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July 28, 2012 6:52 AM   Subscribe

With the approaching 45th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Film School Rejects have taken the boring old original trailer and updated it as a contemporary summer blockbuster (other remixes come in Inception and Prometheus flavors).

Bonus: Stanley Kubrick's letter to Arthur C. Clarke to propose collaborating on "the proverbial 'really good' science-fiction movie."
posted by Doktor Zed (25 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
LOL @ 04.02.68
posted by localroger at 7:09 AM on July 28, 2012


Oh, lol local, that was exactly what I was coming to post.

Why have there been so few 2001's? There is no dearth of SF ideas. Good can be sold.

As for the recut, film 'language' is learned, quite quickly but leaned. The very first film of that train heading directly for the camera had folks in a legitimate panic. Quick cuts confused the first viewers, but it seems not on a second viewing. Is this re-wiring our synapses? Sub-second cuts are not just for flash frame effects anymore but often key to the narrative. But plots seem to be getting more simplistic. Where is this going in a YouTube world?
posted by sammyo at 7:22 AM on July 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


The FSR version is the least interesting of them all, actually. The original trailer is much better in terms of showing the startling imagery (the speeded-up film in the FSR version is too obvious and distracting). I like the Inception and Prometheus ones, though.
posted by Grangousier at 7:39 AM on July 28, 2012


The FSR version is the least interesting of them all, actually.

No matter how you splice up 2001, the imagery and the pacing, down to the individual scenes, simply aren't compatible with making it look like a summer blockbuster.
posted by deanc at 7:49 AM on July 28, 2012 [3 favorites]


Inception's an interesting choice, since at least two segments of that film are essentially Nolan's love notes to 2001: the corridor fight, and the vault room in the hospital on dream level 3.
posted by radwolf76 at 9:32 AM on July 28, 2012




Lemurrhea, somewhat in line with sammyo's post, that image is way less cool if you've read the book.
posted by 7segment at 10:25 AM on July 28, 2012


Needs more "open the pod bay door, Hal." (Did it make me excited to see it again? Yes. Mission accomplished.)
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:26 PM on July 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


Well, it made me want to watch the movie again, and if I saw this in the theater I probably would have come unglued, so.... mission accomplished!
posted by hermitosis at 1:31 PM on July 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


Film School Rejects have taken the boring old original trailer and updated it as a contemporary summer blockbuster -- Rock Hudson famously walked out of the premier of this movie, shouting "Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?'' He was as much of a philistine as the guys who remade the trailer. This demonstrates how far and cheap film editing has come since 1968, where any tool with a youtube account can now pretend to be as smart as Stanley Kubrick.
posted by crunchland at 1:55 PM on July 28, 2012 [2 favorites]


crunchland, I get the feeling that this is video is a joke? Just maybe?
posted by fifthrider at 2:11 PM on July 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


These were good. Having just rewatched both 2001 and 2010 (they're sitting on my hard drive as I type this, actually) I got a kick out of most of those trailers.

It's funny, on some level it still amazes me that they could do special effects like that back in 1968. I guess when I think of 1960's-era special effects, I expect to see something more on the lines of Star Trek (which was still good for its day) than 2001.

Oh, and the iPhone charging station is awesome.
posted by zbaco at 2:23 PM on July 28, 2012


The 2001 one somehow evoked season 1 Space:1999 for me.
posted by wittgenstein at 2:34 PM on July 28, 2012 [3 favorites]


It's no wonder those guys flunked out of film school. They can't even seem to figure out how to do a proper deinterlace.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:01 PM on July 28, 2012


it still amazes me that they could do special effects like that back in 1968.

In The Lost Worlds of 2001 Clarke said that Kubrick had confided to him that if outer space were orange, the movie would have been three times more expensive to make.
posted by localroger at 3:20 PM on July 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


I get the feeling that this is video is a joke? Just maybe?
The joke would be funny, if it weren't so sad.
posted by crazy_yeti at 4:55 PM on July 28, 2012


Please don't ever mention 2010 again. Ever.
posted by hwestiii at 5:04 PM on July 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


hwestiii: "Please don't ever mention 2010 again. Ever."

But it's Peter Hyams' best movie.
posted by octothorpe at 5:23 PM on July 28, 2012


But it's Peter Hyams' best movie.


Faint praise, indeed.
posted by hwestiii at 6:24 PM on July 28, 2012


What if 2001 was an iPhone charging station?

The new Apple iMonolith.
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 8:56 PM on July 28, 2012


Kubrick would approve, I'm sure!
posted by mazola at 12:15 AM on July 29, 2012


> The 2001 one somehow evoked season 1 Space:1999 for me.
> posted by wittgenstein at 5:34 PM on July 28

That's what suspenseful music will do for you.

Speaking of Space:1999, wasn't there supposed to be a re-imagining on the near horizon? I've seen numerous articles saying that the reboot would be called Space:2099, since 1999 has come and gone without all of the computers have resisted collapsing into a singularity.

A February article from the HR says that it's going to be a tv series again, and they're going to forego the cash-grab that a theatrical feature would have been.

(And now I've got an appetite for some smart, downer sci-fi franchise that I know doesn't exist anywhere.)
posted by vhsiv at 7:41 AM on July 29, 2012


(After looking at the FSR trailer, I'd want that remake to go a little more Matrix-y and Inception-y.)
posted by vhsiv at 8:08 AM on July 29, 2012 [1 favorite]


I think the idea that this is a way of reframing 2001 per se is the wrong take on this. In fact, the un-blockbuster-ness of 2001 is part of the rationale. This is about trailer styles and how the same material can be molded many different ways. Watching these doesn't make me want to see a 2001 remade by modern blockbuster rules; it makes me yearn for the 13-year-old in me who was going to the local community college film series and watching it for the first time: who was about to have his mind blown. For the very first time. In a sense, the trailer depends on this experience; I'm not sure, can't be sure, how it would work for someone who hasn't had it.

I am wondering, as a parallel comment suggests, whether Christopher Nolan is the closest thing we might have to a Kubrick making a blockbuster.
posted by dhartung at 2:57 PM on July 29, 2012


(It's probably just me being a bitter, middle-aged guy, but I find the optimism I once saw in those films unsupportable. No one cares about space exploration and we've just about killed NASA to fund wars in the M.E. Mars in my lifetime? PRobably not.)
posted by vhsiv at 5:55 PM on July 29, 2012


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