History Trivia / TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey

* IAmNotSpock: Drawing some shades of Creator/AlecGuinness' relationship with ''Franchise/StarWars'' Douglas Rain found himself somewhat annoyed for only being remembered for voicing HAL despite having a rather impressive stage career beyond it. Despite this, he was still amicable enough about the role to reprise it in ''[[Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact 2010]]''.

* PermanentPlaceholder: One of the most famous examples. Kubrick had put together a temporary track of ClassicalMusic selections in his initial edits of the film and absolutely fell in love with them, but MGM insisted on a custom-written score, so he reluctantly brought in Alex North, who'd scored ''Film/{{Spartacus}}''. North tried to keep the feeling of some of Kubrick's classical pieces in his score--his main title theme is [[SuspiciouslySimilarSong Suspiciously Similar]] to ''Also Sprach Zarathustra'', with the bass drone at the beginning, the DramaticTimpani, and a pipe organ coda. But Kubrick never really wanted a new score, and used his decision to largely dispense with music in the second half of the film as an excuse to let North go, but not before North recorded his score, which was eventually released in 1993. However, Kubrick's plan caused some unforeseen trouble for MGM, since the original thought was that all the pieces were in the public domain and they wouldn't have to shell out money for them. As it turned out, only ''Also Sprach Zarathustra'' and ''Blue Danube'' were old enough to be public domain, and, even then, only the written scores counted as PD. MGM still had to pay for the rights to use those specific recordings of them. The possibility of having North conduct new recordings of the PD pieces had been shot down by North himself, who rejected Kubrick's suggestion to incorporate them in his score.
* PortrayedByADifferentSpecies: The novel has primitive hominids using Neolith-inspired tools to kill warthogs. The film uses tapirs, a completely unrelated animal that doesn't even occur in Africa.

** Originally, the proto-humans in the "Dawn of Man" sequence were meant to be more manlike and not so much like apes (with Creator/RobertShaw offered allegedly a part as the chief "Moon Watcher" proto-human), but Kubrick couldn't find a way to make them filmable without constant full frontal nudity.

*** In turn, Waters asked Kubrick for permission to use a sample of the "My mind's going, Dave," dialogue on the beginning of the track "Perfect Sense (Part I)" on Waters' 1992 solo album, ''Amused To Death''. [[note]]Roger meant to use it as a TakeThat to ex-bandmate-turned-bandleader ''David'' Gilmour, with whom he feuded with seven years ago over the rights to the Pink Floyd name[[/note]]. Kubrick refused, so Waters instead left a backwards TakeThat to Kubrick [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfTXHUfEiks in place of where the ''2001'' dialogue was to be on the album]]. [[note]] When Waters revised and re-released the album in 2015, he was able to use the sample, and the backward-masked message was removed. [[/note]]

* TheWikiRule: [[http://2001.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page The 2001: A Space Odyssey Wiki]].

* DoingItForTheArt:
** Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke spent enormous efforts into making everything as realistic as possible. The earth-moving equipment seen on the Moon would ''actually'' work on the real Moon. Quite a few experts from NASA and IBM were asked to help design the sets.
** Clarke published a few lines from his diary from pre-production in the introduction of a re-issue of the novel. They include "rang Creator/IsaacAsimov to ask him about the biochemistry of [[AscendedToCarnivorism turning herbivores into carnivores]]." (Asimov, besides writing science fiction, was a professor of biochemistry.)
** Rather than using bluescreen, Kubrick filmed all the model shots against black backgrounds and required the compositing work to be done by a team of British animators painting traveling mattes by hand frame-by-frame to mask out each element. When production ended, most of the animators signed onto ''WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine'' in order to work on something colorful after spending two years painting little black blobs.
** Instead of storyboarding the docking sequence, multiple model sequences were shot so Kubrick could ''edit them down.''

* AwesomeDearBoy: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2c_rSLXq6U According to Gary Lockwood]], when his agent called him to say that Stanley Kubrick was doing a new movie called ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', Lockwood asked how much he had to pay Kubrick to be there.

** Originally, the proto-humans in the "Dawn of Man" sequence were meant to be more manlike and not so much like apes (with Creator/RobertShaw offered allegedly a part as a proto-human), but Kubrick couldn't find a way to make them filmable without constant full frontal nudity.

