2001 and 2010 ############# These great films were written by Stanley Kubrick and books by Arthur C. Clark - a genious. The original titles were 2001: A space odyssey and 2010: The year we make contact. These films (rated as one) are best experienced seen one after the other, even though they are completely different in build-up and genre. First off, 2001 is one of the most beautiful, artistic movie I have ever seen. It was made in 1968 and the book written even before, so space-travelling was hardcore sci-fi, and this really shows in this movie, the way Clark has imagined a travel to a starbase orbiting earth, or eating in space... Besides this movie has some great, classic music by composers such as Beethoven and Bach, adding to the vast but beautiful atmosphere in space. On to the content of the film: you're served a story beginning with our early ancestors, whom eveolves after finding a mysterious, perfect, black monolith. They find out how to use tools, and then we're suddenly in the future, year 2001 (the year is a metaphore). You follow Floyd Heywood who's on his way to the moon, where someone have discovered something unbelieveable - evidence for life somewhere else in the universe. You get to know that it's been used as a beacon, but for what and by whom? Later on you jump again to the spaceship Discovery who's on a secret mission to research a monolith found orbiting around Europa, one of Jupiter's moon. Only two of the research group isn't frozen and that is Frank Poole and David Bowman, and the ship's computer, known as HAL9000, the latest artificial intelligence with personality. They are travelling towards Jupiter, where no man before has been, when some troubles in the ship occours.. but I won't spoil the fun! This movie is great, but very special, so if you're only into sci-fi action, this is not for you. This is a LOOONG shot from Star Wars or Star Trek, this is alot more believeable. And you have some features I've never experienced before, as the long music sequences and artistic moves which I hope you'll enjoy as much as I.

Moving to 2010, a movie made in 1984 when spacetravelling wasn't that hardcore. This movie is more action-oriented and you can also discover some political issues buried within the film. Remember this was made during the cold war, and perhaps Clark thought it would last as long as to 2010? It seems that way. This time (9 years later) we meet Heywood who's working as a teacher, but has contacts high up because of his former work. One day a hotshot russian researcher pays him a visit, and asks Heywood for cooperation with the USSR space-research to get to the Discovery. The Americans had the technology to fix and talk to HAL and figure what went wrong, and the Russians have the transport. Heywood was the one who sent out the crew to Jupiter, and pulling a few strings he manages to run the operation, while problems on Earth seems to get worse between USSR and USA. It comes to a point where Heywood see that they cannot survive unless they work together despite the what the politicians says. In this journey, a monolith also orbiting Europe, plays a great role. I won't spoil anything more for you, but I hope I got you interested, cause these films alltogether (though extremely different) are beautiful. They are just beautiful. Watch them and you will c Y!

Having read the books now (it's four of them) I can say that there's alot of beauty to get there, no wonder they're considered classics in the sci-fi genre. A friend of me who studies philosophy also told me his teacher wanted his students to watch these two films as a part of their studies. Says a bit, doesn't it?