Science-fiction films have been produced since the earliest days of cinema. Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902) set the agenda for the fantastic and futuristic that has continued to the present day. What other medium could translate dreams in the way that film can? It can reject spatio-temporal continuity in a way bounded only by the imagination. As a genre however, it has been diluted by more mainstream factors to form hybrids with elements such as horror (Alien, 1979), comedy (Dark Star, 1974), action (The Terminator, 1984), bubble gum cards (Mars Attacks, 1996) and many more. Of the relatively few films which wholly embrace the sf ethos, 2001 and 2010 are two that champion the cause, and yet both deviate significantly in their outlook and execution.

2001: A Space Odyssey (Director Stanley Kubrick, 1968) is an epic poem, in distinct parts, that tells the story of human evolution thus far and then extends into the future, to the year 2001 and beyond, each phase being linked by an enigmatic monolith. Visually and aurally stunning from the start, this is by no means a conventional film. The pace is extraordinarily slow (and could quite easily be even slower) as we pass through millions of years of the development of planet Earth.

The film opens at the dawn of time. Apes (still more monkeys than human) and other creatures co-exist on the plains of Africa, but the Apes are learning to develop, despite the presence of predators. Breakthrough arrives in the use of a bone as a tool, a tool which can initially break inanimate objects, but then becomes a weapon which can control other animals and thus begins the simultaneous glorification and damnation of the dominant species.
 This is all we need to see. Millions of years of evolution can now pass by. The temporal jump is illustrated by the juxtaposition of two images; the ‘bone tool’ hurled triumphantly into the air transforms into a ‘spaceship tool’ by the use of one of the most famous jump cuts in film history. The film continues with images of spaceships dancing slowly and majestically through the cosmos to the tune of The Blue Danube. The exterior beauty of the spaceship is reflected in its interior design: smooth, silent and wonderfully sophisticated.
 A mission to Jupiter is initiated as a result of discovering a signal emanating from an monolith found buried on the moon. The mission is guided by HAL, a caring, concerned, capable, compassionate and controlling computer, who interacts closely with the humans, Dave and Frank, the remainder of the team being kept in suspended animation. However, HAL malfunctions and the mission is put in jeopardy – all the crew are killed, except for Dave. This is super-evolution – humanity has created something more superior and powerful to itself as a species, and this entity has gone out of control.
 The film’s final scenes are – after Eisenstein’s Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin (1925) – probably the most discussed in cinema history. What makes them fascinating is that they are obscure, surreal and open to as many interpretations as there are cinemagoers; difficult to summarise using language, they are a visual and aural experience, the enormity of the universe compressed right down to the individual’s fundamental existence – we are born, we eat, we sleep, we die. And we reproduce, thus allowing the perpetuation of evolution. But we are not alone. We are not even particularly significant; all part of a greater universe, that we do not yet understand. When Dave gazes upon himself in the final moments, is it as someone viewing his ultimate demise or apotheosis?
 Clearly reflecting the times, posters announced 2001 as ‘the ultimate trip’ (sic) and indeed the LSD soaked hippy fraternity came in droves to freak out to the psychedelic fx overload. Douglas Trumbull, the man behind the vision clearly had the financial and artistic backing to realise the project: ‘I’m going to need to build a machine as big as a house ‘ said Trumbull (Sight and Sound May 1995) and he did. It is a testament to the quality of all the film’s effects that thirty years later they still impress (more so than the already dated CGI in the re-released Star Wars Special Edition). This is down to Trumbull’s reliance on quality of vision as opposed to acceptance of current thinking. He is an innovator (Blade Runner [1982] still looks great 15 years on and Brainstorm [1983] has the special effects to save it) and a creator whose oblique way of viewing technology makes his work so distinctive. In an age where CGI is available to ‘Johnny Six-Pack with his PC’, it is to his credit that such innovation still stands out.
 Sympathy throughout the film lies less with the human element and more with the human situation, a situation that is reflected in the audience’s emotional response to HAL. HAL’s voice is at once soothing and monotone, his attitude is reasoned and his descent into madness moving and inevitable. The fact that gender can be allocated to a bank of electronic components is testament to ‘his’ persona. Extracting sympathy from what is essentially a pulsating bulb (shades of Goddard’s Alphaville [1965] here) is achieved by granting HAL a past. To make life easier for his human companions his programming has given him a ‘love’ of chess and the concern of a true friend, and as a result we accept his descent into madness because he has had a childhood and thus suffered mental scars that burden developing sentient beings. In his final death throes (surely one of the longest on-screen deaths in cinema) he is reciting a song, Daisy taught in ‘childhood’, and this creates the empathy with his character. We are told by HAL that a conflict of interest has resulted in this behaviour and we witness a plot by the humans to override his authority. When he kills and the body of Frank is retrieved we feel tense because of the silence, the uncertainty and our association with Dave as the holder of the cinematic gaze. We do not feel empathy with either Frank or Dave as people but more with their situation. Kubrick has always been cited as an emotionless director and a perfectionist, indeed he knew and recited all of HAL’s lines during the initial filming. Is it any wonder that our sympathies are in tune with the director’s preferred outward persona than that of the script?
 Kubrick uses musical devices to mirror the development of mankind. From the opening strains of Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra we are made aware of a majestic primitivism that is reflected in the earlier part of the film. When this theme is reprised in the climactic and enigmatic final moments, the primitivism is in the nihilistic supposition that ‘God is dead’. This is a two-pronged attack on philosophical sensitivity, at once humble because our position as intelligentsia has been sharply curtailed by superior intelligence, yet also empowering in its rejection of Judeo-Christian deism. In the final scenes is Dave a man or Übermensch? Is Dave still the ape to highly evolved lifeforms? (‘What is the Ape to Man, a laughing stock, a thing of shame? And just the same shall Man be to the Superman’ Nietzsche.)  It is between these bookends that the strains of Johann Strauss’s An der schönen, blauen Donau sweeps along, the dainty complexity a rejection of the primitive and condescendingly civilised, as we are shown the beauty of man’s technological advances. How like a God to break from the earth and nature, how like a man to overemphasise his own importance in the cosmos. The lack of dialogue too, particularly at the start of the film (there are no words spoken until twenty-five minutes in) emphasises assured direction and precocious conviction - why limit philosophical ideas by the use of language, when visual and musical icons are a language unto themselves?

