History YMMV / TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey

* AwardSnub: Considered one of '''the''' greatest and most influential films of all time, and yet it wasn't even nominated for the Best Picture UsefulNotes/AcademyAward.

* SongAssociation: Try to hear "Thus Spoke Zarasthustra", "The Blue Danube" or "Atmospheres" and not think of this film.

* {{Applicability}}: Kubrick designed the film as an intensely subjective visual experience and wanted the viewer to feel free to speculate
at will about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film. Kubrick refused to spell out a verbal road map for ''2001'' that every viewer would feel obligated to pursue or else fear that he's missed the point.

* OlderThanTheyThink: Most people who watch the film and do not know its age believe it to have come in the wake of ''Franchise/StarWars'' or thereabout - i.e., the late 1970s. Part of this is the impeccably accurate portrayal of modern spaceflight, technology, et al, and part because of the gorgeous quality of the cinematography and special effects, which rival ''Star Wars'' can make it appear as though it were made in the late '70s.

** Apes, monkeys or general monkeying around...to Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Ooh, 2001! It's that movie about HAL, the evil computer, and...astronauts, we think? Maybe something about monkeys?

* OlderThanTheyThink: Most people who watch the film and do not know its age believe it to have come in the wake of Star Wars or thereabout - i.e., the late 1970s. Part of this is the impeccably accurate portrayal of modern spaceflight, technology, et al, and part because of the gorgeous quality of the cinematography and special effects, which rival Franchise/StarWars can make it appear as though it were made in the late 70s.

* {{Squick}}: The novel describes how the man-apes pulled off the leopard's tail by the roots.

* SignatureScene: The film has multiple candidates.
** The apes discovering the monolith.
** The MatchCut showing a bone turning into a satellite.
** The space flight sequence scored to "The Blue Danube."
** HAL 9000 saying "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
** HAL's [[spoiler: death scene, growing increasingly less coherent as Dave disconnects him]].
** [[DisneyAcidSequence The Star Gate]].
** The strange, otherworldly "hotel room" with the monolith.
** The Star Child.

** Also, Pan Am, in 1968, was all but ubiquitous--it was ''the'' international airline for the US, and a cultural icon. Pan Am folded in 1991, partially absorbed by United Airlines; its nearest rival for "official airline of the United States", TWA, was bought in all but name by American Airlines in 2001. Obviously, Kubrick had no way of knowing any of this in 1968, and so naturally extended current tendencies in the airline world to space...but that doesn't keep the presence of Pan Am spacecraft from being hilarious {{Zeerust}} to modern audiences.

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven: Creator/StanleyKubrick and Creator/ArthurCClarke 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 turning herbivores into carnivores." (Asimov, besides writing science fiction, was a professor of biochemistry.) And they never even [[ShownTheirWork did anything]] with that...
** Kubrick 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, rather than using bluescreen. When production ended, most of them 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.
** In the original script, Bowman and the other astronauts go to Saturn (this is also where they go in the book). Kubrick ended up changing it to Jupiter because the crew wasn't able to make a model of Saturn he was satisfied with.

----

** The Monolith, and its [[EvolutionaryLevels intelligence-advancing effect]].

** HAL singing "Daisy Bell" [[spoiler: as Dave dismantles him.]]

** The technique used to create the "Beyond the Infinite" sequence -- a {{camera trick|s}} known as "slit-scan" -- was impressive enough to be reused well into the early CGI era, and still holds up excellently more than half a century later. So impressive was the sequence that it inspired a bevy of similar slit-scan sequences in other media, including Creator/{{ABC}}'s ad campaigns in the 1970s and early 1980s, the title sequence for ''Series/DoctorWho'' from 1974 to 1980 (which became iconic enough over the years to serve as a template for later title sequences in the show from 1996 onwards), the WhooshingCredits for ''Film/{{Superman}}'' in 1978 (which improved on ''2001'''s techniques by using an animation stand, rather than the room-size contraption ''2001'' used), and a whole bunch of other pre-CGI motion graphics work in TheEighties.

* ValuesDissonance: It would probably be more difficult to film today a future where a massive space venture conducted by multiple nations is only staffed by white men, with the only roles for women anywhere are wives, daughters, and stewardesses, and non-whites nowhere to be found.

