2010: The Year We Still Use Big, Clunky Monitors
Last week I showed S 2001 as part of our Crash Course in Great and/or Culturally Significant SF Movies. She was not very impressed ('slow' and 'self-indulgent' were among the politer comments) but I thought that I'd at least show her 2010 to see what she thought of that, and also because I hadn't seen it myself in years.
My own random thoughts:
- The scenes of Floyd on the beach with his young son remind me so much of Manhunter that I was surprised to find that 2010 was made two years earlier. The earth-set parts of 2010 are shot in very Eighties style.
- Come to think of it, that may be because both source novels (2010: Odyssey Two and Red Dragon) have a similar starting conceit: main character who was traumatised by job-related incident involving death and now has quiet life with new wife and young son, who is tempted back into old work by prospect of redeeming past trauma.
- John Lithgow ages a lot between this and 3rd Rock from the Sun, but actually looks much better for it.
- Helen Mirren is good but she's never really given the chance to develop her character properly.
- There's a lot of Russian dialogue that is left untranslated, leaving context, expressions and body language to convey what is being said.
- There's an impressive amount of effort put into recreating the sets of the Discovery, although the makers of 2010 avoid any scenes set on the main accommodation centrifuge, probably because they saw how much money was spent building the set for the first movie.
- I remembered that the design of the Leonov had inspired some of the Earth Alliance ships in Babylon 5. I'd forgotten how strong that inspiration was: the Leonov, scaled up a bit, is pretty much an Omega-class destroyer.
- This is a future with interplanetary expeditions but still big clunky CRT monitors (even though in 2001 there were near-as-dammit iPads!
- Keir Dullea feels as if he's been cut-and-pasted in from another movie. Which, in a very real sense, he was.
My own random thoughts:
- The scenes of Floyd on the beach with his young son remind me so much of Manhunter that I was surprised to find that 2010 was made two years earlier. The earth-set parts of 2010 are shot in very Eighties style.
- Come to think of it, that may be because both source novels (2010: Odyssey Two and Red Dragon) have a similar starting conceit: main character who was traumatised by job-related incident involving death and now has quiet life with new wife and young son, who is tempted back into old work by prospect of redeeming past trauma.
- John Lithgow ages a lot between this and 3rd Rock from the Sun, but actually looks much better for it.
- Helen Mirren is good but she's never really given the chance to develop her character properly.
- There's a lot of Russian dialogue that is left untranslated, leaving context, expressions and body language to convey what is being said.
- There's an impressive amount of effort put into recreating the sets of the Discovery, although the makers of 2010 avoid any scenes set on the main accommodation centrifuge, probably because they saw how much money was spent building the set for the first movie.
- I remembered that the design of the Leonov had inspired some of the Earth Alliance ships in Babylon 5. I'd forgotten how strong that inspiration was: the Leonov, scaled up a bit, is pretty much an Omega-class destroyer.
- This is a future with interplanetary expeditions but still big clunky CRT monitors (even though in 2001 there were near-as-dammit iPads!
- Keir Dullea feels as if he's been cut-and-pasted in from another movie. Which, in a very real sense, he was.