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2016-08-23, 03:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
It's still a horror film. It's just not that supernatural of a horror film. The Shining is a movie about the horrors of isolation, domestic abuse, and alcoholism. Mostly, anyway. There's also the supernatural horror element, cause the movie strongly implies that there totally are ghosts and such. But even without the ghosts, it's still horror. Maybe even more effective horror. I tend to think that the movie would have been stronger without confirmation that this ghost stuff is real, because that'd make it even scarier. Think about it. Our world likely doesn't have ghosts, and incredibly likely doesn't have ghosts that interact with our world, so we have less to fear from a story where ghosts manipulate the protagonists/antagonists into violence. Scarier is a story, like this one, where the horror comes from incredibly practical and normal stuff that could absolutely happen in real life.
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2016-08-23, 03:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Wait a second. You're actually suggesting that the movie The Shining, named after the supernatural ability of the main character's son, which is proven in multiple scenes, is not supernatural.
I don't think you have the right read of that movie at all.. . .
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2016-08-23, 04:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
It's a pretty common read, at least, again, up to that scene where a ghost helps Jack escape a locked room. Even Kubrick himself has said so. I haven't read it, but the original book apparently makes the supernatural elements way more explicit, and more significantly, the seemingly primary cause of Jack's problems. Meanwhile, Jack from the film is mostly an abusive ass at the beginning of the movie, and was probably even crazy before the hotel. Again, consider the classic "All work and no play" scene. Jack is shown writing really early into coming to the hotel, and acts cruelly towards his wife about it. Said reveal means that, even in those early scenes, Jack wasn't writing anything of import at all, and was just whiling away his time in insanity. And that was before the ghostly stuff got really serious, as I recall.
So, yes, some of the events in the movie are definitely supernatural and aren't reasonably explainable in any other fashion. But most of The Shining isn't so definitively supernatural, and said maybe supernatural elements are mostly important as an outgrowth of Jack's already present crazy. The supernatural is largely secondary to a more realistic story of a family torn apart by isolation and abuse in a creepy hotel.Last edited by eggynack; 2016-08-23 at 04:29 AM.
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2016-08-23, 04:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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2016-08-23, 05:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Wow. No, Even if Stanley Kubrick wants to pretend he reads the source material with that stance, it doesn't hold up. The entire movie is supernatural. You can't deny the ability to shine, because both **** Halloran and Danny have the ability and show that the ability works. There is more than one instance of Shining in the movie, and with the actual payoffs in place, the story unfolds that Danny shines, the Overlook shines and calls him to use his power. This is nothing to say that the movie and TV series actually gives Jack Torrance an actual arc as he descends into madness and attempts to redeem himself with a payoff about the boiler room job. That's the problem with your read, it actively dismisses the evidence within the script (which is more than what you cited) and drops all need for payoffs. You have the setup of the job. You have the setup of the Shining ability within Danny. You have the setup within the boy's split personality. You have the setup with Jack and **** being at the start of separate arcs. In your read, you just want do see a crazy person stay crazy and dismiss all of the supernatural elements of the film even when there's proof that it doesn't hold up to its own logic.
That's because I'm pretty sure that Kubrick didn't actually read the book. As far as I understand what actually happened, Jan Harlan was the one who read it and gave him a synopsis. Kubrick himself never read it and never read King's adaptation. Instead, he was just looking for a vessel for what he would write anyway. And he made it disjointed and incomprehensible on purpose. Does that make it good? No. I would say if you try to make a story to confuse people, you aren't doing your job as a creator. I mean look at this:
At the end we see a photograph of a ballroom in 1923, and there is [Jack Torrance] because he’s always been the caretaker. You explain to me why! There is no explanation. A famous Kubrick sentence is, “Never try to explain something that you don’t understand yourself.”
Does that sound like the sane logic of someone making art? Because to me it sounds like a troll getting a laugh at being applauded for making high art when his only objective was to confuse. You can swallow his defense and clap when you have no idea what's going on and feel good about it, but as for me I'm going to make the bewildered face when I'm bewildered and ask for someone to show me something made with the intention of sane and logical entertainment. If I wanted to try to wrap my head around a script that served no internal purpose, I'd much rather check out David Lynch.
EDIT: His name is Richard. I'm not swearing. Holy heck, text parser.Last edited by DeadpanSal; 2016-08-23 at 05:13 AM.
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2016-08-23, 07:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
One point I will give 2001 to its credit-- not seeing the aliens in any way other than through their monoliths is one of the best representations of creepy aliens I've ever "seen" in cinema. Every time one of those black blocks shows on screen, they play that eerie sound and I get the shivers. They're watching humanity through those things, and we cannot watch them back because we cannot comprehend them. Contact wasn't bad though. It's a more warm, friendly kind of alien that we see as it takes the shape of something we can understand. Because they want to be friends and are just waiting for humanity to mature.
