The Movie
(This little editorial will assume that you have seen the movie so a warning of SPOILERS AHOY!)
First, let me say what every movie reviewer since 1984 has said a million times: this film is not the same as nor is it as good as it's prequel, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now let me say this: none of that matters. 2010 is a good movie in it's own right and a worthy sequel to one of the greatest films of all time. Yes, this is a more conventional science fiction film than 2001 and it is not as ambitious, but you know what? It's all the better for it. If any filmmaker tries to make a sequel to 2001 in the same style as Kubrick they would have failed utterly and probably embarrassed the shit out of themself in the process. Peter Hyams was wise not to even try to make a film like 2001 but instead just straight up adapt Arthur C. Clarke's novel (except for adding the whole subplot about the Cold War which wasn't in the original book. I guess America needs even the possibility of something blowing up in it's sci-fi movies post Star Wars. Thank you, George Lucas).
Almost everything about this movie is underrated. The story is actually quite good, if again more conventional than 2001. The acting is decent enough (and they actually got some real Russians to play some of the Soviet crew! In the EIGHTIES!). I quite enjoyed the music score (which employs the same "blaster beam" from Star Trek: The Motion Picture - another underrated film by the way). And the special effects match if not exceed those of the original which is no surprise considering that 2010's Richard Edlund like 2001's Douglas Trumbull is an FX God.
One thing that tickles me pink about 2010 is how faithful it tries to be to the original 2001 even if it doesn't try to match it in tone or execution. The fact that the filmmakers were able to accurately reconstruct the USS Discovery even though Stanley Kubrick had the original sets and models destroyed right after making his magnum opus (he probably had nightmares of Roger Corman stealing them) is a testament to the dedication and love that the film crew had for both this film and it's predecessor. Also the fact that they actually got Keir Dullea and Douglas Rain to reprise their roles as David Bowman and HAL. Any other hack director would have said, "You know what, fuck it. Get some look-alike actor and a cheap voice actor and let's make this puppy" but Peter Hyams knew that anything less than the originals wasn't going to do (he did recast the role of Heywood Floyd, though. Oh well - Roy Scheider was more interesting in the role anyway).
You know what strikes me the most about this movie though? How eerie it is. I remember being creeped out by this movie as a kid (Yes! Another movie from my childhood! I was an odd tyke). The scene where Heywood Floyd meets Dave Bowman, the imposing monolith, even the image of the sulfur covered Discovery tumbling in space over the volcanic hell-moon Io. This was probably the first movie to give me an idea of the vast emptiness and... cosmic deepness of space, and how cold and dangerous and truly breathtaking it is (or probably is. I've never been myself). Yes, 2001 was realistic with it's physics and astronomy and stuff too but that was made before the Voyager probes were launched it it was more of a space ballet and freak-out set to classical music anyway. 2010 makes you feel that you are watching an actual space flight to Jupiter....
Rant
....which hasn't happened yet. And probably never will. Confession: I cry when watching the opening bit of 2001: A Space Odyssey. No, not the part with the monkeys, the part with the space planes and the space station and stuff. The first reason I weep like a baby is Kubrick's gorgeous cinematic choreography and marriage of beautiful imagery with Strauss' Blue Danube. The other reason is because none of this has come to pass. When 2001 rolled around I was depressed because we weren't making regular trips to the moon or sending manned flights to Jupiter. And you know what? I get misty eyed while watching 2010 too. Not just because of the beautiful ending but also because none of this has fucking happened. Look, I'm glad we don't have the Soviet Union or the Cold War in the real 2010 (and actually having the US and USSR near DEFCON 1 status even in 1984 was a little bit of a stretch, considering that relations were thawing and Gorbechev was right around the corner). And to our credit, if you told someone from 1984 that in 2010 we would have a black president they would probably be shocked. Also on the plus side the San Fransisco Giants finally won a World Series. No one could have predicted the modern internet back then either (although Clarke and Hyams did correspond via early email). And where is Doctor Floyd's cell phone and flat-screen TV? But look at all the stuff we still don't have. True artificial intelligence in computers (although admittedly our PCs aren't trying to kill us, either. OR ARE THEY?). A massive space program. MANNED FLIGHTS TO JUPITER. Or Jupiter turning into a star - although I don't know if we would actually want that to happen as the ensuing supernova would kill all life in the solar system with massive radiation (one small scientific fact the Clarke overlooked - normally he was spot on with his science).
The biggest thing that sticks in my craw though is the whole space program thing. And the sad thing is that the future of 2001/2010 presented in 1984 when this movie came out was improbable even then. You see, when 2001 was released in 1968 there was actually some optimism about the space program with sci-fi writers and many thought that we just might make it to Jupiter by 2001. This was because NASA was progressing rapidly towards the moon landing and it could only go upward from there, right? Unfortunately what the scientists and sci-fi writers and filmmakers didn't count on was politicians and human pettiness. Or maybe they did. The sad truth us that the United States was never in the Space Race for scientific knowledge or to advance humanity or anything like that - no, we were in it to beat the Russkies to the moon, to affirm our superiority over Communism. Thus the Space RACE - and not a race to to the future of humanity either, just a race of pettiness between two superpowers who should have realized that having differing economic systems was not an adequate reason for pointing pants-shittingly frightening nuclear weapons at each other and competing with each other to see which one could get their rocket to the moon first in the ultimate game of "king of the hill." Well, America won that race and after about, oh, say 1975 our manned space program went right down the toilet. Oh, sure the Space Shuttle was a beacon of hope for a while - a reusable spacecraft! - and the ISS is a small step in the right direction but the shuttle fleet was used for way too long (and look at the tragic consequences of that) and the only way we can get to the International Space Station is to rely on the Russians (insert Edvard Munch scream here). So here we are in 2010 with basically no US manned space program. Oh, excuse me - for a while they were talking about going back to using capsules until they could think up something else... so we were effectively not just going to stop but go backward. Maybe we could all start wearing love-beads and go-go boots again too. The only thing left to NASA is basically the unmanned probes. And even they would probably stop getting launched if the politicians got their way. All of this really hurts too and should piss off more Americans - aren't we supposed to be a nation of progress, always being on the cutting edge of technology and leading the world in engineering and science? I guess the answer nowadays is yes only if were talking about making consumer toys and learning new ways to blow people up - the average American doesn't care about scientific progress as long as they have their reality TV and internet porn (made possible, oddly enough by science) while politicians and the military (which completely drives the aerospace industry today) care about science and engineering only enough to have them help to develop weapons systems to the point where we can accomplish the feat of allowing one US Navy aircraft carrier to single-handedly waste a third-world country. You know what? The horrible realization that dawns on me is that America's (and let's be fair, Russia's too) manned space program was a sham to begin with - simply another extension of nationalism and global power politics.
I know that this makes me sound bitter and disillusioned, and maybe that's just a little bit true. Only a little bit though. Every astronaut who has gone into space automatically earns my respect (I couldn't do it). Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn, Alexei Leonov, Neil Armstrong and countless other explorers are still timeless heroes in my eyes. And the engineers and flight controllers who applied their brain power to some of the most baffling problems to ever face humanity (and smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank a lot of coffee in the process) get my admiration for what they achieved. I just wish all their hard work and sacrifices had been for something that wasn't so... petty.
You now what my problem might be? I think maybe I'm naive. Maybe I expected the human race to actually undertake massive projects and exploratory undertakings like the space program for reasons other than greed or politics or whatnought. Maybe I expected humans to be more evolved than our ape ancestors and actually strive for something higher with a more altruistic and noble purpose.
Now I'm depressed. Where's a Monolith when you really need one?
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