Does 2001: A Space Odyssey Still Work Today?

christopher nolan first saw 2,001 a space odyssey when he was seven years old and he's been championing it ever since last week we debated if holden caulfield's angst in catcher in the rye was timeless and today we're asking the same thing of stanley kubrick's 1968 epic is it still a masterpiece or has it become a museum piece i think it's a beautiful museum piece and i mean that it's stunning to look at but as a movie you'd actually you know put on for enjoyment in 2026 i'm not so sure see that's where we start you're looking for enjoyment and i think kubrick was aiming for something else entirely awe nolan calls it pure cinema it's

communicating through image and scale and sound not a tidy plot okay but pure cinema is a very generous way of saying incredibly slow with almost no dialogue the initial reviews weren't all raves you know variety called it a major disappointment they found it emotionally empty and honestly i get that but that was 1968 they didn't have the language for what he was doing even steven spielberg called it the big bang for his generation of filmmakers it didn't follow the rules because it was writing a whole new rule book i'll give you that it absolutely set a new standard for visual effects it won the oscar deservedly but the influence of a film and the watchability

of a film are two different things we can admire its influence without having to pretend its two and a half hour runtime doesn't feel like a week okay the pacing is deliberate it's meditative it's trying to give you the feeling of the vastness of space it's not supposed to feel like a quick trip arthur c clarke himself defended the ambiguity of the ending saying it was what made the film so intellectually stimulating intellectually stimulating sure but emotionally pauline kael called it cold and impersonal and she has a point who do you connect with dave bowman is a blank slate the most compelling character is hal nine thousand and he's a homicidal computer but that's the

whole point it's a film about humanity losing its humanity to its own technology how has more personality than the humans because that's the warning it's not a bug it's the entire theme that's a great reading of it i mean it but does that make for a compelling film to watch or just a great essay topic i think for a lot of people the abstract ending and the lack of character just feels frustrating it feels incomprehensible but it asks you the viewer to participate to create your own meaning it trusts you it's not serving you answers on a platter i think that's more engaging not less or it's a director who as kale put it started to think of himself as a mythmaker there's a fine line between trusting the audience and just being obscure for the sake of it wow okay so you think it's pretentious i think it walks right up to the line of being pretentious i respect the craft i respect the ambition i just don't love the film alright i hear

you but you can't deny its dna is everywhere you don't get interstellar without 2001 you don't get modern science fiction that takes itself seriously without kubrick paving the way he showed that the genre could be a vehicle for profound philosophical questions i will absolutely concede that its legacy is undeniable it elevated the entire genre but if a friend said tonight hey should we watch a classic movie is 2,001 really the one you're gonna pick knowing you have to preface it with okay so it's really slow and you might not get it but yes i think i would because it's an experience you can't get anywhere else it's not just a story it's a work of

art that washes over you and even with an 88% audience score on rotten tomatoes today it's clear people are still having that experience and i think that's fair for some people for me it's a landmark i'm glad i visited but i don't feel a need to live there the technical predictions feel a bit dated the style is a bit cold it's a product of its time a brilliant one but still so what's the real tension here for you a film has to connect on an emotional human level to be considered a timeless success yeah i think so and for you it seems like pure aesthetic and intellectual provocation is enough that a film can be

great just by making you think even if it doesn't make you feel and i'm not sure we're ever gonna agree on that