odyssey 2010

My only real gripe with this one is that it’s a sequel to such an epic movie
otherwise, I thought it was great 🙂

Arthur Barnes said:Just finished watching it for the first time. 😢

My immediate thought after the credits rolled was, "What idiot actually decided a sequel to Odyssey was a good idea?" 😢

Look, the film is fine. The atmosphere works and all that, but man, that "profound message" at the end—this whole reconciliation between Russ and the Americans... I was practically waiting for Steven Seagal to show up, slice the monolith with a knife, and have the Russian astronaut fall into Dr. Floyd's arms in some hibernation chamber. 🙄
Odyssey 2010 is just... beyond human comprehension. It was far too much pressure to try and make something that carries the "Odyssey" name. If it tries to be similar, it fails; if it tries to be different, it still fails. However, viewed strictly as its own entity, the movie holds up. The mistake is attempting to provide answers. In the end, HAL wasn't the villain; the monoliths create another sun 🙂, not to mention everything else.

On another note, I agree with Yang regarding the audio-visuals. Regardless of how imaginative it gets, witnessing the travel sequence is an experience 😵 you simply cannot afford with a book due to the inherent limitations of the medium. 👋

I actually found myself rewatching the film a few days ago as well...

Of course, as you pointed out, that whole Italian-Americans vs. Russians subplot is irritating. Given it was the height of the Cold War back then, it seems no director, regardless of context, was spared from that trope...

But setting that aside... I found myself weeping once again over the grim reality that true SF doesn't exist anymore. Everything I see now is just blatant CGI, excessive pacing, and a mountain of explosions. Physical realism paired with a restrained approach, yet consistently maintaining its spectacle "by itself"—those are the hallmarks of this film. There is no buffoonery, no forced action, no overacting—just pure focus and serious thematic development. It is quite simply a pleasure to watch.

And as I have mentioned before, there is such a vast selection of SF literature that could serve as blueprints for excellent and spectacular adaptations, but no... for the last 15 years, we have merely witnessed the recycling of the same old themes through extreme stereotypes...

Oh, where has my SF gone? 😢

Wait, wasn't there some short story called The Sentinel or something similar out there before the book and the film (back in 2001, let's be clear) came along?

I've actually read every single book except for the very last one, so I find myself nodding along with what CNN said.

In the novel, they explain that the monolith basically acts as a catalyst for intelligence.
Does anyone else remember that old game SimEarth? You know, that planet simulation from Maxis. There was this thing where once you evolved life all the way up to the primate stage, you could just click on them with the monolith and—poof—you had humans😁.

As for Odyssey 2010 (the movie), I actually thought it was pretty good.
But back then, if anything labeled as SF didn't hit certain high standards, it felt like a massive letdown. Man, I was watching stuff like that back when the Iron Curtain was still a real thing, so that whole subplot involving the USSR vs. the USA didn't feel nearly as naive to me as it might today.

Richard Hernandez13 said:Wasn't there a short story before the movie and the book—well, let’s be clear, I mean the 2001 version? The Sentinel Or something like that.

The Sentinel served as the foundational blueprint for the Clarke / Kubrick project, 2001. If my memory serves—and it usually does, despite my failings—the book and the film were released almost simultaneously, or at least within a very narrow window of time. It strikes me as odd that they don't share much beyond the core concept, though I have always found the discrepancy regarding the planetary setting rather baffling. In the book, the focus is on Saturn, yet the film shifts the entire stage to Jupiter. Aside from that specific orbital pivot, everything else remains essentially identical.

I haven't had the chance to read The Sentinel yet, unfortunately...

Actually, if you want to be precise, The Sentinel is really just a short story by Clarke from back in 1948.

Richard Hernandez13 said:Actually, The Sentinel is a short story by Clarke from 1948.

Well, I actually had no idea...

Lawrence Booth2 said:Actually, The Guardian is a short story by Clarke from back in 1948.

Wait, is that the one where he heads up to the moon and stumbles upon some kind of pyramid...