2001: A Space Odyssey

A cult classic in every respect. It is one of those movies that one just has to have watched, because “it’s just the thing to do”. Everyone knows the name, and everyone knows the scene with “some monolith thing”. So it draws you to watch it, even if it’s just to see what all the fuss is about. When watching the movie though, there may be different responses and interpretations made, depending on the viewer. There is a human aspect and one can follow the ups and downs of the characters. This will appeal to people of an artistic inclination. On the other hand, I know a few technical types that couldnt care less about the storyline, but can spend hours discussing all the engineering involved and how accurate tome of the technology portrayals were, for the time.

Ok so we’ve established that it’s a great science fiction flick with a good storyline. And, most people would be happy with that. This brings out the absolute genius of Kubrick’s ability to subtly lace an “elephant in the room” into a somewhat mundane portrayal of “some random dude on a space station”. The movie opens up areas that would be considered a taboo area for most scientists, if it was’nt fiction. This is probably something that Carl Sagan could have done, in order to get his personal opinions out without needing to have to worry about detracting from his career constraints.