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I used to work on operas.

Posted by Analog Scott (A) on January 4, 2007 at 16:20:13

In Reply to: Well, the 2001 is not just another sci-fi movie, it is a one with agruably high aspirations posted by Victor Khomenko on January 4, 2007 at 12:44:52:

They never worked on me ::rim shot:: I certainly can appreciate the set designs , lighting designs, the quality of the live orchestra, and even the quality of acting within such a stylized presentation. But I can't stand the singing. I hate it. It is a pure aesthetic distaste like my distaste for the smell of B.O. the taste of raw fish, the sound of construction work or the look of an industrial dump. That personal tatse slants my opinion of any opera to the point of being pretty worthless. But I know that it is my taste and not the artistic merits of opera that are at play here.

While 2001 has high aspirations I think the very divide you put between high aspirations and scifi tells us something most of us already know about your taste with this genre. There are two basic kinds of scifi movies. the "what if" type and the futuristic fantasy type. 2001 is very much in it's premise and story arc a "what if" type of scifi movie. A well constructed intelegent "what if" scifi movie will take some sort of premise and ask interesting moral, ethical and even spiritual questions about the human existance. Most of them will go on to take a stance on those issues and use that stance to reflect on the human condition and the nature of the characters in the story. This is where 2001 differs from most good scifi. It doesn't take stances on the moral, ethical or spiritual questions that arise from it's basic premise. It brings us to the questions and leaves us to answer them for ourselves. It would seem that this sort of narative does not apeal to you, the "what if" scifi narative. many of us fidn great value in the construct of such a premise and story arc all by itself. The other thing that is very important is the spectacle of scifi. At it's best it is more than just eye candy and bring us into the world o f the ppremise, and disarms are guard against contiplation of the moral, social and spiritual issues that the "what if" gives us. It seems you do not care much for the spectacle of film. That's finer but that is a quirk of your taste. From the begining of film, from the begining of theater, from the begining of oral traditions of story telling spectacle has been a major element of narative. It may not matter to you but it can't be denied as a valued part of film. That element is an extremely important part of 2001. The "what if" is very well constructed. What if humanity as we know it was the result of an encounter with an intelelgent extra-terrestrial entity. What if that was the spark of enginuity that lead to hominids becoming tool makers/ builders of civilization? What if the second step in that experiment/encounter were to happen at a time when technology developed to the level of interplanetary space travel and AI? Interesting what if. one that was so smartly developed into a brilliant and truly tight narrative that showed us the begining of each stage without breaking any rules of logic or reason. There is plenty of depth in the questions this movie asks. I think what makes it so brilliant is that it makes sense that it doesn't give us answers. *IF* we were to encounter extra terestrial intelegence that evolved seperately from all life on earth it would in all likely hood be truly alien, not just in the literal sense but in the deepest meaning of the wrod alien. almost all scifi falls back on the anthropomorphising of aliens. makes it easy to relate to them and tell stories about them with neat conclusions all tied up and without need of explination. But I think most people who have given it any thought agree that this is a convenience of story telling that would be highly unlikely in reality. So any encounter with such an entitiy would likely be as mysterious as it is in 2001 and would likely leave us with far more questions than answers as it does in 2001. The questions we come up with and the answers we come up with is where we find the depth in this movie. It is unconventional but it is there. If we bring it. It's very hard to bring it if the genre which asks the "what if' questions doesn't appeal to us and if the spectacle which in the case of this movie is important doesn't matter to us.

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