Aliens in 2001? Yeah, we're just a science experiment.
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2016-08-23, 08:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Don't worry they went through the ethics board.
The Shining did have payoff, just not "victory over the baddies" type of payoff that you seem to be waiting for. It pays off by feeding the audience dread and anticipation through the psychic eyes of the child. It pays off by accelerating events into motion. It pays off by twist-killing a character Game-Of-Thrones style.
Without the ability, there wouldn't be much ghosts in the movie at all, since then nobody would see them.
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2016-08-23, 09:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
In Kubrick's defense, Doctor Strangelove was pretty good.
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2016-08-23, 12:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Irrelevant. What matters is that this is the view of the book, the possibly flawed view of the book, that informed his film making. He thought the movie wasn't that
The entire movie is supernatural. You can't deny the ability to shine, because both **** Halloran and Danny have the ability and show that the ability works.
This is nothing to say that the movie and TV series actually gives Jack Torrance an actual arc as he descends into madness and attempts to redeem himself with a payoff about the boiler room job. That's the problem with your read, it actively dismisses the evidence within the script (which is more than what you cited) and drops all need for payoffs. You have the setup of the job. You have the setup of the Shining ability within Danny. You have the setup within the boy's split personality. You have the setup with Jack and **** being at the start of separate arcs. In your read, you just want do see a crazy person stay crazy and dismiss all of the supernatural elements of the film even when there's proof that it doesn't hold up to its own logic.
That's because I'm pretty sure that Kubrick didn't actually read the book. As far as I understand what actually happened, Jan Harlan was the one who read it and gave him a synopsis. Kubrick himself never read it and never read King's adaptation. Instead, he was just looking for a vessel for what he would write anyway. And he made it disjointed and incomprehensible on purpose. Does that make it good? No. I would say if you try to make a story to confuse people, you aren't doing your job as a creator. I mean look at this:
At the end we see a photograph of a ballroom in 1923, and there is [Jack Torrance] because he’s always been the caretaker. You explain to me why! There is no explanation. A famous Kubrick sentence is, “Never try to explain something that you don’t understand yourself.”
Does that sound like the sane logic of someone making art? Because to me it sounds like a troll getting a laugh at being applauded for making high art when his only objective was to confuse. You can swallow his defense and clap when you have no idea what's going on and feel good about it, but as for me I'm going to make the bewildered face when I'm bewildered and ask for someone to show me something made with the intention of sane and logical entertainment. If I wanted to try to wrap my head around a script that served no internal purpose, I'd much rather check out David Lynch.
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2016-08-23, 01:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Bay wasn't "pretty much the same" as Kubrick when they were both making films for adult audiences, and he isn't "pretty much the same" aside from his target audience now. Your decision to seize on the stigma of films for younger audiences as a primary or even relevant consideration doesn't reflect a serious consideration of their actual similarities and differences.
Last edited by Lethologica; 2016-08-23 at 01:07 PM.
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2016-08-23, 02:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
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2016-08-23, 02:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Am I the only one here who actually liked 2001?
I've seen it three times or so. Yes, it's slow-paced, and no, I don't always feel in the mood to see it (mostly I don't) but it's a beautiful piece of film and the pacing works great for the story.
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2016-08-23, 02:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
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2016-08-23, 04:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
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2016-08-23, 05:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
I think there are supernatural elements to the Shining, but that they aren't the horrifying element. Yes, Danny's Shining ability lets him see all manner of screwed up scenes, giving him the clear feeling that something's not right. Yes, the ghosts play the father like a piano, using his alcoholic tendencies, familial frustrations, and professional letdowns to wind him up like a toy soldier and send him off on everyone in a mile radius. There is a lot of supernatural elements at play.
But the horror isn't supernatural. The Shining isn't meant to terrify, it's meant to unsettle. The horrifying thing is watching a clearly flawed but worryingly realistic father figure get twisted more and more until he hunts his own family down with a butcher knife and a fire ax, laughing and referencing late night television memes as he does it. And since you've spent the movie unsettled, it makes watching this truly mundane horror of a broken paternal figure turned implacable killer that much more brutal.
