What's your Sci-Fi unpopular opinion?
What's your Sci-Fi unpopular opinion?
It's a slightly click-baity title, but as we're still generating more content for our magazines, this one included, why not?
My Sci-fi unpopular opinion is that 2001: A Space Odyssey is nothing but pretentious, LSD fueled nonsense. I've tried watching it multiple times and each time I have absolutely no patience for the pointless little scenes which contain little to no depth or meaningful plot, all coalescing towards that 15 minute "journey" through space and series of hallucinations or whatever that are supposed to be deep, shake you to your foundations, and make you re-think the whole human condition.
But it doesn't. Because it's just pretentious, LSD fueled nonsense. Planet of the Apes was released in the same year and is, on every level, a better Sci-fi movie. It offers mystery, a consistent and engaging plot, relatable characters you actually care about, and asks a lot more questions about the world and our place in it.
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I love the entire "2001" series, and I've even watched the "2010" movie. I understand where your opinions are coming from and I will not judge you for them; but I personally disagree. Then again, I'm also someone who genuinely enjoys watching Citizen Kane, so I might just have a skewed perspective. Mind you, I also enjoy the 1995 Johnny Mnemonic movie and have watched Overdrawn at the Memory Bank without MST3K - so I'm all over in terms of sci-fi.
Here's my big hot take lately: of the "virtual world" sci-fi movies of 1999, I'm honestly upset that the Matrix was the one that won the cultural zeitgeist, rather than The Thirteenth Floor and eXistenZ. I understand that a Cronenberg movie probably wasn't going to win the public even if it did have Jennifer Jason Lee, Jude Law, and cameos from Ian Holm and Willem Dafoe; but The Thirteenth Floor had a great story, a solid cast, and really nice set designs - not to mention the moment that the covers of the home releases have always spoiled.
I watched 2010 before I watched 2001, because back in the olden days you could only watch whatever was on TV.
Needless to say I was very confused multiple times throughout that process.
As someone who's old enough to remember seeing 2001 on a huge screen when it was first released, it's hard to express how monumentally spectacular the effects were. It brought the moon and space alive in a way that no movie had done before. The closest comparison I can make is with the first Jurassic Park movie, which was the first time movie audiences experienced living, breathing dinosaurs.
The whole psychedelic transit thing, hotel room/zoo and star baby was pretty obtuse for most audiences. You really needed to read the book to suss out what happened.