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Why do people say 2001: A Space Odyssey is boring?
- Thread starter mattiewheels
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mattiewheels
And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
"Nothing happens" is something I see every time when this movie is discussed. I must be watching a different movie, there's a pretty strong plot.
Fair enough, so you're big on visual imagery. I can relate. I'm also profoundly affected by scenes like this:
However, visuals does not a "great sci fi movie" make. A good movie, yes, and a showcase of the power of well executed cinematography, but "sci-fi", at least to me, means the exploration of ideas and their logical consequences. Like going through the procedures of a scientific experiment or the expansion of a mathematical equation. I do not consider space babies to be a reasonable result of space flight. At the very least, there should be many more intervening steps to go from space-capable humans to transcendence, which is why I consider the movie's ending abrupt and nonsensical. It is the antithesis of why I enjoy sci-fi in the first place.
Garden of Words by Makoto Shinkai said:
However, visuals does not a "great sci fi movie" make. A good movie, yes, and a showcase of the power of well executed cinematography, but "sci-fi", at least to me, means the exploration of ideas and their logical consequences. Like going through the procedures of a scientific experiment or the expansion of a mathematical equation. I do not consider space babies to be a reasonable result of space flight. At the very least, there should be many more intervening steps to go from space-capable humans to transcendence, which is why I consider the movie's ending abrupt and nonsensical. It is the antithesis of why I enjoy sci-fi in the first place.
The bit with the monkeys goes on for far too long. The rest of it is fine though.
It's not a fucking Ron Howard movie, this isn't Apollo 13 starring Tom Hanks. What exactly is your interpretation of what happens in the movie?
I have none. Stuff happens. I guess AIs are bad? And humanity is violent.
The fact that I cannot really form a coherent summary of the movie in my head is one of the reasons why I'm dissatisfied with it in the first place.
It's a movie about evolution and humanity. If it's not something you enjoy, that's fine, but I don't understand how you can suggest there's nothing going on at all.
Could you explain what you mean by "about evolution"? Because I'm not really seeing it. Yes, it shows snapshots of proto-humans, space-faring humans and transcendent humans. But this is not evolution. Evolution is a slow, gradual process whereby organisms adapt and overcome obstacles in their environment through arduous, random trial and error. How the hell does Dave turning into a star child say anything substantial about evolution?
If I recall correctly, the monoliths in the movies are "responsible" for the accelerated evolution of humans into a space faring species. But this isn't evolution at all, at least, not any natural form of evolution. It implies the existence of a higher power that's guiding humanity, closer to intelligent design than traditional evolution.
Which is honestly not that far of a stretch considering Clarke's other works, Childhood's End in particular.
2001 has a lot of fantastic scenes and a few dreadful ones. Pretty much everything on the Discovery is good because the slowness creates a tension, and that tension is what makes interactions between HAL and the crew so dramatic. You've got these people who are supposed to be friends at the beginning, yet their banter is slow and you can tell that they don't completely trust each other. It makes them feel inhuman (Except HAL, who obviously already isn't human). Same with the scene where the research team drives off to the Monolith; it's classic horror because you get the distinct feeling that something is wrong with how the shot isn't zooming in, how it's just fixed on these men from a far distance for an extended period of time. You begin to wonder what is wrong, what the Monolith is doing, what those wailing sounds indicate, while all the while these guys are just standing their and snapping photos without a clue that something is up.
On the other hand, the psychadelic sequence and the moon landing are drawn out for too long. The moon landing is not meant to be tense thanks to the music, so it just feels boring; in fact, it's so boring, I've seen a fan actually tell me that it's supposed to be boring to communicate how common and mundane space travel has become, and that could very well be the case. My problem with such an explanation is that it still doesn't change the fact that I'm watching something as exciting as sitting in an actual airplane and staring at the back of the chair in front of me. The rainbow lights at the end are bad for a different reason: They don't really mean anything. Oh sure, they're bright to show how painful to Dave's psyche it is to go beyond the infinite, and they're long so that we can feel his torture. The problem is, there's nothing else to them. Stanley Kubrick is basically asking us to stare at a bunch of obnoxiously bright visuals just to make our eyes hurt and our patience falter.
On the other hand, the psychadelic sequence and the moon landing are drawn out for too long. The moon landing is not meant to be tense thanks to the music, so it just feels boring; in fact, it's so boring, I've seen a fan actually tell me that it's supposed to be boring to communicate how common and mundane space travel has become, and that could very well be the case. My problem with such an explanation is that it still doesn't change the fact that I'm watching something as exciting as sitting in an actual airplane and staring at the back of the chair in front of me. The rainbow lights at the end are bad for a different reason: They don't really mean anything. Oh sure, they're bright to show how painful to Dave's psyche it is to go beyond the infinite, and they're long so that we can feel his torture. The problem is, there's nothing else to them. Stanley Kubrick is basically asking us to stare at a bunch of obnoxiously bright visuals just to make our eyes hurt and our patience falter.
