2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, and was inspired by Clarke's 1951 short story "The Sentinel" and other short stories by Clarke. Clarke also published a novelisation of the film, in part written concurrently with the screenplay, after the film's release. The film stars Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, and Douglas Rain and follows a voyage by astronauts, scientists, and the sentient supercomputer HAL to Jupiter to investigate an alien monolith.
The film is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction of space flight, pioneering special effects, and ambiguous imagery. Kubrick avoided conventional cinematic and narrative techniques; dialogue is used sparingly, and there are long sequences accompanied only by music. The soundtrack incorporates numerous works of classical music, including pieces by composers such as Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II, Aram Khachaturian, and György Ligeti.
The film received diverse critical responses, ranging from those who saw it as darkly apocalyptic to those who saw it as an optimistic reappraisal of the hopes of humanity. Critics noted its exploration of themes such as human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning Kubrick the award for his direction of the visual effects. The film is now widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.
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I hate when people are like "You can't criticize this media work because you only watched 20 hours of the 16,000,000 total hours of runtime, and if you haven't watched EVERY SINGLE EPISODE and consumed all the tie in comics, books, videogames, telenovelas, ASMR channels, branded food products, and spin off highschool AUs you cannot form an opinion.
Like there is a threshold of participation before you can really talk about something, but one season of any given show or anime is enough to have opinions.
This goes eightfold for any product where people are like "Well, you see, after eight years of unrelenting misogyny, misanthropy, cruelty, and racism the author actually revealed in the last half of the final season that the story was about hte power of tolerance and friendship all along!"
On a related note, the number of people who think that "criticism" means "yelling about why something is bad" is very large. The idea that critique and criticism are necessarily an attack on their favorite fic or blorbo or whatever, it's bad folks!
I agree with the broad point but I don't know about one season as a hard and fast rule. The first season just sucks sometimes. Like TNG.
In this case I would say TNG is an exception to what I'm ranting about as it's an episodic show where there isn't necessarily an overarching story. Each episode of TNG can be critiqued in and of itself. "The first season of TNG was mid" is a totally valid critique. What's got my goat is shows with a single plotted narrative arc. Claims that a show will successfully change course 30 or 60 hours rarely have merit, and often reflect a fans reflexive defense of their show rather than the actual text. And that defense is often strengthened by the defenders ignorance of the themes being portrayed and their relation to historical or contemporary events. There's generally a lot of "What no theory does to an MF" going on that prevents them from critically engaging with the media or engaging in good faith with critiques of the media.
It can depend on the thing. There are shows that do pull the rug out from under you once you think you know what's going on some shows intend for things to evolve over a few seasons if I'm told that's the case ya gotta tell me that first cause I'm not gonna keep watching something thst sucks not knowing it's to set up it being good. I like shows that do that and for a variety of reasons most shows I like I do need to tell people that they only pay off if you stick to em. The Wire, Star Trek, B5 and Venture Bros being major favorites means I'm giving early entry disclaimers a lot
I recently re-watched B5, no skipping any episodes. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I genuinely enjoyed season 1. (Except for TKO of course. It was just as bad as I remember.) I think knowing about Michael O'Hare's psychological challenges for this re-watch made me a lot more forgiving of some rougher episodes in general, and that actor specifically.
There a lot that's set up in that first season you don't notice on the first watch
Absolutely. I get this a lot with Mass Effect, people telling me that Mass Effect 2 or 3 subverted all the things Mass Effect did completely, uncritically straight. I don't care! Coming out in act three and saying "Actually all the cool stuff I told you was cool was not cool" is a cop out. You don't have to outright say that there's going to be a twist ending, but when the author is very, very obviously playing things entirely straight with no critique or even hint of a critique I don't have to take them seriously when they change their mind, or claim to change their mind, several seasons or games or books later.
I've never played Mass Effect but yeah you can't do a rug pull effectively in a multi installment story without running that risk. This is where foreshadowing comed into play. Like, if mass effect 1 does have hints of whatever 2 and 3 are that you may not notice until a replay after playing the others, that's good storytelling and cool as hell. But it can't just come from totally nowhere. There's a good surprise and a wut surprise
AoT :)
Or are you just on a rampage about how normals view media?
Yes I am on a rampage. There will be blood. Rivers of tears will flow. Blorbos will be cut down by the score.
The Frank Terror! Hyped!!
I think it is impossible to give a fair critique of a show if you haven't seen all of it. But if you start watching the first episode/season and say after a bit "Nope" its fair to say "I thought it was shit and there is no way I was gonna waste anymore time on that."