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Steven Soderberg: 2001 A Space Odyessy re-cut


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Director Steven Soderberg has taken upon himself to recut to 2001. One assumes it has TCM/MGMs backing as it is freely available on his website in HD. He outlines his reasons for the recut and reducing the film to 110 mins.

http://extension765.com/sdr/23-the-return-of-w-de-rijk

My response is why and how can one improve on perfection?

Marty...

Edited by marty_hopkirk
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You could probably cut out Leonard Rossiter,

Plus coffee & sarnies in the moon bug. I doubt those

bits would be missed. Otherwise, No, Leave it!

I love those scenes, particulary the Moonbus one when Floyd and the team start discussing what to eat, that is essential to the film and demonstrated how mundane space travel had become - like wise when Floyd is reading how to use the zero gravity toilet on the Aries 1B, essential... Kubrick knew what he was doing. Edited by marty_hopkirk
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  • 4 weeks later...

For me, one of interesting aspects of 2001 is that the humans exhibit less emotion than HAL. All the human dialogue is dull and empty (remember how disinterested Poole is with his parents Birthday message?) It seems that our species is ready for the next experimental evolutionary step that Bowman unwittingly becomes part of. Editing 2001 seem sacrilege, Kubrick himself edited it very carefully down from the original preview length. I'm a great 'fan' of the film and personally don't think a moment is wasted. Maybe Soderburg should read Clarke and Kubrick's 'The making of 2001'.

Edited by DaveO
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I love those scenes, particulary the Moonbus one when Floyd and the team start discussing what to eat, that is essential to the film and demonstrated how mundane space travel had become - like wise when Floyd is reading how to use the zero gravity toilet on the Aries 1B, essential... Kubrick knew what he was doing.

I have always found the toilet bit incongruous. Surely Floyd as an experienced spacefarer would know full well how to usesuch a toilet already?

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It's obvious from the words of Steven Soderbergh that he's completely obsessed with film history, but why did he feel that 2001 needed a re-cut? Kubrick would have HATED the idea of anyone re-editing his films. No great surprise that Soderbergh has been asked to remove his cut.

Chris.

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I have always found the toilet bit incongruous. Surely Floyd as an experienced spacefarer would know full well how to usesuch a toilet already?

That is a huge assumption, nothing in the book or film suggests that - that scene I venture is put in as a little bit of humour around the mundanity of space travel.

Marty...

Edited by marty_hopkirk
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