear weapons orbiting the Earth in ''2001''. These interpretations were challenged by Clarke, who said: "Many readers have interpreted the last paragraph of the book to mean that he (the foetus) destroyed Earth, perhaps for the purpose of creating a new Heaven. This idea never occurred to me; it seems clear that he triggered the orbiting nuclear bombs harmlessly{{nbsp}}...".<ref name="auto1" /> In response to Jeremy Bernstein's dark interpretation of the film's ending, Kubrick said: "The book does not end with the destruction of the Earth."<ref name="auto1" />
Regarding the film as a whole, Kubrick encouraged people to make their own interpretations and refused to offer an explanation of "what really happened". In a 1968 interview with ''[[Playboy]]'', he said:
{{blockquote|You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and [[allegory|allegorical]] meaning of the film—and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level—but I don't want to spell out a verbal road map for ''2001'' that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point.<ref name="Playboy" />}}
In a subsequent discussion of the film with Joseph Gelmis, Kubrick said his main aim was to avoid "intellectual verbalization" and reach "the viewer's subconscious". But he said he did not strive for ambiguity—it was simply an inevitable outcome of making the film nonverbal. Still, he acknowledged this ambiguity was an invaluable asset to the film. He was willing then to give a fairly straightforward explanation of the plot on what he called the "simplest level", but unwilling to discuss the film's metaphysical interpretation, which he felt should be left up to viewers.<ref>{{harvnb|Gelmis|1970|pp=293–294}}</ref>
{{clear|left}}
===Meaning of the monolith===
For some readers, Clarke's more straightforward novel based on the script is key to interpreting the film. The novel explicitly identifies the monolith as a tool created by an alien race who have been through many stages of evolution, moving from organic form to biomechanical, and finally achieving a state of pure energy. These aliens travel the cosmos assisting lesser species to take evolutionary steps. Conversely, film critic [[Penelope Houston (film critic)|Penelope Houston]] wrote in 1971 that because the novel differs in many key aspects from the film, it perhaps should not be regarded as the skeleton key to unlock it.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Houston |first=Penelope |title=Skeleton Key to 2001 |journal=Sight and Sound International Film Quarterly |volume=40 |issue=2 |date=Spring 1971 |___location=London |publisher=British Film Institute}}</ref>
[[File:African monolith 2001.jpg|thumb|right|Multiple interpretations of the meaning of the monolith have been examined in the critical reception of the film]]
Carolyn Geduld writes that what "structurally unites all four episodes of the film" is the monolith, the film's largest and most unresolvable enigma.<ref name="auto2">{{harvnb|Geduld|1973|p=40}}</ref> Vincent LoBrutto's biography of Kubrick says that for many, Clarke's novel supplements the understanding of the monolith which is more ambiguously depicted in the film.<ref>{{harvnb|LoBrutto|1998|pp=310, 606}}</ref> Similarly, Geduld observes that "the monolith ... has a very simple explanation in Clarke's novel", though she later asserts that even the novel does not fully explain the ending.<ref name="auto2" />
Bob McClay's ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' review describes a parallel between the monolith's first appearance in which tool usage is imparted to the apes (thus 'beginning' mankind) and the completion of "another evolution" in the fourth and final encounter<ref>{{harvnb|Schwam|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yX1ZAAAAMAAJ 165]}}</ref> with the monolith. In a similar vein, Tim Dirks ends his synopsis saying "[t]he cyclical evolution from ape to man to spaceman to angel-starchild-superman is complete."<ref name="filmsite.org">{{cite web |url=http://www.filmsite.org/twot.html |title=2001: A Space Odyssey |last=Dirks |first=Tim |website=[[Filmsite.org]] |access-date=21 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110303025113/http://www.filmsite.org/twot.html|archive-date=3 March 2011|url-status=live}}</ref>
Humanity's first and second encounters with the monolith have visual elements in common; both the apes, and later the astronauts, touch it gingerly with their hands, and both sequences conclude with near-identical images of the Sun appearing directly over it (the first with a crescent moon adjacent to it in the sky, the second with a near-identical crescent Earth in the same position), echoing the Sun–Earth–Moon [[Syzygy (astronomy)|alignment]] seen in the film's opening.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.filmsite.org/twot.html |title=2001: A Space Odyssey |last=Dirks |first=Tim |website=[[Filmsite.org]] |access-date=21 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110303025113/http://www.filmsite.org/twot.html |archive-date=3 March 2011 |url-status=live}} Dirks says that, in the ape encounter, "With the mysterious monolith in the foreground, the glowing Sun rises over the black slab, directly beneath the crescent of the Moon" and that on the Moon "Again, the glowing Sun, Moon and Earth have formed a conjunctive orbital configuration."</ref> The second encounter also suggests the triggering of the monolith's radio signal to Jupiter by the presence of humans, echoing the premise of Clarke's source story "The Sentinel".<ref>{{harvnb|Schwam|2010|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC&pg=PT212 212–215]}}</ref>
The monolith is the subject of the film's final line of dialogue (spoken at the end of the "Jupiter Mission" segment): "Its origin and purpose still a total mystery." Reviewers McClay and Roger Ebert wrote that the monolith is the main element of mystery in the film; Ebert described "the shock of the monolith's straight edges and square corners among the weathered rocks", and the apes warily circling it as prefiguring man reaching "for the stars".<ref name="Ebert" /> Patrick Webster suggests the final line relates to how the film should be approached as a whole: "The line appends not merely to the discovery of the monolith on the Moon, but to our understanding of the film in the light of the ultimate questions it raises about the mystery of the universe."<ref>{{cite book |title=Love and Death in Kubrick: A Critical Study of the Films from ''Lolita'' Through ''Eyes Wide Shut'' |last=Webster |first=Patrick |year=2010 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5916-2 |page=66}}</ref>
According to other scholars, "the monolith is a representation of the actual wideframe cinema screen, rotated 90 degrees ... a symbolic cinema screen".<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://www.collativelearning.com/2001%20chapter%202.html |chapter=Chapter 2. The Meaning Of The Monolith |title=2001: A Space Odyssey – in-depth analysis |url=https://www.collativelearning.com/2001%20analysis%20new.html |first=Rob |last=Ager |authorlink=Rob Ager |orig-date=2008 |date=2015 |access-date=2 January 2023 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170824061016/https://www.collativelearning.com/2001+chapter+2.html |archive-date=24 August 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> "It is at once a screen and the opposite of a screen, since its black surface only absorbs, and sends nothing out. ... and leads us ... to project ourselves, our emotions."<ref>{{cite book |title=Kubrick's Cinema Odyssey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9zn8DwAAQBAJ |last=Chion |first=Michel |author-link=Michel Chion |year=2019 |orig-year=2001 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing]] |___location=London |isbn=978-1-83871-665-3 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9zn8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA116 116] |access-date=2 January 2023 |archive-date=2 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102073842/https://books.google.com/books?id=9zn8DwAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}</ref>