* CantUnHearIt: Try to hear "Thus Spoke Zarasthustra", "The Blue Danube" or "Atmospheres" and not think of this film.

** Apes, monkeys or general monkeying around... to Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

** It's really hilarious to see people's reactions when you tell them that it was released '''before''' the lunar landing. To the point that some tinfoil-hat {{conspiracy theorist}}s are convinced that [[MoonLandingHoax Kubrick was specially selected to fake the moon landing]] based on his work in this movie. (One particularly brilliant joke is that "Kubrick ''was'' hired to fake the moon landings, but he was [[DoingItForTheArt such a perfectionist]] he insisted that [[LogicBomb they actually film on the moon]].")
* OutOfTheGhetto: Kubrick made this film specifically to bring science-fiction into the mainstream. He was fascinated by concepts of the genre but disappointed by most of the genre's books and movies. Drawing from external references (modernist literature, painting and philosophy), he deliberately approached the genre in a more realistic and enigmatic fashion. His film eschewed some of the genre trappings of WorldBuilding (space jargon, technology, alien species) and focused on how mysterious and bewildering space travel and alien contact could actually be. The groundbreaking special effects and greater sophistication made many people treat ''2001'' as an art-movie and EpicMovie spectacle rather than the usual BMovie contempt which science-fiction was usually treated with.

* ReCut: In the early 2010s, Creator/StevenSoderbergh released a edit of the film online on his website (through Vimeo) as part of a personal project to practice editing techniques. His edit trims about half the length of the film off, and notably inserts HAL's eye frames into monolith-oriented scenes.

** The space flight sequence scored to "The Blue Danube".
** HAL 9000 saying "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that".

* SpecialEffectFailure: There are no truly ''bad'' special effects in the movie, but when seen on the big screen some shots are easy to identify as matte paintings or still images being manipulated rather than actual footage of the models. In any other movie, these would go unnoticed, but because the other effects in ''2001'' are ''so good,'' even minor imperfections jump out.

* {{Squick}}: The novel describes how the man-apes pulled the leopard's tail out by the roots.

* ValuesDissonance: It would probably be more difficult to film today a future where a massive space venture conducted by multiple nations is only staffed by white men, with the only roles for women anywhere are wives, daughters, and stewardesses, and non-whites are nowhere to be found..

** And the technique used to create the "Beyond the Infinite" sequence -- a {{camera trick|s}} known as "slit-scan" -- was impressive enough to be reused well into the early CGI era, and still holds up excellently more than half a century later. So impressive was the sequence that it inspired a bevy of similar slit-scan sequences in other media, including Creator/{{ABC}}'s ad campaigns in the 1970s and early 1980s, the title sequence for ''Series/DoctorWho'' from 1974 to 1980 (which became iconic enough over the years to serve as a template for later title sequences in the show from 1996 onwards), the WhooshingCredits for ''Film/{{Superman}}'' in 1978 (which improved on ''2001'''s techniques by using an animation stand, rather than the room-size contraption ''2001'' used), and a whole bunch of other pre-CGI motion graphics work in TheEighties.

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: The film's climax. Don't forget this was the late 1960s, too; many, many hippies [[JustHereForGodzilla saw it just to see that one sequence]]. Clarke (who didn't even drink alcohol, let alone use drugs) related an anecdote in which he was handed an envelope with a letter of thanks and an assurance that the remaining contents -- a white powder -- were "the best stuff". (He flushed it down the toilet.)
** The filmmakers, or at least the distributors, apparently knew damn well who the movie's audience was; one of the ad campaigns was a poster with the tagline, "The Ultimate Trip."

* MandelaEffect: A lot of people remember the famous line "My god! It's full of stars!" being uttered in the movie, when it's really only said in the book. There ''is'' an audiobook where it is also said, which may be why some people claim to so clearly "hear" someone saying it in their memories.

* ValuesDissonance: It would probably be more difficult to film today a future where a massive space venture conducted by multiple nations is only staffed by men, with the only roles for women anywhere are wives, daughters, and stewardesses.

*** Even then, the film's only Oscar win for Visual Effects was still a snub as Kubrick wasn't the only one who contributed to the film's special effects. The film's credits list four other effects contributors: Douglas Trumbull, Tom Howard, Con Pederson, and Wally Veevers. However, according to Oscar rules at the time, only three people could be nominated for their work on a single film, so only Kubrick's name was submitted, snubbing the other four effects contributors.