Does it work? Probably not so much, anymore. People look at the Shining elements and brush them off as cheap scares, setting a stage of jaded disappointment instead of mounting discomfort. But I believe it did work at the time.Spoiler: My inventory:
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Originally Posted by Kairos Theodosian
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2016-08-23, 05:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
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2016-08-23, 07:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
I think Kubrick was a great director, but that doesn't mean that everything he did was a great film. IMO, 2001 isn't a great movie, or even a good one. But as I said, it's not supposed to be a standalone work the way a traditional movie is.
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2016-08-23, 07:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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2016-08-23, 08:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Transformers: Age of Extinction. This is a really odd thing as way too many of Bay's movies have a pedophilia joke or comment...that it can't just be a random coincidence. .
and the Transforms one makes no sense at all. They could have just said ''the girl is 19'' and dad could still be all upset and it would not have effected the movie at all......you know other then wasting time with dumb human drama when people want to see robots....
Just like them two brothers, er, whatever their names are obsessed with putting ''the origin and explanation for vampires'' in all their movies...
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2016-08-23, 08:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
I'm not trying to explain everything with that. But I do think a portion of our viewpoint comes from the bias that only adult material can be art. Even if Bay were to use the same techniques as Kubrick, we'd see it as lesser. Or if we actually gave him credit, we'd say it was wasted. I mean, he's responded to critics by saying "I make movies for teenage boys. Oh, dear, what a crime." You can say it's not the aspect of the argument you want to discuss, but you would have to lie to say it's completely irrelevant to the discussion.
Let's go with that. Every read of The Shining doesn't explain more than 70% of the events in the script, so I would say Kubrick is Incomprehensibility Incarnate. It doesn't make him good. It just means that more people are going to defend him without foundation.. . .
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2016-08-23, 09:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
I love kids stuff. Bay just kinda sucks, for the most part. Again, My Neighbor Totoro is sitting right there, utterly beautifully, beloved by just about everyone, mostly for children. Spirited Away too. Most of Miyazaki's movies, really. And lots of other movies too. I'd also add on Pixar stuff to the aforementioned Miyazaki and golden age disney (and rennaisance disney, to a lesser extent, cause those movies trade some aesthetic beauty for some faster pacing and arguably more interesting plotting). I don't think Pixar movies are that great in terms of looks, but it's more than valid to look to it as an example of broadly embraced stuff that's ostensibly for kids. I'ma add some Dreamworks stuff too. They've really had their moments.
I don't need to point at that stuff to disprove your claims, however. I mean, kids stuff that's liked is good, but it's not like it's definitive. What's more definitive is just comparing Michael Bay to Michael Bay. Particularly, his more kid oriented content to his more adult oriented content. I'm not all that inclined to sit around actually mathing out his movies right now, though you can definitely do that if you want. I'ma just do a loose look. So, let's start at the top and bottom, basing the numbers on Rotton Tomatoes. I'll stick only to movies he directed, cause I'm not as sure that his style would pass through to produced movies. His highest rated movie is The Rock, with a pretty low 66%, and his lowest is Transformers: Age of Extinction, with a really 18%. This ostensibly supports your contention, as the spread looks as you claimed, but the rest of the movies don't exactly support it in the same fashion. After all, the first Transformers got a relatively high 57%, and, say, Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II got mid-20's. Really, Michael Bay hasn't directed that many movies that are kinda kid oriented. Most of his movies are aimed at adults. Most of his movies are ranked really lowly. Pointing to this minor element seems like missing the point. That his movies suck. While Kubrick's movies are pretty great.
Let's go with that. Every read of The Shining doesn't explain more than 70% of the events in the script, so I would say Kubrick is Incomprehensibility Incarnate. It doesn't make him good. It just means that more people are going to defend him without foundation.
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2016-08-23, 09:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
The reason I'm using quotation marks is because I'm using your words: you said that Kubrick and Bay were "pretty much the same" once you factored out the stigma of Bay working on films for youth audiences. This changed as soon as you were challenged on it, though.
At any rate, I'll stipulate that Bay's choice of audience has a non-zero weight, but the use of that fact to disregard or marginalize the very real differences between Bay's use of effects and Kubrick's in your answer to Bohandas' question is the only deceptive thing in the discussion.
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2016-08-23, 09:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
I'm not a fan of this movie either.
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2016-08-23, 09:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Bay's Transformers movies aren't aimed at kids. They're aimed at +20 year old men with 80's nostalgia boners and, of course, China. The entire way they're written and shot -- the crude adult humour, the sexualization of their female characters regardless of age, the military pandering and expensive car masturbation, Sam Witwicky as the late-teen-come-20-something-douche-bro protagonist -- these are not indicative of a franchise aimed at children.
TMNT was, presumably, but Bay didn't direct that, it was left to a hack who apes his style under his production company.