===
Clarke indicated his preferred reading of the ending of ''2001'' as oriented toward the creation of "a new heaven" provided by the Star Child.<ref name="auto1" /> His view was corroborated in a posthumously released interview with Kubrick.<ref name="SF-20180706" /> Kubrick says that Bowman is elevated to a higher level of being that represents the next stage of human evolution. The film also conveys what some viewers have described as a sense of the [[sublime (philosophy)|sublime]] and [[numinous]].<ref name="Ebert" /> Ebert writes in his essay on ''2001'' in ''[[The Great Movies]]'':
[[File:2001child2.JPG|thumb|left|upright=1.09|The Star Child looking upon the Earth]]
{{blockquote|North's [rejected] score, which is available on a recording, is a good job of film composition, but would have been wrong for ''2001'' because, like all scores, it attempts to underline the action—to give us emotional cues. The classical music chosen by Kubrick exists outside the action. It uplifts. It wants to be sublime; it brings a seriousness and transcendence to the visuals.<ref name="Ebert" />}}
In a book on architecture, Gregory Caicco writes that ''Space Odyssey'' illustrates how the quest for space is motivated by two contradictory desires, a "desire for the sublime" characterised by a need to encounter something totally other than ourselves—"something numinous"—and the conflicting desire for a beauty that makes us feel no longer "lost in space", but at home.<ref>{{cite book |title=Architecture, ethics, and the personhood of place |last=Caicco |first=Gregory |year=2007 |publisher=UPNE |isbn=978-1-58465-653-1 |page=137}}</ref> Similarly, an article in ''The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy'', titled "Sense of Wonder", describes how ''2001'' creates a "numinous sense of wonder" by portraying a universe that inspires a sense of awe but that at the same time we feel we can understand.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Volume 2 |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |year=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-32952-4 |page=707}}</ref> Christopher Palmer wrote that "the sublime and the banal" coexist in the film, as it implies that to get into space, people had to suspend the "sense of wonder" that motivated them to explore it.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Christopher |last=Palmer |title=Big Dumb Objects in Science Fiction: Sublimity, Banality, and Modernity |journal=[[Extrapolation (journal)|Extrapolation]] |___location=Kent |date=Spring 2006 |volume=47 |issue=1 |page=103 |doi=10.3828/extr.2006.47.1.10 |issn=0014-5483}}</ref>
{{clear|left}}
===HAL's breakdown===
{{See also|Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey#HAL 9000}}
[[File:HAL9000 Case.svg|thumb|upright=0.45|One of HAL 9000's interfaces]]
The reasons for HAL's malfunction and subsequent malignant behaviour have elicited much discussion. He has been compared to [[Frankenstein's monster]]. In Clarke's novel, HAL malfunctions because it has been ordered to lie to the crew of ''Discovery'' and withhold confidential information from them, namely the confidentially programmed mission priority over expendable human life, despite being constructed for "the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment". This would not be addressed on film until the 1984 follow-up, ''[[2010: The Year We Make Contact]]''. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that HAL, as the supposedly perfect computer, is actually the most human of the characters.<ref name="Ebert" /> In an interview with Joseph Gelmis in 1969, Kubrick said that HAL "had an acute emotional crisis because he could not accept evidence of his own fallibility".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html |title=An Interview with Stanley Kubrick (1969) |first=Joseph |last=Gelmis |access-date=31 August 2010|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100419155630/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html|archive-date= 19 April 2010|url-status= live}}</ref>
===
Multiple allegorical interpretations of ''2001'' have been proposed. The symbolism of life and death can be seen through the final moments of the film, which are defined by the image of the "Star Child", an [[uterus|in utero]] foetus that draws on the work of [[Lennart Nilsson]].<ref name="Burgoot2006p339">{{cite book |last1=Burfoot |first1=Annette |chapter=The Fetal Voyager: Women in Modern Medical Visual Discourse |editor=Shteir, Ann |editor2=Lightman, Bernard |year=2006 |title=Figuring it out: science, gender, and visual culture |publisher=UPNE |isbn=978-1-58465-603-6 |page=339}}</ref> The Star Child signifies a "great new beginning",<ref name="Burgoot2006p339" /> and is depicted naked and ungirded but with its eyes wide open.<ref>{{cite book |last=Grant |first=Barry Keith |year=2010 |title=Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=978-0-8143-3457-7 |page=135}}</ref> Leonard F. Wheat sees ''2001'' as a multi-layered allegory, commenting simultaneously on [[Nietzsche]], Homer, and the relationship of man to machine.<ref>{{harvnb|Wheat|2000|p=3}}</ref> ''Rolling Stone'' reviewer Bob McClay sees the film as like a four-movement symphony, its story told with "deliberate realism".<ref>{{harvnb|Schwam|2010|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC&pg=PT210 210–213]}}</ref>
===Military satellites===
{{See also|Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey#Military nature of orbiting satellites|l1=Military nature of orbiting satellites}}
Kubrick originally planned a voice-over to reveal that the satellites seen after the prologue are nuclear weapons,<ref name="Walker pp181-182">{{harvnb|Walker|2000|pp=181–182}}</ref> and that the Star Child would detonate the weapons at the end of the film<ref>{{harvnb|Walker|2000|p=192}}</ref> but felt this would create associations with ''Dr. Strangelove'' and decided not to make it obvious that they were "war machines". A few weeks before the film's release, the US and Soviet governments had agreed not to put any nuclear [[Militarisation of space|weapons into outer space]].<ref name=Bizony /> In a book he wrote with Kubrick's assistance, Alexander Walker states that Kubrick eventually decided that nuclear weapons had "no place at all in the film's thematic development", being an "orbiting red herring" that would "merely have raised irrelevant questions to suggest this as a reality of the twenty-first century".<ref name="Walker pp181-182" />
Kubrick scholar [[Michel Ciment]], discussing Kubrick's attitude toward human aggression and instinct, observes: "The bone cast into the air by the ape (now become a man) is transformed at the other extreme of civilization, by one of those abrupt ellipses characteristic of the director, into a spacecraft on its way to the moon."<ref>{{harvnb|Ciment|1999|p=128}}</ref> In contrast to Ciment's reading of a cut to a serene "other extreme of civilization", science fiction novelist [[Robert J. Sawyer|Robert Sawyer]], in the Canadian documentary ''2001 and Beyond'', says he sees it as a cut from a bone to a nuclear weapons platform, explaining that "what we see is not how far we've leaped ahead, what we see is that today, '2001', and four million years ago on the African veldt, it's exactly the same—the power of mankind is the power of its weapons. It's a continuation, not a discontinuity in that jump."<ref name="beyond">{{cite video |people=Michael Lennick |date=7 January 2001 |title=2001 and Beyond |medium=television |publisher=Discovery Channel Canada |___location=Canada}}</ref>
