Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #667 in VHS
• Released on: 2001-09-10
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Number of discs: 1
• Original language: English, Russian
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 141 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A daring experiment in unconventional narrative inspired by Arthur C Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", 2001: A Space Odyssey is a visual tone poem (barely 40 minutes of dialogue in a 139-minute film) that charts a phenomenal history of human evolution. When Stanley Kubrick recruited Clarke to collaborate on "the proverbial intelligent science fiction film", it's a safe bet neither the maverick auteur nor the great science fiction writer knew they would virtually redefine the parameters of the cinema experience with the result. From the dawn-of-man discovery of crude but deadly tools in the film's opening sequence to the journey of the spaceship Discovery and metaphysical birth of the "star child" at film's end, Kubrick's vision is meticulous and precise. In keeping with the director's underlying theme of dehumanisation by technology, the notorious, seemingly omniscient, computer HAL 9000 has more warmth and personality than the human astronauts it is supposedly serving. (The director also leaves the meaning of the black, rectangular alien monoliths open for discussion.) This theme, in part, is what makes 2001 a film like no other, though dated now that its post-millennial space exploration has proven optimistic compared to reality. Still, the film is timelessly provocative in its pioneering exploration of inner and outer-space consciousness. With spectacular, painstakingly authentic special effects that have stood the test of time, Kubrick's film is nothing less than a cinematic milestone--puzzling, provocative and perfect. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews

Unforgettable kaleidoscope
If you're going to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey at home, start by obtaining the largest screen available. Connect to it the daddy of all home cinema sound systems and a first rate DVD player (all will be revealed below.) Find a comfortable chair at some distance from your mega screen, close the curtains and dowse the light. Sit, hit Play on the remote and prepre to be engaged and enraptured for 2 hours and more.

Regular review readers will know I'm a huge fan of Kubrick, but from his oeuvre this is arguably the masterpiece. Why? Well, to begin with, remember Kubrik made 2001 in 1968. In other words, his dazzling foray into space preceded Armstrong's first step on the moon. And the result has been the template for most space adventures made since. Even Alien makes nods to 2001. Only Tartakovsky's original Solaris (not the inferior Soderbergh remake) comes close in terms of the sheer grandeur, but that film was made in 1970 and is at least partially derivative.

Next, view the epic scale, grandeur and timelessness, a quality possessed by very few cinematic productions. Although you could hardly imagine anything more different to his works, I'm quite sure Cecil B DeMille would have been delighted by 2001. Consider too how Kubrick has adopted an unhurried pace, yet never the film never lags. For example, there are only two relatively brief recognisible conversations in the first 40 minutes of this film, yet so much more has been communicated to you in the meantime. Less truly is more, and you need a huge screen to appreciate how Kubrick's majestic spacescape. Visually, this is an awesome experience, but would never have achieved the same effect without the pioneering use of classical music, notably Strauss waltzes and, famously, Also Sprach Zarathustra, married to the elegaic pictures of space craft floating gracefully around the solar system.

Then, consider the plot, based on Arthur C Clarke's novel. It's remarkably simple, furnished with few characters and sparing dialogue by Kubrick and Clarke's screenplay, yet always intriguing and enigmatic. Somehow one needs no more, and the relative space (no pun intended) allows each character and their motivations to mature and reflect on the situation in which they find themselves. The anti-hero is of course HAL9000, the eerily voiced malfunctioning supercomputer, but ultimately it is Keir Dullea's Bowman who is reborn in a strange but comforting home environmet after enduring a hypnotic, if not hallucinogenic kaleidoscope of images on his journey to Jupiter.

Make no mistake, this is a film you could not forget in a hurry, and you'll need to watch several times to appreciate its art. Shame the DVD package doesn't include any documentaries about this historic achievement, but there are some around if you look - that's worth seeing in its own right.

A BEATUIFUL FILM
2001: a Space Odyssey is without a doubt the most challenging and successful film by the late Stanley Kubrick. This is not a film that you watch in order to be entertained or amused. Instead it provides you with a banquet of food for thought, images that linger in the mind's eye long after the movie itself is over. It is a film that you could meditate on.

The film intentionally offers us more questions then it can answer, it is made to puzzle and mystify, but leaves the viewer nevertheless with a sense of awe and reverence (that is allowing that he has engaged himself in the process of viewing it, enjoyment of this film requires some effort on the viewers part) the questions that it does pose are large and ominous, concerning the genesis and destiny of the human race, it's ultimate place in the cosmic design and the existence or lack of some creative intelligence behind the structure of the universe itself.

