posted
So the "Monolith" is the 'sentinel', then? Searching for planets with content, wellfed apeforms whose lives it can ruin? Ultimately leading up to it's supreme purpose in existence, John Lithgow barfing in space?
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I thought that the book and film were written at the same time. Certainly some of the differences in the book (such as adding Saturn to the whole thing) seem to serve no real purpose. And 2010 the novel is a sequel to the film rather than the book, so if Clarke wrote the book after the film (and presumably improved it), why would the sequel be based on the film?
-------------------- 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.
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The book and the screenplay were written more or less at the same time, with Clarke and Kubrick trading notes. The Saturn thing came about simply because Kubrick found he could not get a convincing Saturn built, and so switched to Jupiter, which didn't have rings and was thus easier to create and film.
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IIRC, UM has it right about the film being an extension of the original short story. In addition, the book and film were created at the same time, however, the book was actually finished first and sent to the publisher. However, to preserve the ambiguity of the ending, Kubrick wanted the book not to be released until after the film had been out for a while. He got his way.
Kinda ironic come to think of it, nowadays, the book version of SW:AotC was released way before the film debut. Read into that, in whatever way you want.
Note: Sol System seems to have posted between my viewing of the thread, and my post, which makes mine make a bit less relevant. Oh well.
[ June 23, 2002, 19:45: Message edited by: Mucus ]
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Well, not much of Saturn would have needed to be seen, would it? The monolith was on Iapetus. All they really needed to do was make sure Saturn was in there briefly, so people knew where the stuff was happening.
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In a new foreward in the millenial edition novel of 2001: A Space Odyssey, they describe the process of writing both the book and the movie at the same time. The entire story begins in 1948 when "The Sentinel" was written for a BBC short story competition (it didn't even place). But this merely covers the parts on the moon. Another five shorts story, one of which is known as "Encounter In The Dawn" (reprinted, along with "The Sentine", in Clarke's anthology "Expedition To Earth"), make up the rest of the 2001 story.
Both script and novel were written at the same time, with entire chunks of either being rewritten after they had seen parts of the other. The story was originally titled "Journey Beyond The Stars", before being changed to "How The Solar System Was Won".
The movie did indeed beat the book out by a few months (novel published in July 1968).
At the end Clarke adds: "The novel you are about to read has sometimes been criticized for explaining too much, and thus destroying the movie's mystery (Rock Hudson stormed out of the premiere complaining "Can someone tell me what the hell this is all about?") But I am quite unrepentant: the printed text has to give much more detail than can be shown on the screen."
-------------------- "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
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Don't they slingshot around Jupiter in the book? And in the change from Saturn to Jupiter, wasn't the slingshot sequence taken out because it *cough* slowed things down too much?
-------------------- 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.
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Well, one would hope the slingshot would have been eliminated for the simple reason that you can't slingshot around Jupiter in order to get to Jupiter...
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There was also a part of the book where they pass by an asteroid and tag it while between Earth and Jupiter. I think Kubrick hinted at this part of the novel when we see an asteroid fly by the Discovery in the movie, but other then that possible reference, it's not in there at all.
-------------------- "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
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I gather that Kubrick just decided he fancied Jupiter for the destination, regardless of how much preproduction work they'd done on Saturn already.
quote: Style. Both films have it. Very few SF films do. Having said that, style only goes so far, and it is, of course, terribly subjective. But style is where to start looking, I think, if you want to appreciate both films.
Never thought of it that way, but Simon is right. I've always liked 2001, but it took a long time for Blade Runner.
-------------------- Sparky:: Think! Question Authority, Authoritatively. “Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.” EMSparks
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