http://users2.ev1.net/~cinepixeldesign/Index/Trek/Trek~1.htm
So many missed cool things... =[
[ July 17, 2001: Message edited by: The Vorlon ]
At least we didn't see any "wierd fish."
I'd also like to say that, as far as exterior shots go, I prefer the cloud V'Ger over that fish V'Ger. But the interior sketches that guy had were pretty neat looking.
In a lot of ways, ST V is superior. Sure, the SFX are largely shit, and the plot makes no sense. But, at it's corse, that film is about 3 friends, wheras TMP is about SFX.
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It's not just slow, it's boring. Ironically, considering the "human adventure is just beginning" line, there's no real "humanity" in the film. It's cold.
I'm bettin you didn't like 2001: A Space Odyssey either?
But TMP wasn't a stand-alone film. It was a spin-off from a TV show that ignored a lot of the things that made the show a success in the first place. TOS was many things, good and bad, but it was never a graphical showcase, and it was rarely boring ("Spock's Brain" might be awful, but it's awful like TFF is awful. It's so bad it's fun.)
Furthermore, I don't like the V'ger design Taylor proposed. It looks like a chromium squid. It's a boring shape with a really pedestrian maw design. I'm much more partial to Syd Mead's (used) design, which also looks a lot like an organic shape...
http://home.pacbell.net/mauricem/vger.gif
...and also has those reall cool mechanisms at the maw and at the internal "orifice".
You can see that the "sphere" Taylor mentions in his design also appears in Mead's design as well.
Well, I'll keep it simple instead:
Along with Star Wars, 2001 and ST:TMP are two of the defining films that have made sci-fi cinema what it is today. And furthermore, they happen to just be two of my personal favorite films in general, as well!
But, as I said: To each his own.
[Edit: You filthy rotten sons-of-blah...blah...blah..."You really piss me off, Jim." etc...etc...FRIG...FRIG...FRIG...etc...etc...etc...BASTARD...FRIG...FRIG...etc...etc...]
[ July 18, 2001: Message edited by: The Mighty Monkey of Mim ]
-MMoM
2001 is a maddening film for people who expect a traditional narrative.
For good or bad, we're all conditioned with narrative rules and rules for what movies are supposed to be. Movies are treated like a genre novel, with its own specific conventions: three act structure, protagonist with problem to solve, character development, etc. But there's no reason a film has to be that. It's just what we're used to, and what the market finds sells the best.
And when the genre conventions in American film are effectively reduced to "action, comedy and tragedy," it doesn't leave room for anything else. (Thank goodness we don't expect paintings to all fit into such narrow confines, or we'd have a country where on every wall hangs a bucolic Norman Rockwell-esuqe scene or some other singular style.)
2001 doesn't fit into the "entertainment film" genre. The dialogue conveys only the deadness of the souls of the people (which is the point)...their lack of essential life and humanity.
The real story of 2001 is all in the images. When I stopped trying to be "entertained" by the film and just let the visuals wash over me, then I "got" it.
Getting back to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the film wants to be 2001 on one level, but it also wants to be that typical genre film on another level. It's not willing to surrender the audience to the visuals and let their power alone drive the story, and it's not willing to let the characters drive the story either (as in the traditional Hollywood film).
That it tries to be both is part of the reason it doesn't quite work.
How's that for bringing it all back on topic?
P.S. After reading 2010 and 2061, it became clear to me that even Arthur C. Clarke never understood what Kubrick was aiming for in 2001. Clarke was too wrapped up in the gee whiz science and missed the whole odyssey aspect of it.
Please don't take my previous remark as a dis on Arthur C. Clarke. I probably would have enjoyed his "odyssey" books more if they weren't tied to 2001, because their focus is just so different than the film (and, before anyone cries that the film is based on the book...the film story was developed in parallel with the novel...and Clarke kept rewriting the novel to match what Kubrick was up to...least as far as the plot goes...thematically the two are almost unreleated).
Bringing this all back to Trek, although 2001 appears to be a strong inflence on TMP, what's interesting is how completely opposite the two films are, despite their superficial similarities. In 2001 alien superintelligences are needed to evolve humans, and in TMP humans are needed by an alien superintellect to evolve into a new form. 2001 takes a black look at humankind's relationship with its tools. TMP claims that it's those quirks of humanity that make us more than mere machines. Unfortunately, we're told this rather than shown it. In a film in which the characters mostly react to events beyond their control, these innate human quirks are not at all in evidence. The climax of the story, where it is determined that V'ger needs a human quality in order to evolve, would have been better served has we been treated to examples of those qualities in the preceeding 100 minutes.
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Compared to the book, it sucked a whole whole lot...
You do realize that the book was written by Clarke and Kubrick while they were creating the movie?
Damn, beat me to it mrneutron... 
It also appears that everything in the defence of Kubrick and 2001 has already been stated...so I'll refrain from my 'Kubrick is a genius sermon'. 
[ July 19, 2001: Message edited by: Stingray ]
A fairly typical Clarke short tale. Good - but not epic in scope or grandeur. The adapted-from nature of the novel does show in part - however its scope is far larger (and the detail is richer) in 2001 the novel than in the movie.
The movie is entirely eye-candy - albeit the Toblerone of eye-candy.
"...2001 and ST:TMP are two of the defining films that have made sci-fi cinema what it is today."
I suppose that explains the sad state of sci-fi cinema these days... :-)
"You do realize that the book was written by Clarke and Kubrick while they were creating the movie?"
Yes. And, as I said, the book is infinitely better. A solid twenty minutes of nothing but flashing colors does not a good movie make. Unless you're stoned or something, I suppose.
