stonehen@ncoast.UUCP (Sammie Chan) (12/06/84)
<The line eater the line eater ahhhhhhhhhhhhhgggggg!!>
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* * * W A R N I N G WARNING WARNING W A R N I N G * * *
! ! THIS REVIEW IS A BIG SPOILER, REPEAT BIG SPOILER ! !
* * * DO NOT READ IF YOU WISH TO VIEW THE MOVIE * * *
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The first few paragraphs are not really that much of a
spoiler but be fore warned! This review will be a big big
spoiler!!!
The movie 2010: Odyssey Two is only worth seeing if you
have never read the book! The movie attempts to follow the
book but a few "SMALL THINGS" got in the way. One of the
"SMALL THINGS" is the world politics of today. The writers
made the tension between US and USSR explode due to a blockade
of Honduras by the US; no reason was clearly given why it
happened. The movie revolve entirely around this explosion of
tension, bringing around a complete break in relation between
US and USSR. Due to this differences, the movie contradicts
quite a bit of the book and also 2001.
This movie also left out / re-written some of the book. To
name the biggest omission, it is section II TSIEN. The writers
had to disturb the order of the book because of this. Two of
the charactors were rewritten, Dr. Heywood Floyd and Dr.
Chandrasegrampillai. Heywood in the book was more of a
gentlemen and fitted the image from 2001, but the movie
version, he was a hardnose politican. Dr. Chandra. in the book
is an Indian and introverted, but the movie showed him as a
short white professor, and almost out spoken much of the time.
All of the Russians' roles were off because of the world views.
And there was one less Russian: Katerina Rudenko, they put
either Alexander Kovalev or Nikolai Ternovsky in that role.
The special effect in this movie is good but does not
compare with 2001's effects. 2010's effects were short and
showed things happening too fast. The ships' thust were only
to be about a tenth of a gee at maximum but the effects showed
instant rocket power! Plus all of the very good zero gravity
effects in 2001 were not followed up upon. They had me
confused as to where on both ships is the area with gravity are
located. Also of the excellent tricks with change of inertia
frames found in 2001, there are none in 2010.
My last note on this before the real spoiler / comparison
part is that the movie is good if you don't compare with the
book and is worth seeing at least once. But put everything out
of you mind before you walk into the theater.
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The following is a detailed comparsion of the movie and the
book!! Skip now or forever hold your peace!!!
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This movie started with a report (summary) of 2001 and then
switches to Heywood cleaning one of the dish of the Arizona
radio array. Ok so it wasn't the Arecibo 1000 footer, but why
cleaning it?? The minute after that almost caused me to leave
the theater. Dr. Dimitri Moisevitch shows up and played a cat
and mouse game with Heywood in a hostile manner. (But wasn't
he a best friend? and the Russian wanted to cooperate with the
Americans?) The movie then followed up on the BS that goes on
in Washington as Heywood tries to convince a big G official on
the plans to go with Leonov. From this we learn of the
increasing tension and of the new reactionary President. Ok,
Ok, if that's how they want to screw it up, I can't complaint
about the cost of the ticket; I won it from WMMS 100.7 in
Cleveland, and I am one of the first few to view it.
A very touching 5 min. was of the chapter The House of the
Dolphins. The movie showed what can be read and not read from
this chapter, and provided a much better view of the family man
Heywood. It was beter done than the phone call scene in 2001.
As said before, section II TSIEN was omitted, they replaced
it with a short scene. Leonov was 2 days from Jupiter and just
passing Europa. A routine check indicated life is there, and a
probe is set fore to investigate. Needless to say, something
repel the probe just as they begin to see what the greenish
creature was. Ok the last part of the book Epilog 20001 was
partially putted at the start of the movie...HUH??? Were the
writers afraid to hurt the new relationship with China or
something??? Again...HUH???
The next section followed from the book nicely. They played
up Chap. 14 Double Encounter very well. Chap. 17 boarding
party was very very well done. The addition of comedy was also
welcome. The special effects in this part of the movie were
good, the aerobrake maneuver was nicely displayed. And the
view of Discovery flipping end over end was fantasitic!
Section IV Lagrange was too much over done. By this time
Max and Curnow had gotten Discovery back up to working
condition and Dr. C has HAL up and cooperating. It was time to
meet Big Brother... They really over played the Russian
Captain Orlova as the female fist of the crew. She order Max
to EVA to Big Brother in (get this) one of Leonov's pods. In
the book, Max was the one to see Bowman emerge from the
monolith, but in the movie he gets kill as Bowman open up
space. The pod was exactly over the area of the warp.<<--
hmmmmm?!
Section V A Child of the Stars was chopped up in the movie,
I don't know why they omitted chap. 36, and 38. If they would
have made the effects, it would have made 2010 one of the best
special effect movie of '84. A few chapters like 34, 35, & 37
could not be done on screen but they don't really matter much
in a movie. The other chapters of Bowman visiting his mother
and Betty was done with good emotion. Even though the part
with his mother on the death bed is a bit corny, it followed
the book well. The meeting of Bowman and Heywood was played
out for almost 10 min. A great deal of dialog was written for
the movie, but it did have a favor for the book.
During this time, the US and USSR had broken all relations.
The American part of the crew was ordered to go to Discovery
and fly her back. (??? cute) And the Russian was given the
same orders. If the Americans or Russian was found on the
opposite side he/she is to be arrested (??? cuter). This total
deviation from the book is not in my taste at all. After
Heywood got the message from Bowman, he decided to hell with
the break in relations. He EVA over to Leonov and had a talk
with the Captain; and the monolith disappears. This is now
getting into section VI Devourer of Worlds. Needless to say
the disapperance of the monolith convinced the Captain and
plans were made to use Discovery as a booster.
The movie then follows this section well, plus it gave some
great special effects on the conversion of Jupiter by the
monoliths into a sun. Most of the action here was special
effects; again not too bad. The only gripe is that Leonov was
not tied to Discovery, it had a docking arm which fitted the
slender body of Discovery very very well. <<---again hmmm!?
The final section Lucifer Rising was done with style and
followed the book. The time scale between events was
distorted, they shortening it. Just after Leonvo was separated
from Discovery, Jupiter imploded into a star, blowing Discovery
away but not Leonov. I am sure that Leonov can't be going that
fast to escape destruction if Discovery was destory. The
interaction of Bowman and HAL was done as best as possible; how
can one show an energy being interfacing with a computer???
One final thing that the writers did to the book was to add two
lines to the last message...
All of these worlds are yours - except Europa.
Attempt no landings there.
Use them together.
Use them for peace.
With this the writers hoped to tell the morale of this story,
and to save all of the omissions and changes from the book. I
don't agree!
The ending of this movie was good. It used the end of the
Epilog's favor to show that the monolith is now helping
evolution on Europa just as it did for man in 2001. But I am
very disappointed that they did not attempt to show what the
Europians looked liked, only the green swamp land, a promise of
life and maybe intelligences.
--
Sammie Chung Yu Chan: decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!stonehen:
R0176@CSUOHIO.BITNET
1611 E. 32nd St., Cleveland, Ohio 44114 (216) 696-3549
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This is the end, beautiful friend.
This is the end , my only friend, the end of
everything that stands, the end.