The Film
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then 2001: A Space Odyssey feels like the entire history of cinema collected into one jaw-dropping 148-hour visual masterpiece.
Huge amounts of the film pass by without a single word of dialogue, and, in truth, without anything you would normally think of as narrative progression. But the sense of scale, beauty, and time together with the detached, otherworldly atmosphere Stanley Kubrick’s meticulous approach create say far more than any number of pages of dialogue ever could.
Even more remarkably, Kubrick manages to use his uniquely ‘pure’ cinematic style to tell what’s actually an unusually complex and profound story of man’s first interactions with an ancient, impossibly advanced alien civilization.
In fact, the harmony – or, at times, disharmony – between Kubrick’s visual style and the film’s stunning soundtrack elevate the story far beyond just its core sci-fi mystery story into something visceral – almost mythical. Which is, of course, why the film still resonates so much 50 years – yes, 50 years – after it was first released.
It also helps, of course, that the film’s age means that all of its special effects were made practically in one way or another, meaning they still look incredibly realistic to this day. Even when presented in (truly stunning) 4K…
Release details
Studio: Warner Bros
What you get: The all-region 4K Blu-ray, the region-free HD Blu-ray, a region free extra features HD Blu-ray, a region-locked digital download code, a glossy booklet of stills and behind the scenes photos; a selection of postcards
Extra features: Commentary by Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood; Channel 4 documentary The Making Of A Myth; four featurettes on the film’s impact on the film making world, the film’s predictions of the future, the science and theories behind the film’s vision of the future, and the possibility of alien life; a look at concept art and early FX for one of the film’s key sequences; a short collection of Kubrick’s 1940s photography for Look magazine; a 1966 audio-only interview with Kubrick; a theatrical trailer
Best Soundtrack Option: Remixed and remastered DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix
Video options: HDR10, Dolby Vision
Key kit used for this test: Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, LG OLED77C8 TV, Samsung QN65Q9FN TV, Panasonic UB900 4K Blu-ray player
The Picture
The 4K Blu-ray release of 2001: A Space Odyssey isn’t just a labor of love. It’s a labor of love from no less key and authoritative figures in cinema than Christopher Nolan, Warner Brothers’ VP of restoration Ned Price, and Hoyte van Hoytema, director of photography on Nolan’s Interstellar and Dunkirk films.
The restoration has been undertaken with the express desire of using today’s technologies to deliver Stanley Kubrick’s vision rather than radically recreating the look of the film for modern digital sensibilities (as some remasters do). More than six months was spent simply cleaning up the original 50 year old negative, before a print was run from the restored negative using the color timing explained in documentation created with the film’s original master.
The fully restored film was eventually put onto a 70mm print for a cinema re-release, with a digital scan of this print then (presumably) forming the basis of this 4K Blu-ray’s picture. And the results are almost impossibly spectacular.
Or at least they are once you get past the black screen that represents the first three minutes of the film! Kubrick would likely have very much enjoyed the irony of a release of his masterpiece built around delivering next-generation picture quality starting off with three minutes of completely black screen…
Having previously watched the film on just about every home video platform known to man, right from the moment the classic first visual bursts onto the screen I was pretty much in home cinema heaven. And the sense of awe just grew as the film shifts into the Dawn of Man sequence, before leading to actual drooling as we get to experience Kubrick’s remarkable vision/recreation of space in its new 4K, high dynamic range glory.
The addition of HDR adds vastly more punch to every single space shot. The light range between the blackness of space and the bright highlights of the white metal of the space ships and the glare of the sun is far more extreme and impactful than it is on the HD, SDR Blu-ray. Part of this is down to some fantastically deep, rich black levels that consistently shame the washed out blacks we’ve seen with some digital 4K Blu-ray masters derived from film.
Since this substantial dynamic range enhancement has been achieved without making anything about the images feel forced (at least on a high quality TV), it just results in making Kubrick’s imagery look even more flat-out beautiful than it did before.
Even the Dawn of Man sequences (which have proved challenging for other releases of the film) look remarkably realistic and ‘new’ thanks to the way the 4K Blu-ray’s extra brightness makes the bright skies and sun-drenched landscapes look far more vivid and natural.
Artificial light sources throughout the film look more authentically intense, and all the gorgeous screens, computer buttons and space suits look more vivid and immediate. Plus, of course, HAL 9000’s baleful red ‘eye’ glares out at you even more balefully.
There are certainly stand out sequences here. The section in the red computer room where Dave removes HAL’s ‘brains’ is spectacular in a way it’s never been before, for instance, as is the psychedelic sequence where Dave is dragged through time, space and dimensions after arriving at Jupiter. But honestly every last frame looks pretty much sensational – especially for a film made in 1968.
Crucially, though, nothing about the 4K Blu-ray’s enhanced colors feels out of place, unbalanced or forced. Even the skin tones look absolutely authentic at all times.
The best way I can describe the way the HDR and wide color work on 2001: A Space Odyssey is that it feels like what happens when restoration experts remove centuries of grime from old paintings to reveal the intensity and beauty of the original painting again.