"The movie was originally based upon a Clarke short story entitled 'The Sentinel'."
Only very very very very loosely. Basically, the only resemblance is that, in both stories, people find a large piece of alien technology on the moon. Other than that, they aren't really alike.
If anyone, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, thinks to themselves "I know! I'll watch 2001! That'll entertain me!" then fair play to them. Their brains must be made of solid granite, but that's not their fault.
Anywho, wasn't the ending of 2001 trying toexplain Bowman's experience while he was being transformed into the star child? That can't be it. I just rmembered that, according to 3001, the big brother monolith did the V'ger thing and simply "downloaded" Bowman into its computer core.
I seem to recall the ending of 2001 the book made more sense than the ending of 2001 the movie. But, then, the ending in the book was a lot more detailed. In the movie, stuff just kind of happened w/o any explanation.
As it is, with that whole 'bring mommy back for a day', I don't know WHAT it was, tragedy, happy-ending, ???.
A.I. is NOT a Stanley Kubrick film
In any way, shape, or form. The only thing Kubrick had to do with that thing is that he paid for it after he died. And that's all the creative input he had.
As far as the ending having stuff w/o any explanation - I'll admit I needed an explanation but once you do have it figured out (either on your own or somebody else told you) then it becomes much more enjoyable. Hell, NOBODY got it when it first came out.
First of Two, that's exactly why Spielberg is not Stanely Kubrick. He tried to make it like Kubrick, but he just AIN'T Kubrick.
][ July 20, 2001: Message edited by: Stingray ]
And then I'm going to say it again.
"Goddamn, I have never seen a more holier than thou attitude about cinema/drama - especially AGAINST the likes of Kubrick/2001. Have you even TRIED to get it?"
Strangely, I was thinking the same thing, but in reverse, about how some people have a holier than thou attitude about anyone who doesn't like Kubrick.
I have read the first 3 books, y'know. And Tim's right, they are very different creatures. The ending of the book makes sense. The ending of the film was just a mess of pretty pictures ultimately saved by the use of "Thus Spake Zarathusa".
If the book had never existed, and Kubrick and Clarke had died the day after the film had come out, along with everyone who worked on it, I wonder if the explanations for it people have would be the same.
The simple fact is is that 2001 is not dramatic theater. I guess absurdist would be the best description for it, so if you like Waiting For Godot, then 2001 just might be for you.
And BTW - I love how people from this forum can trash 2001 and yet recite every crappy B, 70s & 80s scifi shit ever made.
First of all, as I posted previously, 2001 (the film) isn't a traditional/mainstream film narrative, so demeaning it for not following the conventions of mainstream cinema is a little like criticizing jazz musicians for making it up as they go...that's the point.
2001 is a film of images, period. It's intentionally slow, it's intentionally flat, and repetative. Kubrick himself said "nothing important is conveyed in the dialogue", because the film is about the images and their juxtaposition, comoposition and color.
As to the ending making sense, personally, I think I "get" the film all right. And in my mind the point it makes is much more powerful than the book's. I won't launch into a treatsie on it, unless someone wants me to.
Finally, using "entertaining" as criteria is to lop off all other possible experiences you can get out of the film. I don't watch 2001 to be entertained any more than I do going to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Matisse's works don't have to entertain for me want to linger over them. The same with 2001.
Seriously, and as stated previously, we're so conditioned by mainstream films and television that we expect all movies to fall into a narrow, cookie cutter form. For me, what's sinful isn't that a film isn't necessarily entertaining, but when a film that is INTENDED to be entertaining, fails miserably at its appointed task.
*stands and applauds*
The only point I disagree on is using "entertaining" as part of the criteria in judging a film. I think that entertainment carries more than one meaning. There is the traditional meaning in that for something to be entertaining, it must illicit an emotional/physical response. Terms of Endearment is entertaining because it is emotionally charged and the viewer develops a connection to the characters. Armageddon is entertaining in that it is a solid feel-good action movie that will probably leave the majority of its American (read: US) veiwers in a good state of mind. But entertaining can also be used to refer to the mental response. That's how I look at 2001. It required me to think and interpret what I was watching. It produced an intellectual reaction, and that's why I can say that I'm entertained by it.
Siegfried. You are correct that I perhaps have too narrowly defined the word "entertaining". There certainly are various forms of and levels of being entertained. I suppose a less loaded words would be "enjoyed", but even that has other connotations.
2001 certainly doesn't engage the viewer's emotions the way you classic character driven drama does, nor does it titilate with action.
Certainly, I'm entertained by 2001, but it's primarily an intellectual entertainment and visceral, not an emotional one (albeit there are things in the film that give me delight).
Of course, it's also a very funny movie if you groove on black black comedy and cosmic scaled irony.
"Armageddon is entertaining..."
You say something like this, and still expect us to trust your opinion? :-)
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Of course, it's also a very funny movie if you groove on black black comedy and cosmic scaled irony.
Now I need to go rent 2001 just so that I pick this out of the movie. Should be fun.
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Armageddon is entertaining in that it is a solid feel-good action movie that will probably leave the majority of its American (read: US) veiwers in a good state of mind.
Well, considering that's the full context of the quote, I still expect you to trust my opinion.
The big spherical part near the back end is where the Voyager probe is, and from there the energy effect that consumes V'ger originates in the film.
That sketch appears, incorrectly labeled, in the Star Trek Phase II book. There's also a plan view of the shape on the same page, from which a clever 3D artist could actually render the shape [ July 26, 2001: Message edited by: mrneutron ]
Some of Mead's production paintings for V'ger, as well as a plan for the interior detailing, appears in his book Oblagon.