I am a child of Star Wars: I came into this world in 1979, when The Empire Strikes Back was just around the corner. And I cannot ever recall having *not* seen the films; almost for as long as I can remember, I've known that there was Luke and Leia, Han and Chewie, Darth and the Emperor, Boba Fett and Yoda, and the two gay robots. I mean, C-3PO and R2-D2. My uncle Heath is probably to credit the most for my familiarity with the trilogy; he's as huge a Star Wars nut today as he was back when the films came out. I played with the toys when I was a kid (and played with an electronic "quiz book" that Heath bought at Wal-Mart for a few bucks a few years ago. I spent the bulk of a visit around Christmas time playing the game, and I know that if I'd bought a copy of it for myself, I wouldn't shave or bathe for weeks).
All this is a way of saying that 2001: A Space Odyssey is not Star Wars, nor should it be held accountable for not being more rip-roaring than (allegedly) snore-inducing. The state of science-fiction was far different in 1968 than in 1977, and the primary instigator of George Lucas' special-effects bonanza was seeing what Stanley Kubrick managed to bring to the screen with models and hardware (as opposed to the computer-generated imagery that owes its existence to Lucas, who in turn was influenced as much by Kubrick as he was by the Saturday-matinee serials of Buck Rogers and other space-dwelling heroes in the Thirties and Forties and Fifties). You can't have Star Wars without 2001, that's just a fact. Whether the movie itself holds up...is a matter of debate.
This past Tuesday, TCM aired 2001 and, due to a dearth of anything else being on TV (the usual summer doldrums seem to have come early this year), I left it on and half-watched it while reading a book about Adolf Eichmann. The film is long, looooonnnnnnnggggggg, and there are stretches where little if anything actually happens. I remember arguing with some film-major buddies during my college years that of course it was supposed to be boring, Kubrick was showing how space travel (blowing everyone's collective minds in the Sixties, with the space race and the desire to get to the moon ahead of the Russians) would one day be an afterthought, like the automobile, the locomotive, and other once-heralded "wonders of transportation" that changed the way we got around. It may have been a reach, and a retroactive appraisal through the distorting lens of swashbuckling space epics like Star Wars, but I think even today there's something to that view.
The thing is, back when I was around 17 until I turned 27 (roughly a decade, doing the math), Stanley Kubrick was my favorite director. He was the first director whose work I sought out simply because he was behind the camera; usually I was more in thrall with actors than the people behind the camera. I liked Woody Allen a lot then, as well (still do, really), but more for his onscreen presence (it was reassuring to see a guy with glasses get the girl). I sought out a biography of Kubrick when I was at USC and read it quickly, absorbing the details of his life up to that point (he would die a couple of years later, at the age of seventy). I read various books about Kubrick and his work after that, and I sought out his movies wherever I could (which wasn't hard, because a lot of them were favorites of the video-store crowd as well and could be found handily). Here's a brief breakdown of his major films, if you don't believe me:
Fear and Desire (1954-ish): decent if a little too student-film-esque war drama
The Killing (1956?) - Fantastic crime film that really should be sought out if you like crime films
Paths of Glory (1957) - Highly effective anti-war film
Spartacus (1960) - Never Kubrick's film (he was hired on after Kirk Douglas, star of Paths of Glory and producer of this one, needed a replacement for the fired original director). Not interested in it, myself.
Lolita (1962) - Too long (a charge that could be leveled against 2001) and kinda dull without Peter Sellers onscreen (the first of his two collaborations with Kubrick).
Dr. Strangelove (1964) - Kubrick's finest hour, making the end of the world funny. Sellers plays three roles, and while the title role is the one that hooks you in, the grace and wit he gives to Group Captain Mandrake is probably the best performance of the film and of Sellers' career.
2001 (1968) - A film in which the computer (HAL) is more human than the humans, and apes throwing rocks into the air turns them into spaceships. More on this later.
A Clockwork Orange (1971) - I think the first thirty minutes are some of the most hair-raising in all of cinema, not because of what the droogies do but because you're asked to identify with Alex, the main bad guy. And he *is* bad, very bad. But what the state does to him when they capture him, it's almost worse in a way. Such a controversial film that I feel dirty even admitting that I've seen it, much less own it on DVD.
Barry Lyndon (1975) - Never seen it, though I want to.
The Shining (1980) - You know the minute that Jack Nicholson walks onscreen, he's batshit crazy. And the Overlook Hotel does little to keep his manic side in check. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Considering that the original author of the tale (Stephen King) not only hated this film but made his own TV-miniseries version in 1997, it's weird that this is one of the most iconic of Kubrick's films (and one of the most popular of King's works when adapted for the screen).
Full Metal Jacket (1987) - It would be fair to say that the two halves of this film (the boot-camp sequence and the tour in Vietnam) could be different movies in and of themselves. But Kubrick was trying to show that the knocking-down of character in boot camp (in order to build better soldiers) has unintended consequences. And you need the Vietnam section to show that.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) - A shame that his career ended with a movie more well-known for being Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's last together. I never had much interest in it, even as a postmortem on Kubrick's career.
So there...anyway, what brought me to talk about 2001 was the fact that J.J. Abrams is helming new Star Wars films, set to premiere sometime before the beginning of a new presidential term. Chances are, they'll be big (huge, even). But I wonder what a new, up-to-date 2001 would look like, through the lens of recent history and advances in technology that the film could only hint at (and some unforeseen circumstances that would have really stretched believability with 1968-era audiences, such as the demise of the Soviet Union and computers in every home, even on phones that we could carry around on our person).
Such a reimagining would likely eschew the moments that make 2001 unique, the languishing on space travel shots set to classical music (like two whole different sequences set to "Blue Danube Waltz"). In 1968, audiences weren't used to such lavish production on what was deemed a child's genre; today we're up in arms if filmmakers cut corners with such details. In our CGI-soaked universe, alien beings are never really "there" in the same space as their unfortunate victims. It's easier to separate ourselves from the spectacle onscreen not because we think it's happening but because we know that it isn't, not really. This isn't an argument for more hands-on special effects (CGI can do things that it would be dangerous to ask a human being to do), but it does seem as if we've lost something.
My take on the film, originally, was to embrace it as the "anti-Star Wars," though this is ignorant of the cultural forces that shaped both films. In 1968, no one had heard of Boba Fett or the Millenium Falcon. By 1977, every two-bit director of cheap flicks and sci-fi knock-offs had had their turn at turning 2001 into a treasure trove of visual cues that could suggest the classiness their films lacked; now it was George Lucas at the helm for a movie that dared not only to venture out into space but to have a damn good time doing so. Not for him the problems of a homicidal computer or an ancient artifact that may have birthed human intelligence.
2001 has long been seen by some as a film best enjoyed while stoned, and I think on some level the hippies and potheads may have a point: as straight-ahead narrative, it leaves a lot to be desired. When I was younger and trying to separate myself from my peers with delusions of intellectual pretensions that I didn't quite believe myself, I could say that they just didn't "get" Kubrick's vision. Now I kinda wonder if I was the one who wasn't "getting" it.
Point is, I still love 2001 and Star Wars, though as I've gotten older my love has changed. I can see the reasons why some people (not mouth-breathing philistines, but honestly good and intelligent people) might not be as enamored of the slow build-ups and beautiful shots of spaceships docking to nineteenth-century waltzes as I once was (and to some extent, still am). The use of classical music in movies is a bit like cheating, anyway; it's sonic shorthand for saying "ain't I sophisticated?" and plays as such when the visuals or story don't match the music. Star Wars, of course, is the domain of John Williams, and you couldn't imagine a film better suited to its music than the three original films. If J.J. Abrams is right for the role (and I think he is, having enjoyed his 2009 reboot of Star Trek), he's also smart enough to realize that Williams has already done the score; it's just a matter of making sure he records it in time. Our reactions to things that we loved pop-culture-wise should change as we grow and mature, even if they're for the negative. I see now the connection between the room where astronaut Dave spends his last hours before being reborn as a star-child and the eerie opulence of Kubrick's haunted hotel in The Shining. Having realized that for the first time this past Tuesday, I can say it deepens my appreciation of both films.
2001 may not be your cup of tea, but it does have a sequel floating around out there (2010, directed by I Have No Clue But Not Kubrick), which is the oddest thing about the whole endeavor to me. As self-contained as the movie is (and as lacking in any obvious taking-off point to continue it, like a lot of sci-fi films that aim for sequel or even trilogy status), I understand the idea behind trying to do more, because Kubrick left a lot of unanswered questions. But I prefer them to stay that way.
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