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2001 - A Space Odyssey [HD DVD] [1968]
 
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2001 - A Space Odyssey [HD DVD] [1968]

HD DVD ~ Keir Dullea
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (148 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Actors: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Robert Beatty
  • Directors: Stanley Kubrick
  • Format: PAL
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 12
  • Studio: Warner Home Video
  • DVD Release Date: 24 Mar 2008
  • Run Time: 136 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (148 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0013K119A
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 57,203 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

Confirming that art and commerce can co-exist, 2001: A Space Odyssey was the biggest box-office hit of 1968, remains the greatest science fiction film yet made and is among the most revolutionary, challenging and debated work of the 20th century. It begins within a pre-historic age. A black monolith uplifts the intelligence of a group of apes on the African plains. The most famous edit in cinema introduces the 21st century, and after a second monolith is found on the moon a mission is launched to Jupiter. On the spacecraft are Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Poole (Gary Lockwood), along with the most famous computer in fiction, HAL. Their adventure will be, as per the original title, a "journey beyond the stars". Written by science fiction visionary Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, 2001 elevated the SF film to entirely new levels, being rigorously constructed with a story on the most epic of scales. Four years in the making and filmed in 70 mm, the attention to detail is staggering and four decades later barely any aspect of the film looks dated, the visual richness and elegant pacing creating the sense of actually being in space more convincingly than any other film. A sequel, 2010: Odyssey Two (1984) followed, while Solaris (1972), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), The Abyss (1989) and A.I. (2001) are all indebted to this absolute classic which towers monolithically over them all.

On the DVD: There is nothing but the original trailer which, given the status of the film and the existence of an excellent making-of documentary shown on Channel 4 in 2001, is particularly disappointing. Shortly before he died Kubrick supervised the restoration of the film and the production of new 70 mm prints for theatrical release in 2001. Fortunately the DVD has been taken from this material and transferred at the 70 mm ratio of 2.21-1. There is some slight cropping noticeable, but both anamorphically enhanced image and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack (the film was originally released with a six-channel magnetic sound) are excellent, making this transfer infinitely preferable to previous video incarnations. --Gary S Dalkin

Synopsis

A four-million-year-old black monolith is discovered on the moon, and the government sends a team of scientists on a fact-finding mission while hiding the truth from the public. Later, another team is sent to Jupiter in a ship controlled by the perfect HAL 9000 computer to further investigate the giant object--but something goes terribly wrong. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is a masterpiece of filmmaking. Director and coscreenwriter (with Arthur C. Clarke) Stanley Kubrick has created a visual and aural spectacle that stands as one of the greatest achievements ever put on celluloid. The film begins with the "Dawn of Man" segment, about the evolution of apes, and then ventures into the future, taking a look at what the world might be like in the first year of the 21st century. Kubrick's film is a triumph of technological storytelling, a marvel of stunning sets and a brilliant soundtrack with the power to overwhelm and mystify. Long dialogue-free scenes sparkle with indelible images and powerful orchestral music, culminating in an unforgettable, inscrutable tale of birth and rebirth, human evolution and artificial intelligence, the past and the future.

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Customer Reviews

148 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (148 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars "I must say, you guys have certainly come up with something...", 15 Aug 2008
By Kenneth F. Mcara "Kenneth F. McAra" (Dundee, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: 2001 - A Space Odyssey [Blu-ray] [1968] (Blu-ray)
It was with a certain trepidation that I put this, my first blu-ray disk, into my new Panasonic blu-ray player. "2001: a space odyssey" has been my favourite film for as long as I can remember, and I've owned copies on a variety of VHS tapes and DVDs.

The theme is just about as epic as it's possible to imagine: the evolution of man from ape through human to a completely new life form. It's a film which has sharply polarised views, with some people completely mystified or even bored by the presentation, whilst others are spellbound and deeply moved. Unsurprisingly, I am in the second category, and still find myself surprised that Kubrick managed to get a major motion picture company to finance such a bold and imaginative film.

