2010: The Year We Make Contact
| 2010: The Year We Make Contact | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Peter Hyams |
| Written by | Arthur C. Clarke (novel) Peter Hyams (screenplay) |
| Produced by | Peter Hyams Neil A. Machlis Jonathan A. Zimbert |
| Starring | Roy Scheider John Lithgow Helen Mirren Bob Balaban Keir Dullea Douglas Rain |
| Music by | David Shire György Ligeti Richard Strauss |
| Distributed by | MGM |
Release dates | December 7, 1984 (USA) |
Running time | 116 min. |
| Language | English |
2010: The Year We Make Contact, also known as 2010, is a science fiction film released in 1984 directed by Peter Hyams. It was based on the novel 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke. The film, like the book, is a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
After the visual impact and enigmatic ending of the film of the original 2001 (made in 1968), the film sequel was considered by some to be a disappointment. However, other viewers argue that if it is considered on its own, it is more substantial than most other films of the genre, and sometimes even better appreciated than the earlier 2001.
The movie stars Roy Scheider (replacing William Sylvester, who passed away in 1995), John Lithgow, Helen Mirren, and Bob Balaban, along with several Russian actors playing cosmonauts; with Keir Dullea and Douglas Rain reprising their roles from the original film as David Bowman and the voice of HAL 9000, respectively.
Hyams’ e-mail correspondence with Arthur C. Clarke, author of the book and collaborator on the film 2010: Odyssey Two, was published in 1984. Entitled The Odyssey File: The Making of 2010, it illustrates the two men's fascination with the then-pioneering medium and chronicles Hyams' near-daily e-mail communication with Clarke during the film's planning and production.
Synopsis
The film is set nine years after the Discovery mission to Jupiter failed. A joint Soviet-American crew, including Heywood Floyd from 2001, on the Soviet spaceship Alexei Leonov (named after cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov) arrives to discover what went wrong with the earlier mission, to investigate the monolith in orbit around the planet, and to resolve the disappearance of David Bowman. They hypothesize that much of this information is locked away on the now-abandoned Discovery craft. The Soviets have developed an advanced new "Sakharov" drive that will beat any American ship to Jupiter, so Floyd is invited to join the Leonov's crew, along with Dr. Chandra, creator of Discovery's HAL 9000 computer, and Curnow, an American space engineer, whose expertise is needed to resurrect the floating hulk of the Discovery.
The Leonov makes a rendezvous with the Discovery, and after Curnow brings the Discovery back to shipshape condition, the two giant spacecraft rendezvous with the monolith. Dr. Chandra restarts the HAL 9000 computer to determine whether it has any information about the incidents of 2001.
It is necessary to investigate the huge black monolith in orbit around Jupiter. Remote observations fail to answer their questions, so the Soviet space captain details a cosmonaut, Maxim Brailovsky (Elya Baskin) to fly a space pod over there for a close-up look. As Max approaches the monolith, a huge burst of energy erupts from it: Max and his space pod are smashed to pieces. The energy burst heads towards Earth.
A sequence of scenes follows the explorations of David Bowman, who has been transformed into a noncorporeal, energy-based life-form much like the aliens controlling the monoliths. The avatar of Bowman travels to the Earth, making contact with significant individuals from his human past: he brushes his ailing mother's hair, and he appears on his widow's television screen and has a conversation with her.
Meanwhile political tensions on Earth between the US and the Soviet Union escalate. The US astronauts are ordered to leave the Leonov, as it is Soviet territory, and move to the Discovery, which still belongs to the United States.
An apparition of Bowman appears before Floyd, warning him that they must leave Jupiter within two days. Floyd asks what will happen at that time and Bowman replies, "Something wonderful." Floyd has difficulty convincing the rest of the crew at first, but then a dark spot on Jupiter begins to form and starts growing. HAL's telescope observations reveal that the Great Dark Spot is in fact a vast population of black monoliths, increasing in number at a geometric rate.
Floyd and the Leonov's crew devise a plan to use the Discovery as a booster, enabling them to leave Jupiter early, and return to Earth ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, HAL and the Discovery will be trapped in Jovian orbit with insufficient fuel to escape, and left to their fates when Jupiter ignites. Floyd and Chandra are worried that HAL will develop the same neuroses on discovering that he will be abandoned yet again, and Dr. Chandra must convince HAL that the human crew is in danger. Once HAL understands, he agrees that he must sacrifice himself, if necessary, to save all the humans aboard the Leonov.
The Leonov crew makes a hasty exit from Jupiter just in time to witness the swarm of monoliths engulf Jupiter. The monoliths eventually increase Jupiter's mass until the planet achieves the high temperatures and pressures necessary for nuclear fusion, becoming a small star. In the novel, this obliterates the primitive life-forms which had inhabited the Jovian atmosphere, which the Monoliths' controllers had deemed less worthy than the aquatic life of Europa.
