2010: The Year We Make Contact [Blu-ray]

2010 is the follow-up to the classic film directed by Stanley Kubrick, 2001. It was made during the cold war, so it capitalized on the US vs. Russia conflict of that time. The premise is that both the US and Russia are preparing missions to go to Jupiter to investigate what happened to the Discovery spacecraft, during its failed 2001 mission. When it is learned that the Discovery is going to crash into Jupiter's moon Io, a team of Americans, including Dr. Haywood (played in a recast role by Roy Scheider (replacing William Sylvester)) who was the Earth-based head of the original Discovery mission, the Discovery ship designer Walter Curnow (played by John Lithgow), and the programmer of the HAL 9000 (which seemingly went crazy in 2001), Dr. Chandra, played by Bob Balaban. The movie also stars Helen Mirren as the commander of the Russian ship and includes the nearly ageless Keir Dullea and Douglas Rain reprising their roles as Dave and the voice of HAL from the first movie.The movie was made during the height of both the cold war and the tail end of the space race, and both of those themes are prevalent throughout. The movie pays homage to but has a much different feel than 2001. That is due in large part because it was made about sixteen years after the original film, but also because the director Peter Hyams did not try to copy Kubrick's style and tone. Personally, I like this movie more than I do 2001, both when I was a kid and as an adult. There is a lot more suspense that is mixed throughout the movie, not just packed in at the end. And, since it has a much shorter running time, it does not feel like it goes on and on as 2001 does.For those who get the Blu-Ray, it does not really have any extras. Just the movie. The A/V quality is okay, but it definitely did not get a major restoration, certainly not approaching anything like what 2001 received with its 4k UHD transfer. That said, I have never seen the movie on any of the major streaming services, so if you want to watch it physical discs seem to be the easiest way to do so.Overall, the movie presents a good conclusion to the story. It explains the events from the first movie and gives audiences a hopeful ending. There were other books written that continued the story from here, but it is unlikely that they will ever be adapted into a movie after all this time. I think most people who will consider getting this will be people who either saw it in the theater or on TV back in the 80s. But, if you are one who only recently discovered the movie 2001 and are trying to decide whether to get this, I would say it is worth watching. I cannot guarantee you will like it as much as 2001 (assuming you liked or loved that one), but I think it is worth watching just to get the entire story. And, if you were lukewarm to the original movie, this is definitely worth giving a chance to because, as I said above, it does have a much different feel than the first movie did.

While nowhere near as visually stunning, the plot on this is far deeper than it's predecessor, and the cast is top notch. Don't sleep on this. And it still has the best 'look behind you' moment in cinema.

Just a well told story with great acting. Sci fi: not so much laser battles.

I was pretty upset when I discovered that my DVD copy of 2010 wasn't anamorphic... so I would have been happy just to find a DVD in anamorphic. But I decided to upgrade to blu-ray for this disk, since I remembered it from the theater as being pretty visually impressive.I read a number of reviews on here. I have noticed that Amazon has taken to "clustering" reviews recently... so the reviews for Blu-ray, DVD, or even VHS are all together. This is DUMB, but it's what they do these days. Oh well... In this case, the review is for the USA release of 2010 on Blu-ray (not the Canada release, as some of my other Amazon purchases have turned out to be lately!).I've just finished watching it. And I watched it, and listened to it, EXPECTING to see the issues that some folks mentioned here (bad image quality, artifacts, etc). So I'm pleased to say that on the BD I received, there was NONE of that. It's a very nice transfer.Granted, the master has a lot of grain, and there are some minor scratches which can be noticed on rare occasion. But it still looks really nice. Short of doing a "frame-by-frame restoration" (as was done on the James Bond disks a few years ago) where colors are corrected to compensate for fading (NOT an issue on this print by the way), scratches are digitally "painted out" and so forth... I doubt that this could look much better.Of course, the criticisms about the SFX sequences are... well, utter nonsense. Yes, there are some minimal visual artifacts that inevitably exist on ANY film that was made in the days when filmmaking was optical in nature. Somehow, I was expecting (based upon some of the reviews of the blu-ray) that these would be jarring in HD. But they weren't. The film looks very, very good.I've also noted the criticisms of the film itself. Well, as others have stated... this is NOT 2001. Nor was it intended to be. Personally, I like this film a lot more than I like 2001. 2001 is "higher art" but it's less "watchable" and that's what I care about when I'm watching entertainment.It's a fun film. Clarke was involved, very much so, in the making of the film, by the way, and despite claims to the contrary by some would-be "urban mythmakers" he never "forswore" this film. No, he always spoke of it fondly, at least in all of his public commentary. He even went so far as to say that there were elements in the film which he wished he'd included in his earlier novel. So ENOUGH with the "Clarke would have hated it" nonsense, OK?The design of the film is classic Syd Mead, except for the re-used design elements from 2001, of course. Mead's individual setpieces on the Leonov were beautifully done, as was his design for the Leonov itself.Sadly, there were flaws in the execution of these designs.The Leonov's rotational section should have all of the "modules" set up so that they are normal to the radius of rotation, but there two angled modules per "arm" which are not normal to this... so the floors of these sections would be, effectively, on a 30-degree slant. I blame this on the model-makers, not on the designer... but it happens.More significant was the fact that all of the "setpieces" on the ships were built in a soundstage, as complete "uninterrupted" floorplans. This is, of course, nonsense... but would not have been a significant issue except for a pair of "long, walking" shots aboard both vessels which simply wouldn't fit into the ship designs. Most viewers will never notice this sort of thing, but to me, it's a huge issue.Finally, a lot of criticism is placed on the film for not having the shots which should be in zero-g be in actual zero-g. Of course, considering that the film was shot on the planet Earth, not in deep space, it would be pretty difficult to get the shots in true zero-g, wouldn't it? It would be tremendously expensive, and would make for a lot of distraction from the storytelling for the average viewer (just like it was for viewers of 2001!) I would have preferred that the actors, and the director, had remained more aware of this during filming, but it's a minor quibble that doesn't really interfere with the storytelling.All together, this is a fine, enjoyable film which has (for the most part) withstood the test of time. The anachronisms - Pan Am, the USSR/USA "cold war," etc, etc... are minor concerns, but remember, this film (and its predecessor) specifically didn't use NASA but instead NCA as the national space agency (and NASA existed at the time, so this clearly was by design). So you can think of this as a "parallel world" to the one we live in, and you can enjoy the film just fine on that basis.Overall, this BD was much higher quality than what I'd been expecting from the reviews, and I'm totally satisfied with it.