Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
The two films ran back-to-back on HDNet Movies the other night and I recorded them both on the HD-DVR. Just got a chance tonight to sit down and watch them
Wow.
2001 looks and sounds (5.1 DD remix) stunning. The space scenes are still better than anything anybody's put on film since, and you can see where George Lucas got so many of his ideas. (The forced-perspective and gently-sloping floors of the orbital waystation also bring to mind another, more colorful, spacestation.)
I haven't followed the history of the film in recent years, but I strongly suspect it was lovingly restored before being transferred to hi-def digital video. Even at a "mere" 720 progressive lines of resolution it looks fantastic. The large format film frame holds so much information that it brings out the best in any HD video format. You can almost read the instructions on the zero gravity toilet. (Which were real, and which were really spelled out on that sign. They were from a prototype that NASA was considering at the time. I think either Kubrick or Clarke ended up with the sign.) Nothing in the Death Star was more impressive than the docking bay of the space station or the Orion hanger at Clavius base, and nothing about the Death Star gave us the feeling that such a thing could be built, and by us, either.
2010 was a disappointment on more ways than I would have expected. The film was shot on regular 35mm stock with anamorphic lenses and either projected with correcting lenses or blown up to 70mm for theaters with the right projectors. So from the start the prints all had less information in each frame than the 2001 frames. And I don't think the film received anything like a full rstoration before being transferred to digital video.
The result was a markedly inferior presentation to 2001, The film looked grainy by comparison, not as sharp, the colors didn't "pop" the way they did in the earlier film.
Then there was the film itself - as overly literal as the original was deliberately obscure. The attempt to make the film "relevant" by trying to parallel contemporary events not only falls flat on its own terms, but it badly dates the film in a way the [i2001 with its vague hint of international tensions, isn't dated. It is simply laughable in 2006 to watch a film set in 2010 that features the Soviet Union as a going concern. The heavy-handed anti-Cold War can't-we-all-just-get-along message lost Clarke's much more subtle touches in the novel. And the mission iteslf was reduced to a kind of boys adventure in space. Despite all of which the film is watchable once you get past the dreadful first part. (Dana Elcar does the worst Russian accent in the history of Russian accents, the family drama is heavy handed, and nobody in his right mind would believe that Roy Scheider is playing the same character from 2010 nine years later. Nah, this is some other guy who happens to be named Heywood Floyd.)
Once they get out into space the peformances - especially Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow and Elya Baskin as Max - take over and you can sit back and enjoyed some rather dumbed down straight SF. Bob Balaban is annoying as hell as Dr. Chandra, and not just because Chandra is written as such a twit. Balaban adds his own bag of tics, gimmicks and quirks to raise Chadra from terrifically annoying to "why doesn't someone throw his ass out an airlock" levels in record time. Oh, Douglas Rain is back as the voice of HAL, and that's a good thing. (Although in a pinch they could have called me. I happen to do an excellent HAL impersonation.
)
So, to sum up: 2001 in HD is a revelation. 2010 is a much inferior to the parent film in the HD transfer department as it is in every other respect. Still, I wish I could save both HD versions to a hard disc archive to watch again. Instead I'll have to erase them soon to make room for other programming. (HD recordings are serious space hogs, and 2001 is longer than your average movie.)
Regards,
Joe
Wow.
2001 looks and sounds (5.1 DD remix) stunning. The space scenes are still better than anything anybody's put on film since, and you can see where George Lucas got so many of his ideas. (The forced-perspective and gently-sloping floors of the orbital waystation also bring to mind another, more colorful, spacestation.)
I haven't followed the history of the film in recent years, but I strongly suspect it was lovingly restored before being transferred to hi-def digital video. Even at a "mere" 720 progressive lines of resolution it looks fantastic. The large format film frame holds so much information that it brings out the best in any HD video format. You can almost read the instructions on the zero gravity toilet. (Which were real, and which were really spelled out on that sign. They were from a prototype that NASA was considering at the time. I think either Kubrick or Clarke ended up with the sign.) Nothing in the Death Star was more impressive than the docking bay of the space station or the Orion hanger at Clavius base, and nothing about the Death Star gave us the feeling that such a thing could be built, and by us, either.
2010 was a disappointment on more ways than I would have expected. The film was shot on regular 35mm stock with anamorphic lenses and either projected with correcting lenses or blown up to 70mm for theaters with the right projectors. So from the start the prints all had less information in each frame than the 2001 frames. And I don't think the film received anything like a full rstoration before being transferred to digital video.
The result was a markedly inferior presentation to 2001, The film looked grainy by comparison, not as sharp, the colors didn't "pop" the way they did in the earlier film.
Then there was the film itself - as overly literal as the original was deliberately obscure. The attempt to make the film "relevant" by trying to parallel contemporary events not only falls flat on its own terms, but it badly dates the film in a way the [i2001 with its vague hint of international tensions, isn't dated. It is simply laughable in 2006 to watch a film set in 2010 that features the Soviet Union as a going concern. The heavy-handed anti-Cold War can't-we-all-just-get-along message lost Clarke's much more subtle touches in the novel. And the mission iteslf was reduced to a kind of boys adventure in space. Despite all of which the film is watchable once you get past the dreadful first part. (Dana Elcar does the worst Russian accent in the history of Russian accents, the family drama is heavy handed, and nobody in his right mind would believe that Roy Scheider is playing the same character from 2010 nine years later. Nah, this is some other guy who happens to be named Heywood Floyd.)
Once they get out into space the peformances - especially Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow and Elya Baskin as Max - take over and you can sit back and enjoyed some rather dumbed down straight SF. Bob Balaban is annoying as hell as Dr. Chandra, and not just because Chandra is written as such a twit. Balaban adds his own bag of tics, gimmicks and quirks to raise Chadra from terrifically annoying to "why doesn't someone throw his ass out an airlock" levels in record time. Oh, Douglas Rain is back as the voice of HAL, and that's a good thing. (Although in a pinch they could have called me. I happen to do an excellent HAL impersonation.
) So, to sum up: 2001 in HD is a revelation. 2010 is a much inferior to the parent film in the HD transfer department as it is in every other respect. Still, I wish I could save both HD versions to a hard disc archive to watch again. Instead I'll have to erase them soon to make room for other programming. (HD recordings are serious space hogs, and 2001 is longer than your average movie.)
Regards,
Joe
