A praised oddity - Initial Viewing

There’s a movie that has gotten a lot of praise, which is mystifying to me. Honestly, it isn’t really that good in my opinion. This movie.. It sucks.

2001: A Space Odyssey, is a movie that just makes me shudder.

I shall do this one in two parts, In the first part I will recap as well as I can how I felt during and after my initial viewing of this “epic”. In the second part, I will review this one, just for you guys.. Okay, I have to see if I’ve changed my mind about it and let’s see if I’ll be more lenient on the movie.

For now, let me try to recap as well as my memory serves me.

*Sigh.*

The setting was this.. It’s quite late, and there was already someone sleeping next to me, but I had made up my mind about watching this movie. This was during a time when I didn’t have a job or anything, so I usually slept long and was up late. I was quite excited to view a movie that most critics call an epic in storytelling.

The beginning, I sit and wonder when it’s going to start. And I sit practically as a question mark during the whole time. If there wouldn’t have been someone sleeping next to me, I would’ve been screaming: “I DON’T SPEAK APE!”. Yes, Yes.. I know we are descendants of great apes (although a lot of religious zealots will disagree), but we left the grunting and screaming a long, long, long time ago.

Either I have blocked what happened after, or I’ve passed out for a while. Either way, I’m happy for that, I don’t think it’s worth remembering. Then it jumps to a space shuttle, where there are people talking. Let me try to recap some of the dialogue:

Man 1: - Say, bladiblablabla.

Man 2: - I don’t think the viewer cares.

Man 1: - Yappety yap yap.

Man 2: No, you still didn’t get his attention.

Woman: - Maybe I can say something that’s fairly interesting?

All: -Hahahahah, maybe you could!

Me: - Who are you people? And why should I care about you?! And what is this about a disease? A quarantine? What? Huh? I’m trying my best to pay attention, but anything else seems to be much better than listening to you!

Honestly, by now, I was wishing that the scene would change. I really didn’t understand what they were talking about, and I couldn’t keep my interest in listening to what they were saying. It all became a little inaudible for me, probably because I was struggling to stay awake. I need to stop the movie at this point, and go outside to cold crispy January air to wake up. Brr!! Chilly! That will help! Or so I thought...

I come back in, I sit down, start the movie again and think to myself: “Now I am ready to finish this movie”. Motivated by the cold air, I smile to myself.. But the smile quickly fades away, seeing as this scene is going to take a long ass time to finish. Why can’t you move forward? And against my better judgement, I wouldn’t fast-forward, because that’s cheating. Curse my pigheadedness! Skip a few seconds, come on! I may be a lot of things, but I don’t cheat.

Focus, Yawret! FOCUS!

Hope started to come back as the scene changed to a Space ship! As a Sci-Fi enthusiast, it brings me hope. This is the scene that a lot of reviewers and none reviewers talk so much about, the scene with HAL. This is going to be exciting! Or is it? No.. It isn’t.. Why isn’t anything happening? Why are these scenes as long as the New York Marathon? Why aren’t these scenes with HAL suspenseful? All that is left is HAL’s monotone voice, that just drones through the scenes.

I need another break.. NO.. Come on.. This is close to the end.. Run the course, Yawret.. RUN!

Are those end credits I see? Yaaaaay!!! This movie is horrid! I’ve been sitting through this pile of buffalo.. No, elephant manure!! And the worst part is! The edition that I have is “only” 2 hours and 14 minutes long, but it feels like an eternity! Not even the Special Extended Edition of The Lord of the Ring Trilogy feels this long.. I could even watch those back to back without even flinching from my seat, except at strong needs of toilet.

From that faithful January night, I decided never to lay my eyes on this movie again!!

But..

I promised review of it, didn’t I.. I was clearly insane when I wrote the intro.. Oh, save my soul, as I will keep my promise.. Does anyone know the last rites?