A Good Movie Destined to Fail

This movie actually surprised me. On the whole, I would say it’s pretty good. However, it’s been buried in the annals of cinema, and I think I know why. 2010 is an attempt to make sense of the mystery behind 2001.

The trouble is, 2010 didn’t understand its own audience. For the fans of 2001, the mystery is the point. And for those more devoted to secular causes, the concept of aliens as divine beings is the point. Any attempt to demystify or explain what the aliens were and what they were doing was going to feel underwhelming for anyone who enjoys Stanley Kubrick’s ambiguous aesthetic. But anyone who enjoys a coherent story isn’t going to be able to follow 2010 because they probably wouldn’t have watched 2001. For those who are like me, people who likened 2001 to someone sticking a banana to a wall and calling it art, they would’ve looked at 2010 and thought, “Yes! Clarity!” Anyone who is a fan of Stanley Kubrick would’ve watched 2010 and thought, “Drat! Clarity!”

For this reason, 2010: The Year We Make Contact was destined to fail, despite the accolades it received. Really, it’s nobody’s fault, unless one wishes to blame the studios for wanting to make another cash cow. I suppose someone could say that the studios should’ve seen the movie’s failure coming, but I don’t blame them. I imagine that most people, Kubrick included, didn’t really understand why 2001 was a success in the first place. Perhaps people would’ve put together that fans felt there was a vague sense of “more” floating around the piece, but who could’ve guessed that providing answers to that ambiguity would annoy people more than anything?

This is just my theory because I can’t fathom the complaints about this film. Energy beings and hive minds aren’t that complicated of a concept. And, structurally speaking, the movie is sound. What issues there are can’t be considered plot holes so much as things that are poorly explained but somewhat easy to guess. There are some tonal issues, but, given the circumstances around those issues, even they are somewhat justified.

Narratively speaking, this is a solid film. I wouldn’t call it a personal favorite. It left me feeling a sense of apathy by the end of it, but that’s simply because I don’t find energy aliens and hive minds all that interesting. But other people do. So, it’s not like that’s a problem. It’s a shame because I think this film deserves a little more credit.

As an aside, while reading the sequel novel that went along with this movie, I was surprised to find that Arthur C. Clarke made the choice to actually remove the continuity of his previous novel and used the events of the Kubrick film as the basis for his second book. He included a couple of details from the first novel, but that was it. The movie used Bowman’s final line from the book as well, “It’s full of stars,” but, overall, the first book and the significance of the space baby are ignored. The idea that the space baby represents enlightenment is gone. In fact, the religious reverence for the aliens seems to be wholly removed. Sure, they’re more advanced. Sure, they seem disposed to help humanity, but now, there are mechanics to how the aliens work. The soft magic system used to make the aliens seem divine vanished. I don’t know if Arthur C. Clarke ceased believing that aliens could serve as humanity’s saviors, or if the idea of a benevolent pantheon of ETs wasn’t going to sell in the Eighties, but for whatever reason, the aliens are just aliens now.

Frankly, this made me like the movie more, but I can see how fans of the first film would be ticked, even if they didn’t understand why. There are several factors at play. First, what’s truly interesting about the movie is that even though the continuity is tight, Discovery looks the same, the pods are the same, the actor who played Bowman is the same, it doesn’t feel like a sequel. This is because Kubrick’s ambiguous and ominous aesthetic isn’t present, which only makes sense. There was a different director for this movie, Peter Hyams.

Second—and I don’t mean to dunk on Kubrick, but I guess I have to—this movie actually has a linear plot. The first, second, and third acts are where they’re supposed to be. There is no mindless meandering as ominous music plays and everybody’s left wondering what’s going to happen next for two minutes. The simple fact that the audience doesn’t have a bunch of time to wonder what it all means makes the movie feel like it’s part of a completely different franchise.

I’m not saying I hate Kubrick’s work, but in my opinion, he takes the mystery tactic way too far in the first movie, and the fact that mystery is played to such an extreme in the first film and then not at all in the second creates a wholly different tone.

Thirdly, the surreal and semi-religious elements are what I believe some of the fans of 2001 continued to watch the movie for. They liked the idea of an extraterrestrial pantheon, and telling them, “Nope, these are just aliens,” was a bit of a downer for them. Although, I can’t help but feel a twinge of satisfied spite.

The bottom line is that I think this movie is more of what a science fiction film should be. It depicts the ethereal without sounding like it’s trying to start a religion. And there’s no Nietzsche, which is always a plus. The closest thing to a moral in this film is that humanity will have to learn to get along with the aliens the same way we have to learn to get along with each other, which is fitting considering the Cold War narrative is on the nose with this one. The point is, despite the fact that there are two suns by the end, this movie is much more grounded, which, for some, makes it more forgettable, but honestly, that’s a shame.  I’ll continue my thoughts in the next review.