2001: A Space Odyssey Overview:

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was a Adventure - Mystery Film directed by Stanley Kubrick and produced by Stanley Kubrick and Victor Lyndon.

2001: A Space Odyssey was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1991.

Academy Awards 1968 --- Ceremony Number 41 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Art DirectionArt Direction: Tony Masters, Harry Lange, Ernie ArcherNominated
Best DirectorStanley KubrickNominated
Best WritingStanley Kubrick, Arthur C. ClarkeNominated
.

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Quotes from

[choosing sandwiches from a cooler while flying over the lunar surface]
Dr. Floyd: What's that? Chicken?
Dr. Bill Michaels: Something like that. Tastes the same anyway.


Dr. Floyd: [upon learning about the monolith while on the moonbus] Deliberately buried. Huh!


Elena: Oh, we're going home. We have just spent three months calibrating the new antennae at Tchalinko... And what about you?
Dr. Floyd: I'm just on my way up to Clavius.


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Facts about

The joke working title, "How the Solar System was Won", reflected the original idea for the film. Just as How the West Was Won was a series of short stories spanning decades, 2001: A Space Odyssey was going to be a series of stories showing explorations on many planets and moons, ending with "The Sentinel" showing the uncovering of the monolith on the Moon, which was the first contact with extra terrestrials. A genuine working title was "Voyage Beyond the Stars". When Fantastic Voyage was released, Stanley Kubrick reportedly so disliked that film that he did not want his film to sound anything like it. In the end, "2001" was chosen as it is the first year of both the 21st century and the 3rd millennium. In 1999 Arthur C. Clarke held a press conference in which he said he was dismayed that so many people (including college professors and journalists) were incorrectly calling 2000 the beginning of the century.
The sun and the crescent moon aligned with each other (in the opening shot) was a symbol of Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion that predated Buddhism and Christianity and was based on the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra). This particular alignment symbolized the eternal struggle between light and darkness. Appropriately enough, the famous "2001: A Space Odyssey Theme" is from "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (Thus Spake Zarathustra), the symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, based on a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, which contained his famous declaration "God is dead". One can assume, given Stanley Kubrick's working methods, that none of this was accidental.
The Blue Danube Waltz was not the first piece of classical music intended for the space station sequence. Stanley Kubrick originally set the sequence to the Scherzo from Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's "Midsummer Night's Dream." Friend of Kubrick's introduced him to the Johann Strauß waltzes during 2001's editing stage, and he re-edited the sequence to The Blue Danube for the final version of the film.
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Best Director Oscar 1968






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National Film Registry

2001: A Space Odyssey

Released 1968
Inducted 1991
(Sound)




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