2001: A Space Odyssey Movie Script by Stanley Kubrick

2001: A Space Odyssey Movie Script Reviews

• 
  Anisha Inkspill

  the screenplay was better than how I remember the movie. the opener with early man and the scenes with Hal and the crew were my favorite. I did get lost towards the end, as a very long narration, and I mean really, really long, ties up loose ends.
  
  Arthur C Clarke had a hand in writing this screenplay, for some time now I've been meaning to read his novels, so this was a good intro for me to his work.
  
• 
  Owlseyes

  
  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
• 
  L

  Definitely worth reading- helps to understand the movie better.
  The first part (Moonwatcher) is just epic.
• 
  E. C. Koch

  Inasmuch as they are different media, a screenplay is an aesthetic object distinct from the film it eventually leads to in the same way that a blueprint is not that same as a building. Here, then, the instinct to compare or contrast the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey, written principally by Arthur C. Clarke, to Kubrick's masterpiece isn't really fair; one should read these (i.e., the screenplay and the film) independently, on their own merits. That said, for superfans at least, reading the screenplay of a significant film offers a lot of insight into how the film was originally conceived, what ideas ultimately made it into the film, what ideas never made it, and how subtle differences have great effects. This screenplay indicates that there was originally meant to be a narrator (!) explaining everything throughout the film, that the scenes with dialogue were much longer, and that the monolith was unambiguously a teaching tool. There's nothing here about the stargate sequence or Dave's awakening in the apartment or his deathbed-to-rebirth transition. So the screenplay is actually pretty clear about what the film's about, and it's tempting, perhaps for that reason, to use it as definitive evidence for one's reading of the film (e.g., "Aha! The monolith IS an evolutionary catalyst."). But this, still, shouldn't be done. Part of what makes the film so great is that it doesn't offer easy answers, and is enigmatic, and does demand a lot of work of the reader-viewer to come up with a sound interpretation (making the film itself, yes, a kind of evolutionary catalyst). The film's better by about a thousand times, it's just not immediately satisfying. Read the screenplay if you're already a big fan of the movie, but don't lose sight of what it is.
• 
  Frederic Provencher

  Ceci est un chef d'oeuvre! Quel bon livre. Je le recommande fortement.
• 
  Steven

  The original and much superior Interstellar.