==Influence==
{{See also|2001: A Space Odyssey in popular culture{{!}}''2001: A Space Odyssey'' in popular culture}}
''2001: A Space Odyssey'' is widely regarded as among the [[List of films considered the best|greatest and most influential films]].<ref name="NYT-20180510">{{cite news |last=Overbye |first=Dennis |author-link=Dennis Overbye |title='2001: A Space Odyssey' Is Still the 'Ultimate Trip' – The rerelease of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece encourages us to reflect again on where we're coming from and where we're going. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/science/2001-a-space-odyssey-kubrick.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180511122838/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/science/2001-a-space-odyssey-kubrick.html |date=10 May 2018 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=10 May 2018 |archive-date=11 May 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> It is considered one of the major artistic works of the 20th century, with many critics and filmmakers considering it Kubrick's masterpiece.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Parrett |first=Aaron |date=March 2008 |title=Review: ''Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays'' by Robert Kolker |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25475111 |journal=[[Science Fiction Studies]] |publisher=[[Science Fiction Studies|SF-TH Inc.]] |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=116–120 |doi=10.1525/sfs.35.1.0116 |jstor=25475111 |access-date=12 May 2022 |archive-date=27 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227181101/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25475111 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In the 1980s,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/movies/features/kubrick1987.htm |title=Stanley Kubrick, at a Distance |last=Rose |first=Lloyd |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=28 June 1987 |access-date=18 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104173552/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/movies/features/kubrick1987.htm|archive-date=4 November 2012|url-status=live}}</ref> critic [[David Denby]] compared Kubrick to the monolith from ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', calling him "a force of supernatural intelligence, appearing at great intervals amid high-pitched shrieks, who gives the world a violent kick up the next rung of the evolutionary ladder".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XBQi4cCEYNIC |last=Duncan |first=Paul |year=2003 |title=Stanley Kubrick: Visual Poet 1928–1999 |publisher=Taschen GmbH |isbn=978-3-8365-2775-0 |pages=10–11|access-date=18 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826091619/https://books.google.com/books?id=XBQi4cCEYNIC|archive-date=26 August 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> By the start of the 21st century, ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' had become recognised as among the best films ever made by such sources as the [[British Film Institute]] (BFI). ''[[The Village Voice]]'' ranked the film at number 11 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/specials/take/one/full_list.php3?category=10 |title=Take One: The First Annual Village Voice Film Critics' Poll |access-date=27 July 2006 |year=1999 |work=The Village Voice |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070826201343/http://www.villagevoice.com/specials/take/one/full_list.php3?category=10 |archive-date=26 August 2007}}</ref> In January 2002, the film was included on the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by the [[National Society of Film Critics]].<ref name=Carr81>{{Cite book |last=Carr |first=Jay |title=The A List: The National Society of Film Critics' 100 Essential Films |year=2002 |publisher=Da Capo Press |isbn=978-0-306-81096-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/alistnationalsoc00jayc/page/81 81] |url=https://archive.org/details/alistnationalsoc00jayc |url-access=registration|access-date=27 July 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=100 Essential Films by The National Society of Film Critics |url=https://www.filmsite.org/alist.html |website=filmsite.org|access-date=18 July 2021|archive-date=16 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210716022159/https://www.filmsite.org/alist.html|url-status=live}}</ref> ''Sight & Sound'' magazine ranked the film twelfth in its greatest films of all-time list in 1982,<ref>{{cite web |title=Sight & Sound Greatest Films Poll 1982 |url=https://www.listal.com/list/sight-sound-1982 |website=listal.com|access-date=24 February 2021|archive-date=3 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210603144147/https://www.listal.com/list/sight-sound-1982|url-status=live}}</ref> tenth in 1992 critics' poll of greatest films,<ref>{{cite web |title=Sight and Sound Poll 1992: Critics |publisher=[[California Institute of Technology]] |url=http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ejohnson/sight/1992_1.html |access-date=29 May 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150618053015/http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~ejohnson/sight/1992_1.html |archive-date=18 June 2015}}</ref> sixth in the top ten films of all time in its 2002,<ref name="S&S">{{cite news |title=Critics Top Ten Poll 2002 |work=[[Sight & Sound]] |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/critics.html |access-date=10 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020816030430/http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/poll/critics.html |archive-date=16 August 2002 |url-status=dead}}</ref> [[The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012#Critics' poll|2012]]<ref name="S&S2012">{{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6b9450a5/sightandsoundpoll2012 |title=Votes for ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968) |work=Sight & Sound |publisher=British Film Institute |access-date=24 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181201014125/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6b9450a5/sightandsoundpoll2012 |archive-date=1 December 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and [[The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2022#Critics' poll|2022]] critics' polls editions;<ref name="S&S2022">{{cite web |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/cefccdb2-b558-5623-9c17-72b4be7bd4c1/2001-a-space-odyssey |title=2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) |work=Sight & Sound |publisher=British Film Institute |access-date=2 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221201220301/https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/cefccdb2-b558-5623-9c17-72b4be7bd4c1/2001-a-space-odyssey |archive-date=1 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> it also tied for second and first place in the [[The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012#Directors' poll|magazine's 2012]]<ref name="S&S2012" /> and [[The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2022#Directors' poll|2022 directors' poll]].<ref name="S&S2022" /> The film was voted no. 43 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine ''[[Cahiers du cinéma]]'' in 2008.