2010: The Year We Make Contact

Buy This Item 2010: The Year We Make Contact by Warner Home Video  Available from Amazon  $9.98  on 11-14-2008     No director could ever have hoped to repeat the artistic achievement of Stanley Kubrick's <I>2001: A Space Odyssey</I>, and nobody knew that better than Peter Hyams, who made this much more conventional film from the first of three sequel novels by Arthur C. Clarke. Whereas Kubrick made a poetic film of mind-expanding ideas and metaphysical mysteries, Hyams shouldn't be blamed for taking a more practical, crowd-pleasing approach. In revealing much of what Kubrick deliberately left unexplained, <I>2010</I> lacks the enigmatic awe of its predecessor, but it's still a riveting tale of space exploration and extraterrestrial contact, beginning when a joint American-Soviet mission embarks to determine the cause of failure of the derelict spaceship <I>Discovery</I>. Having arrived at <I>Discovery</I> near the planet Jupiter, the American mission leader (Roy Scheider) and his Russian counterpart (Helen Mirren) must investigate the apparent failure of the ship's infamous onboard computer, HAL 9000, as well as the meaning of countless mysterious black monoliths amassing on Jupiter's surface (an interpretation Kubrick originally left up to his viewers). Meanwhile, Earth is on the brink of nuclear war, and an apparition of astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) appears to repeatedly promise that "something wonderful" is about to happen. <i>--Jeff Shannon</i> Reader Reviews This film was a good sequel to 2001, but really only a 3-1/2 or 4 star movie experience for me. I personally enjoyed the basic plot and credit Clarke with writing an excellent film with much more human interest and explicit narrative than the original movie. The model work and zero gravity special effects were all beautifully done, but not nearly as innovative as what was accomplished under Kubrick's direction in 2001. There was one scene in which the Russian spacecraft employed aero-braking to enter the orbit of Jupiter which was very credibly done using what I believe was a blow torch and the animation of Jupiter's "surface" in the background. This was visually new for a sci-fi film and the appearance of a hypersonic wake heated to incandescence by atmospheric friction looked correct in form right down to the leading edge stagnation point in the flow field. Someone had a good feel for what had to be done, and I believe did it by the seat of the pants (and with some slow motion photography) very well. It was, however, the only imagry which really excited the "engineer" in me. 2010 also included some Hitchcock style shots of the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke seated quietly in front of the White House (at a bench adjacent to Dr. Heywood Floyd) which document his participation in the movie for film historians. I actually had the rare treat of seeing the late Arthur Clarke during a Connecticut showing of 2001 in the early 70's. Clarke spoke to the audience following the showing at Bushnell Memorial Auditorium and answered questions concerning the plot of 2001. Here Clarke explained the reasons for the very visual and non-narrative screen style of 2001 as envisioned by Stanley Kubrick.

2010: The Year We Make Contact Available from Amazon Price: $9.98 Updated on 11-14-2008.

SPONSORED LINKS