The first of the films Four Quartets gives us a distinct view of the species past. We see our distant ancestors, half-ape half human, in a state of near starvation. The climate has destroyed most of the plant life and the vegetarian beasts are near starvation. An extra-terestial object, a perfectly smooth and angular black monolith, appears and the animals are simultaneously inspired by it's presence to tool-making and violence. They are transformed overnight into carnevores, and when two tribes encounter each other near a water source, the tribe that has developed tool making capacity, as well as beligerence, soundly destroys the neighboring tribe. The new chief of the winning tribe, empowered by the first vestiges of technology triumphantly throws the bone that he used as a weapon in the air. We see the bone transformed into a floating satellite, which contains nuclear weapons. We soon learn that the world is torn apart by nuclear paranoia. The characteristics inspired by the monument's appearance that once helped us to survive now threaten our very existence.

Once again humanity is in crisis, once again the unearthly presence represented by the black monolith will step in to aid humanity in the next step in it's development. On an exploration of the Moon a monolith identical to the earlier one we have seen is discovered. The governments of the world, normally mortal enemies, have come together in secret to discuss the implications. A mission is arranged. the monument has been engaged in some kind of radio communication with Jupiter. A few men will travel to the destination of the transmission. Most of them will, for most of the time, be kept in a state of suspended animation. The pilot of the spacecraft will be HAL a super computer who has been programmed to imitate all of the traits of human beings.

The film has many outstanding sequences. As usual for Kubrick the use of classical music is outstanding. Most memorable are "Blue Danube" and "Also Spake Zarathustra" (particularly appropriate given the film's theme of transcending ordinary consciousness.) The cinematography is particularly excellent as well, after a single viewing the film's final 30 minutes will haunt you for the rest of your life.

The character of HAL is the most important from the view of the film's central thesis. In imitating all the characteristics of human beings he comes to have their negative traits as well. The paranoia he develops which almost leads to the mission' s ruin is an exact mirror of the paranoia that has allowed the political situation back on earth to reach a point of desperate crisis. The film suggests that these are the traits that we must leave behind if we are to proceed to the next phase in our evolution.

The architecture of the film is also meaningful. The designs of many of the spacecraft are intended to suggest reproductive organs and the process of birth and rebirth, the central motif of the movie. The ending of 2001 is the most spectacular and triumphant ever filmed.

This movie takes a view of life similar to that presented in the poetry of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce's novel Finnegan's Wake. It posits a pattern to history and human evolution that is cyclic, yet progressive, repeating the same events at large intervals, yet with the human race as developing according to the will of a being with a larger purpose in mind. Though we never learn what this purpose is, the film assures us that the human race is not meant for failure, it's destiny is grand beyond it's capacity to imagine. It continues to amaze me that in spite of this film many people continue to regard Kubrick as a misanthrope.

This is a religious film, not in the conventional sense of adhering to any specific creed, but because of it's invocation of wonder at the vast panorama of existence and it's involvement with the deepest and most vital questions of purpose and truth.

In the hands of any other director, this would all be perhaps a little too much. Hollywood's view of life is too puny, usually to encompass the grandeur and intensity of a vision such as this one. But Kubrick was a visionary, he directs with utter confidence, not only that he can handle material of this kind, but that he is the only one to do it. The process of making this film used all of his creative resources. The writing partnership with Arthur C Clarke is the most fruitful in cinematic history. Kubrick had to invent some of the special effects that were used in the movie's astounding climax. The resources to bring his vision to life did not exist at the time, so he brought them into existence.

2001 is a absolutely unique movie experience. Those who miss out on it do so at the detriment of their own intellectual and imaginative capacities.

Perfect
There is a hypnotic quality to this film which glues me to my seat. The image is absolutely still, as though Kubrick sank his cameras into concrete. Maybe he did. The story unfolds slowly and brings up many issues. It is not often one recognises that aliens could land in front of our TV cameras and completely unsettle humanity. The subject of this film is what might happen if a Government found evidence of alien life first. How would it deal with the evidence and in what ways might it try to protect the public?

Sadly there is no substitute for viewing this on the big screen and sometimes it is screened on the south bank in London. Even in blue ray on a 60" plasma screen you don't feel that amazing sense of actually being in space which Kubrick provided to cinemagoers in 1968. Although the movie does tend to confuse I think it confuses effectively and intelligently. We do not know why our planet exists or where we fit into our giant universe. When the tiny minds of mankind's leaders try to get to grips with evidence of life elsewhere, why shouldn't there be chaos.

The fabulous computer, the extraordinary sets and the cold, even performances conspire to real excellence, although Kubrick himself often referred to himself as a con artist: 'I've still got them all fooled.'