21st Century Clarke-a-Thon OR Welcome to the Future!

Watched 2001 and 2010 back-to-back on cable this afternoon/evening.

The Kubrick/Clarke screenplay adaption has always struck me as disjunct.
That said, what an amazing creation. Unbelievable for the time.
The zero-G scenes. The orchestral music.
It is sometimes hard to remember this came out over 25 years ago, a time before computer effects.
This is all models and live action.
Amazing.

I lament having never gotten a chance to watch the spectacle in Cinerama with a modern sound system.

As I watched, I started taking notes on anachronisms of real-life compared to extrapolation.
Even the sequel is getting long in the tooth in Technology years, it is it's 20year anniversary.
I have commented before on how difficult near-term science-fiction can be. Reality quickly overtakes the authors vision with discrepancies, both large and small.

Here are a few I noticed:

2001
This is Disney's World of Tomorrow and the Jetsons.
This is NASA of the '60s projected forward whole-cloth.
White, squeaky-clean and brightly lit.

Stewardi in SpaceBall hats. (All women, of course.)

Telephone home. No answering machine. No cell phone.

Russians, and, of course the Russian's have a moon-base.

The Space-meals on the trays that you apparently sip through straws. TANG to the extreme?

Man taking pictures and winding film of camera. (Reminds me of a Scuba enclosure.)

Based on two examples, space meals really suck. (Sometimes literally. ;->)

Hal has no zoom lens. (Fish-eye zooms are a computationally-intensive recent phenomenon.)

Hmmmm, come to think of it, HAL. A main-frame, controlling everything.

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2010
Russians again, still stealing secrets.

Jetson's-style house complete with dolphin tank!?!

That laptop is HUGE!

This is a more realistic world. Not cyber-punk but more 'industrial'. Perhaps it is a ding on the Russians. Mir with engines and a sifty rotating section so we don't have to spend too much on zero-G scenes...

Dave's brushing of his mother's hair looks phony as hell. (I suppose this is more of a complaint than an anachronism, but after all the amazing effects both in the original and this sequel, this stands out like the proverbial 'sore-thumb'...)

The cold-war, in Central America of all places.

In space, you are obsessed with REAL FOOD... (And mustard IS important.)

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Overall, the sequel stands up better to the test of time. Perhaps because it was made during the time-period I associate with "real" spacecraft/spacefaring movies.

All-in-all a great time. Would do it again in a real theater setting.

And the story. Say whatever you want about the man personally, as an author, there are few who can compare.

Mere mortals dare to postulate mere Tara-forming.

Slackers!

"All These Worlds Are Yours Except Europa.
Attempt No Landing There.
Use Them Together.
Use Them in Peace."