u/Future-Poetry-2193

So I just finished 2001: A Space Odyssey as part of my little sci-fi marathon. The movie left me quite confused, not just about the movie itself but also about the reception it received.

I will start with my thoughts on the movie itself. OPINION ALERT

I have heard warnings about this movie being slow, especially after my post about Annihilation, which was slow paced for me. The first half of the movie took "slow paced" to another level. I know that this is fitting me perfectly into the stereotype of gen Z having no attention span but just hear me out. I have liked slow movies but most of those did it differently from 2001. The ones I liked technically had nothing happening, but all the silence and scenic shots served to let viewers stew on their emotions or reflect on the message. 2001 from the very beginning seemingly relied on cool visuals and music to keep every shot going for longer than it should. The repetitiveness and frequency of these long shots really got to me. The main purpose of these, I would assume, was to show the vast expanse of space. I don't think that single idea would require this much of the run time to establish, so maybe I was missing something. I think the pacing for the first half of the movie was slow and drawn out in a bad way. Most of the shots could've been shortened a bit. The remaining shots should be shortened by a lot. I don't feel like a spaceship being lowered into the base should've taken anywhere near that long.

The second half was much better paced in my opinion, from the start of the time skip to the Jupiter mission. The actions are still slow but at least now it felt more purposeful and the slowness helped in building tension really well. I did feel like the acid trip near the end overstayed its welcome a bit but it was still visually interesting enough to be worth the time. Overall, this movie's pacing was just unnecessarily slow but that is just me.

The other thing I would like to talk about is the story. My favorite part of the movie was the Jupiter mission and everything with HAL 9000. It felt much more like a normal space story than anything else in the movie and I thought it was quite well executed. As mentioned before, I thought the use of the slow pacing to help build tension was quite excellent. HAL was the only character in the movie that felt like an actual character. Now I do understand the intention was to make the story cold and emotionless, but I think it would still be better if we had gotten more interesting characters (emotionless does not equate to uninteresting).

About the message, I think I understood the core of it being human evolution and the way we use our tools. These are very effectively conveyed through the beginning with the hominins and the Jupiter mission. That still didn't make me any less confused with the ending. I just straight up didn't understand it at all. I mean I understood what happened (aka some weird alien stuff) but I didn't understand what it meant or what it was supposed to convey. By the end I was just mostly left confused rather than mesmerized. The message also didn't leave me as much to chew on as compared to Annihilation which was the one I watched before. Maybe this one was too grand for me to fully dive into.

I'm starting to think that this was supposed to be more of an audiovisual experience rather than a story being told. I must admit I am not as good with the latter unless the experience is brainless excitement like Mad Max: Fury Road. I think this movie looks incredible even by modern standards and the soundtrack is iconic for good reasons. I just don't think that is enough for me to have a good experience with a movie especially when there were points where I thought the shots and music got too drawn out.

Now to the question being asked in the title: Do most people immediately fall in love with 2001: A Space Odyssey?

I would like to think of myself as having a pretty wide taste in movies. If most people liked a movie and/or it is critically acclaimed, I most likely also liked it or at least understood why it was popular. That is why 2001 is a weird case for me. I do see how people would love the movie. The message about humanity, the visuals, the music, the story that is very thrilling in parts, great artistic vision. That said, it does not seem to me like a movie to be this widely beloved by general audiences. It felt like the kind of movie to be VERY highly rated by artsy cinephile people but most of the public would find it a rough watch. I feel like my initial reaction and thoughts on the movie is pretty close to how most normal movie watchers would feel. A potential explanation I can see is the movie growing on viewers as the ideas behind it start to stew and linger.

Another theory I have is the phenomenon where after you have finished the film for a while, whenever you think back, only the best parts come to mind. It is actually happening to me right now. As I am writing this, I'm starting to forget how bored I was for a good portion of the movie and how confused it left me. What remains in my memory most vividly is how great everything around HAL was and some of the multiple incredible shots in this movie.

But hey, I am most likely wrong and maybe people just really loved how the movie looked and sounded and/or how thrilling some parts of the movie were while not minding or even liking the slow pacing.

