SF Debris/Confused Matthew phone conversation on Star Trek 2009?

[Kinky Vorlon]

I always found his voice very grating. Like nails on a chalkboard, only less pleasant.

[Muzer]

I always found his voice very grating. Like nails on a chalkboard, only less pleasant.

I agree, especially when he was shouting. But I found some of his reasoning interesting, even though I usually didn't agree with his conclusions!

[clearspira]

I haven't thought of Confused Matthew in such a long time. My first impression of him was mainly through his scathing 2001 review, and the rebuttal video the now deceased Chase.



youtu.be/7WvrQ6h_GWE

I found myself nodding along to every point Matt made in the 2001 review. I'm not sure exactly what film I would class as ''the most overrated of all time'' but 2001 is definitely up there alongside Godfather. This is one of those reviews that I really hope Chuck gets to one day so that he can put his skill towards unravelling it for me. Because to me this is a film of continuous nothing, heavily dated special effects porn, and a nonsensical ending respectively. Hal 9000 is the only interesting thing that happens which is why I imagine it is also the most memed part of it.

[Muzer]

Personally for me the appeal of 2001 is in the showing in exquisite detail a believable reality of mundane space travel. It's shot so artistically, and besides a few slightly noticeable matte compositions (which I don't think could have been done any better given the technology of the time), to me the effects still pretty much stand up. It's like, I can enjoy a fantasy novel just for the worldbuilding sometimes; to me this is like that. Everything just has so much attention to detail it makes it seem insanely real to an extent that few other films have ever matched. I agree that the ending is pretty bizarre; I wouldn't call it nonsensical but I would say it's not something that massively appeals to me. But that's more because of the whole themes of "evolving" onto the next plane of existence has always annoyed me; I get the same irritation whenever I watch, say, early TNG which has this nonsense in spades.

Personally I think the best decision in making this film was that of removing most of the dialogue. Yes, it made the film harder to understand, but frankly the original plot was shit anyway. He could have rewritten it himself but we'd probably only have ended up with a forgettable run-of-the-mill sci-fi plot. So in my opinion, drawing the emphasis away from that and towards this stunning world he'd created was absolutely the right move. Compare this to the absolutely horrendous film that is 2010, where most of the dialogue and plot of the story is intact, and you really can see what awfulness we were spared.

Having said all this, I completely know the feeling of what it's like when you're reading a book with pages of pages of worldbuilding but you just can't find it in yourself to be interested in it. When I was a teenager I never used to be interested in all that stuff; it's a taste I acquired later. I'm not trying to say it's a more mature thing — just that it's a different thing that I happened to become interested in later in life. So I can certainly sympathise with Matthew and others — because really, if you aren't interested in the worldbuilding and intricate detail, there really isn't much else to 2001 besides the artistry of the shots — and that can't really carry a whole film. There's little character to speak of, and a pretty terrible plot that certainly on its own doesn't justify the runtime, only buoyed up of course by the HAL-9000 bit in the middle.

[Makeshift Python]

I've always admired 2001 more than I liked it. It was actually for the 50th anniversary IMAX screening that I fully understood why it was so popular in its original run. The film is really more of a unique audiovisual experience that can't be replicated at home. At a theater, you let movies to wash over you in a way you can't really at home because you always have the remote control. 2001 is a movie that benefits greatly from the theatrical experience, and after seeing it in theaters I realized this wasn't a movie I could recommend for home viewing unless you had top home theater set up, and were willing to sit through the whole thing with your phone shut off.

It also made me realize why THE MOTION PICTURE didn't work. In 2001 there's at least a purpose to every shot and sound. In TMP it's literally treated as window dressing, with nothing really substantial going on, especially since the whole movie is going to be explained away via exposition. By the end of the film you're not really contemplating over anything, because everything was wrapped in a nice bow. That's okay for Trek, but if you're gonna aim for 2001 you should at least do better visual storytelling, otherwise it's just starship porn.

[Deledrius]

I've always admired 2001 more than I liked it. It was actually for the 50th anniversary IMAX screening that I fully understood why it was so popular in its original run. The film is really more of a unique audiovisual experience that can't be replicated at home. At a theater, you let movies to wash over you in a way you can't really at home because you always have the remote control. 2001 is a movie that benefits greatly from the theatrical experience, and after seeing it in theaters I realized this wasn't a movie I could recommend for home viewing unless you had top home theater set up, and were willing to sit through the whole thing with your phone shut off.

My first viewing of 2001 was many decades ago in High School for my Science Fiction class. It was viewed on a twenty-year-old television with blown speakers that was wheeled into a corner of the room on a cart. The persistent, drawn-out scenes that contained only the sound of breathing were positively grating. It was less than ideal.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think we're all millennials here grandpa you can spare the sightseeing trip for the kids. We all still had ugly metal roller tables with TVs atop supported by suspenders.

[Deledrius]

I think we're all millennials here grandpa you can spare the sightseeing trip for the kids. We all still had ugly metal roller tables with TVs atop supported by suspenders.

My point was it was almost entirely the opposite of a proper theatrical experience. Also, not a millennial. :p Your description however is spot-on for what we generally had. For some reason the one we had that day was just extra-worn-out and old.