Science Fiction. Now when most people hear those words, they think, “Oh, space battles, phasers, lightsabers, and great CG!” Not Stanely Kubrick, no, he wanted realism, and thats what we got with his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. 2001 changed the way science fiction was written and screened. Most people left at the beginning, thinking the 2 minute black screen was a broken film. I know I did when I picked up the film. Then the store clerk said to watch past two minutes, where the movie actually started. I was greeted by screeching apes and a perfectly carved obsidian rock. Despite the dialogue, or lack of it, the music of the all powerful monolith spurred me on. Skip forward a few million years, man is in space, spinning around to Blue Danube Waltz. The ship finally arrives at dock, where a man checks into the space station. We see the floors curving upward, yet everyone isn’t fazed. After a quick meeting, we skip ahead to the moon (keep in mind we haven’t even landed on the moon yet), where another monolith has been found. It periodically sends a deafening tone to Jupiter, which the audience hears in full force. I first heard this and thought my house was on fire, I can only imagine what it was like in theaters. Forward another couple years and we see a massive ship on a 9 month long journey to the end of the beam. The massive ship is a sight to behold, but only holding 5 people, 2 of them awake. I then paused the movie, already halfway through, realizing there was very little dialogue, yet somehow I found myself glued to the screen. Open up to a person drawing through a fisheye lens. Then HAL 9000 is introduced. Everyone knows him for his famous and bone-chilling quote “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” Long shots on his singular red eye, I instantly recognized the super-computer villain. When HAL predicts something wrong with the ship, but is perfectly fine, Dave and Frank plan to disconnect HAL. Hiding in the EVA pod was a good move, but HAL can read lips. I could tell their plan was going to go wrong when the camera just showed the moving lips between Dave and Frank. When HAL breaks the first rule of robotics by killing Frank, I was just about to scream from the tension. Minutes of breathing cut off by the emptiness of space. Dave, noticing Frank floating dead in space, went out in an EVA pod to grab him. Upon returning though, HAL locks Dave out of the ship, forcing Dave to abandon Frank and use the emergency hatch. Using the silence as a tension builder, Kubrick maintains the fear of dying alone in space. Dave makes it back in the ship, and immediately drains HAL of life. We are treated to HAL singing Daisy in increasingly lower octaves, making him seem like a real person. Now after this is something I can’t explain, seemingly like the 4th dimension, turning Dave into a fetus orbiting the earth. Overall, this movie blew my mind and has moved its way onto my top ten list of movies. Because this movie changed the sci-fi genre forever with its incredible use of silence and long shots, I give this movie a 9.5/10.