I first saw this movie when I was in high school and of course it was all lost on me. As somebody who, at the time, thought the headiest movie ever made was V for Vendetta it was probably a tall order to expect me to really get such a slow and complex movie. Jump to the present day. I'm in the middle of a Kubrick kick right now so I thought hey, how about giving this one another chance? Let me tell you friend, it blew me away. An absolute masterpiece in every way. Yet I was wondering, besides just being too young to appreciate it, why I flat out didn't like it. I saw a lot of movies before I was able to really get them, like On The Waterfront and The Shining, yet even if I didn't understand what they were trying to say thematically I still appreciated them as movies.
2001: A Space Odyssey is different though. In a lot of ways, this movie breaks the boundaries of what we expect from a film and even from a story. In fact, if you aren't looking at this movie from a relatively scholarly point of view, it's going to be confusing to see what all the fuss is about. The story not only doesn't have a protagonist in the traditional sense, but also spans over thousands of years with little to no emotional stakes holding it together. The only characters who the audience really gets a feel for are Dave and HAL 9000, the onboard computer. Which is perhaps why his "death" is so heartbreaking.
