2010 (1984)
2010 (1984), written, produced, photographed and directed by Peter Hyams.
As the tense US and USSR draw near to World War III, the abandoned Discovery still orbits Jupiter, with HAL shut down and last survivor Dave Bowman absent and presumed dead. Mysteriously, the spacecraft has begun to move. Must be the unknown Monolith-makers, right? Time to risk a joint mission to determine what the hell is going on.
I've always defended this sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). No, it is not a landmark film like Kubrick's original. Yes, the tone is different and it lacks the metaphysical strangeness of the first movie, but it has heart and excitement without villains, and a positive ending still rooted in mystery.
Adapted from a book by Arthur C. Clarke. I've always thought of this a Clarke movie, where the original was more Kubrick. Clarke has a cameo as the old guy feeding pigeons in front of the White House.
It is great that Keir Dullea and Douglas Rain (voice of HAL) return from the earlier film.
Roy Scheider is a favorite actor of those years. His Heywood Floyd is a different character than in the first film, where he was much more sinister, a political operator.
I like Helen Mirren as the Russian spaceship captain. I'm pretty sure Chandra was supposed to be from India in the book, but here we get geeky lemur-like Bob Balaban.
With a recent rewatch the production seems creakier. The technical features are still pretty good, much aided by recent space probe photos of the time. The script and even the line readings just seem "off". The acting is very old-school "let's talk out the plot". Maybe the director was wearing too many hats.
The long spacewalk sequence and buddy-bonding experience of John Lithgow and Elya Baskin: awww, that's sweet.
Notes:
You know you are on a Russian spacecraft when you see those huge serious buttons.
This is not a horror film but the design influence of Alien (1979) is obvious. The silhouetted characters sitting around the crew table have always seemed to suggest the unknown alien presence.
When Max puts on a helmet and we have those vivid color reflections: that brings back the first film.
As is inevitable: the computers are both antiquated and futuristic.
In the theater people were sniggering about Chandra's affection for and loyalty to HAL, but I understood completely. Back then we had emotional bonds with computers just as some people do with cars and boats. That's faded out now as the machines have become disposable appliances.
In a contest of science vs politics, SF stories are generally going to side with the scientists, as here. Not always: in The Thing from Another World (1951) some of the scientists are dangerously delusional.
We're still talking about possible life on Europa, still making movies about it, as in Europa Report (2013).
It is supposed to be understood that not all areas of the two spacecraft are spun for simulated gravity, but they don't always do enough to present this. A bit where Scheider suspends a weightless pen comes out of nowhere.
Going "full thrust" with Chandra still outside on a rope: it's exciting, but was that really necessary?
According the wikipedia article, critical reception was "mixed to positive" at the time. I remember it being not so well liked by critics. That was the first time I heard "I will never trust a movie reviewer again" from someone I went with.
Available on Blu-ray. The grain is often prominent, the blacks could be better and the color is desaturated in spots. Maybe some of this is in the source; I don't remember the theater experience clearly enough to say, other than it seemed spectacular at the time.
