What are your favorite shots in a movie?

[Marian Schedenig 8,208]

27 minutes ago, JTW said:

This film could never be made today. Heck, people didn't understand it back then and it was a commercial flop, just like Blade Runner. The fact that we're discussing it 55 years after its release is a testament to what a groundbreaking film it is. Without 2001: A Space Odyssey we wouldn't have Star Wars. 

 

What you wrote about ASO vs SW is the exact same thing I just read about Metropolis vs ASO the other day: Commercial flop, misunderstood (leading to it being butchered to pieces, leading to people understanding it even less), still discussed almost 100 years later, and without it we wouldn't have ASO (or SW).

[JTN 2,042]

5 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

ASO 

What's ASO? A Space Odyssey? 

[Jay 37,373]

Yes.

[Chen G. 3,950]

1 hour ago, JTW said:

Without 2001: A Space Odyssey we wouldn't have Star Wars. 

 

More on a technological level than anything else.

 

On a visual, narrative or thematic level they could scarcely be less alike. Sure, they have some crew overlap and there are a few homages to Kubrick's film in the Star Wars (especially in Revenge of the Sith, where Lucas wanted to throw back to more "epic" imagery) but ultimately they're worlds apart: the one hard science-fiction, the other space fantasy; the one slow and methodical (too much for this viewer's liking), the other brisk, etc...

[JTN 2,042]

1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

What you wrote about ASO vs SW is the exact same thing I just read about Metropolis vs ASO the other day: Commercial flop, misunderstood (leading to it being butchered to pieces, leading to people understanding it even less), still discussed almost 100 years later, and without it we wouldn't have ASO (or SW).

It’s the “chicken and the egg” conundrum.

4 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

More on a technological level than anything else.

 

Absolutely. But since SW is so heavily on the technical side of filmmaking and Lucas himself stated that Kubrick’s film inspired him because he saw that special effects like that were possible to do and he pushed the envelope even further, it’s a quite significant point and influence.
In terms of story(telling), yes, the two films couldn’t be farther from each other.
Btw. Kubrick liked Star Wars.

[Tallguy 3,401]

45 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

the one hard science-fiction, the other space fantasy

 

I will put the Monolith aliens in the same bucket as the Force, thank you very much. Your mileage may vary with other SW installments but Star Wars is as sci-fi as anything. Not saying Star Wars is super-hard sci-fi, I'm saying that almost nothing else hits that standard either.

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

7 hours ago, Chen G. said:

The point of the film is to posit that manned space travel (with or without its potential for encountering alien civilisations) is the stepping stone to the next phase in human evolution. In other words, a glorification of the (then up and coming) space age.

...with a caveat tossed in about AI, if only to add some dramatic conflict to the space travelogue.

[Chen G. 3,950]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

...with a caveat tossed in about AI, if only to add some dramatic conflict to the space travelogue.

 

That's what I would say. People over the years have jumped through hoops to explain how HAL fits into the larger themes of the work. In fact, there's an entry in Clarke's diary to the effect of "Hmm, how can we work HAL into the theme of the picture?"

 

Personally, I don't think they ever found a satisfactory way to do so. The HAL episode plays as just that...an episode. Hardly surprising, since the storyline of 2001 was collected from several short stories of Clarke's. He's very much like a Troll guarding the bridge en route to the destination: a setpiece along the way.

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

1 hour ago, JTW said:

Btw. Kubrick liked Star Wars.

He was reportedly envious of its financial success too, and was looking for a box office hit when he settled on making The Shining, which did turn out to be a modest success.

[Marian Schedenig 8,208]

2 hours ago, JTW said:

4 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

What you wrote about ASO vs SW is the exact same thing I just read about Metropolis vs ASO the other day: Commercial flop, misunderstood (leading to it being butchered to pieces, leading to people understanding it even less), still discussed almost 100 years later, and without it we wouldn't have ASO (or SW).

It’s the “chicken and the egg” conundrum.

 

Nah. In both cases, the dinosaur came first.

[JTN 2,042]

44 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

there's an entry in Clarke's diary to the effect of "Hmm, how can we work HAL into the theme of the picture?"

He eventually managed to accomplish it in 2010 where HAL

Spoiler

becomes a sentient immortal being and joins Dave Bowman.

 

[Chen G. 3,950]

Just now, Marian Schedenig said:

Nah. In both cases, the dinosaur came first.

