So 2001 has gotten a full restoration ?

Art

WB restored it several years ago - I don't know the EXACT date the work was done, but sometime around 2010-2013 maybe - and it was exhibited in limited releases at film festivals and such in Europe - touted as a "new 4K restoration" - and special showings in the US. No information exists online about the restoration process or what was done, so I can't tell you anything more than that. It's one of those restoration mysteries that we'll likely learn about via TheDigitalBits, around the time the disc gets released. It wasn't an "OMFG! WE RESTORED 2001 AND EVERYONE IS GOING TO SEE HOW GREAT IT IS!" release, but it's been in the can for some time.

Hi, I have several copies of 2001 as well, and just pre-ordered the 4K. Perhaps this is well known, but in the versions I have now, in the early scenes in Africa with the early pre-humans, the sky seems to exhibit fractal artifacts. I see this on the iTunes streaming version as well as my most recent bluray 1080p version. Could others confirm I am not hallucinating? I am watching it on the equipment in my signature below, but I seem to recall this issue with the sky in my pre-4K days too.
Thanks
Mark

If by "fractal artifacts" you mean the moving splotchy blobs, then that's the residual grain leftover from the DNR.

Mark,
You aren't hallucinating. There is lot of information on this in some of the books I have on the film. Kubrick wanted to use front projection for the backgrounds in those scenes and he needed more reflectivity than he was getting. He used Scotchlite material that was used on reflective road signs. It came in long strips that were at first placed in 40 foot lengths. This resulted in a strip look that was unsatisfactory to Kubrick so he had it torn down and cut into random jagged shapes and glued back on. The result is what you see.


Art

Too bad more information wasn't available it would have been interesting for folks like me at least. Thanks !


Art

Here is screenshot of what I am talking about. Looks a bit like mountains in the sky. I don't see this (or haven't noticed it) in other parts of the movie, just the sky in the early scenes.

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Thanks Art, that is exactly what I am seeing. I assume that means the new 4K version will have that (hopefully anyway, since if not I guess it would mean they did some IMO unacceptable noise reduction or smoothing).
Best,
Mark

Congratulations!

After you receive it, please consider providing a detailed review of it versus the 1080p for old tightwads like myself. Then we scrooges will have some idea of whether or not to shell out for it.

Thanks for that.

Amazon listing now has an image of the cover.

Yes.

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Still seems odd that the overseas sites have it for April 3rd and nothing for US yet and that's only a little over three weeks.

Art

BTW, to me it is interesting that the cover photo points out one of the conceptual shortcomings of the movie. The rotating main cabin is, theorectically, at least, credible, but now "we" know how people move themselves in areas of a spacecraft that have no gravity (in the present day, ALL areas of ALL spacecraft) -- they just "float" to wherever they want to go. In this photo we see the person "walking" in an area of no "artificial gravity" rather than floating. At the time of the making of 2001 I don't think it was practicable to do the floating stunts that appeared much more recently in movies like "Apollo 13", etc., but I might be wrong on that. Regardless, if it was possible at that time, it wasn't done.

IMO these technicalities are more than made up for by the ideas expressed in the movie. The fact that we still type away about it says it all.

To me it is interesting to speculate whether this movie, instead of it being released when it was, was placed in a vault and released for the first time this very day. What would the movie-consuming public think of it -- especially its "ideas"?

In 1966 when most of this was being done we were flying Gemini spacecraft. They couldn't even extend their legs from a seated position let alone stand or float around. When Apollo was being designed it had one area where one or perhaps two astronauts could stand. It had Velco on the floor there just like the picture on the cover of 2001. In the end they didn't use it that way much since ones body requires effort to extend in space anyway so standing wasn't as big a deal nor was the long term negative effects of floating in micro gravity as was expected.

As you noted , in the Orion the Stewardess had grip shoes instead of just floating so knowing what we know it seems odd.

Art

My one-click preorder button says get it May 7th (free release day delivery).

This is one of those titles that I'll be looking to see the European reviews since it looks like April 3rd for them. Do European UHD Blu Rays have region locks ?