The presentation on blu-ray is beyond my wildest dreams. I take the point of a previous viewer about the visible joins in the front-projection screens, which could no doubt have been digitally removed, but other than that the film is in appropriately pristine condition. I sat down to watch for a few minutes - just to check that the new blu-ray player was working - and found myself watching the whole way through to the end.

The special effects were always a highlight of the film, and they do not disappoint in this new transfer. My particular favourite comes at the end of the first section of The Blue Danube where the camera appears to sail straight through between the 'wheels' of the space station - absolutely marvellous!

This film easily holds its place amongst other great cinema masterworks; watch this blu-ray version and find out exactly why.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable kaleidoscope, 15 Jun 2005
By Andy Millward (Broxbourne, Herts, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)      
This review is from: 2001: A Space Odyssey [1968] [DVD] (DVD)
If you're going to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey at home, start by obtaining the largest screen available. Connect to it the daddy of all home cinema sound systems and a first rate DVD player (all will be revealed below.) Find a comfortable chair at some distance from your mega screen, close the curtains and dowse the light. Sit, hit Play on the remote and prepre to be engaged and enraptured for 2 hours and more.

Regular review readers will know I'm a huge fan of Kubrick, but from his oeuvre this is arguably the masterpiece. Why? Well, to begin with, remember Kubrik made 2001 in 1968. In other words, his dazzling foray into space preceded Armstrong's first step on the moon. And the result has been the template for most space adventures made since. Even Alien makes nods to 2001. Only Tartakovsky's original Solaris (not the inferior Soderbergh remake) comes close in terms of the sheer grandeur, but that film was made in 1970 and is at least partially derivative.

Next, view the epic scale, grandeur and timelessness, a quality possessed by very few cinematic productions. Although you could hardly imagine anything more different to his works, I'm quite sure Cecil B DeMille would have been delighted by 2001. Consider too how Kubrick has adopted an unhurried pace, yet never the film never lags. For example, there are only two relatively brief recognisible conversations in the first 40 minutes of this film, yet so much more has been communicated to you in the meantime. Less truly is more, and you need a huge screen to appreciate how Kubrick's majestic spacescape. Visually, this is an awesome experience, but would never have achieved the same effect without the pioneering use of classical music, notably Strauss waltzes and, famously, Also Sprach Zarathustra, married to the elegaic pictures of space craft floating gracefully around the solar system.

Then, consider the plot, based on Arthur C Clarke's novel. It's remarkably simple, furnished with few characters and sparing dialogue by Kubrick and Clarke's screenplay, yet always intriguing and enigmatic. Somehow one needs no more, and the relative space (no pun intended) allows each character and their motivations to mature and reflect on the situation in which they find themselves. The anti-hero is of course HAL9000, the eerily voiced malfunctioning supercomputer, but ultimately it is Keir Dullea's Bowman who is reborn in a strange but comforting home environmet after enduring a hypnotic, if not hallucinogenic kaleidoscope of images on his journey to Jupiter.

Make no mistake, this is a film you could not forget in a hurry, and you'll need to watch several times to appreciate its art. Shame the DVD package doesn't include any documentaries about this historic achievement, but there are some around if you look - that's worth seeing in its own right.