So I just finished 2001: A Space Odyssey as part of my little sci-fi marathon. The movie left me quite confused, not just about the movie itself but also about the reception it received.

I will start with my thoughts on the movie itself. OPINION ALERT

I have heard warnings about this movie being slow, especially after my post about Annihilation, which was slow paced for me. The first half of the movie took "slow paced" to another level. I know that this is fitting me perfectly into the stereotype of gen Z having no attention span but just hear me out. I have liked slow movies but most of those did it differently from 2001. The ones I liked technically had nothing happening, but all the silence and scenic shots served to let viewers stew on their emotions or reflect on the message. 2001 from the very beginning seemingly relied on cool visuals and music to keep every shot going for longer than it should. The repetitiveness and frequency of these long shots really got to me. The main purpose of these, I would assume, was to show the vast expanse of space. I don't think that single idea would require this much of the run time to establish, so maybe I was missing something. I think the pacing for the first half of the movie was slow and drawn out in a bad way. Most of the shots could've been shortened a bit. The remaining shots should be shortened by a lot. I don't feel like a spaceship being lowered into the base should've taken anywhere near that long.

The second half was much better paced in my opinion, from the start of the time skip to the Jupiter mission. The actions are still slow but at least now it felt more purposeful and the slowness helped in building tension really well. I did feel like the acid trip near the end overstayed its welcome a bit but it was still visually interesting enough to be worth the time. Overall, this movie's pacing was just unnecessarily slow but that is just me.

The other thing I would like to talk about is the story. My favorite part of the movie was the Jupiter mission and everything with HAL 9000. It felt much more like a normal space story than anything else in the movie and I thought it was quite well executed. As mentioned before, I thought the use of the slow pacing to help build tension was quite excellent. HAL was the only character in the movie that felt like an actual character. Now I do understand the intention was to make the story cold and emotionless, but I think it would still be better if we had gotten more interesting characters (emotionless does not equate to uninteresting).

About the message, I think I understood the core of it being human evolution and the way we use our tools. These are very effectively conveyed through the beginning with the hominins and the Jupiter mission. That still didn't make me any less confused with the ending. I just straight up didn't understand it at all. I mean I understood what happened (aka some weird alien stuff) but I didn't understand what it meant or what it was supposed to convey. By the end I was just mostly left confused rather than mesmerized. The message also didn't leave me as much to chew on as compared to Annihilation which was the one I watched before. Maybe this one was too grand for me to fully dive into.

I'm starting to think that this was supposed to be more of an audiovisual experience rather than a story being told. I must admit I am not as good with the latter unless the experience is brainless excitement like Mad Max: Fury Road. I think this movie looks incredible even by modern standards and the soundtrack is iconic for good reasons. I just don't think that is enough for me to have a good experience with a movie especially when there were points where I thought the shots and music got too drawn out.

Now to the question being asked in the title: Do most people immediately fall in love with 2001: A Space Odyssey?

I would like to think of myself as having a pretty wide taste in movies. If most people liked a movie and/or it is critically acclaimed, I most likely also liked it or at least understood why it was popular. That is why 2001 is a weird case for me. I do see how people would love the movie. The message about humanity, the visuals, the music, the story that is very thrilling in parts, great artistic vision. That said, it does not seem to me like a movie to be this widely beloved by general audiences. It felt like the kind of movie to be VERY highly rated by artsy cinephile people but most of the public would find it a rough watch. I feel like my initial reaction and thoughts on the movie is pretty close to how most normal movie watchers would feel. A potential explanation I can see is the movie growing on viewers as the ideas behind it start to stew and linger.

Another theory I have is the phenomenon where after you have finished the film for a while, whenever you think back, only the best parts come to mind. It is actually happening to me right now. As I am writing this, I'm starting to forget how bored I was for a good portion of the movie and how confused it left me. What remains in my memory most vividly is how great everything around HAL was and some of the multiple incredible shots in this movie.

But hey, I am most likely wrong and maybe people just really loved how the movie looked and sounded and/or how thrilling some parts of the movie were while not minding or even liking the slow pacing.