Art

Even in the early '60s there were commercial-size jet aircraft which, when flown on a parabolic course from high altitude, gave mercury, gemini and apollo astronauts a number of seconds of "weightlessness training" within a space much larger than that within those early capsules/spacecraft. This was nothing more than "falling" within the pressurized cabin of the plane as it descended at approximately the same acceleration as the acceleration due to gravity (just like the very same phenomenon inside the ISS, which is constantly "falling" within its orbit, but never reaches the ground because at the ISS's horizontal velocity the ground+atmosphere "falls away" at the same rate).

Portions of "Apollo 13" were filmed on a "set" which was built within one of these aircraft. At 5 minutes into the following video the process is described.

So, theoretically anyway, appropriate portions of 2001 could have been filmed in the same way, but, obviously, doing that would have been much more difficult than when "Apollo 13" was made. There's a very good chance that doing this never entered the minds of 2001's producers.

For one thing, Kubrick shot 2001 with 65mm film cameras, which are very large and bulky, and would have been impossible to maneuver in the confined space of the "vomit comet" plane. Even in 1995, Ron Howard was forced to shoot Apollo 13 in the Super 35 format because Panavision anamorphic lenses were too unwieldy and had too short a focal depth to be used in that environment.

The sets Kubrick constructed for the Discovery spacecraft were also much larger than the cramped interior of the Apollo rocket. I doubt he could have cheated sets on the plane for that.

The issue wasn't the few seconds to see if a human could swallow in micro gravity etc for example which they knew. Flying free during extended flights wasn't. The prevailing thought and the one Kubrick went with was travelers would prefer to have artificial gravity or be held to the floor with Velcro.

Art

Does anyone know if European UHD BD titles are region locked ?

Art

For just one example, at the time the movie was shot, I think the short corridor scene shown on the new cover could have been shot on a "vomit comet".

The Ultra HD Blu-ray format does not have any region coding at all. That's not even part of the format spec.

Thanks ! It just says the region in the preorder area so this must just be some kind of standard they use despite it being incorrect .

Art

That's most likely the case. Many retailers often simply copy the region coding info from the DVD specs over to Blu-ray or UHD listings. If you ever see a Blu-ray listed as "Region 2," that's definitely wrong. The Blu-ray regions are A, B, or C, not numbers.

Although it's possible that the standard Blu-ray disc packaged with the UHD could be region coded, Warner Bros. almost never uses region coding on Blu-ray either.

Plus, with Kubrick's pension for retakes, the fuel for the aircraft alone would have bankrupted the studio.....

I can definitely see him demanding 600 takes of every shot in the "Daisy Daisy..." scene while the pilots beg him, "Stanley, we're going to crash if we don't refuel soon!"

Confirmed Amazon delivery May 8th.

Art

"2001: A Space Odyssey (UHD/BD) (4K Ultra HD) [Blu-ray]"
Estimated arrival date: May 08, 2018

Ahhh this will be awesome in 4K. I don't expect much from the sound, as it was recorded in Dolby Stereo, the same as the original Star Wars Trilogy.

As for those who think age has to do with how the transfer will be, I will state this. There is no greater medium to source from than film. Unless, a movie is shot on 4K or higher, and released as 4K. Many movies, even today, will record with 4 or 5K cameras, but release the content as 2.5K.
For those old enough to remember or see what film is like against a xenon bulb, can tell you there is plenty of room for HDR content to gather its info from.
35mm film is hit with 6500K light. This gives rich color to many films, if they were recorded with natural light. Many of today's movies use florescent lighting which gives some scenes a gritty look, or meant to be dark. Take The Matrix films for example.

Anyways, to the point, you get a good scan of 35mm or greater, and you have yourself a very nice 4K UHD copy.
I for one, cannot wait to see whats ahead for 4K. Anything in 65/70mm is going to look out of this world.
Imagine, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, an IB technicolor film. The rich amount of blues, would be ridiculous. Ben Hur, Indiana Jones, The Abyss (if 20th century gets off their ***).

The 70mm release prints of 2001 had 6-track audio (5 channels across the front plus mono surround).