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Posts Tagged “

2001: A Space Odyssey

chart

Bad Movie Physics: A Report Card

Space epics almost always play fast and loose with science, treating the laws of physics like suggestions. Sound in space, unprotected bodies splatting in vacuum, and alien planets that all look just like Calabasas. But some movies dismember Newton and Einstein with way more gusto than others. We rated 18 movies based on how many laws of physics they mangled, and here's our report card. More »

monkeys in space

Why Everything Goes Better With Space Monkeys

With Space Chimps officially the most anticipated monkey movie of the summer, it's time to take a serious look at our spacefaring simian cousins. (Especially after we discovered our readers are as obsessed with monkeys as we are.) And it turns out there are way more of them than we'd realized, including space-monkey entrepreneurs, superheroes, supervillains and half-monkey half-robot killers. Click through for the complete list of space-faring simians! More »

stanley kubrick

Stanley Kubrick's Crazy Space Lawsuit

Stanley Kubrick tried to stop Space: 1999 with a lawsuit in 1975 because he felt its title was too similar to his 2001: A Space Odyssey. "The deliberate choice of a date only two years away from 2001 is not accidental and harms us," he wrote in one of many frenzied telexes. (Somewhat optimistically, he also predicted the show would be "important" and run for years.) Was he worried people might think the campy rubber-monsters show was a continuation of his ape/fetus acid-trip? Or did he just want a monopoly on titles with "space" and a near-future date? Crazy obsessions like the Space: 1999 lawsuit kept him from finishing several movie projects — including one intriguing science fiction movie. More »

space gods

Dumbest Space Gods In Science Fiction

Why do space explorers always wind up meeting some crappy pantheon? It never fails. You're cruising along, fighting monsters and bedding your crewmates (or vice versa) and then all of a sudden some annoying guys in tunics are talking Big Talk and rewriting reality to suit their moronic whims. As Crichton from Farscape says, "Godlike aliens! Man, do I hate godlike aliens. I'll trade a critter for a godlike alien any day." Amen, Crichton. Amen. Here's our round up of the most annoying space gods, with only one example from Star Trek. More »

retro futurism

2001: A Flatware Odyssey

The knives are little more than a slender metal wedge and the three-tined forks so narrow you can barely spear a green bean, but what Arne Jacobsen's stainless steel flatware lacks in functionality, it makes up in futuristic style. That's why it was featured in 2001. I own a set of this famous flatware, and have the backstory scoop on the most elegant utensils ever used in a science fiction film. More »

Science Fiction Movies Sold Out In 1982 The decade that began with 2001: A Space Odyssey was the heyday of smart, socially relevant science fiction, writes Grady Hendrix in the New York Sun. Back then, science fiction films looked down on The Man. But today's corporate sci-fi spectaculars are The Man. The turning point came in 1982, when the candy-munching E.T. crushed the dark thriller Blade Runner at the box office. [NY Sun]