And for one final Dune reference, I’ll share a recent quote from its director, Denis Villeneuve:

“The real test for a great film is not the critics, it’s not the film festival, it’s not the accolades. It’s not even the box office. The real test for a movie is time.”

Odyssey certainly enjoys high praise from critics today, but I learned that its premiere and initial reception were in fact quite disastrous. Top critics tore it apart, cinemas emptied, and its writer, Arthur C. Clarke, was in tears (of despair). Its slow and abstract nature was seemingly too jarring for general audiences, but the artists, aficionados, and psychedelic journeymen were happy to embrace it, thus giving it a cultural lifeline that no doubt cultivated the path from counterculture to mainstream acceptance and then its eventual universal acclaim.

Time has not been as forgiving. I've praised the visuals, but some wormhole shots felt dated, namely those generic helicopter shots over landscapes featuring badly blown-out colors, adding to the tediousness toward the end of that sequence, which is already five minutes too long.

There are other moments that outstayed their impact too, and generally speaking, the film’s pacing is challenging. Don’t get me wrong, I love a slow build, and I understand the desire to draw things out in a movie set in a massive void, but you could cut an hour (or more) from this film and tell the exact same story without losing much at all. Some of those savagely long shots really made the accompanying music and sound design increasingly unpleasant too.

There’s also little to no character development. HAL is amazing - acted and scripted to perfection - and is the best part of the story, but the rest of the cast is written without much content and emotion. The barebones dialogue, although excellent at elevating the visuals and atmosphere further, does leave less opportunity for memorable character moments to arise.

Honestly, it is very dull at times, and the meaning that is supposedly asking to be uncovered through observation and analysis I think is overstated. For example, the theme of human evolution at its core actully says very little. Beyond that, there is plenty of mystique and symbolism to speculate on, but no narrative to tie it down. Digging into threads and explanations post-watch revealed some interesting philosophical insights, but that's not impressed upon you when watching.

Today, we’ve also had the benefit of going much deeper into the mysteries of space and metaphysical reality (thanks to Hawking, Sagan, Asimov, etc.), so my “modern” imagination can move much faster and into more exciting places than this film does.

I know it came 11 years later, but Ridley Scott’s Alien proves you can still be thematically rich and wonderfully atmospheric without sacrificing room for emotionally powerful narratives and characters. That movie is so much better paced, more entertaining, and brings much of the same suspense and mystery as Odyssey. Corporatism, reproduction, fear, isolation, and gender-power themes are not obscure, but integrated cleverly into every aspect of the subtext and design, and even Alien’s vision for AI is bigger and more realistic than Odyssey's.

It may be unfair to make such comparisons, given the time gap and the deliberately more abstract and intellectualized vision Kubrick had, and it doesn't escape me that Alien, and sci-fi in general, is heavily influenced and built off of what Kubrik did. But personally, as a viewer, I want to be entertained, and I don’t see the pursuit of deep analytical content as mutually exclusive or in competition with that goal.

I want to feel for my characters and their journey, or be taken on a ride. A Space Odyssey does have its moments, but mostly didn’t reach me on that emotional level, and I consider that such a core component of storytelling that I struggle to view this as the masterpiece it is claimed to be today.