To Infinity and Beyond!
Actually this post really hasn't got anything to do with
Buzz Lightyear (what a simply wonderful name that is) to whom the above title can properly be ascribed. Funnily enough, Alice has interjected (as she does), this was the first multi-word pronouncement she heard her grandson utter as a very young child - which she had to get his older sister to translate from toddler-speak and explain, not at that time being au fait with
Toy Story herself. Later, she got to see the film and was enchanted.
The saying was actually top in a recent
Radio Times poll of favourite film quotes, from a
selection of 50. The one Alice voted for, "Tears in rain" scored high as well, at number eight. See somewhere or other below (we
will get to it in due course) if you don't know that one.
However, did you know the phrase in question (do concentrate!) may in fact be a reference or even a Disney homage to the final chapter title in
2001: A Space Oddyssey? [This link is to a new trailer for the current re-release.] The words there are "Jupiter and beyond the Infinite". They appear when we're about to pass through the stargate, in the famous psychedelic sequence which brought the hippies into the audience for an ultimate trip.
IF you've already seen the film, you can relive that awesome trip
here, and then
here. [Update: YouTube has removed these clips!] But don't spoil the experience if you haven't - just go & see it
all - soon! (Or get the DVD / Blu-ray if you've missed it on the big screen.)
You may already be aware that we love Science Fiction, both the written (especially
Iain M Banks)
and the filmed. But I don't think we've told you that Alice has always
loved vistas of the stars. When she was only a girl, and before
there was so much pollution in city air, she used to spend hours looking
at the sky from her bedroom window. Even then, I think she must have
known that's where she really came from, and it's true "we are stardust"
as
Joni Mitchell sang in
her Woodstock song. There are notes, by the way, about Yasgur's Farm, where the Festival was held, on
the singer's website. And here's some
real stardust, in the heavenly Orion nebula. Well,
I like appropriate puns, even if Alice thinks I'm being puerile!
Young Alice used to say she wanted to be the first woman
Astronomer Royal - not aware then that s/he wasn't in charge of the
Greenwich Observatory.
Just in case, however, her parents got her a proper telescope: nothing
like as powerful as you could
get yourself today, but good enough to
see the craters on the moon, or (just about) the stripes and satellites of
Jupiter.
She remembers going out one night in October 1957 to watch the little bright dot that was the Soviet Union's
Sputnik, the first earth-orbiting artificial satellite, crossing the sky and launching the start of "The Space Age".
Nowadays, we can find gorgeous images from space at
NASA's site, or on the one for the
Hubble Telescope, launched in 2002. We take for granted the existence of an
International Space Station; deep space probes, and
robots on Mars or even the
comet Philae.
I've just had to remind Alice that this post was supposed to be about
2001 and
Interstellar, and she's let Google carry her away - again! She reminds me that the
Moon landings didn't happen until 1969, when one of the crew was Edwin "Buzz" Landrin! So it all links together, she says, and I must be patient.
Recently we went to see
Interstellar, then shortly afterwards the restored
2001: A Space Oddyssey, which is
part of the BFI's
Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder season. The BBC has also had an interesting series of programmes on the
Unearthly History of Science Fiction.
It's hard to believe that
2001 originally came out in
1968, and had no access to the CGI of todays' film-makers. (Nor did the original 1982 version of
Blade Runner for that matter.) Almost any review we can link to will have spoilers, I'm afraid. You have been warned!
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| I touched it too! |
A contemporary review still exists from the
Hollywood Reporter, which said
"the cinematography of Geoffrey Unsworth and John Alcott invests this
awesome achievement with credibility and visual magnificence." Still true, indeed.
You can read a very thoughtful 1968 review entitled
2001: the Monolith and the Message at
Roger Ebert's blog. It's totally
full of spoilers of course, but ends with the words "a beautiful parable about the nature of man." Roger Ebert died in 2013: the
Guardian celebrates the critic and reviews a recent documentary about him.
Rotten Tomatoes just lists quotes from each critic, so it's up to you to
follow them up or not. Here's an example (from the year 2001!):
Awesome, influential, mind-blowing, cool, obsessional, pretentious -- 2001 is all of these. Yup, that as well.
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| Mark Kermode on Radio 5 |
This BBC article, with interviews of Keir Dullea (Dave Bowman) and Gary Lockwood (Dr Frank Poole) is more about the making of the film, than a review as such, and is well worth a read.
