Looking for great reading on "2001: A Space Odyssey"
September 15, 2015 1:07 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for recommendations for great reading material on "2001: A Space Odyssey" (the movie, not the novel or source story). I could go through and read all the reviews, but are there any particularly noteworthy pieces (magazine, Web, newspaper) or books out there that I can't miss? Interesting theories or discussions? Other non-reading media would be of interest as well. Thanks in advance.
Have you seen this making of book?
(Link is to a review of the making of book, which includes link to Amazon to purchase the book, not sure if direct links to Amazon are allowed, but here it is. Mods, feel free to remove that if necessary)
posted by JJtheJetPlane at 1:29 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
(Link is to a review of the making of book, which includes link to Amazon to purchase the book, not sure if direct links to Amazon are allowed, but here it is. Mods, feel free to remove that if necessary)
posted by JJtheJetPlane at 1:29 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
porpoise, I believe Clark and Kubrick worked collaboratively/concurrently on the story and produced their respective media from that at relatively the same time. In other words, neither can be considered the source for the other. I could be wrong about that.
posted by JJtheJetPlane at 1:31 PM on September 15, 2015
posted by JJtheJetPlane at 1:31 PM on September 15, 2015
I believe the solution they came up with was to say the movie was written by Kubrick and Clarke, based on the book by Clarke and Kubrick and say the book was by Clarke and Kubrick, based on the movie by Kubrick and Clarke.
Anyway - The Lost Worlds of 2001 contains lots of stuff about the making of the movie, as does The Making of Kubrick's 2001.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:36 PM on September 15, 2015
Anyway - The Lost Worlds of 2001 contains lots of stuff about the making of the movie, as does The Making of Kubrick's 2001.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:36 PM on September 15, 2015
Rob Ager's analysis is pretty out there but well worth a read. This animated explanation, Kubrick 2001: The Space Odyssey Explained, is also pretty terrifc.
posted by oh pollo! at 1:55 PM on September 15, 2015
posted by oh pollo! at 1:55 PM on September 15, 2015
Ebert's Great Movie essay on 2001 is one of his best.
posted by octothorpe at 2:11 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 2:11 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Take a look at this reddit post from /r/movies, which starts with 100 pictures from behind the scenes (including some great shots of the lunar Monolith set and the absolutely magnificent rotating drum set that made up Dave Bowman's jogging track on Discovery. Some of those photos feature Arthur C. Clark visiting the set. He's in #37 standing with Kubrick.
The top comment also has a big set of resources as well.
I'm going to add one more; you may recall from the book that the Discovery was actually headed to a monolith that orbited Saturn, and it got there via Jupiter, for a gravity-assist. The Saturn material was cut from the film for time and budget reasons, but Douglas Trumbull had done all these beautiful slit-scan visuals for Saturn that went unused for 2001. Those exact shots were recycled in Trumbull's later project, the 1972 movie Silent Running, set on a spaceship in Saturn orbit. You can add that to the list of 2001 media, and it's a very good movie in its own right.
Both novels 2010 and 2061 also follow the movie events (no Saturn visit) rather than the original novel, so I think they technically qualify...but they're not what you're looking for.
posted by Sunburnt at 2:55 PM on September 15, 2015
The top comment also has a big set of resources as well.
I'm going to add one more; you may recall from the book that the Discovery was actually headed to a monolith that orbited Saturn, and it got there via Jupiter, for a gravity-assist. The Saturn material was cut from the film for time and budget reasons, but Douglas Trumbull had done all these beautiful slit-scan visuals for Saturn that went unused for 2001. Those exact shots were recycled in Trumbull's later project, the 1972 movie Silent Running, set on a spaceship in Saturn orbit. You can add that to the list of 2001 media, and it's a very good movie in its own right.
Both novels 2010 and 2061 also follow the movie events (no Saturn visit) rather than the original novel, so I think they technically qualify...but they're not what you're looking for.
posted by Sunburnt at 2:55 PM on September 15, 2015
You know about The Kubrick Site? There's a ton of stuff in there include at least a dozen essays on 2001.
posted by octothorpe at 6:27 PM on September 15, 2015
posted by octothorpe at 6:27 PM on September 15, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by porpoise at 1:26 PM on September 15, 2015