* BrokenBase: Some see it as one of the greatest examples of visual storytelling and immersively awe-inspiring in its depiction of how [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale enormous space really is]]. Others, however, view it as a very meandering project whose plot trugs along at a snail's pace with few memorable characters outside of [=HAL=] and an ending that's mostly a mishmash of unexplained psychedelic surrealism.

* BrokenBase: The film is very LoveItOrHateIt. Some see it as one of the greatest examples of visual storytelling and immersively awe-inspiring in its depiction of how [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale enormous space really is]]. Others, however, view it as a very meandering project whose plot trugs along at a snail's pace with few memorable characters outside of [=HAL=] and an ending that's mostly a mishmash of unexplained psychedelic surrealism.

** Does anybody ''not'' know what HAL does by now?
** Dave becomes a space fetus in the GainaxEnding.

* MainstreamObscurity: There are way more people who know about the monolith and the HAL 9000 than the amount of people who have seen this film, especially thanks to the WeirdAlEffect, and the fact that its status as the first real sophisticated science-fiction film was usurped later on by the likes of ''Franchise/StarWars, Film/BladeRunner'' and ''Film/TheMatrix''.

* WeirdAlEffect: As time progresses, it becomes more likely that the first time somebody will see something related to the film will be as a ShoutOut made in another more current work rather than in the movie itself.

* AwardSnub: Considered one of '''the''' greatest and most influential films of all time, and yet it wasn't even nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

** The film as a whole has become this in the eyes of many science-fiction fans, who praise it for it’s contributions to the genre but find that aside from HAL and the movie’s overall surreal tone it is a fairly standard sci-fi film.

* FandomRivalry: Among cinephiles, ''2001'' is paired against Tarkovsky's ''Film/Solaris1972'' with the debate on which is the better space movie. Tarkovsky claimed not to have seen ''2001'' when he made ''Solaris'', and after seeing it thought it was a very cold, sterile film. Interestingly enough, both movies have the opposite views on space. Kubrick's film is about the universe being filled with things beyond our comprehension, while Tarkovsky's film is essentially about the loneliness of being in space, being apart from Earth and the ability of astronauts to readjust to civilian life after spending time "up there". Ironically, Kubrick's producer Jan Harlan has said that Kubrick himself liked ''Solaris''.

* FandomRivalry: Among cinephiles, ''2001'' is paired against Tarkovsky's ''Film/Solaris1972'' with the debate on which is the better space movie. Tarkovsky claimed not to have seen ''2001'' when he made ''Solaris'', and after seeing it thought it was a very cold, sterile film. Interestingly enough, both movies have the opposite views on space. Kubrick's film is about the universe being filled with things beyond our comprehension, while Tarkovsky's film is essentially about the loneliness of being in space, being apart from Earth and the ability of astronauts to readjust to civilian life after spending time "up there".

* FandomRivalry: Among cinephiles, ''2001'' is paired against Tarkovsky's ''Film/Solaris1972'' with the debate on which is the better space movie. Tarkovsky claimed not to have seen 2001 when he made Solaris and after seeing it thought it was a very cold, sterile film. Interestingly enough both movies have the opposite views on Space. Kubrick's film is about the universe being filled with things beyond our comprehension, while Tarkovsky's film is essentially about the loneliness of being in space, being apart from Earth and the ability of astronauts to readjust to civilian life after spending time "up there".

** "My God, it's full of stars!" [[BeamMeUpScotty Not that anyone actually says that in the Movie.]]

* OutOfTheGhetto: Kubrick made this film specifically to bring science-fiction into the mainstream. He was fascinated by concepts of the genre but disappointed by most science-fiction books and movies. Drawing from external references (modernist literature, painting and philosophy), he deliberately approached the genre in a more realistic and enigmatic fashion. His film eschewed some of the genre trappings of WorldBuilding (space jargon, technology, alien species) and focused on how mysterious and bewildering space travel and alien contact could actually be. The groundbreaking special effects and greater sophistication made many people treat ''2001'' as an art-movie and EpicMovie spectacle rather than the usual BMovie contempt which science-fiction was usually treated with.