<ref name=":2">{{cite web |first=Ambrose |last=Heron |url=http://www.filmdetail.com/2008/11/23/cahiers-du-cinemas-100-greatest-films/ |title=Cahiers du cinéma's 100 Greatest Films |date=23 November 2008|access-date=18 July 2021|archive-date=16 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716224153/http://www.filmdetail.com/2008/11/23/cahiers-du-cinemas-100-greatest-films/|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2010, ''[[The Guardian]]'' named it "the best sci-fi and fantasy film of all time".<ref>{{cite news |title=2001: A Space Odessy: the best sci-fi and fantasy film of all time |first=Catherine |last=Shoard |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/21/space-odyssey-kubrick-science-fiction |newspaper=The Guardian |date=21 October 2010 |access-date=18 July 2021 |archive-date=18 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210718162911/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/21/space-odyssey-kubrick-science-fiction |url-status=live}}</ref> The film ranked 4th in [[BBC]]'s 2015 list of the 100 greatest American films.<ref>{{cite web |title=The 100 Greatest American Films |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150720-the-100-greatest-american-films |website=bbc |date=20 July 2015|access-date=24 February 2021|archive-date=14 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114132906/https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150720-the-100-greatest-american-films|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States [[Library of Congress]] and selected for preservation in the [[National Film Registry]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/film/registry_titles.php |title=National Film Registry |publisher=[[National Film Registry]] (National Film Preservation Board, [[Library of Congress]]) |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130328133050/http://www.loc.gov/film/registry_titles.php |archive-date=28 March 2013 |date=13 December 2011}}</ref> In 2010, it was named the greatest film of all time by ''[[The Moving Arts Film Journal]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Moving Arts Film Journal | TMA's 100 Greatest Films of All Time | web site |url=http://www.themovingarts.com/100-greatest-movies-of-all-time/ |access-date=3 February 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110106083521/http://www.themovingarts.com/100-greatest-movies-of-all-time/ |archive-date=6 January 2011 | url-status= usurped |date=13 November 2010}}</ref>
{{quote box|align=right|width=25em|Stanley Kubrick made the ultimate science-fiction movie and it is going to be very hard for someone to come along and make a better movie, as far as I'm concerned.{{nbsp}}... On a technical level, it [''[[Star Wars (film)|Star Wars]]''] can be compared, but personally I think that ''2001'' is far superior.|source= —George Lucas, 1977<ref>{{cite news |last1=Scanlon |first1=Paul |title='Star Wars' Success Surprised Even Its Creator |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/lexington-herald-leader-star-wars-succ/176627356/ |work=[[Lexington Herald-Leader]] |date=28 August 1977 |pages=E1, E8 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>}}
The influence of ''2001'' on subsequent filmmakers is considerable. [[Steven Spielberg]], [[George Lucas]], and others—including many special effects technicians—discuss the impact the film has had on them in a featurette titled ''Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The Legacy of 2001'', included in the 2007 DVD release of the film. Spielberg calls it his film generation's "big bang", while Lucas says it was "hugely inspirational", calling Kubrick "the filmmaker's filmmaker". Director [[Martin Scorsese]] has listed it as one of his favourite films of all time.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.miramax.com/subscript/scorseses-favorite-films |title=Scorsese's 12 favorite films |website=Miramax.com |date=29 March 2013 |access-date=9 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131226091025/http://www.miramax.com/subscript/scorseses-favorite-films |archive-date=26 December 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Sydney Pollack]] calls it "groundbreaking", and [[William Friedkin]] says ''2001'' is "the grandfather of all such films". At the 2007 Venice film festival, director [[Ridley Scott]] said he believed ''2001'' was the unbeatable film that in a sense killed the science fiction genre.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kazan |first=Casey |url=http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/ridley-scott-science-fiction-is-dead.html |title=Ridley Scott: 'After 2001 – A Space Odyssey, Science Fiction is Dead' |website=Dailygalaxy.com |date=10 July 2009 |access-date=22 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110321121445/http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/ridley-scott-science-fiction-is-dead.html |archive-date=21 March 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Similarly, film critic Michel Ciment in his essay "Odyssey of Stanley Kubrick" wrote, "Kubrick has conceived a film which in one stroke has made the whole science fiction cinema obsolete."<ref>{{cite book|editor-first=William |editor-last=Johnson |title=Focus on the Science Fiction Film |url=https://archive.org/details/focusonsciencefi00john |url-access=registration |___location=Englewood Cliffs, N.J. |publisher=Prentice-Hall |date=1972 |chapter=Odyssey of Stanley Kubrick |first=Michel |last=Ciment |isbn=978-0-13-795179-6}}</ref>
Others credit ''2001'' with opening up a market for films such as ''[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]'', ''[[Alien (film)|Alien]]'', ''[[Blade Runner]]'', ''[[Contact (1997 American film)|Contact]]'', and ''[[Interstellar (film)|Interstellar]]'', proving that big-budget "serious" science-fiction films can be commercially successful, and establishing the "sci-fi blockbuster" as a Hollywood staple.<ref>{{cite web |first=George D. |last=DeMet |url=http://www.palantir.net/2001/meanings/essay09.html |work=The 2001 Archive |title=The Search for Meaning in 2001 |access-date=22 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110426050647/http://www.palantir.net/2001/meanings/essay09.html |archive-date=26 April 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref> Science magazine ''Discover''{{'}}s blogger Stephen Cass, discussing the film's considerable impact on subsequent science fiction, writes that "the balletic spacecraft scenes set to sweeping classical music, the tarantula-soft tones of HAL 9000 and the ultimate alien artefact, the monolith, have all become enduring cultural icons in their own right."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2009/04/02/this-day-in-science-fiction-history-2001-a-space-odyssey/ |title=This Day in Science Fiction History – 2001: A Space Odyssey | Discover Magazine |work=Blogs.discovermagazine.com |date=2 April 2009 |access-date=22 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100328142257/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2009/04/02/this-day-in-science-fiction-history-2001-a-space-odyssey/ |archive-date=28 March 2010 |url-status=live}}</ref> Trumbull said that when working on ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture]]'' he made a scene without dialogue because of "something I really learned with Kubrick and ''2001'': Stop talking for a while, and let it all flow".<ref name="tifftrumbull">{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHjLsvEOeS0 |title=DOUGLAS TRUMBULL – Lighting the Enterprise – Star Trek |date=27 October 2016 |type=[[YouTube]] |publisher=[[Toronto International Film Festival]] |access-date=20 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200130065111/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHjLsvEOeS0 |archive-date=30 January 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>
