2001 - 2010
It being 2010, and me being a big sci-fi geek, I figured I would have to watch the film 2010 at some point. :o) I got it out of the library, and realized that I had a copy of 2001 that was in a boxed set I bought in the fall and hadn't watched yet, so I decided to make it a double bill.
2001: A Space Odyssey
One of those movies considered as "The Greatest Film of all Time"; I don't know if I'd go that far, but I would say that from a historical standpoint, it's one of the most important science-fiction films of all time, and its the type of film that should be studied by anyone interested in creating film as an artform.
There's not really much I can say about the film that hasn't been said before - I will say, though, that one of the more amazing things I realized about it was how completely and utterly Kubrickian it is. In everything from the use of colour, to contrasting light against darkness, to the use of classical music and sound contrasted with silence, the exploration of themes relating to insanity and individual personhood - it works like a Kubrick's greatest hits on one level, which is doubly interesting considering that he was working with Arthur C Clarke, one of the best-known science fiction writers of that generation. It takes someone with considerable heft to overshadow a writer of Clarke's ability and esteem.
2010: The Year We Make Contact
I'd seen this film once before - I remember reading both 2001 and 2010 when I was in high school, and then watching both movies around the same time. That's about all I remembered of it, which I think is a combination of it being overshadowed by how iconoclastic 2001 is, and by me not fully getting the story.
So, the story picks up right where 2001 left off - Bowman becomes the star-child, and sends a message to Earth from the monolith - "My god, it's full of stars." Through an interesting set of circumstances, the Soviets* and the Americans decide to work together to investigate, despite increasing conflict between the respective militaries. While investigating, they discover life on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and we learn that the monoliths are essentially the same concept as the Celestials - cosmic aliens that shepherd life forms into their next stage of evolution. It's one of those classic sci-fi concepts that I've always loved, even when presented in a non-fictional context (like in Erik von Daniken's books).
The climax of the film involves the monoliths collapsing Jupiter in on itself to form a new sun, which looks so epic - for a special effect from 26 years ago, it still looks really awesome to see.
The film ends with an exploration of the idea of what having a second sun would mean to our psychology, which I think is interesting - with one sun, we have the corresponding idea that there can be only dominant political power, but with two suns, it might be possible for two nations to coexist as political equals without seeking to dominate each other. It's one of those ideas of evolutionary psychology that is entirely unprovable, but fascinating to think about.
Overall, 2010 holds up really well as a film - if you've seen 2001, it explains a lot of the abstract stuff from the first movie, and has one of those "we need to stop all this war and rumours of war" messages that 80s science fiction did so well (see The Abyss for nother exploration of the same concept). It's kind of funny that movies like that don't really get made anymore, given that we're now actually at war rather than on the verge of war.
*it was 1984. It made sense, at the time, that the Cold War would still be on in 2010.