Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?

[DeadpanSal]

That's pretty fair. Not everyone gets to make the amazing art pieces. There's a market for people who just want to see explosions.

Nothing wrong with metaphorically making hamburgers at McDonalds, so long as you don't act like doing so makes you a gourmet chef.

McDonald's is a well oiled, precision machine that makes perfectly crafted, somewhat edible food (and sweet, sweet McGriddles). I wouldn't say that Michael Bay is the Ronald McDonald of the fast food world. I'd save that for someone mild and inoffensive, but well established and inescapable, like a Spielberg or Chris Columbus. Michael Bay is Taco Bell's Dorito Taco. You don't know who would eat it and you don't want it, but you saw your little brother eat nine in one night and you never want to talk to him ever again.

I guess that makes Stanley Kubrik a White Castle.

[LaZodiac]

Kubrick is that fancy restuarant that serves really good food that you just don't have any interest in unless it's "your taste" like beef tongue and haggis.

[zimmerwald1915]

Kubrick is that fancy restuarant that serves . . . beef tongue

Beef tongue is classic deli food. I guess you could be describing Katz's or somewhere similarly overpriced, but I still wouldn't call those places "fancy restaurants."

[LaZodiac]

Beef tongue is classic deli food. I guess you could be describing Katz's or somewhere similarly overpriced, but I still wouldn't call those places "fancy restaurants."

Okay pretend I said raw fish eggs or whatever the analogy stands (and is stupid anyway).

[Crow]

Beef tongue is classic deli food. I guess you could be describing Katz's or somewhere similarly overpriced, but I still wouldn't call those places "fancy restaurants."

I used to have to eat beef tongue all the time, back when it was dirt cheap. Apparently there is some kind of tongue shortage among cows now, because they are expensive these days.

[warty goblin]

Kubrick is that fancy restuarant that serves really good food that you just don't have any interest in unless it's "your taste" like beef tongue and haggis.

Beef tongue is excellent, so is pork tongue. It doesn't even taste like organ meat, it's just a rather flavorful muscle meat with a somewhat unusual texture. It's very mild, even more so than heart, and heart is a pretty mild meat as meats that aren't skeletal muscles go. I've had beef stomach as well, kinda chewy and not the prettiest thing I've ever eaten, but it tastes fine. I'd take it over liver.

[Kantaki]

I used to have to eat beef tongue all the time, back when it was dirt cheap. Apparently there is some kind of tongue shortage among cows now, because they are expensive these days.

Maybe they are breeding tongueless cattle to increase the price?

But the fancy restaurant is a pretty good simile to 2001.
Looks great- could even be called art -but there is very little food/film.
Great if you want to look at something „artisan”, bad if you are hungry/want to watch a movie.
I exaggerate, but honestly? All I remember from 2001 are the bone-juggling monkey and and the drug-induced hallucination that somehow got captured on camera.
I'm pretty sure something happened between those scenes, but I don't remember anything. And not just because it has been a while since I watched it.

[Lethologica]

Maybe they are breeding tongueless cattle to increase the price?

But the fancy restaurant is a pretty good simile to 2001.
Looks great- could even be called art -but there is very little food/film.
Great if you want to look at something „artisan”, bad if you are hungry/want to watch a movie.
I exaggerate, but honestly? All I remember from 2001 are the bone-juggling monkey and and the drug-induced hallucination that somehow got captured on camera.
I'm pretty sure something happened between those scenes, but I don't remember anything. And not just because it has been a while since I watched it.

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

Another point in favor of the analogy to fancy restaurants--they usually serve a lot of specialized courses with only a little food per course along some general theme. 2001 is, again, a number of short films with very specific aims along the general theme of human development and exploration.

[hustlertwo]

Rabid anti-intellectualist that I am, I had similar discussions/debates with people in my film classes at school, as well as in the Cinematic Arts group when we chose what movies showed at the Tate. My stance was always that 2001 is a vitally important movie, but boring as crap. Unlike other terrible movies, we cannot wish it gone, because themes and stylistic choices from this movie paved the way for countless better films in the ensuing 50ish years. But that does not change the fact that the first time I tried to watch it, I fell asleep. The second, I simply wished I had.

Movies can educate, inspire, and enlighten. But if they do not entertain, they cannot truly be considered 'good'. We call them entertainment mediums for a reason. Their primary purpose is to help us fritter away our leisure time. So, while Bay's first Transformers movie is not as well-made as 2001 to be sure, it is undeniably the more fun of the two and thus calling it better is not wrong. Which, I should say, is also why I think Verhoeven is one of the unrecognized and underrated auteurs of the modern age. But that's a separate discussion.

[warty goblin]

Rabid anti-intellectualist that I am, I had similar discussions/debates with people in my film classes at school, as well as in the Cinematic Arts group when we chose what movies showed at the Tate. My stance was always that 2001 is a vitally important movie, but boring as crap. Unlike other terrible movies, we cannot wish it gone, because themes and stylistic choices from this movie paved the way for countless better films in the ensuing 50ish years. But that does not change the fact that the first time I tried to watch it, I fell asleep. The second, I simply wished I had.

