one: a space odyssey

September 6, 2002 10:47 AM

one: a space odyssey here's a wonderful little film that manages to do kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey in exactly a minute with lego. it's only flaw is it brevity, but it does cover all the major plot points cleanly. enjoy it on this lazy friday.
posted by boogah (16 comments total)

I could watch the ENTIRE movie like that.
posted by quibx at 11:00 AM on September 6, 2002

Genius! The ending is awesome...
posted by FiveFrozenFish at 11:01 AM on September 6, 2002

The ending rocks! I miss the middle, though ...
posted by Songdog at 11:02 AM on September 6, 2002

Synchronicity, man... my gf and I saw this movie for the very first time the other night. Perhaps we are in the minority, but our response was this: Huh? What the hell? What was that about?

The Spite Your Face version is just as enjoyable, and perhaps even a bit more comprehensible.
posted by starvingartist at 11:06 AM on September 6, 2002

Starvingartist...you have to admit, the middle section of the film in entirely comprehensible and exceedingly well done. If you want to find interesting explanations of what the film is about, try googling it....every review will have a different explanation, but all are though-provoking (well, most are.)
posted by pjgulliver at 11:16 AM on September 6, 2002

Yes, the middle part was completely understandable, I was exaggerating. I think I even got the ape bit, finally, but the end has me baffled. That, and the interminable "Overture" and "Intermission".
posted by starvingartist at 11:22 AM on September 6, 2002

Starvingartist: another insight in to 2001 is the (regrettably out-of-print) "Lost Worlds of 2001", which cronicles the writing process, story meetings between Clarke and Kubrick, and rejected plotlines of the movie. Well worth finding for anyone who likes Clarke or Kubrick.
posted by interrobang at 11:22 AM on September 6, 2002

Starvingartist: This website does a fair job of breaking the movie down via a flash movie. I know it's made the movie much more enjoyable for me.
posted by ttrendel at 11:37 AM on September 6, 2002

2001 is about evolution. Author Arthur C. Clarke's premise was that a third party in the universe had placed an extraterrestrial monolith on the earth to advance this species to the next step of evolution. Unfortunately, that means that the monolith inspired them to learn how to use weapons. The (book) film is a study of comparisons; it begins the movie with the placement of the monolith and shows the effect it has on a previous model of the human species. The second time humanity encounters the monolith, it means another step up the evolutionary ladder, this time into the giant space baby. I have always found it to be a brilliant juxtaposition of ideas, indicating that when humanoids first began to walk upright, perhaps that looked a bit strange to them as well. Clarke was might fond of this theme, it also runs though "Childhood's End," a brilliant little hypothesis of human origin as well.
posted by NedKoppel at 11:38 AM on September 6, 2002

In addition to following the link, look through their site a bit. You'll find Lego versions of the Camelot scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (made it onto the DVD release), Hellraiser, and a few other shorts. All of them quite good, especially the Python sketch.

And Tim still has my R2D2 cake pan. Lucky bastard.
posted by nathan_teske at 12:05 PM on September 6, 2002

NedKoppel...I think the evolutionary concept is a good one, and it is certainly a standard explanation of the movie. I read a paper online about a year ago (which unfortunately I can't find and link now) which focused on a tangent of the evolutionary theme:man and his relationship to tools.

In the first section the apes learn of tools for the first time, under the influence of the monolith. Switch to the Straus waltz intro and look how far human tools have come in the next 100k years or whatever it was. Suddenly no longer are we manipulating bones, but we have constructed enormous creations of vast physical power (the space infrastructure) and perhaps have played god by creating machines of psychological power (HAL.) Humanity is forced to put all of its tool making expertise to work to reach the second monolith, and builds tools so complex they seek to destroy their creator. But humanity passes the test. It is able to maintain control over its creations, which allows the monolith to bring us to our next stage of evolution (Star Child.)

OK--the real paper described it much more eloquently than I, but its an interesting way to look at the film.
posted by pjgulliver at 12:27 PM on September 6, 2002

Kubrick's ghost is going to haunt the director's house for a long time, looking for revenge
posted by matteo at 12:30 PM on September 6, 2002

Did anyone else notice the helicopter shadow at the beginning?
posted by cortex at 3:39 PM on September 6, 2002

Clever, and an interesting interpretation. But far too literal for my taste. Besides, it glosses over one important point: If HAL was serious about killing the astronauts, why didn't it swiftly and surely cut off the oxygen aboard the Discovery? Because (and this is also the reason (one of many) the future depicted in The Matrix and Terminator movies shall not come to pass) sadly, humans are not as good at making tools as we'd like to think.

But I still love good old 2001 anyways. At the very least it makes you think. That's always been good enough for me.
posted by BartFargo at 10:16 PM on September 6, 2002

I was refering to the Kubrick2001 flash movie, not the lego thing. I thought the lego thing was hilarious.
posted by BartFargo at 10:17 PM on September 6, 2002

But how serious was HAL about killing them? He (presumably) wasn't designed as an astronaut-killing machine -- if he was, in fact, psychologically functional on a human level, the killings might well be seen as desperate responses by a confused individual, not the slow, muddled getting-around-to-it of a lousy but determined serial murderer.

While the man-and-his-tools question is (IMHO) one of the Big Ideas tied to HAL, I don't think the idea that he was poorly made is very valid or relevant in the story.

What? I should take it to a.m.k.? Sorry.
posted by cortex at 11:03 AM on September 7, 2002