Kevin's Watch

Okay. Then you only have to bring me 2010, plus give me back my video of "The Scoobie Doo Project".

In this fourth and final book in a 30-year publishing odyssey (following 2001, 2010, and 2061), 2001 astronaut Frank Poole, presumed dead and adrift in deep space near Jupiter, is recovered alive in the year 3001. Intent on saving humanity, he returns to Jupiter's satellite, Europa, to contact partner Dave Bowman, whose mind has become absorbed by a third monolith. Unfortunately, Clarke uses this book as a vehicle to showcase scientific ideas and breakthroughs at the expense of the story, spending too much time catching up Poole on what he's missed in the last 1000 years while failing to develop fully the current situation and rushing the conclusion. Recommended only to complete the quartet.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

I'm a big fan of Arthur C. Clarke and the late Stanley Kubrick (shocked when he died in 1999), and what jumpstarted my interest in them was 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I saw it first on TV, when I was 11 or 12, and, despite the less-than-great TV picture quality then, the movie still managed to mesmerize me. The combination of those monumental images and the accompanying music (what a way to be introduced to Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss, and Gyorgi Ligeti!) was something entirely new to me. It really made me think hard about what I was seeing; 2001 helped me become a more critical film watcher than I might have been if it hadn't come along.

I've read all four "Odyssey" books: 2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001. The first one is the best; it's a self-contained story that has no need of a "sequel." What I admire about Clarke's writing is its clarity and deceptively simple style: his books may seem short, but Clarke says more in 5 pages than lesser writers can say in whole chapters.

I saw 2010, the movie, when it came out in 1984, and I rather liked it in its way. It wasn't trying at all to be "the next 2001", and I appreciated that. Seen on its own terms, 2010 is a thoughtful, hopeful film.

Yeah, I watched it last night. Good film, if a little bit dated. It's really a shame that in 7 years computers go back to looking like they did in the 80's....

I thought the only thing dated about 2010 was the political climate. The technology looked fine to me.

The spaceships looked futuristic, as well as the spacesuits and most of the space stuff. Anything related to the computers looked like '80's technology; especially the computer graphics. The political climate was definitely the most noticeable thing. I want to stress that I really liked the movie, and those things did not bother me at all as they totally reflect what looked to be a situation that may never have changed.