2010
Rather than teach ten thousand stars not to dance, it is better to learn the art of singing from one bird.
That was my response to those people who said they could not fathom “2001” that thought the picture made no sense and that it was just an exercise in self indulgence by Stanley Kubrick who led a man into space and left him abandoned in some alien hotel room. For me the poetry of “2001” lay exactly within its mystery; explaining everything ruined all for instance like a small child cut open his drum to see what makes it make noise.
This was back in the late 60s, when yuppies were still hippies and they saw this movie like twelve times and then climbed up front where they lay flat on their backs on the floor so that when the sound and light trip began in the second half of the film, it would flow over them and out through them so that they could stumble out muttering ‘far out’ to each other with hushed all male excitement.
Now comes “2010,” a Peter Hyams directed sequel of sorts to Kubrick’s work whose background is mainly pragmatic projects like Sean Connery’s outer space thriller ‘Outland’. The story is Arthur C. Clarke’s (honestly I suspect even he did not understand what Kubrick ultimately did with his ideas).” As such, “2010” might as well be an 80s moving picture: It does not have the poesy or enigma of its original counterpart but extends on its narrative while providing solid practical explanations for many of the bizarrely prophetic phenomena in “2001” which kept us arguing throughout 1968 night after night.
To put it succinctly we are referring here to a motion picture that tries to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. There were times when I almost wanted to cover my ears. Did I really want to know why HAL 9000 disobeyed Dave’s orders? or the real reason for the Discovery’s original mission? or what the monoliths were trying to tell us? Not exactly.
Nevertheless, this is a very practical age and they say each decade gets the movies it deserves. Therefore, in “2010” we do not witness an artistic triumph but a hardware oriented success story, with an abundance of special effects and fast paced, splendid filmmaking. This film owes more to George Lucas than Stanley Kubrick does; it is closer in spirit to Star Wars than Also Sprach Zarathustra. At least its ending is maddening for being both simple-minded and inadequate thus failing our expectations for wonderment born out of “2001”.
Yet I have something important to say: This movie is good. Once we have made it plain beyond all doubt that “2001” still stands head and shoulders above other films as one of the greatest ever made; once we stop comparing “2010” with Kubrick’s masterpiece; once this has been accomplished, what remains here is basically a beautiful looking, sharp edged fun filled exciting space opera one of those rare superior films among all Star Trek genre movies.
To begin with, “2010” is too much of a story oriented film to be described more than just the basic features: A joint Soviet American mission leaves for the moons of Jupiter to investigate what happened to the Discovery, its dead crew and HAL 9000. The American leader (Roy Scheider) and the Soviet captain (Helen Mirren) are at loggerheads while on board and it does not help when there is an imminent threat of nuclear war between superpowers over Central America back on Earth.
When Kubrick sometimes seemed like he was making animated characters in his movies, Hyams tilts a lot towards plot and character development. But only one of the best moments in his movie grows out of character (a touching moment where a Soviet and an American hold onto each other during an extreme crisis). The other great moments consist almost entirely of special effects: a space walk threatened by vertigo, Jupiter looming massively before us, while we take a spectacular flight through its upper atmosphere.
It is possible that ‘2010‘ ends in a very unsatisfying manner, especially to someone who still remembers the baffling grandeur with which Kubrick ended ‘2001’ by having Star Child look down on us. This sequel has its work cut out for it, then. And yet this screenplay reiterates again that “something wonderful” is approaching. After being told about that wonderful thing so many times now we expect something really wonderful but don’t get it. We are left with a disappointing Hollywood sci-fi wrap up straight from the fifties rather than sequel worthy of “2001.” Personally I was disappointed that the monoliths ever chose to talk to men at all let alone do it in English or communicate through video screens as per CNN’s last generation.
So. But you need some distinctions in your mind. On one hand “2001: A Space Odyssey“, remains inviolate, one of the few real masterpieces of cinema. In a more timely sense, “2010” stands as good entertainment, a movie more at home with technique than poetry, with character than mystery and hence explains too much and leaves too little to our wonderment but it is still good movie though. Yet I might sound less than enthusiastic because the eyes of “2001” star child are still upon me with their weighty gaze that one day man may learn to teach ten thousand stars how to sing.
Watch 2010 For Free On Solarmovies.