A few of my friends came over to my place last night for a viewing of Stanley Kubrick’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey. It has been about 10 years since I have seen the film and I had forgotten a great deal of it. Kubrick’s command of shot composition is unparalleled, creating striking scenes of ships and planets in their simplest forms. For example, an epic shot of the earth, moon and sun for the opening credits is simply three circles overlapping symmetrically. Check out the opening credits. Kubrick was an amazing designer.
The orb design for HAL’s face plate (seen above) is a brilliant piece of work creating a character from the simplest of forms. And the psychedelic trip scene near the end is simply stunning, unheard of in any other motion picture. See it here.
2001 really does stand alone in terms of pace, concept/technology design and effect usage. It’s very hard to believe it was released in 1968.
I´m agree. In my opinion there´s no conception of technology of future like 2001 odisey´s. A lot of films have been taken from an idea of how would be the design of technology in future ,and only a few are close to present.
Maybe the fact that 2001 odisey´s is out of land, make it easer.When you posted this item, I thougth about “Blade Runner” ,” The Fith Element” and “Metropolis”, but the way those films take the conception of future is about a retro design of future (another idea for post;) ).
We love your blog.
Best regards
Good call! I watched this for the first time a few months ago, and while the movie didn’t completely blow me away, the art direction and effects did!
The psychedelic trip scene was breathtaking! I was absolutely hypnotized.
I love this movie in many ways, from the director to the art direction, from the musical score to the screenplay.. god damn sure it is a inspiration =)
Well done!!
I always loved the graphics of the Ae-35 unit spinning around on the display….. Never mind dated, 2001 is still THE best GUI / Graphic Design visual Sci-FI feast, and probably always will be – Eurostile has never looked better
2 fun facts about HAL:
He was made with a Cinerama 160 degree Fairchild-Curtis wide angle camera lens.
HAL = IBM. The previous letters of the alphabet..
=)
james check this out..
George Smoot: The design of the universe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c64Aia4XE1Y&feature=dir
Hey James, I hope your well…
just featured my own spin on Kubrick’s defining masterpiece at http://www.sci-fi-o-rama.com/2008/12/10/2001-a-space-odyssey-1/