As the Leonov leaves Jupiter, HAL is commanded to repeatedly broadcast the message "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE," as part of its heightened anti-Cold War emphasis.
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Differences from the novel
- The sub-plot of the Chinese spaceship arriving at Europa first is omitted entirely from the film.
- David Bowman's encounter with the lifeforms on Jupiter is not depicted in the film.
- In the novel, it is clearly stated that Dr. Chandra is of Indian heritage; his full name is Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai. (Clarke presumably named this character in honor of the Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on solving the equations of black holes) (this is doubtful, as Chandra's full name is Tamil and/or Sri Lankan, not Hindi). 'Chandra' is also the word in Sanskrit, Hindi, and some other Indian languages for the Earth's Moon. Thus, it seems rather incongruous for a white American (Bob Balaban) to play the role, and to keep the name the same.
Predictions
- Dave Bowman's last words are 'All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there'. Europa is now seen as the most likely candidate for non-Earthly life in this solar system, and this was suggested to Clarke by the observations of the Jovian moons, especially Europa, by the Voyager I and Voyager II space probes. In fact, the scientific observations of the Voyagers were part of the inspiration to Clarke for writing 2010.
Discontinuities between 2001 and 2010
- Both novel and film of 2010 follow the film of 2001 in locating the events at Jupiter, rather than Saturn as in the 2001 novel. In that novel, the huge monolith is implanted in the Saturnian moon Iapetus, but in the remainder of the books and films, that monolith is in orbit around Jupiter.
- In the film version of 2010, Dr. Floyd protests that he never authorised anyone to inform HAL of the TMA-1 monolith prior to the Discovery's mission to Jupiter. (HAL's homicidal behaviour in 2001 is explained as being a result of someone informing HAL of the true nature of the mission—to examine the TMA-1 monolith—while also being instructed to keep this information hidden from astronauts Poole and Bowman.) However, in the film version of 2001, astronaut Bowman, while attempting to disable HAL, sees a pre-recorded message from Dr. Floyd informing the crew of the monolith and the true purpose of the mission. In this message, Dr. Floyd clearly states that HAL had been briefed on the TMA-1 before the Discovery left Earth (although some fanciful theories claim that this message from Floyd could have been faked by the government after Floyd refused to authorize them to reveal the mission to HAL).
Trivia
- Clarke's e-mail correspondence with Peter Hyams, director of the film 2010: The Year We Make Contact, was published in 1984. Entitled The Odyssey File: The Making of 2010, it illustrates his fascination with the then-pioneering medium and his use of it to communicate with Hyams on an almost daily basis during the planning and production of the film. The book also includes Clarke's list of the top science fiction films ever made.
- Clarke makes a cameo appearance in the film, as a man on a park bench outside the White House. (However, he is out of frame in the pan-and-scan version). Pictures of Clarke (as the US President) and 2001 director Stanley Kubrick (as the Soviet Premier) also appear on a magazine cover seen in the film.
- Shortly after production on 2001 was complete, Stanley Kubrick had the Discovery sets (as well as many other sets, models, and props) destroyed entirely, fearing that they could be recycled for lesser B-movie productions; the 2010 art department had to rebuild them from photos and 2001 footage. As a consequence, the model for Discovery in 2010 is longer by one "frame" between the spherical pressure hull and AE35/comm array "frame," and a further two "frames" longer between the array and the drive unit. Also, there are some modeling issues associated with the scale: The original 2001 Discovery is stated to be more than 900 meters long. In 2010, a quick evaluation of scale when Curnow and Max hit home on the AE-35/comm "frame" would require the vessel to be nearly 1,400 meters long to produce a centripetal acceleration of 1g in the hangar bay. Lastly, the film unfortunately avoided the literary description of the effect of re-starting Discovery's centrifuge, where the excess rotation of the ship would be mopped up by the centrifuge, in a "series of wild precessions." If Discovery had simply stopped the rotation with reaction jets, she would have had no fuel left at all!
- In the television series Babylon 5, the Earth Alliance Omega class destroyers look very similar to the Leonov ship in this film, particularly the rotating section near the middle of the ship.
- Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) is shown using an original Macintosh and an Apple IIc with LCD panel in this film, an early example of Apple's product placement in motion pictures.
- Floyd is shown reading an issue of Omni on the beach, a magazine which went out of print in 1998.
DVD release
2010: The Year We Make Contact was released on DVD on September 19, 2000. It was presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, with its soundtrack remastered in Dolby 5.1 surround sound.
Features
- Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
- Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Unknown Format)
- "Making Of" documentary