Kubrick did not envision a sequel. Fearing the potential exploitation and recycling of his material in other productions (as was done with the props from MGM's ''Forbidden Planet''), he ordered all sets, props, miniatures, production blueprints, and prints of unused scenes destroyed.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Making of "2010: The Year We Make Contact" |website=[[YouTube]] |date=6 November 2020 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHpCeBQ5Xug&t=189s |access-date=22 March 2024 |archive-date=22 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240322213834/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHpCeBQ5Xug&t=189s |url-status=live}}</ref> Most of these materials were lost, with some exceptions: a ''2001'' spacesuit backpack appeared in the "Close Up" episode of the [[Gerry Anderson]] series ''[[UFO (British TV series)|UFO]]'' and one of HAL's eyepieces is in the possession of the author of ''Hal's Legacy'', David G. Stork.<ref name="Bizony">{{harvnb|Bizony|2001|p=151}}</ref><ref name="2010featurette">{{cite video |year=1984 |title=2010: The Odyssey Continues |medium=DVD |publisher=ZM Productions/MGM |people=Mark Stetson (model shop supervisor) |access-date=31 August 2007 |url=http://imdb.com/title/tt0235153/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070824064532/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0235153/ |archive-date=24 August 2007 | url-status= dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.starshipmodeler.com/2001/2001int.htm |title=Starship Modeler: Modeling 2001 and 2010 Spacecraft |newspaper=Starship Modeler |access-date=26 September 2006 |date=19 October 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060820130341/http://www.starshipmodeler.com/2001/2001int.htm |archive-date=20 August 2006 | url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bentley |first=Chris |title=The Complete Gerry Anderson: The Authorised Episode Guide |edition=4th |publisher=Reynolds and Hearn |year=2008 |___location=London |isbn=978-1-905287-74-1}}</ref> In March 2015, a model of the Aries 1B Trans-Lunar Space Shuttle used in the film was sold at auction for $344,000 in the United States.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-academy-space-odyssey-museum-20150329-story.html |title=The $344,000 movie item: Academy buys ship from Kubrick's '2001' |work=Los Angeles Times |date=29 March 2015 |access-date=2 April 2024 |first=Saba |last=Hamedy |archive-date=2 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240402161144/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-academy-space-odyssey-museum-20150329-story.html |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2012, Lockheed engineer Adam Johnson, working with [[Frederick I. Ordway III]], science adviser to Kubrick, wrote the book ''2001: The Lost Science'', which for the first time featured many of the blueprints of the spacecraft and film sets that previously had been thought destroyed. Clarke wrote three sequel novels: ''[[2010: Odyssey Two]]'' (1982), ''[[2061: Odyssey Three]]'' (1987), and ''[[3001: The Final Odyssey]]'' (1997). The only filmed sequel, ''2010: The Year We Make Contact'', released in 1984, was based on Clarke's 1982 novel. Kubrick was not involved; it was directed as a spin-off by [[Peter Hyams]] in a more conventional style. The other two novels have not been adapted for the screen, although actor [[Tom Hanks]] in June 1999 expressed a passing interest in possible adaptations.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/preview/1808402810 |title=3001: The Final Odyssey |work=Yahoo! Movies |date=November 2002 |access-date=17 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013214251/http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/preview/1808402810 |archive-date=13 October 2007 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Jack Kirby]], who created the [[2001: A Space Odyssey (comics)|comic book adaptation]] of the original film, followed it up with his own ten issue sequel series starting in 1976.<ref>{{cite journal|last= Lantz|first= James Heath|title= A Monolith in Comics: A Look at Jack Kirby's Adaptation of ''2001: A Space Odyssey''|journal= [[Back Issue!]]|issue= 89|pages= 47–51|publisher= TwoMorrows Publishing|date= July 2016|___location= Raleigh, North Carolina}}</ref>
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the film's release, an exhibit called "The Barmecide Feast" opened on 8 April 2018, in the Smithsonian Institution's [[National Air and Space Museum]]. The exhibit features a fully realised, full-scale reflection of the neo-classical hotel room from the film's penultimate scene.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/2001-space-odyssey-immersive-art-exhibit |title=2001: A Space Odyssey Immersive Art Exhibit |date=3 April 2018 |website=aiandspace.si.edu|access-date=8 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180408083337/https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/2001-space-odyssey-immersive-art-exhibit|archive-date=8 April 2018|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2001-a-space-odyssey-movie-50th-anniversary/ |title=Smithsonian celebrates 50th anniversary of '2001: A Space Odyssey' |work=CBS News |date=6 April 2018 |access-date=8 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180406182627/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2001-a-space-odyssey-movie-50th-anniversary/|archive-date=6 April 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> Director [[Christopher Nolan]] presented a 70 mm print of ''2001'' for the film's 50th anniversary at the [[2018 Cannes Film Festival]] on 12 May.<ref name="NYT-20180511" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Cannes Classics to celebrate the 50th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/infos-communiques/communique/articles/cannes-classics-to-celebrate-the-50th-anniversary-of-2001-a-space-odyssey |website=Festival de Cannes |date=28 March 2018 |access-date=8 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180405153759/http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/infos-communiques/communique/articles/cannes-classics-to-celebrate-the-50th-anniversary-of-2001-a-space-odyssey|archive-date=5 April 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> The new 70 mm print is a photochemical recreation made from the original camera negative, for the first time since the film's original theatrical run.<ref name="AT-20180721" /><ref>{{cite news |url=https://deadline.com/2018/03/christopher-nolan-cannes-stanley-kubrick-space-odyssey-2001-1202354670/ |title=Cannes: Christopher Nolan To Present 70 mm Print Of Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' |first=Andreas |last=Wiseman |magazine=[[Deadline Hollywood]] |date=28 March 2018 |access-date=28 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180328172210/http://deadline.com/2018/03/christopher-nolan-cannes-stanley-kubrick-space-odyssey-2001-1202354670/|archive-date=28 March 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> Further, an exhibit entitled "Envisioning 2001: Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey" presented at the [[Museum of the Moving Image]] in [[Astoria, Queens]], [[New York City]] opened in January 2020.<ref name="NYT-20200123">{{cite news |last=Kenigsberg |first=Ben |title=The Making of '2001: A Space Odyssey' Was as Far Out as the Movie – A jumble of memorabilia, storyboards and props, an exhibit illustrates the whirl of influences behind Stanley Kubrick's groundbreaking 1968 film. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/arts/design/kubrick-2001-museum-moving-image.html |date=23 January 2020 |work=[[the New York Times]] |access-date=25 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200124230345/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/arts/design/kubrick-2001-museum-moving-image.html |archive-date=24 January 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>
