2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on Netflix
A prehistoric tribe of hominids finds a black monolith. Eons afterward, Dr. Heywood Floyd investigates a matching object buried on the moon, and Discovery One heads for Jupiter with HAL 9000.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb8.3/10792,949 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
In a prehistoric African veld, a group of hominids loses its water hole to a rival group. The next morning a tall black monolith stands among the rocks, and the hominids learn to use animal bones as weapons. Ages later, Dr. Heywood Floyd goes to Clavius Base on the moon. At Space Station Five, Russian scientists ask him about Clavius, and he will not discuss reports of an epidemic there. At Clavius he tells the personnel that secrecy is needed, then goes to a dig near the crater Tycho, where a monolith that had lain buried for four million years is examined. It sends out a powerful radio signal. Eighteen months afterward, the ship Discovery One travels toward Jupiter with Dr. Dave Bowman, Dr. Frank Poole, three scientists in hibernation, and the HAL 9000 computer aboard.
Cast
- Frank W. Milleras Mission Controller (voice)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Stanley Kubrick commissioned a full score from Alex North, who had written Spartacus for him, then dropped it in post-production for the classical recordings he had used as temporary music. North did not learn his score was gone until he watched the premiere.
- The visual effects Oscar, the only Academy Award Kubrick ever won, went to him alone. Effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull was left off it, there were threats of legal action, and the two men did not speak for ten years.
- For the African backdrops the crew scaled up front projection to a screen 40 feet tall and 110 feet wide. Seams in the reflective material showed, so they tore it into chunks and applied it like camouflage, and built a projector taking 8 inch transparencies lit by the largest water-cooled arc lamp available.
- The Discovery's artificial gravity came from a real machine: a 30-ton rotating ferris wheel 38 feet across, built by Vickers-Armstrong Engineering Group for $750,000, inside which the actor walked or ran in time with its motion.
SPOILER
Saturn was to be the Discovery's destination, but the effects team could not make its rings convincing, so Kubrick switched to Jupiter. He also dropped a finale in which the Star Child detonates orbiting nuclear weapons, because it was too close to his own Dr. Strangelove.