** The notion that the Monolith's influence guided one of the hominids to pick up a bone and start hitting stuff with it loses much of its impact, now that it's known that tool use also occurs in our great ape cousins, as well as ravens, monkeys, elephants, dolphins, and dozens of other genera that aren't our close relatives. The scene still works as a metaphor, but in the ''literal'' sense, those creatures should've come up with tools as basic as clubs long before they left the trees.

** Originally, the proto-humans in the "Dawn of Man" sequence were meant to be more manlike and not so much like apes, but Kubrick couldn't find a way to make them filmable without constant full frontal nudity.

* FakeRussian: Brit Leonard Rossiter as Dr. Smyslov, the guy who grills Floyd about just what's going on at Clavius.

* DoingItForTheArt: Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke spent enormous efforts into making everything as realistic as possible. The earth-moving equipment seen on the Moon would ''actually'' work on the real Moon. Quite a few experts from NASA and IBM were asked to help design the sets.
** Clarke published a few lines from his diary from pre-production in the introduction of a re-issue of the novel. They include "rang Creator/IsaacAsimov to ask him about the biochemistry of [[AscendedToCarnivorism turning herbivores into carnivores]]." (Asimov, besides writing science fiction, was a professor of biochemistry.) And they never even [[ShownTheirWork did anything]] with that...
*** Not entirely true. The apes in the opening sequence transition from herbivores to carnivores after discovering the monolith. They were likely trying to make sure of the biological logistics of that before committing to it.

** "My god, it's full of stars!" -- This line appears in ''2001'' the book, but not in the movie. Nevertheless, in ''2010'' '''the movie''', it's claimed Bowman said this before entering the Star Gate.

** Deleted scenes include details about the daily life on Discovery, additional space walks, astronaut Bowman retrieving a spare part from an octagonal corridor, a number of cuts from the Poole murder sequence including the entire space walk preparation and shots of HAL turning off radio contact with Poole--explaining HAL's response that the radio is "still dead" when Bowman asks him if radio contact has been made--and notably a close-up of Bowman picking up a slipper during his walk in the alien room; the slipper can still be seen behind him in what would have been the next shot in the sequence.

* MissingEpisode: See [[https://lostmediawiki.com/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(lost_deleted_scenes_of_science_fiction_film;_1968) here]].

** The conversation between Dave and frank in the EVA pod wasn't originally in the screenplay. The original plan was for the crew to directly ask HAL if something was going on they didn't know about, but the scene wasn't satisfying Kubrick or the cast in production. Gary Lockwood voiced his frustrations to Kubrick one day and during a personal meeting with Kubrick later Gary hit on the idea of a secret conversation out of HAL's hearing, and suggested it to Stanley. Kubrick was already thinking along that line and decided to go ahead with it. The scene as filmed resulted from Gary and Keir Dullea improvising a conversation, having it typed up by Kubrick's PA, and using that script for further improv, with the goal of streamlining the dialogue and making it as lean as possible.

*** In turn, Waters asked Kubrick for permission to use a sample of the "My mind's going, Dave" dialogue on the beginning of the track "Perfect Sense (Part I)" on Waters' 1992 solo album, ''Amused To Death''. [[note]]Roger meant to use it as a TakeThat to ex-bandmate-turned-bandleader ''David'' Gilmour, with whom he feuded with seven years ago over the rights to the Pink Floyd name[[/note]]. Kubrick refused, so Waters instead left a backwards TakeThat to Kubrick [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfTXHUfEiks in place of where the ''2001'' dialogue was to be on the album]]. [[note]] When Waters revised and re-released the album in 2015, he was able to use the sample, and the backward-masked message was removed. [[/note]]

** Early drafts included a prologue containing interviews with scientists about off-Earth life, voice-over narration (a feature in all of Kubrick's previous films), a stronger emphasis on the prevailing Cold War balance of terror, and a different and more explicitly explained break-down for H.A.L. Other changes include a different monolith for the "Dawn of Man" sequence, discarded when early prototypes did not photograph well; the use of Saturn as the final destination of the Discovery mission rather than Jupiter, discarded when the special effects team could not develop a convincing rendition of Saturn's rings; and the finale of the Star Child detonating nuclear weapons carried by Earth-orbiting satellites, which Kubrick discarded for its similarity to his previous film, ''Film/DrStrangelove''. The finale and many of the other discarded screenplay ideas survived into Clarke's novel.