In July 2020, a silver space suit was sold at auction in Los Angeles for $370,000, exceeding its estimate of $200,000–300,000. Four layers of paint indicate it was used in multiple scenes, including the Clavius Moon base sequence. The helmet had been painted green at one stage, leading to a belief that it may have been worn during the scene where Bowman disconnects HAL 9000.<ref name="auction">{{cite web |title=Hollywood: Legends and Explorers, Lot 897 |url=https://www.julienslive.com/m/lot-details/index/catalog/353/lot/141578 |date=17 July 2020 |publisher=Julien's Auctions |access-date=23 July 2020|archive-date=13 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200713005204/https://www.julienslive.com/m/lot-details/index/catalog/353/lot/141578|url-status=live}}</ref>
Stanley Kubrick introduced Arthur C. Clarke to [[Joseph Campbell]]'s 1949 book ''[[The Hero with a Thousand Faces]]'' during the writing of ''2001: A Space Odyssey''. There are allegorical archetypal patterns of the "[[hero's journey]]" in this film. Clarke called Campbell's book "very stimulating" in a diary entry.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rice |first1=Julian |title=Kubrick's Story, Spielberg's Film |date=2017 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishing |page=252}}</ref>
==Home media==
The film has been released in numerous forms:
* In 1980, [[MGM/CBS Home Video]] released the film on [[VHS]] and [[Betamax]].<ref>{{cite magazine |year=1980 |title=MGM/CBS Home Video ad |magazine=Billboard |issue=22 November 1980 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mCQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT58 |access-date=20 April 2011|archive-date=14 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114041155/https://books.google.com/books?id=mCQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT58 |url-status=live}}</ref>
* In 1989, [[The Criterion Collection]] released a two-disc special [[LaserDisc]] edition with the transfer monitored by Kubrick himself.<ref>{{cite AV media |title=2001: A Space Odyssey |medium=Laserdisc |publisher=[[The Criterion Collection]]/[[Voyager Company|The Voyager Company]] |asin=B00417U8UU}}</ref>
* In 2008, [[Warner Home Video]] released the film on Blu-ray.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Top 10 DVDs and CDs of 2007 |url=https://www.soundandvision.com/content/top-10-dvds-and-cds-2007 |magazine=[[Sound & Vision (magazine)|Sound & Vision]] |issue=1–4 |publisher=Hachette Filipacchi Magazines |volume=73 |page=24 |date=2008|access-date=31 January 2023|archive-date=31 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230131233854/https://www.soundandvision.com/content/top-10-dvds-and-cds-2007|url-status=live}}</ref>
* In 2018, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment re-released it on Blu-ray and [[4K resolution|4K]] [[High-dynamic-range video|HDR]] on [[Ultra HD Blu-ray]], based on a [[8K resolution|8K]] scan of the original camera negative and audio remixed and remastered in [[DTS-HD Master Audio|DTS-HD MA 5.1]].<ref name="4k">{{cite web |last=Archer |first=John |title='2001: A Space Odyssey' 4K Blu-ray Review – A Monolithic Achievement |date=30 October 2018 |work=Forbes.com |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2018/10/30/2001-a-space-odyssey-4k-blu-ray-review-a-monolithic-achievement/ |access-date=28 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181115223750/https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2018/10/30/2001-a-space-odyssey-4k-blu-ray-review-a-monolithic-achievement/|archive-date=15 November 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>
==
The film was re-released in 1974, 1977, 1980<ref name=Hall /> and 1993.<ref name=93rr>{{cite magazine |magazine=[[Daily Variety]] |title='Turtles' Fans Shell Out |date=23 March 1993 |page=3 |last=Klady |first=Leonard}}</ref> In 2001, a restoration of the 70 mm version was screened at the Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, and the production was also reissued to selected film houses in North America, Europe and Asia.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2001/10/47432 |title=2001: A Re-Release Odyssey|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080501235218/http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2001/10/47432 |archive-date=1 May 2008 |magazine=Wired |last1=Silverman |first1=Jason}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1258465.stm |title=Press Reviews: 2001: A Space Odyssey|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141204195614/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1258465.stm |archive-date=4 December 2014 |work=BBC |date=4 April 2001}}</ref>
For the film's 50th anniversary, Warner Bros. struck new [[70 mm film|70 mm]] prints from printing elements made directly from the original film negative.<ref name="AT-20180721">{{cite web |last=Opaskar |first=Peter |title=2001 in 70 mm: Pod bay doors look better than ever, still won't open – Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi opus looks better than it has in decades. |url=https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/2001-in-70mm-luxuriate-in-variously-evolved-humans-going-places-eating-things/ |date=21 July 2018 |work=[[Ars Technica]] |access-date=21 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180721121446/https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/2001-in-70mm-luxuriate-in-variously-evolved-humans-going-places-eating-things/ |archive-date=21 July 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> This was done under the supervision of film director [[Christopher Nolan]], who has spoken of ''2001''{{'}}s influence on his career. Following a showing at the 2018 [[Cannes Film Festival]] introduced by Nolan, the film had a limited worldwide release at select 70 mm-equipped theatres in the summer of 2018,<ref name="NYT-20180511">{{cite news |last=Deb |first=Sopan |title=Christopher Nolan's Version of Vinyl: Unrestoring '2001' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/movies/2001-a-space-odyssey-christopher-nolan-cannes.html |date=11 May 2018 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=12 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180511212551/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/movies/2001-a-space-odyssey-christopher-nolan-cannes.html |archive-date=11 May 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-christopher-nolan-2001-20180503-story.html |title=Christopher Nolan returns Kubrick sci-fi masterpiece '2001: A Space Odyssey' to its original glory |first=Kenneth |last=Turan |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=11 May 2018 |date=3 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180510210339/http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-christopher-nolan-2001-20180503-story.html|archive-date=10 May 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> followed by a one-week run in North American [[IMAX]] theatres (including five locations equipped with 70 mm IMAX projectors).<ref>{{cite web |title=Experience Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' in IMAX for the First Time |url=https://www.imax.com/News/2001-A-Space-Odyssey-in-IMAX |website=[[IMAX]] |date=31 July 2018 |access-date=5 September 2018 |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180906215816/https://www.imax.com/News/2001-A-Space-Odyssey-in-IMAX |archive-date=6 September 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