Mark Kermode's recent
5 Live review literally contains a wopping "Wow!" for what he calls the best bit of jump-cut editing in cinema history. [You can see that cut on
YouTube.] He also points out how the most sympathetic character is HAL, the onboard computer (spookily given voice by
Douglas Rain) with a mind of its own. Nothing like the
Star Wars droids R2-D2 or C-3PO. And thereby hangs much of the tale...
 |
| The Right Stuff |
According to
Empire Online,
2001 is the first of five films you should see before going to
Interstellar. The others are
Alien (1979),
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1997),
The Right Stuff (1983, about the Mercury 7 mission), and
Contact (1997).
Christopher Nolan comments on them too. How many can
you tick? Alice has just got hold of a DVD of
Contact, to refresh her memory, and she might yet get
The Right Stuff as it's the only one she doesn't know.
[P.S. She got it for Christmas: our verdict is that it's extremely long (at over three hours) and the plotting is somewhat slow in places - but it
is most informative, plus pretty fast and exciting when the
Space Race gets hot. So, it's paws up from us, well worth the watch.]
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| Ripley and Newt in Aliens |
We'd also add
Aliens (1986) to the list, mostly because we think it's even better than its predecessor, while
Sigourney Weaver is almost always well worth watching.
Interestingly,
Contact has in common with
Interstellar a powerful theme about a father-daughter relationship, while the Alien films have an extremely strong Mother presence.
I hope you're clicking on the images to see them larger.
Most recently, Alice took me to
Interstellar yet again -
she was so wowed by it.
Well, yeh, OK, I thought it was kind'uh cool,
too.
There are oodles of reviews and articles about this latest movie. Just
Google it and you'll find pages and pages of links.
Some of the most interesting, Alice thinks, are the ones that explore the physics behind the plot, and the making of images like the one here.
One of the most comprehensive and illuminating of these is at
Wired. [Scroll down to get to the text and video.] It includes an interview with and comments by
Kip Thorne, the CalTech physicist who contributed his equations to the visual effects personel, and was surprised himself at the fantastic results. He's published a book for the general public on
The Science of Interstellar, and reckons he can get at least two published articles of hard science from his work for the film.
Another article in this vein, which looks at Thorne's book as well, is at
Scientific American.
One review (among many) you might find interesting is
this by Mark Kermode again. He's not 100% positive, stating that although the film does have heart, it sometimes succumbs to its own sentimentality. He nevertheless praises Nolan as a master of the cinematic spectacle who understands the power of light.
Alice admits she had a tear in her eye at several points, but she's not complaining. I'm obliged to be permanently dry-eyed I'm afraid, but that doesn't mean I'm cold-hearted: I thought the personal bits were truely touching.
Both
2001 and
Interstellar are very long; both are mind-teasingly mysterious, and both
feature ravishingly beautiful, or at the least incredibly stunning, visual
sequences. Rowan Righelato of the
Guardian makes an excellent comparison of the two films.
Of
2001 he states that:
an essentially purely visual piece of
cinema, Kubrick allows the film’s meaning to be entirely subjective. The
director
hoped [it] would stimulate the “mythological and religious yearnings and
impulses” in the viewers' own subconscious mind.
Of Interstellar, he says:
Its abiding message is also one of hope, but Nolan gives us
the fierce faith of familial survival rather than the fulfilment of an
existential destiny, celebrates human love rather than spiritual
transcendence...
He concludes:
for all it’s beauty, it’s myth and music,
2001 is a solitary experience, while Interstellar is a tribute to what
holds us together.
Plenty of food for thought, then.
Me? I just enjoyed them both - lots.
"What about tears in rain?" you may well be asking. No, we haven't forgotten. It comes in
Blade Runner (1982). There's a spoiler-full
synopsis here. Near the very end, the dying replicant, Roy Batty, has an incredible speech.
In 2012 at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Milan,
Rutger Hauer, looking his age but still full of life, talked about his delight in playing the part. The actor was largely responsible for tweaking the script into the final words, and attributes them to "the poet in me".
The video by
televisionet is on YouTube.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe ... Attack ships on fire
off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near
the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like ...
tears … in … rain.
Time… to die…
But
that special moment does still live for us, both in the original film and the many others inspired and influenced by the urge to travel all the way - to Infinity and Beyond.
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It's a good time to remember old friends (send cards, or an email, or even an "eCard"); to try and be generous to those we love (yes, I know, however difficult they might be at times) and donate something to those less fortunate. And I'm afraid there's never a shortage of those - so, come on, dig down, 'cause every little helps.
But it was all sorted out in the end. And Alice had managed to write and post the cards and we did get all the presents wrapped, as you can see. 
Alice's Christmas dinner wasn't as colourful this year, with only "yellow" beetroot. But she says it's less messy and just as tasty. 
