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Reviews
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Beautiful, groundbreaking, yet imperfect
I watched this for the first time recently, and I have not read the book nor have I watched any clips or explainations prior to watching it.
The movie is cinematography speaking a perfect movie. The thought that Kubrick made this movie almost 60 years ago is, and always will be mind blowing. All of the space scenes made me think just what the audience in 1968 thought and felt the first time watching the movie at the cinema. It truly was groundbreaking, and will forever be a part of Kubrick's legacy.
However, I do believe that the storytelling and charachter development does not match the high level of cinematography. Knowing Kubrick this does not surprise me, nor does it probably surprise you. However, in 2001: A Space Odyssey it becomes a flaw, since the plot revolves about the monolith(s) and the evolution of mankind. Instead the character development becomes psyhcological, which is evident in the close-ups of HAL's "eye". This is necessarily not bad, since Kubrick liked it that way. But comparing it to the book he misses quite alot about the human characters, thus making them relatively dull.
To avoid spoilers, I will not go into the ending.
My advice is to watch the film, enjoy the beautiful cinematography and do not try to decipher the movie right away. Instead, discuss it from several perspectives and then seek explaination or further theories.
In my opinion, even though you do not have to, but to truly "understand" the plot, the characters and especially the ending, you ought to read the book.
Hence I do not think this is a perfect movie.
A perfect movie should not require you to read the book before/afterwards, nor should you have to Google/Youtube an explaination.