Maybe Transformers should have been kids movies, ya'know, like Iron Giant but with a Vietnam allegory at its heart, but they ain't.Last edited by Kitten Champion; 2016-08-23 at 09:32 PM.
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2016-08-23, 09:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
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2016-08-23, 09:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
I haven't seen The Shining since I was a kid, but I thought it was pretty clear at the time that everyone involved was going crazy and the supernatural stuff was hallucinations. Like the old The Haunting (which the remake ruined by making it actually about ghosts instead of psychology).
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2016-08-23, 09:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Come on, seriously? I have to give you a blow by blow and take apart your read of the movie to show that it definitely explains less than 70%? It doesn't hold up to your analysis because the movie is not totally shown from Jack Torrance's point of view. If it were, as was the case in Vanilla Sky or Jacob's Ladder, I would totally buy your anaylsis. Instead, we are constantly taken out of the character's eyes and shown things that exist outside of his psychotic standpoint. This being scenes that clearly define the paranormal, such as - after setting up so much of Danny's ability to shine - we hear Badword Halloran using his own ability to Shine to speak in Danny's head. And then they sit outside together and both give credibility to the idea that Shining exists. That is one clear example that supernatural forces are at play, and cannot be explained as being the work of Jack's madness. Later, Danny is haunted by several apparitions, the twins, the woman in a corpse suit. These exist only in his eyes. That means that Danny sees real ghosts on his own. He isn't told about ghosts by his father and then pretends they are there. These are separate points of view that don't intersect with your analysis. This also leads into the question of whether Danny's bruise was caused by the ghosts, or the film is properly lying to us about how it happened. Since it doesn't get addressed in any way, I leave the point with the supernatural as any writer worth an asterisk would have implied both possibilities more strongly.
Later, when Danny is scared, he uses his abilities to contact Cursecurse Halloran and forces him to come to his rescue. This has no possible explanation that takes place in Jack's head. When Jack is locked in the room by the actions of a sane person, the door is unlocked. By your own and Kubrick's admittance, this cannot be explained by anything less than supernatural forces. In the end, everyone is able to see the ghosts, even the mother, which means that they are more than Jack's delusions. And when the movie ends on a picture of Jack Torrance in the past, there is absolutely no way to interpret it aside from reincarnation (a supernatural event), a time loop (also supernatural), or that the movie is so completely in Jack's head that nothing we have ever had on screen exists and the movie is pointless because there is no truth to any of it. Being that Kubrick can't himself explain what he did, I would go with that as the most plausible explanation. Jack Torrance wasn't crazy, Kubrick was. There you have definitively more than 30% of the movie that has no suitable explanation with the premise that Jack is crazy. I would say that the supernatural aspect of the movie is at a set 50%. The only straightforward parts of it are Shelly Duvall's character and Jack's rampage as a non-superpowered murderer. The rest of the film can only exist because it has a definite magical endoskeleton which holds up the more blatant story of a man who just wants to bash in his wife's head.
I'm being slanderous when I say that Kubrick and Bay are the same. I know they're different. I just think they hold equal weight as d-bag auteurs. Which of them would I say is empirically better? Well, at least Kubrick had a good tone in the first half of Full Metal Jacket. I wouldn't think Bay is capable of restraint.. . .
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2016-08-23, 09:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
First, the book is too literal and not a good guide to the nature of the film.
Second, if we have a sense of perspective there's no sense being disparaging about the production values. Our favourite films are going to look just as pathetic in fifty years.
Third, the film is a mood picture with the theme of human development. It starts out with the mysterious (monolith) miracle of the development of man's mind which leads him to create the first machine (the bone club). Fast forward two million years and, after we're treated to an interlude of the most delightful combination of Romantic music and spacecraft ballet, man finds a mysterious clue to his origin on Luna (monolith). Spurred by that to travel to Jupiter, we find that man is at risk of becoming enslaved by his machines which he has by now created in the image of his own mind (HAL 9000). He must struggle and overcome his machines and achieve a new level of sentience in communion with the mystery (monolith) from the dawn of man. This overcoming and the dawning of a new age of man is symbolised by the living fetus with its eyes open.
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2016-08-23, 10:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
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2016-08-23, 10:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is "2001: A Space Odyssey" considered such a good movie?
Plus what edgy bit of superviolence aimed at 25-30s isn't more aggressively snatched up than by teenage boys? Just look at Deadpool's actual viewership. 12-35 is a pretty big range. Call them kids or call them teens. Either way, they're the ones that pay for Bay's next movie.
And holy heck, I'd love to have seen Brad Bird make the Transformers movies!Last edited by DeadpanSal; 2016-08-23 at 10:06 PM.
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