** The film was originally to have ended just as it had in the book, with Bowman discovering the third monolith on Saturn's moon Japetus. This idea was scrapped, however, because the special effects crew was unable to make convincing-looking rings around Saturn.

** Originally, the proto-humans in the "Dawn of Man" sequence were meant to be more manlike and not apes, but Kubrick couldn't find a way to make them filmable without constant full frontal nudity.

* WorkingTitle: ''Across the Sea of Stars'', ''Universe'', ''Tunnel to the Stars'', ''Earth Escape'', ''Jupiter Window'', ''Farewell to Earth'', and ''Planetfall''.

** The glowing eyes of the leopard in one scene from the "Dawn of Man" segment were the result of the leopard's eyes reflecting the light from the front-projection equipment. It was left it because it looked cool.

* AuthorAppeal: Chess for Kubrick.

* FilmOfTheBook: Averted, despite conventional wisdom. While the project was inspired by Clarke's earlier short story ''The Sentinel'', the novel and the film were written pretty much in parallel, with developments in screenplay and filming influencing the book, and vice versa. As Clarke put it, the screenplay is by "Kubrick and Clarke," while the novel is by "Clarke and Kubrick".

** The movie predicts that humans will become so technologically advanced that they are able to live in outer space for long periods of time with the conveniences of home including entertainment, this movie is now one of [[https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-complete-list-of-movies-and-tv-shows-on-the-interna-1782918945 533 listed movies and Tv Shows]] onboard ''the International Space Station''.

* OrphanedReference: A scene where HAL severs radio communication between the "Discovery" and Poole's pod before killing him was removed. This scene explains a line that stayed in the film in which Bowman addresses HAL on the subject.
* PropRecycling: Deliberately averted. Kubrick had all the sets, special effects models, and design notes destroyed after filming was complete, to prevent them being reused in low-budget B-movies. The production crew for ''2010'' had to rebuild ''everything'' by examining the film itself, frame-by-frame. A deliberate case of NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup. It didn't work, though. Several models (rebuilt or maybe the same film clip) have been used in various places. ''Series/{{Space 1999}}'' used the same rocket landing site on the Moon, for instance. And some years later, the reconstructed ''2010'' models ''did'' get re-used.

** Any time jaunty classical music is used in a space setting, particularly Johann Strauss Jr.'s Blue Danube waltz.

* ImageSource:
** BigDumbObject
** StaggeredZoom
** TheMonolith
** TypesetInTheFuture (alongside ''WesternAnimation/WallE'', ''Film/{{Moon}}'')

* PermanentPlaceholder: The movie uses a score made out of public domain classical music. It was intended as a placeholder score, but Kubrick ended up preferring it and leaving it in. The original score written by Alex North was eventually released in 1993.
** The only pieces used in the movie that were old enough to be in the public domain were Also Sprach Zarathustra and the Blue Danube, and even then, only the written scores were PD. MGM still had to pay for the rights to use those specific recordings of them. Recordings of PD works have their own copyright attached. The only way to avoid it is to commission musicians to make your own original recording of a work whose score is old enough to be PD.

* RealSongThemeTune: The film uses a climactic fanfare that comes from Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", written in 1896. The work wasn't that popular in the English-speaking world at the time, so it's understandable that many viewers assume it was written especially for the movie.

* UsefulNotes/AFIS100YearsSeries:
** AFIS100Years100Movies: #22
** AFIS100Years100Thrills: #40
** AFIS100Years100HeroesAndVillains:
*** #13 Villain, HAL 9000
** AFIS100Years100MovieQuotes:
*** #78, "Open the pod bay doors, HAL"
** AFIS100Years100Cheers: #47
** AFIS100Years100Movies10THAnniversaryEdition: #15
** AFIS10Top10:
*** Science Fiction, #1

* AFIS100YearsSeries: