Interesting perspective. Before the moon landings this would have been even more Sci-Fi than it is now.
As far as my most favorite movie. Darn...to just pick one will take some VERY serious thought (there are so many).
It's kind of like saying...if you could have a single movie title etched on your gravestone...what would it be? THAT takes some serious thought!
- Nick
Let's put it this way, Kubrick and Clarke are no longer with us, and if
their gravestones were inscribed with "Creator of 2001" I don't think they would be unhappy.
In 2018, the movie hits its 50th anniversary, and I will be very surprised if MGM don't take advantage of the fact to do a rerun in cinemas. There are other movies which are trotted out repeatedly, such as "Wizard of Oz" and the James Bond saga, but 2001 has a magic all its own. ****, it even invented the iPad Pro. Look at the BBC12 broadcast and tell me what you see. The Space Race was essentially driven by military considerations. 2001 managed to sidestep that, and concentrated on peaceful, collaborative exploration. It sums up what Apollo aspired to but couldn't quite deliver. "For All Mankind."
I've had a lot of time to think this one through. I don't watch the movie endlessly, but I do keep coming back to it. I watch it at least once a year and IF it ever returns to cinema, I'll be there. There are some great movies which stand out for various reasons, but even Kubrick's other masterpieces can't quite match the awesome grandeur of the orbital parking manoeuvres set to The Blue Danube, or the anticlimactic strains of Happy Birthday as Frank Poole hurtles towards Jupiter and his death.
To me, there can never be another movie like it. Hope, ambition, success, tragedy. The movie has them all, as well as a damned good story, masterfully told.