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I dunno, personally I felt that "Blade Runner" was a bit more focused, coherent, and enjoyable experience than "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
Registered: Mar 1999
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I didn't like Fight Club near as much as the film.
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Registered: Sep 2000
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2001 was great. It truelly showed how lonely, isolated and vunerable human life is, and the sheer tedium of realistic space travel. And that ending. Wow. Realising that you can't actually explain the ending, and then throwing together a load of random lights is the greatest thing ever, because it will appeal to smart arse college students who want to appear superior to everyone.
Sorry, but no.
Boring. As. Fuck.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I totally disagree regarding Blade Runner. It's a good film, but they wrung most of the complexity out of the story in order to film it.
As for 2001, I'd also have to disagree with Tim. The book is entertaining but slight, at best a very minor feather in Clarke's cap. The film is an epic. A visual wonder.
It is also, as Liam so...Liamly puts it, very boring. Oh, lots of things happen, but none of them really happen as the result of anything humans do. It isn't an accident that the most lifelike character in the film is a computer. What saves (or at least can, if the viewer is willing) the film from the grave of heartless arthouse pretention is that this disconnect between the people and the surrounding environment is what the film is about.
But does that make it a good film? 2001 is certainly a technical marvel. In my opinion it looks as good as Star Wars would nine years later, and is still largely unsurpassed. (Films can do more with spaceships these days, but I'm unconvinced they can necessarily do them better.) The film itself is beautiful, if you care at all about things like how shots are set up and other cinematographical concerns. But is it good? If I make a film about unwatchability, and the film itself is unwatchable, do I win?
I don't know. Your milage may vary. Etc.
Registered: Mar 1999
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You don't think the space scenes are among the lushest and most lovingly depicted in cinematic history? I'm not saying they make for good plot. I'm not saying, at the moment, that the film does anything other than look pretty. But it does look pretty.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I have watched 2001 and read the novel many times, and I have to say that the movie is on par with the book up until you get to Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite because, quite frankly, there's nothing Stanley Kubrick could have done to accuratly protray what the novel was describing. Heck, they couldn't even make a realistic Saturn. So you get the funky lines, you get the weird landscapes, you get the color changing eyeballs. Basically Kubrick is trying to say that Bowman has fallen into a place so far out of the ordinary it's not even funny.
If anything, I would love to see what Stanley Kubrick could have done with Beyond The Infinite today, because it would make the film possibly greater then it is now.
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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Actually, it's probably more of a masterpiece (in the technical sense) because it was made back in 1968. The movie cost $10 million or so back then, and the special effecs don't look dated at all. I never saw a wire or anything on that floating pen in the Pan Am (oops). Granted, now everything would be done on a computer, and would look better (PLUS it's 2002 and we don't have huge space stations or colonies on the moon), but it looks good NOW.
Also, this movie made a lot of money when it came out in 1968, but now, it wouldn't, because no one would want to see a space movie without explosions, blaring sound, and laser guns.
[ June 17, 2002, 14:54: Message edited by: Veers ]
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