I am now holding in my trembling glue-stained hands, the newly released HD-DVD of 2001. Wow!
I purchased my Toshiba A2 HD-DVD player about a month ago and immediately ordered this disk when I saw it listed on Amazon (note, there is also a Blu-Ray version as well).
As opposed to the plain-Jane original DVD (Movie+nothing), this version cut loose and includs many of the features we have come to expect on DVDs: Commentary, making-of features, etc. The only thing it doesnt have are deleted scenes, except for one clip of AC Clarke talking about the possibility of alien life. This was apparently a part of the footage for the original planned preamble of scientists describing their vision of ET and first encounters.
The different features include a very nice Making Ofnarrated by James Cameron. They have a charming recreation of the Haywood Floyd/floating pen sequence, with Heather Downham (the Pan Am Orion stewardess) and Ed Bishop (the Aries pilot). They also interview Daniel Richter, Keir Dullea and Kristina Kubrick.
There is a wonderful retro Look Magazine piece from 1966 that looked as if it was done merely as an internal promo to their advertisers for a future space related issue. They interviewed Fred Ordway and Harry Lange. Lange shows a sketch of our much beloved helmets and explains the technical details of the memory packs and the arm controller on the suit. They also show a clip of some of the set designers working on something that only us Atomic city types would recognize. One gent is fitting some pieces in this odd shaped plywood contraption and then I realized that that looked just like a giant sized version of an unpainted Capt. Cardboard Pod interior! Then of course I realized it was the real thing, but it was cool to see it in the raw like that. Another fun shot is one of the props room and scattered about appear to be some of the Aries seats, along with the Lunar EVA equipment and a couple of helmets and panels.
They also include a fascinating free flowing audio interview with Kubrick, who was not known to give many interviews. It covers his life history and ends with 2001, which was still in production at the time.
The film itself is of course, crisp as one would expect. I can finally read the text on the spacesuits button panel. You can also see the texture of the rear projection screens for the Dawn Of Man sequence, so that is a distraction. But there will be a lot of fine details that will jump out now for us modelers. For example, I noticed what looked like a mission patch on the left side of the backpacks retro quad. Something I had never seen before. And the HD version at least, has a zoom feature. So I can zoom in up to 8 times to any part of a frame.
The films commentary is from both Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea. Mr Dullea still has such a fine resonant actors voice.
The only things missing, as mentioned, are any deleted scenes. It would have been nice to see the scene of the kids playing at the Clavius moon base for example. I would also like to have had multiple commentaries as so many films have these days: one by the actors, another by Douglas Trumbull on the special effects, and a third by film historians. But we only get the first one.
The Making Of section has precious few details on the models and their designs. There certainly would have been room for a tour of one of Scotts Big-Ds for example. Nothing on the spacesuits. It was more on anecdotes from the film, music selections, the use of computers and things Kubrick wanted to do if he had another year and more money (such as having Bowman encounter the aliens directly at one point).
All in all, it is a very fine package and a must have for us modeling nerds.
I purchased my Toshiba A2 HD-DVD player about a month ago and immediately ordered this disk when I saw it listed on Amazon (note, there is also a Blu-Ray version as well).
As opposed to the plain-Jane original DVD (Movie+nothing), this version cut loose and includs many of the features we have come to expect on DVDs: Commentary, making-of features, etc. The only thing it doesnt have are deleted scenes, except for one clip of AC Clarke talking about the possibility of alien life. This was apparently a part of the footage for the original planned preamble of scientists describing their vision of ET and first encounters.
The different features include a very nice Making Ofnarrated by James Cameron. They have a charming recreation of the Haywood Floyd/floating pen sequence, with Heather Downham (the Pan Am Orion stewardess) and Ed Bishop (the Aries pilot). They also interview Daniel Richter, Keir Dullea and Kristina Kubrick.
There is a wonderful retro Look Magazine piece from 1966 that looked as if it was done merely as an internal promo to their advertisers for a future space related issue. They interviewed Fred Ordway and Harry Lange. Lange shows a sketch of our much beloved helmets and explains the technical details of the memory packs and the arm controller on the suit. They also show a clip of some of the set designers working on something that only us Atomic city types would recognize. One gent is fitting some pieces in this odd shaped plywood contraption and then I realized that that looked just like a giant sized version of an unpainted Capt. Cardboard Pod interior! Then of course I realized it was the real thing, but it was cool to see it in the raw like that. Another fun shot is one of the props room and scattered about appear to be some of the Aries seats, along with the Lunar EVA equipment and a couple of helmets and panels.
They also include a fascinating free flowing audio interview with Kubrick, who was not known to give many interviews. It covers his life history and ends with 2001, which was still in production at the time.
The film itself is of course, crisp as one would expect. I can finally read the text on the spacesuits button panel. You can also see the texture of the rear projection screens for the Dawn Of Man sequence, so that is a distraction. But there will be a lot of fine details that will jump out now for us modelers. For example, I noticed what looked like a mission patch on the left side of the backpacks retro quad. Something I had never seen before. And the HD version at least, has a zoom feature. So I can zoom in up to 8 times to any part of a frame.
The films commentary is from both Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea. Mr Dullea still has such a fine resonant actors voice.
The only things missing, as mentioned, are any deleted scenes. It would have been nice to see the scene of the kids playing at the Clavius moon base for example. I would also like to have had multiple commentaries as so many films have these days: one by the actors, another by Douglas Trumbull on the special effects, and a third by film historians. But we only get the first one.
The Making Of section has precious few details on the models and their designs. There certainly would have been room for a tour of one of Scotts Big-Ds for example. Nothing on the spacesuits. It was more on anecdotes from the film, music selections, the use of computers and things Kubrick wanted to do if he had another year and more money (such as having Bowman encounter the aliens directly at one point).
All in all, it is a very fine package and a must have for us modeling nerds.