As 2001 was a poem, the sequel 2010 (Director Peter Hyams, 1984) is a story, a direct follow-on to the events of the former. As Hollywood entertainment, it offers a definitive solution and rejects cerebral ambiguity in favour of a basic quest scenario: a mission to find the Mission to Jupiter. Throw in the most  basic way of creating character tension (reintroduce the cold war), stir in some gratuitous wife-and-kid-back home sentimentality (although wifey is an academic - just a shame she's also a bloody good cook and mother) and add loads of money for the (admittedly impressive) special effects to produce instant entertainment.
Falling into the classic sequel trap with blind abandon seems to be the result here - 2001 had a bonkers computer who died - bring him back and add a few more,  bung in some Strauss but ignore the philosophical ramifications and assume that if one obsidian obilix is awe inspiring and enigmatic then surely thousands of them will be thousands of times more awe inspiring and enigmatic.
2010 drops into another classic pitfall - showing earth in the (near) future. 2001 avoids this by setting the film either in space or at the 'Dawn of Mankind'; its sets are impressive, simple, monochromatic and therefore hard to pin down (a similar technique would later be adopted by George Lucas in THX1138 - partly for aesthetic and partly for budgetary reasons), 2010 on the other hand throws caution to the wind by including (gratuitous) shots of life on earth in the future. It either looks exactly the same as 1985, complete with obligatory White House-as-pillar-of-American-sovereignty and hideously dated suits/hippy scientist hairdo's, or you get the ultimate sci-fi set crime - the Habitat 'future' household that must've looked dated in the 50's, complete in this instance with en suite dolphin (for mummies studies) and  zen decor. The only time the sets don't look dated is when they've been recreated, very convincingly, from the original film.
We have a scene where a nubile young Russian needs to be comforted during slingshot, that is not only is it irrelevant and implausible (Yanks and Reds being segregated moments earlier) it also features the most cack handed symbolism yet when the facing photo of long distant wife and child unglues itself and slams into the wall behind, signs and meaning in cinema of the traditional Post-Office-Tower-as-erect-phallus variety. The fact that said nubile young Russian was absent in preceding scenes and missing from subsequent ones leads us to presume that either:
     (a) no one else liked her
     (b) she was smelly
     (c) it was all a dream
     (d) Roy Schneider wanted to get the chance to hug a girlie
or  (e) it was Helen Mirren in a cunning disguise.

It's not all disastrous though. As the plot develops, the characters begin to succeed in their quest via a number of setbacks and triumphs, but when they re-discover HAL they discover Dave and he has the ultimate revelation that will render any  bickering back home worthless. The film aims to consider humanitarian issues, such as those of the nuclear family and the pride of nationalism, as well as dealing with the existence of superior intelligences and a fundamental change to our solar system, which redefines our lives and way of thinking.

Visually  the film is wonderful. The special effects, while not as groundbreaking as 2001, were clearly an advance on effects of the time, and the pinnacle of non computer-generated work. In particular, the space walks are stunning in their enormity and convey a claustrophobic tension that does produce genuine concern for the characters. The film also takes a certain pride in the scientific accuracy (as we know it) of the events that take place and as a result is far more practical.

So why (oh why oh why) did they feel obliged to try and explain the first film? Perhaps there is a big question in here waiting to be answered after all...