Movies can educate, inspire, and enlighten. But if they do not entertain, they cannot truly be considered 'good'. We call them entertainment mediums for a reason. Their primary purpose is to help us fritter away our leisure time. So, while Bay's first Transformers movie is not as well-made as 2001 to be sure, it is undeniably the more fun of the two and thus calling it better is not wrong. Which, I should say, is also why I think Verhoeven is one of the unrecognized and underrated auteurs of the modern age. But that's a separate discussion.

I enjoyed, had more fun with, and in general was more entertained by 2001 than Transformers. I mean I enjoyed Transformers, but only because I was a RA at a summer program for the vile offspring of very wealthy people. All my terrible charges went to see something else, so I decamped to Transformers for ~2 hours of horrible goblin-child free relaxation, and it was good. But I'd happily watch 2001 again under absolutely no duress.

[Flickerdart]

Kubrick is like a molecular gastronomy restaurant, where you're served a deconstructed sandwich that's actually a series of four gelatin cubes served on a long, narrow marble slab.

[BWR]

So, while Bay's first Transformers movie is not as well-made as 2001 to be sure, it is undeniably the more fun of the two and thus calling it better is not wrong..

I wouldn't call any of the Transformers movies 'fun'. At best there were some decent action sequences but hardly 'fun'. Mostly they are painful attempts at humor and poor excuses for characterization and overuse of a highly limited use of the camera. 2001 is interesting and amazingly well put together.

[Zaydos]

I find 2001 extremely boring and I'd still watch it twice in a row before I'd watch Transformers again (I might try one of the later Transformers films before I re-watch 2001 2 more times but that's more of a 'I haven't seen it' + Bile Fascination going on).

Mostly because 2001 has pretty at least, and Transformers, I saw once and there is nothing to draw me back besides Peter Cullen's voice.

[hustlertwo]

I was mostly using Transformers since it had already been brought up, not out of true love for it, though I did enjoy it more than I suspected when it was first announced. Still surprised that many people would rather slog through this spacey snorefest again, though.

How about the original RoboCop? Or Der Arnold's excellent Commando?

[Frozen_Feet]

IT is a real law, it's the Romeo and Juliet law. The basics of it are far more disturbing. As long as you're above 13, if you're within 2 years of your partner anything is basically okay. Perhaps frowned upon, 100% super ****ing creepy, but totally legal.

You can chalk this to differing cultural values, but calling any of that "disturbing" sounds hopelessly detached from reality. To me, a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old dating is a mundane non-issue on the level of "rocks exist" and the only reason to ever dwell on it would be to poke fun at how moronic people's attitudes can get about it.

[eggynack]

You can chalk this to differing cultural values, but calling any of that "disturbing" sounds hopelessly detached from reality. To me, a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old dating is a mundane non-issue on the level of "rocks exist" and the only reason to ever dwell on it would be to poke fun at how moronic people's attitudes can get about it.

True, though I think he's 20 in the movie, and it looks like he was 22 outside the movie. Bit of a larger gap. Also, he comes across as pretty old for some reason. This weird grizzled vibe. Anyway, I don't think any of this is the point. Just having that age gap is theoretically not the worst. What's weird is how much attention the movie calls to it. It's like Transformers is getting on some kinda Romeo and Juliet law soap box. One can say that it was intended as a joke, but it didn't read that way when I watched the clip. It read more like, "Ha, the man can't keep me down in terms of the age gap between me and the woman I'm sleeping with." There's a message out of that scene, and out of the two main possibilities it felt like Bay went for the creepy one. In particular, it could have been, "Love can transcend even a decent few years of age difference," and instead it was, "Love can overcome even the fact that my lover is an abstract law, because this one law is the greatest thing ever, and I'ma bed young ladies left and right to stick it to the man, with my fancy laminated card in hand." The situation isn't disturbing. The scene is disturbing.

[Lethologica]

hustlertwo, I disagree that you can essentialize movies as entertainment, except by defining entertainment such that anything that can keep our eyeballs on it for two hours is entertaining, and by that measure I would disagree that Transformers is more entertaining than 2001.

[BannedInSchool]

You can chalk this to differing cultural values, but calling any of that "disturbing" sounds hopelessly detached from reality. To me, a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old dating is a mundane non-issue on the level of "rocks exist" and the only reason to ever dwell on it would be to poke fun at how moronic people's attitudes can get about it.

Because of age binning for school grades that "two-year" by number difference could happen between people in adjacent grades, I think. By the calendar the difference would be less than two full years, and for some time during the year they'd be only one off in number of "years old". I think saying "one year difference in school max" is more clear and practical than requiring comparing birthdays, and requiring everybody to be less than one calendar year apart in ages and in the same grade seems overly strict. That still means the seniors should leave the freshmen and sophomores alone.