On 3 December 2018, an [[Ultra-high-definition television|8K Ultra-high definition television]] version of the film was reported to have been broadcast in selected cinemas and shopping-mall demonstration stations in Japan.<ref name="VERGE-20181203">{{cite web |last=Byford |first=Sam |title=2001: A Space Odyssey's 8K TV broadcast doesn't quite go beyond the infinite |url=https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/12/3/18123433/2001-a-space-odyssey-8k-tv-nhk-japan |date=3 December 2018 |work=[[The Verge]] |access-date=3 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190327183647/https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/12/3/18123433/2001-a-space-odyssey-8k-tv-nhk-japan |archive-date=27 March 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>
==See also==
{{Portal|Film|1960s|Science fiction}}
* [[List of artificial intelligence films]]
* [[List of cult films]]
* [[List of films considered the best]]
* [[List of films featuring eclipses]]
* [[List of films featuring extraterrestrials]]
* [[List of films featuring space stations]]
* [[List of incomplete or partially lost films]]
* ''[[Voyage to the End of the Universe]]''
==Notes==
{{Notelist}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==
{{Refbegin|2}}
<!--Page numbers for books should not be placed here; they go in Harvnb templates within the article. -->
* {{cite book |editor-last=Agel |editor-first=Jerome |title=The Making of Kubrick's 2001 |url=https://archive.org/details/makingofkubricks00agel |url-access=registration |publisher=[[New American Library]] |year=1970 |___location=New York |isbn=0-451-07139-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Bizony |first=Piers |title=2001 Filming the Future |publisher=Sidgwick and Jackson |year=2001 |___location=London |isbn=1-85410-706-2}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Castle |editor-first=Alison |editor-link=Alison Castle |title=The Stanley Kubrick Archives |url=http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/books/film/new/facts/00301.htm |access-date=5 February 2007 |date=2005 |___location=Cologne |publisher=[[Taschen]] |isbn=978-3-8228-2284-5 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070707135608/http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/books/film/new/facts/00301.htm |archive-date=7 July 2007}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Block |editor1-first=Alex Ben |editor2-last=Wilson |editor2-first=Lucy Autrey |year=2010 |title=George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0-06-177889-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/georgelucassbloc00alex |access-date=6 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191218133047/https://archive.org/details/georgelucassbloc00alex |archive-date=18 December 2019 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |first1=James |last1=Chapman |first2=Nicholas J. |last2=Cull |title=Projecting Tomorrow: Science Fiction and Popular Cinema |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0jEIHfOErcsC&pg=PA97 |date=5 February 2013 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-1-78076-410-8 |access-date=20 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160128231433/https://books.google.com/books?id=0jEIHfOErcsC&pg=PA97 |archive-date=28 January 2016 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Ciment |first=Michel |author-link=Michel Ciment |title=Kubrick |publisher=Faber and Faber |orig-year=1980 |year=1999 |___location=New York |isbn=0-571-21108-9}}
* {{cite book |last=Clarke |first=Arthur C. |author-link=Arthur C. Clarke |title=The Lost Worlds of 2001 |publisher=Sidgwick and Jackson |year=1972 |___location=London |isbn=0-283-97903-8| title-link = The Lost Worlds of 2001}}
* {{cite book |last=Fiell |first=Charlotte |title=1,000 Chairs (Taschen 25) |publisher=Taschen |year=2005 |isbn=978-3-8228-4103-7}}
* {{cite book |last=Gelmis |first=Joseph |title=The Film Director As Superstar |url=https://archive.org/details/filmdirectorassu0000gelm |url-access=registration |publisher=Doubleday & Company |year=1970 |___location=New York}}
* {{cite book |last=Geduld |first=Carolyn |chapter=4. The Production: A Calendar |title=Filmguide to 2001: A Space Odyssey |url=https://archive.org/details/filmguideto2001s0000gedu |url-access=registration |year=1973 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-39305-0}}
* {{cite book |last=Hughes |first=David |title=The Complete Kubrick |publisher=Virgin Publishing Ltd. |year=2000 |___location=London |isbn=0-7535-0452-9}}
* {{cite book | editor-last = Kolker | editor-first = Robert |title=Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2006 |___location=New York |isbn=0-19-517453-4}}
* {{cite book |last=Krämer |first=Peter |date=2010 |title=2001: A Space Odyssey |series=BFI Film Classics |___location=London |publisher=British Film Institute}}
* {{cite book |last=LoBrutto |first=Vincent |title=Stanley Kubrick |url=https://archive.org/details/stanleykubrickbi00lobr |url-access=registration |publisher=Faber and Faber |___location=London |year=1998 |isbn=0-571-19393-5}}
* {{Cite book |last=McAleer |first=Neil |date=1992 |title=Arthur C. Clarke. The Authorized Biography |publisher=Contemporary Books |isbn=0-8092-4324-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LW5aAAAAMAAJ |access-date=14 January 2023 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114042914/https://books.google.com/books?id=LW5aAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |last=McAleer |first=Neil |date=1 April 2013 |title=Sir Arthur C. Clarke: Odyssey of a Visionary: A Biography |publisher=RosettaBooks |isbn=978-0-9848118-0-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pU8qAAAAQBAJ |access-date=9 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200718004858/https://books.google.com/books?id=pU8qAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover |archive-date=18 July 2020 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Monaco |first=Paul |year=2001 |title=The Sixties, 1960–69, History of American Cinema |publisher=University of California Press |___location=London }}
* {{cite book |last=Pina |first=Leslie A. |title=Herman Miller Office |publisher=Schiffer Publishing |year=2002 |___location=Pennsylvania, United States |isbn=978-0-7643-1650-0}}
* {{cite book |last=Richter |first=Daniel |title=Moonwatcher's Memoir: A Diary of 2001: A Space Odyssey |others=foreword by Arthur C. Clarke |publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers |year=2002 |___location=New York City |isbn=0-7867-1073-X |url=https://archive.org/details/moonwatchersmemo00rich}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Schwam |editor-first=Stephanie |others=Introduction by [[Jay Cocks]] |title=The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC |year=2010 |orig-year=2000 |publisher=[[Random House]] |___location=New York City |isbn=978-0-307-75760-9 |access-date=21 September 2020 |archive-date=14 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114041216/https://books.google.com/books?id=j_EmH_W4I7YC |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Walker |first=Alexander |title=Stanley Kubrick Directs |publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich |year=1971 |___location=New York |isbn=0-393-32119-3}}
* {{cite book |last=Walker |first=Alexander |title=Stanley Kubrick, director |publisher=W. W. Norton and Company |year=2000 |___location=New York |isbn=0-393-32119-3}} Note: This is a revised edition of {{harvnb|Walker|1971}}.
