WATCH ALONG: 2001: A space Odyssey

The monolith music intriguing me,at times I heard the voices say "Follow Me"..Frank won't be drifting in Jupiter orbit forever his remains will be discovered in 3001,HAL has sister named SAL..not kidding.

Celeste McAllister

If you're looking for another movie that goes well with jazz cigarettes, I'd recommend the 1981 animated film Heavy Metal.

Kevin Mowery

Love this movie. Glad you did too. It's definitely a "gotta be in the mood for it" kind of movie. The way I interpret it is the monolith is something from a higher dimension. Higher dimensional beings put these monoliths places where there might be life and lured them into their dimension, and I guess they just keep Dave in that weird room like a fish in an aquarium? Then there's a weird baby in space, naturally.

Joe Blankenship

H.A.L. take the next letters I.B.M.

Babe, I was already the biggest fan of you, but then "this is just for the watch-along friends *takes a hit*", I love you so much! I absolutely here for the planet facts, but I'll settle for a raincheck lmao!

Riley

I've seen plenty of reactions to 2001 and very few get this film as well as Ash. I hated it on my first watch because i thought it was slow and boring and not Star Wars. Now it's one of my favourite sci-fis. Very few films are this huge in scope, this cerebral and mind expanding. Also, it lets people understand the ending to one of the best ERBs. 😄

Opti_Frog

Whether it does or doesn't, every moody space movie will be accused of ripping off this one

Michael Tocci

😀 It's also my own way of telling my self to shut up, no one cares but you (me) lol

Michael Parker

Love when folks give a multi page soliloquy then afterwards say ‘long story short’. My brother always does that such n stuff.

ChickensAreRacist

The soundtrack is amazing and the stories aren't the same at all. It took inspiration, not the same as ripping it off.

Grune

So, I don't really 'geek out' about everything but when Kubrick films crash into my music composition degree I just can't help myself! So, here goes: First a few things to know: Music: There was an original score for this film that was written by composer Alex North (the same composer who worked with Kubric on his previous film “Sparticus”, but North had a bit of a breakdown trying to figure out what he wanted to do for the film (but the score was finally finished and can now be heard to re releases online) so Kubrick told his 19 year old assistant just before a big meeting with the big MGM brass to go out into LA and buy all the classical albums he could find and the first time MGM execs saw the film was with basically random classical tracks. It wasn’t until the editing process (and thanks to his wife and another friend) he discovered the music of: György Ligeti (the composer of the ‘creepy’ music both the ‘scary’ singers (Lux Aeterna, and Requiem for Soprano, two Mixed Choruses, and Orchestra) and his ‘Atmospheres’ for String Orchestra) that Kubrick felt he had found the ‘voice’ of his film. The center sequence or ACT II of the film uses the ‘Blue Danube Waltz’ by Johann Struass Jr. to be evocative of the ‘dance/waltz’ that the ships in space must do to join and create gravity etc.. Mix that along with the most iconic brass call in all of film, that of the opening planet sequence of Richard Strauss’ ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ (or in English ‘Thus Spoke God’ (which is also the title of a book by the philosopher Nietzsche, more on that…now!) Mixing of Philosophy, Science Fiction, and Music: The Music of Struass’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra’ takes it name (and its composition form) from the book of the same title as the book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, for Richard Strauss that ‘brass call’ you hear at the start of the film (and the musical work itself) is the ‘God Theme’ or the sound of God speaking. Now, the work itself mirrors the outline of the book which states that there are three forces at work in the universe at all times: Nature, Man, and God. Each, in turn, takes turns destroying the other. At the start, its a story of a being named ‘Zarathustra’ who goes through a series of events leading to the reasonable basic outline: Nature creates Man, Man creates God, Man destroys Nature, Man becomes God. Now, both Struass was the first and best loved composer of the Third Reich in Germany and his idea of the ‘Superman’ or ‘Man-God’ was exactly what they were looking for and in even the themes from his musical work ‘Death and Transfiguration’ the ‘love theme’ he creates goes on to be ‘ripped off’ by John Williams for his ‘Love Theme - If You Could Read My Mind’ from the soundtrack to the film ‘Superman’ from 1978. So in short, all this music was practically, perfectly, selected for the film Kubrick created about the philosophy of the nature of man, our relationship to nature, evolution, science fiction, the nature of the universe, both inner conscience as well as the expansive universal conscience and the forces that act and react upon it. In short, simply a brilliant film.

Michael Parker

eh, the soundtrack isn't as good and, frankly, its just a rip off of this one.

Michael Parker

Those animals with the apes in the beginning were Tapirs, not "ant eaters". While I have never cared for this Kubrick stroke fest, watching you watch, and being elevated along with you was quite fun!

Jill Peterson

Just wait until she says "dawn of man" and that credit shows on screen. That gets you real close.

Thomas Ivie

This movie never fails to bring a tear to my eye when I think about how we've evolved from our primal ancestors with crude tools to sending humans into space.

Thomas Ivie

Holy shit! What an incredible surprise! I freaking love this film.

Nick of Time

If you enjoyed this, I highly recommend Interstellar.

Drew