[LaZodiac]

You can chalk this to differing cultural values, but calling any of that "disturbing" sounds hopelessly detached from reality. To me, a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old dating is a mundane non-issue on the level of "rocks exist" and the only reason to ever dwell on it would be to poke fun at how moronic people's attitudes can get about it.

Okay so to clarify I don't actually mind it PERSONALLY, I just think bringing it up in a movie, like that, is just...insane and stupid and potentially disturbing to a lot of people. Legal age in Canada is 16, for instance, so it's not actually that big a deal, but the movie MADE it a big deal, so we need to actually look at it as it.

[Bohandas]

You can chalk this to differing cultural values, but calling any of that "disturbing" sounds hopelessly detached from reality. To me, a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old dating is a mundane non-issue on the level of "rocks exist" and the only reason to ever dwell on it would be to poke fun at how moronic people's attitudes can get about it.

I second this.

[Lethologica]

Everyone in the scene had moronic attitudes about it, is the thing. And not in such a way that the director's clearly playing them as buffoons for our benefit, either.

[Closet_Skeleton]

2001 a Space Odyssey is a interesting failure of a film that gets thrown to the top of lists of 'good SF films' in order to make the critic look smart. It flopped massively on release and only got saved due it it fitting into a hippie zeitgeist.

Its actually a tired mysticism film with little to no 'intellectual content' based on themes that were trendy and not entirely spent when it was written but still horribly cliche even then (seriously, Clarke did the whole 'apocalypticism but with aliens thing back in 1953 with Childhood's End and it was hardly new as a idea even then). It only seems to be due to the grandfather clause that its plot holes aren't ridiculed in the same way to how people treat Signs, a film that in a similar way pretends to be a SF film while only making sense as a religious one.

The other actually good reason it gets put on lists other than exaggerated erudition is that like all niche appeal movies, when its a person's sort of thing it tends to be REALLY there sort of thing. I don't hate it myself, its just that while I can appreciate the updating of the philosopher's stone motif just can't take the 'alien god' **** seriously. There's probably a few bit of unintended imperialist apologetic in there as well but I've stretched what should be stated here far enough.

[Donnadogsoth]

2001 a Space Odyssey is a interesting failure of a film that gets thrown to the top of lists of 'good SF films' in order to make the critic look smart. It flopped massively on release and only got saved due it it fitting into a hippie zeitgeist.

Its actually a tired mysticism film with little to no 'intellectual content' based on themes that were trendy and not entirely spent when it was written but still horribly cliche even then (seriously, Clarke did the whole 'apocalypticism but with aliens thing back in 1953 with Childhood's End and it was hardly new as a idea even then). It only seems to be due to the grandfather clause that its plot holes aren't ridiculed in the same way to how people treat Signs, a film that in a similar way pretends to be a SF film while only making sense as a religious one.

The other actually good reason it gets put on lists other than exaggerated erudition is that like all niche appeal movies, when its a person's sort of thing it tends to be REALLY there sort of thing. I don't hate it myself, its just that while I can appreciate the updating of the philosopher's stone motif just can't take the 'alien god' **** seriously. There's probably a few bit of unintended imperialist apologetic in there as well but I've stretched what should be stated here far enough.

Can you recommend any vigourous mysticism films?

[Crow]

LOL @ Closet Skeleton. The conspiracy has been exposed! It turns out the move sucks after all.

[hustlertwo]

hustlertwo, I disagree that you can essentialize movies as entertainment, except by defining entertainment such that anything that can keep our eyeballs on it for two hours is entertaining, and by that measure I would disagree that Transformers is more entertaining than 2001.

OK, then if the primary purpose of films is not to entertain, what is it?

[eggynack]

OK, then if the primary purpose of films is not to entertain, what is it?

I don't think films have a primary purpose. A film can have a primary purpose, certainly, but any two movies can have completely different primary purposes. Entertainment is quite often a secondary purpose that facilitates the primary purpose by getting you to watch that purpose happen, but even then it's not strictly necessary. For example, The Act of Killing is primarily about informing people about the nature of the Indonesian genocide, and open up conversation about it that was previously closed off. Granted, it happens to be an occasionally amusing movie about genocide, but that doesn't mean it was the creator's main goal in making the thing.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

OK, then if the primary purpose of films is not to entertain, what is it?

The same as the purpose of any other art form.

GW

[Fawkes]

OK, then if the primary purpose of films is not to entertain, what is it?

What an obtuse question. Art, of any medium, can have any number of purposes. To entertain, to educate, to motivate, to express something, to make you feel something.

Don't pigeonhole art.

[hustlertwo]

So would you consider something like The Human Centipede to be a successful film? Or Antichrist? Few, if any, would call them entertaining. And would you then argue that there is no such thing as a bad movie, since all films have someone who liked something about them? Having just watched the Fantastic Four reboot, I find that sort of mentality troubling. There has to be some sort of standard to objectively say a movie is good or bad. And I can think of none better than the determiner of whether you enjoyed your time with the film or not.

[Bohandas]

OK, then if the primary purpose of films is not to entertain, what is it?

Well, a documentary's purpose is to educate. This isn't a documentary though.