 

Dinosaurs ARE chickens, silly! 

[Marian Schedenig 8,208]

Just now, Chen G. said:

1 minute ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Nah. In both cases, the dinosaur came first.

 

Dinosaurs ARE chickens, silly! 

 

[Chen G. 3,950]

Just now, Marian Schedenig said:

 

 

I could say the same thing.

[JTN 2,042]

2 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

Nah. In both cases, the dinosaur came first.

And where do dinosaurs come from? 
 

Spoiler

A mosquito. 😬

 

[Tallguy 3,401]

14 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

The HAL episode plays as just that...an episode.

 

And yet there are people who are convinced that HAL is what 2001 is all about. (Not me.)

[Chen G. 3,950]

7 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

And yet there are people who are convinced that HAL is what 2001 is all about.

 

Kubrickians are a nutty lot. They lose the aesthetic experience of his films in their rabid, literal-minded search for symbolism.

 

I still have nightmares of the kind of overwrought analyses into the meaning of the patterns on the carpeting in the Overlook hotel...

[Tallguy 3,401]

14 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Kubrickians are a nutty lot. They lose the aesthetic experience of his films in their rabid, literal-minded search for symbolism.

 

I still have nightmares of the kind of overwrought analyses into the meaning of the patterns on the carpeting in the Overlook hotel...

 

I was just talking about my dad.

[Chen G. 3,950]

Well, I mean, the HAL "episode" is certainly the most interesting to me, precisely because (fancy that) its a character-driven narrative!

[Tallguy 3,401]

Just now, Chen G. said:

Well, I mean, the HAL "episode" is certainly the most interesting to me, precisely because (fancy that) its a character-driven narrative!

 

As I've gotten older my favorite parts are Floyd. Not that Bowman and Poole aren't awesome.

[JTN 2,042]

35 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Well, I mean, the HAL "episode" is certainly the most interesting to me, precisely because (fancy that) its a character-driven narrative!

I like his singing voice.

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

I still have nightmares of the kind of overwrought analyses into the meaning of the patterns on the carpeting in the Overlook hotel...

Beyond the hallway carpeting being maze-like, and the Room 237 one including a phallic symbol pointing to the bathroom and a sexually inviting lady, I'm not sure what else can be wrought.

 

50 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 

As I've gotten older my favorite parts are Floyd.

I love when he says "absolute secrecy" in the briefing. Gives me ASMR tingles.

 

15 minutes ago, JTW said:

I like his singing voice.

 

🎶 "It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage..." 🎵

[Tallguy 3,401]

11 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I love when he says "absolute secrecy" in the briefing. Gives me ASMR tingles.

 

I love the scene between him and the Russians. "I'm really not at liberty to discuss this." So completely deadpan. And I felt that before I found out that Tom Hanks thinks so too. It's fun to pick out what Hanks scenes he's channeling Heywood for.

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

Well all this is making me want to dust off the old DVD...but it's not a movie you just casually decide to watch. You have to be in the right state of mind—maybe altered by a hallucinogenic, as this ad campaign tried to exploit.

 

 

 

[Chen G. 3,950]

What’s amazing is when the movie premiered it was twenty minutes LONGER. As someone who doesn’t enjoy the pacing of it, I can only imagine…

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

Attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter too. Imagine the TikTok generation trying to watch it... 50% of TikTok users surveyed said that videos longer than a minute were "stressful". Forcing them to watch '2001' would be tantamount to torture.

 

It would be interesting though if someone did a fan edit to give it the quicker pace of a modern movie. A good 45 minutes would need to be cut out.

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,086]

31 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

What’s amazing is when the movie premiered it was twenty minutes LONGER. As someone who doesn’t enjoy the pacing of it, I can only imagine…

 

Is that version available?

[Chen G. 3,950]

34 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Is that version available?

No. Neither, for that matter, the 221-minute version of Lawrence of Arabia. Directors back then didn’t think in terms of preservation.

 

35 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Forcing them to watch '2001' would be tantamount to torture.

Better: Syberberg’s Parsifal. Almost twice the length of 2001 and one third of the amount of plot!

[Jurassic Shark 12,086]

6 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

No. Neither, for that matter, the 221-minute version of Lawrence of Arabia. Directors back then didn’t think in terms of preservation.

 

Well, Lawrence was restored to almost its original length.

