40th Anniversary of 2001:A Space Odyssey

On Apr 6, 9:57 am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Andre Lieven wrote:
I've heard that Chloris Leachman said similar things about some of her
best work on Blazing Saddles.

I kind of hate to tell you this, but that was Madeline Kahn in Blazing
Saddles....Cloris Leachman was in Young Frankenstein, and did do a
slam-dunk job in that part, although just about everyone else was out
shown by Gene Hackman's cameo as the blind man.
How he ended up in that movie is that he and Gene Wilder used to play
tennis together, and Hackman said he wanted to play some small part in
the movie. Wilder was amazed that he wanted anything to do with
something like that.
I love how they leave the Espresso scene to the viewer's imagination...
if he can wreak that much havoc with soup, just imagine him with live
steam. :-D



This isn't exactly helped by the fact that the people on the Moon in the
movie walk and move as if they are at full Earth gravity, rather than
1/6 G, so you might think they are on the surface of some other planet
that has near Earth strength gravity.

There were, after all, limits to 1968 SPFX technology. Plus, don't
forget,
as of 1968, no member of the public had yet seen humans walking on
the Moon, so there was nothing immediate to visually compare to.

Except other science fiction movies, and a lot of times they had people
jumping around in the low lunar gravity as a staple.
I think the Disney "Man In Space" series of programs made most people
realize that the gravity on the Moon was far lower, and you could leap
around.
Considering all the trouble Kubrick went to to simulate weightlessness,
leaving the low Gs out of the few lunar scenes was a little odd.

Pat

Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

Kevin Willoughby wrote:
Also one of the most pornographic. I've been long amazed that Lolita was
nearly sexless, but just the opening credits of Strangelove is arguably
the most explicit sexual scene of any major motion picture, ever. The
long cylindrical forms of the airframes, the flying probe and drogue.
And, at the moment of completion, that little visible spurt of the
fluids from the one on top with the probe to the one underneath who was
accepting the fluids of life...

Well symbolically sexy at least. I don't think aircraft refueling is
pornographic in a real sense.
I've seen photos of a F-105 from the Vietnam far with a nude woman
painted around the in-flight refueling receptacle as a "aiming aid" for
the KC-135 boom operator though.
BTW, Bucky Turgidson's original line on leaving Miss Foreign Affairs to
head for the War Room was:
"before you can say 'reentry'!"...in the movie that got changed to
"before you can say 'blastoff'!".



(Yes, even more more explicit than the famous orgy sequence of Eyes Wide
Shut.)


Never have seen that one.
Sue Lyon ended up not being able to see Lolita when it was first
released, as it was "adults only", and she was too young.
James Mason was really ****ed about the movie, as he considered it a
very risky role to take given its subject matter, and thought Kubrick
had let Peter Sellers steal the movie from him.

Pat

"Al" wrote in message
...


Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.


there are no facts in science. There are observations, hypotheses and
theories.

Today's "facts" are tomorrow's overgeneralized approximations made by people
who didn't have access to the latest methods and theories.

--
Terrell Miller


"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee - that
will do them in."
- Bradley's Bromide

Al wrote:

Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

Considering the shaky scientific ground on which "2001" stood... your
point is?

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

On Apr 10, 2:24 am, (Derek Lyons) wrote:
Al wrote:
Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

Considering the shaky scientific ground on which "2001" stood... your
point is?

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

What was shaky? The back ground technology was worked out in exacting
detail by engineers Fred Ordway, Harry Lange and Aerospace consultants
in both the USA and England.

F.I. Ordway, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spaceflight, Vol. 12, No. 3, Mar.
1970, pp. 110-117. (Publisher: The British Interplanetary Society)
# Realizing 2001: A Space Odyssey: Piloted Spherical Torus Nuclear
Fusion Propulsion NASA/TM-2005-213559 March 2005 AIAA-2001-3805
F.I. Ordway, Part B: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY IN RETROSPECT, Frederick I
Ordway, III Volume 5, American Astronautical Society History Series
SCIENCE FICTION AND SPACE FUTURES: PAST AND PRESENT, Edited by Eugene
M. Emme, 1982, pages 47 - 105. (ISBN 0-87703-172-X) (ISBN
0-87703-173-8). A detailed account of development and filming of 2001:
A Space Odyssey by its technical adviser.