There is an intentional degree of ambiguity in the symbolism in the film. The monolith could be interpreted as an Alien form, a godlike deity, or a simply visual metaphor for evolution. I think if you are trying to read the symbolism literally, i.e. Clarke and Kubrick were explicitly trying to convey the objective origin of life, than you are sort of missing the point. No one knows the answers to those questions, are existence and our evolutionary progress are beyond our comprehension. That is why I feel the esoteric ending is justified, it is not a bunch of arbitrary symbolism but a cinematic way of expressing the mysteries of humanity and the universe.
It's easily one of my all time favorite films and Kubrick is a huge influence for me. But yeah, I completely understand why anyone would find it boring. It's very slowly paced, which I love, and doesn't focus on traditional character development. Plus most don't understand or care how ground breaking it was at the time and how it influenced so many directors, writers, storytellers, etc. Kubrick seemed to be more of an artist's artist.
2 of those interpretations are definitely anti-science, so in order for 2001 to still qualify as a "great sci fi movie", then it must be the third. To which I ask, what is the evolutionary goal of Star Children? It seems like totally arbitrary "endgame" for humanity.
This reads like a cop-out. "No one can understand it, that's the whole point". This is the exact opposite of what science is about, which is the understanding of our universe, humans included.
Then it's a conclusion I disagree with. This kind of thinking stems from an older tradition of science fiction where authors like Clarke tried to mystify reality with scale and grandiosity, portraying life as an unknowable enigma.
It was interesting when I was younger but these days I look for something more substantial in terms of complexity of thought. It's not merely enough for a story to be "complex", but for the complexity to have its own deliberate internal logic. I don't want ineffable mysteries, I want well crafted machines.
That is what I consider to be the mark of a true sci-fi writer. Not pseudo-science bordering on the fantastic.
ComputerMKII
Banned
Because I've watched it.
Amen.
angular graphics
Banned
Precisely.
The Matrix sequels and especially Revolutions are a perfect modern example of such an effort.
Not that the movies weren't without their faults but when they are often criticized for being idea-less and "talky..talky.." (from the critics commentary track) because they expect of you to do some work on your own, eh, I am irked because it's a plain incorrect judgment.
curlyfriski
Banned
This is an extremely limited vision of sci-fi, and sounds like horrible cinema to boot. You're totally ignoring the "fiction" part of the term.
"Evolution" does not mean "biological evolution."
The movie isn't slow, it's paced. It's charged, it's building up to literal mind bending ecstasy and then enlightenment. So you need patience. No action missiles or alien queens or dramatic faces set to music. Just the story of what happened that even outdoes the book.
It's like church. Any ritual takes time. Otherwise you have everything happening all at once all the time, and we're not ready for that on our small human plane, within our linear existence.
It's like church. Any ritual takes time. Otherwise you have everything happening all at once all the time, and we're not ready for that on our small human plane, within our linear existence.
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
It's not that no one can understand it, it's that they want you to make your own interpretation based on what's given. I think you're too hung up on it being science fact.
But most sci-fi has fantastical elements and so what if it does? It's the author's vision, why is it so hard to take it as such? But whatever, you don't have to like it.
There are plenty of essays out there detailing the film better if you're not satisfied by what has been discussed here.
Sounds like you're boycotting the possible appreciation of something because of how you think it should be instead of how it is.
I've only seen it once and absolutely loved it. One of the best movies I've ever seen.
Makes me sad that this type of movie-making isn't more popular, as I'd love to see more of it. Looking forward to Gravity!
I greatly prefer sci-fi that doesn't get all nitty gritty in details and lore and such.
Makes me sad that this type of movie-making isn't more popular, as I'd love to see more of it. Looking forward to Gravity!
I greatly prefer sci-fi that doesn't get all nitty gritty in details and lore and such.
Gettysburger
Member
I find it boring because I'm not patient enough to appreciate the buildup.
This guy puts really plain and simple for everyone to understand. A picture is worth a thousand words and Kubrick had a lot to say.
umop_3pisdn
Member
The monoliths work fine. I mean science is pretty weird sometimes, apparently minor genetic mutations sometimes result in huge differences which I think is the supposed basis for speciation. I understand this like most people would, in an extremely vague and conceptual way. 'Emergent properties' is another one of those weird (though philosophical not scientific) ideas that fills an explanatory niche for how something can suddenly take on a new order of properties and in many ways it's a pretty baffling idea, these concepts are generally pretty remote to the person that knows of them. They serve a purpose, and maybe inform our perspectives or something, but they're in no way at the fore. The monoliths and the conclusion of 2001 are a perfectly competent device for grasping at a similar sort of thing. They do what they do, which is serve as a sort of explanatory basis for what is going on, and they're not at the fore they're just devices to get you to consider the larger and admittedly more nebulous implications. It's like the traditions of 'mysticism', that is using the faculties of the imagination to try to approach an understanding on things which are unknowable. The fact that the imagination is the only tool we can use points to the limitations of this kind of inquiry, we can never know if we can approach it in any meaningful way and you're denied any kind of grounded inference, but you get to consider things you couldn't otherwise.
With you there. Although while 2001 is unconventional sci-fi, I'd say the fantasy genre suffers from this more.
Maybe gaming has brought that out but those 47 letter-named villages next to the other 32 similarly-named villages populated by 17 tribes of whatever-the-fuck literally make me sell/trade a game.
I just don't care, and when remembering that knowledge becomes part of the gameplay...
What sci-fi movies aside from Inception (which was about awful exposition and non-world building), have a ton of lore? Dune? Maybe I'm drawing a blank but I don't see that genre being too affected by it often.
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
Yes, that's a great quality in any film. Audiences seem to need to be walked by the hand sometimes. Fucking sucks.
Lore is rarely story; it's so distracting. It takes the base idea and dilutes it into more ideas. As an audience, we want an idea or a concept - and we want to build on that.
I look at story like I do a leader. A leader stands out as a person like an idea does to a writer. They get put into their leadership like a good idea does with a story and they become the journey.
But what if that leader/idea isn't that great and another leader is brought alongside them to help? What if three more were brought in? Five? How does that affect the audience/the employees? Who do they follow? Why are they leading again? Towards what?
The point is, a poor leader is a poor idea. If you need more leaders, you need a better approach. If you need more ideas, you need a better foundation for your story.
I don't like this approach to storytelling, I'll just say it now. If I don't get the impression that storyteller had a clear goal in mind when telling their story then I won't really enjoy the story at all. I need some kind of objective standard to measure my interpretation against, otherwise what's the point? If any opinion I can have about a given work is as good as any other then I might as well not have an opinion at all.
It isn't hard to "take it as such". I understand the vision and I'm disagreeing with it vocally.
Do you appreciate every single work of art equally? Because whenever you levy a criticism against art you're pitting "how you think it should be" against "how it is".
Hardly. My favorite sci-fi films are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Fountain, both of which contain many elements of the fantastic. You CAN make a sci-fi moviel using elements of fantasy while still showing an appreciation for a concept or idea in science and extrapolating from that idea in a logical manner. If I could identify any core message in 2001, it's that humans need/should/will eventually abandon technology in favor of a spiritual ascendance of the soul, an idea so unscientific that I find it repulsive. And to think 2001 is lauded as one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time.
It's an irony that "cautionary science fiction", of the type of Asimov or Clarke are known for, is ultimately anti-technology and promoted a regression to a more simpler and spiritual state.
It's still a gradual refinement, whether it's biological, technological, cultural, philosophical and so on and so forth. There's nothing gradual about the various forms of evolution depicted in 2001.
Trent Strong
Banned
It's so boring it causes me physical pain to watch it.
Ding, fucking ding.
There were quite a few scenes that could have easily had the same impact in a smaller timeframe.
I do think you are being a bit rigid in discounting the film for not adhering to a completely scientific outlook. Keep in mind that Kubrick was not specifically a science fiction director, but had a body of work that was more philosophically orientated on the human condition. People do not admire the film for providing the equivalent of a scientific thesis on the theory of evolution. There are other themes explored, such as the manner in how we use technology and the effect it has on our humanity, the possibilities and implications of artificial intelligence, the role of violence in human behaviour, etc.
Kubrick did not provide scientific answers to these themes and to do so would be a cop out in my opinion. Instead, the slow pacing of the films encourages us to mediate on these mysteries. (I know we will always disagree on this one, I do not think that ambiguity is pseudo-intellectual and while I am not anti-science, I am wary of believing that science can explain everything about our existence. It comes with its own assumptions and ideologies).
If I were to create a personal list of "greatest sci fi stories of all time", I would probably not include what is really a philosophical treatise on the human condition. I have certain standards for science fiction and 2001 simply does not meet them.
That is okay. I'm not going to try to convince everyone here that 2001 is actually bad, just that I don't like it as a sci-fi story for my personal definition and expectations of sci-fi.
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
And that's fine, but it's not like the film is that open ended either.
The problem with doing that is that "how you think it should be" can differ greatly with what the maker intended, and you end up judging a film against unrealistic expectations. If it isn't trying to be fact, why should I dismiss it for not being that?
How did 2001: A Space Odyssey enlighten you?
I personally think the pacing is fucked, but that's probably because my favorite part of the film happens before the entire terrible nine minute stream of colors followed by a decent ending. "Beyond the infinite" isn't mindbending, it's a bunch of meaningless flash that goes on for too long. The transition to the house is nice and abrupt, but it's not like the aging and rebirth imagery there is some crazy new idea.
How is this hard to understand? I love 2001 but cmon man first 30 mins is like monkeys jumping around with music. Then its like SLOW SLOW SLOW walking around a space station. Most people are not going to sit there in awe of the visuals. Literally nothing happens for half the movie.
The only part that is not boring is the last 3rd where there is actually tension shit is going on. But most people would not be able to sit through that much of the movie.
The only part that is not boring is the last 3rd where there is actually tension shit is going on. But most people would not be able to sit through that much of the movie.
Would you mind listing them? Not because I want to attack your taste but because I am curious.
That's fine if you don't think it is proper science fiction, but I'll reiterate again that most people do not appreciate it for its rigid scientific perspective. It's more of a science-fiction setting to explore Kubrickian themes.
I consider being able to deal with slow paced scenes and movies but that space station scene dragged the fuck on and on and on.
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