[Chen G. 3,950]

6 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Well, Lawrence was restored to almost its original length.

It was restored in full, but then Lean cut a few things out mostly for technical reasons to do with how convincing the dubbing was on closeup. It’s a shame: some of this stuff is quite important!

[Jurassic Shark 12,086]

6 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

It was restored in full, but then Lean cut a few things out mostly for technical reasons to do with how convincing the dubbing was on closeup. It’s a shame: some of this stuff is quite important!

 

There's also the long walk in the building early in the film that was trimmed.

[Chen G. 3,950]

Yeah. You can read some of that stuff in the script: Lean scripts are very funny in that they’re (and this is not hyperbole) pretty much EXACTLY the movie on the screen: every camera angle plotted out, every inflection of every line or part of a line given. And they say Kubrick was a perfectionist!

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

29 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

No. Neither, for that matter, the 221-minute version of Lawrence of Arabia. Directors back then didn’t think in terms of preservation.

I wouldn't be surprised if those twenty minutes of '2001' are locked away in the vault of Kubrick's estate, but per his wishes, will never be released for public viewing.

 

29 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Better: Syberberg’s Parsifal. Almost twice the length of 2001 and one third of the amount of plot!

Never heard of it, let alone seen it. But if I'm feeling masochistic some day, I might check it out!

 

15 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Lean cut a few things out mostly for technical reasons to do with how convincing the dubbing was on closeup. It’s a shame: some of this stuff is quite important!

Perfectionism can be a fault.

[Chen G. 3,950]

13 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Perfectionism can be a fault.

Oh, totally! I think it’s a lesser film for the stuff Lean excised. When Allenby has his little sit down with Lawrence, he seems to change his mind on a dime: “Yes! I said yes!” But he didn’t: Lean just cut a bit of the scene there because there was a closeup on Allenby that made the dub seem a little obvious.

 

It’s a crucial scene and it’s been made to look rather hokey. If I’m honest, it doesn’t read that splendid in the script either, but it better!

[bruce marshall 1,315]

https://thesanfranciscanmagazine.com/the-greatest-escape/

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

 

How I miss practical creature effects...

[Schilkeman 964]

7 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

And yet there are people who are convinced that HAL is what 2001 is all about. (Not me.)

Can there be truths of omission? 2001 is not about HAL, but it's not not about HAL, either. It fits in with the narrative throughlines of technology and evolution.

1 hour ago, Mr. Hooper said:

 

How I miss practical creature effects...

Yeah, I'm not usually one to jump on the CGI Bad bandwagon, but creature effects are an area I prefer to be practical, at least in cases where it's possible. The orcs in LotR look so much better than the ones in the Hobbit, for instance, but Gollum would be exceedingly difficult without cg. 

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

24 minutes ago, Schilkeman said:

The orcs in LotR look so much better than the ones in the Hobbit, for instance, but Gollum would be exceedingly difficult without cg. 

Yeah, I have a soft spot for Gollum, and won't deny how good he is.

 

The problem I often have with cg creatures is that they don't effectively convey a feeling of mass when they move, so I have trouble buying that they have corporeal existence.

 

And it's the way they're animated. They're too animated, with too much fluidity in their movements. You have these giant creatures that look like they're filled with jell-o and are way too nimble for their size.

[Schilkeman 964]

8 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Yeah, I have a soft spot for Gollum, and won't deny how good he is.

 

The problem I often have with cg creatures is that they don't effectively convey a feeling of mass when they move, so I have trouble buying that they have corporeal existence.

 

And it's the way they're animated. They're too animated, with too much fluidity in their movements. You have these giant creatures that look like they're filled with jell-o and are way too nimble for their size.

That's very true about the physics being off, but then, animatronics don't articulate with 100% accuracy, and often have a faux appearance about them, but I think the difference is that there is something tangible in front of the camera. As always, though, it's just a tool. It's how it's used that makes it work, or not.

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

12 minutes ago, Schilkeman said:

...but I think the difference is that there is something tangible in front of the camera. As always, though, it's just a tool. It's how it's used that makes it work, or not.

I guess I'd prefer something tangible and phony than intangible and phony. Unfortunately, cg is the more cost-effective tool...so instead of seeing the judicious use of cg blended with practical effects, we're getting sequences that look like scenes from a video game.