On Apr 9, 8:17 pm, "Terrell Miller" wrote:
"Al" wrote in message

...

Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

there are no facts in science. There are observations, hypotheses and
theories.

Today's "facts" are tomorrow's overgeneralized approximations made by people
who didn't have access to the latest methods and theories.

--
Terrell Miller


"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee - that
will do them in."
- Bradley's Bromide

Can we get a better explanation of what you mean, that language is
somewhat obscure!

Al wrote:

On Apr 10, 2:24 am, (Derek Lyons) wrote:
Al wrote:
Considering how even any kind of sensible scientific facts were
totally left out of most science fiction films before and after
2001 ... I consider criticisms such as this nits.

Considering the shaky scientific ground on which "2001" stood... your
point is?

What was shaky?

Practically everything about the Discovery for starters. (Note the
lack of cooling fins, the lack of fuel tanks, lack of room for
supplies, etc...)

2001 tried to do more than most, and by-and-large accomplished it, but
Kubrick wasn't above ignoring that which was inconvenient.

The back ground technology was worked out in exacting
detail by engineers Fred Ordway, Harry Lange and Aerospace consultants
in both the USA and England.

Having consultants doesn't mean they were listened to. Even if they
were famous.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:

Practically everything about the Discovery for starters. (Note the
lack of cooling fins, the lack of fuel tanks, lack of room for
supplies, etc...)


I think all the box-like things along the length of it is where the fuel
was supposed to be...some form of solidified hydrogen isotopes IIRC,
although Wikipedia says ammonia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_One Originally, the design did
have cooling fins on it in its earliest conceptions, but Kubrick wanted
it to look like a cross between a sperm cell and a spinal column to get
across the connection to the ape throwing the bone into the air and the
creation of the Starchild.
One version of the design used a "Orion" type nuclear blast drive and
pusher plate. About the only thing that stayed intact through all of the
designs was the spherical crew module at the front.
Although it doesn't rotate, the design is perfect for the creation of
artificial gravity by rotating the whole works, so that the front of the
crew sphere would be "down" as it's counterbalanced by the engine
module, with the antenna array at the center of rotation.
This would have made a lot more sense than the centrifuge in the crew
sphere...it's so small in diameter that the crew will be sick in no time
as they move around in it.

Pat

Obviously, there was great cinematic effect in having the Pan Am
clipper rotate in sync with the center hangar, but I always thought it
would be much more practical, though less dramatic to dock with the
wheel on its outermost point. Dock on the tangent.
Gene

Pat Flannery wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

Practically everything about the Discovery for starters. (Note the
lack of cooling fins, the lack of fuel tanks, lack of room for
supplies, etc...)


I think all the box-like things along the length of it is where the fuel
was supposed to be...some form of solidified hydrogen isotopes IIRC,
although Wikipedia says ammonia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_One Originally, the design did
have cooling fins on it in its earliest conceptions, but Kubrick wanted
it to look like a cross between a sperm cell and a spinal column to get
across the connection to the ape throwing the bone into the air and the
creation of the Starchild.

Exactly. Discovery (as shown in the film) only work if you assume
handwavium fuel, incredible thrust/ISP, and no need to cool anything
onboard.

Although it doesn't rotate, the design is perfect for the creation of
artificial gravity by rotating the whole works, so that the front of the
crew sphere would be "down" as it's counterbalanced by the engine
module, with the antenna array at the center of rotation.
This would have made a lot more sense than the centrifuge in the crew
sphere...it's so small in diameter that the crew will be sick in no time
as they move around in it.

Exactly. The centrifuge as shown on film is a wonderful
cinematographic tour de force - but it won't work in real life.

Al, I rest my case.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL