2001 , Kubrick and the new dvd collection

If I stick to 2001 I think this a top relevant to Space History.

Stanley Kubrick - Warner Home Video Directors Series

Just took a first look at this Kubrick special collection, (Special
Editions of 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut,
The Shining and Full Metal Jacket Deluxe Edition, along with the full-
length documentary, A Life in Pictures.)
I think A Life in Pictures had a very small exposure in the USA,
didn't seem to ever come to the city I live in. Glad to finally see
it.
All in all a great collection (tho I hope somehow there is a way to
put together a complete collection of his films, since two of his
greatest are no here Paths of Glory and Dr. Strangelove).


Disc One

* English and French DD5.1 Surround
* Commentary by Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood
* Theatrical trailer


Disc Two

* Channel 4 documentary: 2001: The Making of a Myth
* Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The Legacy of 2001
* Vision of a Future Passed: The Prophecy of 2001
* 2001: A Space Odyssey - A Look Behind the Future
* 2001: FX and Early Conceptual Artwork
* Look: Stanley Kubrick!
* Audio-only interview with Stanley Kubrick
* Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Disk Two is of main interest to me, since I have seen the film on the
big screen about 30 times and on various large TV playbacks an
uncountable number of times.

One thing that jumped out at me, what was the deal with Gary Lockwood,
he and Dullea seem to have recorded their commentary separately. And
Lockwood seems not to appear at all in Disk Two documentary as a
commentator. We see a lot of Dullea.

I don't know if he turned it down or just was not interested but seems
a commentary track on disk one with Clarke and technical advisor
Frederick Ordway would have been a boon. (I could have used more of
Ordway's commentary on the disk two documentaries.)

It was cool to see Daniel Richter and the little feature about how the
'proto-man' stuff was done.

And one of the actresses who played a stewardess and, I think, the guy
who played the Aries-1B Lunar shuttle captain.

So it really got me excited, I love as much back ground material and
observations as I can get on the actors side.

Alas, William Sylvester and Leonard Rossiter were both gone by the
time this documentary stuff was made.

Big question was ...... where was Douglas Rain?! Some think that HAL
is the real star of the film, Rain is still alive, and maybe he turned
down an interview.

Wow * Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The Legacy of 2001 has
just about every modern film director (well .... a lot) singing
Kubrick's praises, would have expected Ridley Scott to have shown up,
but no.

One puzzle, does the deleted 'prolog' to 2001 no longer exist? I mean
we have a fairly long piece with Dullea talking about the prolog.

I think Clarke made a goofy gaff at one point, he said that he and
Kubrick had talked about all the bad SF films of the 1950's and I
guess part of the 1960's and Clarke says... well there was one good
one ....'Fantastic Voyage', I think Clarke was having a 'senior'
moment and meant to say Forbidden Planet! (If it is a bow to his buddy
Asimov's novelization of the FV, odd to come so many years later.)

Several times the topic of bad SF films was brought up, surely Kubrick
must have seen The Day the Earth Stood Still or Invasion of the Body
Snatchers or even Pal's War of the Worlds, well of course 2001 was a
'light years' jump in SF film making but there had indeed been a few
good SF films up to that time.
In fact there is a voice over that Kubrick didn't like SF, I am
guessing this was a generalization about bad SF films, because I am
pretty sure I read somewhere Kubrick was indeed aware of good modern
SF prose and liked it. After all he knew about Clarke!

One thing I really get tired of, is a strange ignorance that modern
science fiction, that seems to get into 'voice over' in a collection
of material like this. Especially when the era of John W Campbell's
Astounding/Analog but an end to 'bad-science' in SF. Planetary flight
was portrayed scientifically realistic (there may have been a few
goofs) but lord Heinlein had an engineering degree, Asimov a PhD in
chemistry , Clarke a degree in physics ... that's just to name the big
three (lots of others, but lots of highly intelligent SF writers who
knew were way past the Buck Roger - Flash Gordon stuff). I mean most
SF writers had moved on to interstellar flight, and even there had
made so very good scientific speculations.
Yeah if you are a reader of modern SF prose you know this, but this
damn canard re-occurs often enough.

Really some nice documentary material about 2001 with this set, I
think there is room for some more before everybody involved dies!

On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:58:27 -0800, Al wrote:

Kubrick

ALex went coffee



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