Maybe even more exceptional than the sensitivity but also drama of the HDR and wide color work, though, is the 4K grading. The increase in detail, depth and, for want of a better word, granularity in the picture is just gorgeous.
It gives you an even greater appreciation for all the wonderful, all-practical sets, while the pore, blemish and hair detail during close ups of the actors makes you feel like you’re watching a film that was made just yesterday – or that you’re watching actors sat on the other side of an immaculately cleaned window.
Perhaps most remarkably of all, the beautiful 4K sharpness and detail is achieved without the heavy amounts of grain seen with numerous previous 4K masters from relatively old celluloid sources. This lets you appreciate better the detail in the 4K picture, and makes it easier to become fully lost in Kubrick’s brilliantly realized world.
One last thing to say here is that if you own a Dolby Vision TV, you can benefit from one of the most impactful Dolby Vision transfers yet. Its extra scene by scene metadata makes the already fantastically punchy space sequences look startlingly more dynamic and intense (especially if you have a Dolby Vision OLED set), while the interior sets look more refined and consistent.
The Sound
The film can be watched with its original 1968 theatrical mix, or in a restored and re-mixed version. Both are formatted into DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, and both are also available on the new HD Blu-ray.
There’s actually less difference between the two tracks than you might imagine. Both are certainly more than serviceable, and the original mix doesn’t ‘age’ the film unnecessarily. The new mix, though, subtly extends the dynamic range – especially in the upper register of the most potent orchestral sequences.
There’s also a bigger scale to the remix that gives it more left, right and (marginally) rear presence, and voices, in particular, tend to sound richer and more effectively contextualized.
As you’d expect given Nolan’s influence on the project, the restored remix is more a subtle enhancement than a complete ‘do over’. So don’t expect trouser-flapping bass or carefully placed effects to start zinging around your living room.
Fear not, though: it’s still an extremely satisfying delivery of one of the most spellbinding soundtracks ever created.
The Extras
The only extra feature on the 4K Blu-ray is a commentary track by the actors who played Dave and Frank: Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood.
This edited together track (sadly both actors are not in the room together) first appeared in 2007, so it’s a shame that there isn’t also a new track to celebrate the film’s 50th birthday from, say, Nolan, or some film critics/experts.
If you’ve not heard it before, though, the Dullea/Lockwood commentary is definitely worth a listen. The two come over as likeable (albeit very different) characters, and this combines with the fact that they’re remembering the film from a now quite distant perspective to create a really engaging anecdotal atmosphere.
There are a few patches of silence, especially in the first half of the film where the two actors weren’t involved with the shoot. Overall, though, you come away from the commentary feeling like you’ve got some genuine insight into the film-making process; Kubrick as both a director and a man; and the film’s status both when it came out and over the following years.
A dedicated Blu-ray provides all the other extra features. These kick off with a 43-minute documentary (made in 2001, of course!), 2001: The Making Of A Myth. This is passable as a look back at the time the film was made and features some interesting elements on the special effects, plus lots of on-set anecdotes. But it only really scrapes the surface of the film’s enduring appeal.
Standing On The Shoulders Of Kubrick, meanwhile, spends 20 minutes or so tracing the film’s influence on subsequent film history. Featuring such luminaries as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, it’s the perfect partner piece for the first documentary, filling in that documentary’s ‘gaps’.
Vision Of A Future Passed is another 20-minute featurette, featuring interviews with the same high-profile film industry people as the previous one. This again is excellent, looking at how 2001 creates a consistent – albeit not an entirely accurate – vision of the future.
A Look Behind The Future comes next. This, brilliantly, is a 25-minute documentary filmed way back in 1967, talking about the future of space exploration against a context of Stanley Kubrick’s (then upcoming) film. This is truly unmissable.
What Is Out There is another 20-minute feature. This one, hosted by Dullea, is an interesting look at the possibility of alien life – and features some great behind the scenes footage of Kubrick on set, as well as some old interview clips with Arthur C Clarke.
Following this is an FX And Early Conceptual Artwork featurette, giving you a 10 minute, no-nonsense but fascinating look at how the filmmakers went about creating the famous ‘slip stream through space and time’ sequence. This includes some brilliantly crude early concept artworks that illustrate just how far they managed to go with the finished results.
Another great feature is Look: Stanley Kubrick!, a three-minute showcase of many of the photographs Kubrick took while working as a photographer in the 1940s for Look magazine.
Wrapping things up are a mammoth 76-minute audio interview with Kubrick from 2016 (that’s worth a listen for die-hard Kubrick fans if you can cope for that long without any video accompaniment), and a (poor) theatrical trailer.
It’s a shame there’s no new documentary material covering the seemingly fascinating restoration process the film has undergone for this 4K Blu-ray release. But then maybe Nolan thought that including such material might take the spotlight away from Kubrick and his film.
Verdict
The 4K Blu-ray release of 2001: A Space Odyssey is a masterclass in how the AV world’s latest video technology can – under a suitably caring and watchful eye – rejuvenate classics of the past for a whole new generation of movie fans. Stunning.
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‘Dunkirk’ 4K Blu-ray Review: A Picture Quality Masterclass
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