 

It's amazing to think that the original Jurassic Park—a 30-year-old movie—still has some of the best of both when you look at the T-Rex attack.

 

[Schilkeman 964]

22 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I guess I'd prefer something tangible and phony than intangible and phony. Unfortunately, cg is the more cost-effective tool...so instead of seeing the judicious use of cg blended with practical effects, we're getting sequences that look like scenes from a video game.

 

It's amazing to think that the original Jurassic Park—a 30-year-old movie—still has some of the best of both when you look at the T-Rex attack.

 

I'm not sure that it is more cost effective. It is definitely easier for the director to "fix it in post" as the saying goes. I think cg is more malleable, and better serving of a brand of directors who value editing over composition, but it gets used like a day-one patch in videogames, and I think the art suffers for it. Jurassic Park holds up because cg was used sparingly, and for maximum effect.

 

All that said, I still don't mind cg. The prequels are three of my favorite movies, and they certainly have some effects moments you kind of have to squint at, but I think they would have been impossible, and worse off, without it. I understand that's a minority opinion around here, but I stick to it.

[JTN 2,042]

3 hours ago, Mr. Hooper said:

 

How I miss practical creature effects...

 

[ThePenitentMan1 744]

29 minutes ago, Schilkeman said:

All that said, I still don't mind cg. The prequels are three of my favorite movies, and they certainly have some effects moments you kind of have to squint at, but I think they would have been impossible, and worse off, without it. I understand that's a minority opinion around here, but I stick to it.

 

TPM had its share of practical effects.  And I must say, the Battle Droids in that movie are super-convincing.

[JTN 2,042]

1 hour ago, Schilkeman said:

they certainly have some effects moments you kind of have to squint at,

Well, the overall CG of TPM is subpar, even in 1999 it looked off, especially Jar Jar and the gungans. All the practical effects however look great in the film.

I don’t think the effects couldn’t have been done without CGI, it’s just Lucas decided he wanted to push the envelope and tried certain things and technology still in its infancy too early. But those things led to Gollum and later to Avatar. And Lucas being the visionary he is knew that everyone was going to follow in his footsteps. And he was right, because the movie industry was forever changed by CGI. 

[Schilkeman 964]

1 hour ago, JTW said:

Well, the overall CG of TPM is subpar, even in 1999 it looked off, especially Jar Jar and the gungans. All the practical effects however look great in the film.

I don’t think the effects couldn’t have been done without CGI, it’s just Lucas decided he wanted to push the envelope and tried certain things and technology still in its infancy too early. But those things led to Gollum and later to Avatar. And Lucas being the visionary he is knew that everyone was going to follow in his footsteps. And he was right, because the movie industry was forever changed by CGI. 

I don't know, man. I just watched TPM yesterday, and Jar Jar looked pretty good to me, but I have a fairly high uncanny valley tolerance. The lighting under the trees on Naboo was especially nice. I also don't mind the clone troopers in AotC. They read as real to me, or close enough. But that's just me.

 

I don't really think Gollum was the huge leap forward it gets labeled as. It was better, and Gollum is certainly a more compelling character, but I think the script is smoothing over the rougher edges of the cgi. AotC came out the same year, and looks just as good to me. The animation on Watoo is exceptional, for instance. 

[Mr. Hooper 1,801]

I thought the Yoda puppet in TPM was poorly done, so I was actually pleased when it was replaced with CGI. In the OT I could overlook that it was a puppet, but this younger Yoda was glaringly fake, and lacked the OG's expressivity.

 

That said, I have a hard time overlooking prequel Yoda's obvious CGI-ness in brightly lit scenes, which is most of the time unfortunately. CGI works best in the dark, and he does look pretty convincing in Qui-Gon's funeral scene.

 

I don't know what is up with TLJ Yoda... I guess it was to please the OG fans to make him a puppet again and bring in Frank Oz. He was made from the original molds but somehow looks really off, like he removed his dentures or something. It was a dark scene, so they should've just gone with CGI.

[Jurassic Shark 12,086]

OG?

[GerateWohl 4,371]

Old Grump.

[Holko 9,531]

24 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

but this younger Yoda was glaringly fake, and lacked the OG's expressivity.

Also it looked nothing like Yoda

[Schilkeman 964]

I have a soft spot for puppet Yoda in TPM, but I get why it was changed. It's all just different flavors of fake; some taste better to us than others.