* {{cite book |last=Wheat |first=Leonard F. |title=Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2000 |___location=Lanham, MD |isbn=0-8108-3796-X}}
{{Refend}}
==Further
* {{cite book |ref=none |editor-last=Emme |editor-first=Eugene M. |editor-link=Eugene M. Emme |title=Science Fiction and Space Futures: Past and Present |series=AAS History Series |volume=5 |publisher=Univelt |year=1982 |___location=San Diego |isbn=0-87703-172-X}}
* {{cite book |ref=none |last=Frayling |first=Christopher |title=The 2001 File: Harry Lange and the Design of the Landmark Science Fiction Film |year=2015 |publisher=Reel Art Press |___location=London |isbn=978-0-9572610-2-0}}
* {{cite book |ref=none |last=Johnson |first=Adam |title=2001 The Lost Science |publisher=Apogee Prime |year=2012 |___location=Burlington Canada |isbn=978-1-926837-19-2}}
* {{cite book |ref=none |last=Johnson |first=Adam |title=2001 The Lost Science Volume 2 |publisher=Apogee Prime |year=2016 |___location=Burlington Canada |isbn=978-1-926837-35-2}}
* {{cite book |ref=none |last1=Mathijs |first1=Ernest |last2=Mendik |first2=Xavier |author-link1=Ernest Mathijs |author-link2=Xavier Mendik |chapter=''2001: A Space Odyssey'' |page=6 |chapter-url= |title=100 Cult Films |year=2011 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |___location=London |isbn=978-1-84457-571-8 |title-link=100 Cult Films}}{{dead link|date=June 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
* {{cite book |ref=none |last1=Ordway |first1=Frederick I |last2=Godwin |first2=Robert |author-link1=Frederick I. Ordway III |author-link2=Robert Godwin |title=2001: The Heritage & Legacy of the Space Odyssey |publisher=Apogee Prime |year=2014 |___location=Burlington Canada |isbn=978-1-926837-32-1}}
* {{cite news |ref=none |last=Shuldiner |first=Herbert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mykDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA62 |title=How They Filmed '2001: A Space Odyssey' |publisher=[[Bonnier Corporation]] |magazine=[[Popular Science]] |date=June 1968 |volume=192 |issue=6 |pages=62–67 |issn=0161-7370}}
* {{cite web |ref=none |last=Wigley |first=Samuel |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/2001-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick-influences |title=50 years of 2001: A Space Odyssey – 5 films that influenced Kubrick's giant leap for sci-fi |website=[[bfi.org.uk]] |date=28 March 2018 |access-date=14 January 2021}}
==External links==
{{Sister project links|auto=1|d=y|display=''2001: A Space Odyssey''}}
* [https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/2001.pdf ''2001: A Space Odyssey''] essay by James Verniere at [[National Film Registry]]
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=deq3xI8OmCkC ''2001: A Space Odyssey''] essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 {{ISBN|0826429777}}, pages 635–636
* {{IMDb title}}
* {{Rotten Tomatoes|2=2001: A Space Odyssey}}
* {{TCMDb title}}
* {{AFI film}}
* [http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/2001.html ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' Script on dailyscripts.com]
* [https://2001archive.org/ ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' Internet Resource Archive]
* [http://www.kubrick2001.com/ Kubrick ''2001: The Space Odyssey'' Explained]
* [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19970327/REVIEWS08/401010362/1023 Roger Ebert's Essay on ''2001''] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130407094155/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19970327%2FREVIEWS08%2F401010362%2F1023 |date=7 April 2013 }})
* [http://www.krusch.com/kubrick/kq.html The Alt.Movies.Kubrick FAQ] many observations on the meaning of ''2001''
* [http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/ The Kubrick Site] including many works on ''2001''
{{Spaceodyssey}}
{{Stanley Kubrick
{{Cinerama}}
{{Navboxes
|title = Awards for ''2001: A Space Odyssey''
|list =
{{Academy Award Best Visual Effects}}
{{David di Donatello Best Foreign Film}}
{{Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation 1958–1980}}
}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1968 films]]
[[Category:American science fiction adventure films]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:British science fiction adventure films]]
[[Category:Films about suspended animation]]
[[Category:American epic films]]
[[Category:Films about evolution]]
[[Category:1960s English-language films]]
[[Category:Films about artificial intelligence]]
[[Category:Films about astronauts]]
[[Category:Films about technological impact]]
[[Category:Existentialist films]]
[[Category:Films adapted into comics]]
[[Category:Films directed by Stanley Kubrick]]
[[Category:Films produced by Stanley Kubrick]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Stanley Kubrick]]
[[Category:Films set in prehistory]]
[[Category:Films set in 1999]]
[[Category:Films set in 2001]]
[[Category:Films set in the future]]
[[
[[Category:Films set on spacecraft]]
[[
[[Category:Films shot in Hertfordshire]]
[[Category:Films shot in the Outer Hebrides]]
[[Category:Films shot in Spain]]
[[Category:Films shot in Surrey]]
[[Category:Films shot in Utah]]
[[Category:Films that won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award]]
[[Category:Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation–winning works]]
[[Category:Jupiter in film]]
[[Category:Metaphysical fiction films]]
[[Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films]]
[[Category:Moon in film]]
[[Category:Prehistoric people in popular culture]]
[[Category:Films shot at Shepperton Studios]]
[[Category:Hard science fiction films]]
[[Category:American space adventure films]]
[[Category:IMAX films]]
[[Category:Saturn Award–winning films]]
[[Category:Space Odyssey]]
[[Category:United States National Film Registry films]]
[[Category:Films set in pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa]]
[[Category:Films shot at MGM-British Studios]]
[[Category:1960s American films]]
[[Category:1960s British films]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Arthur C. Clarke]]
[[Category:British epic films]]
[[Category:English-language science fiction films]]
[[Category:1968 science fiction films]]
| |||