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51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb film, good transfer, poor extras ..., 20 Mar 2008
By P. White (Cambridge, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: 2001 - A Space Odyssey [Blu-ray] [1968] (Blu-ray)
As has been reported this disc does have an FBI warning at the beginning but is otherwise a UK release. The packaging is for the UK. I love this film, have done for 35 years so I won't comment on the movie itself except to say that 95% of the visuals could have been made yesterday and that the story is fiercely intelligent. And so to the Blu-Ray disc:
The transfer is good. There are very few anomalies (and I don't mean Tycho Magnetic Anomalies), most of the anomalies that are present were built in, eg dirt on the rear projection screen in the Dawn of Man sequence. That brings me to my only real irritation with the film. If Stanley Kubrick was such a perfectionist (and he was) then why oh why did he allow the set designers to use a godawful backcloth screen to simulate the African terrain and sky? It's SO blaringly obvious that it's artificial because the viewer can see creases and imperfection in the fabric. It ruins the whole sequence. It was bad enough on DVD but with the extra resolution of Blu-ray it's just annoying. It's the one things that I wish someone would digitally correct.
After that all is well. Yes they got the Earth from space wrong (too washed out) but the SFX are stunningly good and look marvellous in HD. It amused me to read IBM-Tele-Pad on the Discovery crew's flat screen TV pads (whilst they're eating). There's a multitude of fine detail revealed: the ancillary rooms inside the lunar shuttle docking area reveal figures and screens that I'd not noticed before. The Star-Gate sequence looks a LOT better now. The finer detail and improved colour range of HD really adds some wow factor to it. I'm still not convinced by the colour filtered landscapes though: they could have tried harder there.
The audio is good. The soundtrack is good as it can be for a 40 year old film and despite being a little 'thin' is well within modern standards.
Frame judder is a slight problem as reported by another reviewer but I'm wondering whether that was a limitation of the original effects rather than the transfer to Blu-Ray because the same scenes in SD in the extras reveal the same judder.
The extras are many but none good. There's a very iffy Channel-4 documentary with some annoying talking heads discussing the film and various other small documentaries. None make the heart race. The best is a promotional film made for 'Look' Magazine in 1966 that was designed to interest potential advertisers in buying into a 'special' Space related supplement due to be published first quarter 68 on the back of the 2001 release. It shows some really interesting scenes of production, Kubrick on set etc and Clarke in the Grumman factory inspecting Lunar Modules.
There's something weird about this release. Amazon had a release date that has been a gone with no stock. The other Kubrick related releases appeared on time but not this one leading me to think there's been a production problem. It is possible to obtain a copy elsewhere and if you like 2001 it's worth doing so.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely stunning in Blu-ray
Having only ever seen "2001" in standard definition, seeing it in Blu-Ray is a revelation. The special effects are all the more stunning- I never released the level of complexity... Read more
Published 2 days ago by Mr. Stuart Bruce

5.0 out of 5 stars 2001 - A Space Odyssey
The genius of Krubrick is even more apparent in this Blu-ray rendering. The scenes are etched to almost painful clarity and the colours are as pure as those of a glorious sunset... Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars A Science Fiction Masterpiece
2001 was a groundbreaking movie in 1968 and still looks good today. It tells the ultimate story, that of mans beginnings in the Stone Age and then jumps 4 million years into the... Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!!
"2001: A Space Odyssey" has always been one of my favourite books and is my favourite movie. Arthur C. Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Done
This movie was a seminal movie for me as I first saw it on release way back then, it certainly left me wondering what the hell it meant but it was so eeerie and enthralling, I... Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars MIND-BOGGLING!
Herbert von Karajan once said about CD that it was the sunrise after the night (vinyl records). I repeat his words now with regard to DVD and BLU RAY. Read more
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3.0 out of 5 stars psychedelic landscapes
This film is a bit like marmite; you either love it or hate it. While I appreciate the groundbreaking visuals and music, I found it to be a bit drawn out. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Event Horizon 123

5.0 out of 5 stars Daisy, daisy...
Hearing this was a good Bluray transfer, and have never seen 2001 before (I know, I know, for shame) but hearing plenty about its classic status (and being a fan of Kubrick films... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. J. E. Beattie

5.0 out of 5 stars Does what all great art does, it makes you think.
I recently watched the brilliant 'Moon' starring Sam Rockwell, and remembered that there was a sci-fi film I had been meaning to watch for ages but hadn't got round to it... Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars 2001 - A Space Odyssey
Brilliant movie & even more fantastic now that I have watched it in Blue Ray..
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