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# 2001: A Space Odyssey: Two Hundred And Forty One W

- [Made in Slatesource](https://slatesource.com/@steph/2001-a-space-odyssey-two-hundred-and-forty-one-w)
- By [Steph](https://slatesource.com/@steph)
- Created on Oct 1, 2026

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## 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Kubrick spent four years on effects that still hold up, then refused to explain any of it.

Runtime

143 minutes

Director

Stanley Kubrick

Budget

$10.5 million

Box office

$146 million worldwide

Cinematography

Geoffrey Unsworth

## Technology Without Exposition

The film runs twenty five minutes before a word of dialogue and about eighty minutes in total with almost none. Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke worked out the science first and then removed every line that explained it, so the audience learns how things work by watching people use them: a pen floating in a cabin, velcro shoes, a zero gravity toilet with printed instructions, a video call to a daughter's birthday party. The effects were built rather than composited, using front projection for the African sequences, a thirty eight foot rotating centrifuge for the Discovery interiors, and Douglas Trumbull's slit scan rig for the final passage. No digital tool has aged as well. The only Oscar Kubrick ever won personally was for these effects.

journey·6 Reels

# Watching 2001: A Space Odyssey

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Reel

The Dawn Of Man

Awakened

"Bones, drought, a leopard's eyes and a black slab that appears overnight and rearranges what a hand is for."

Around two hundred and forty one people walked out of the New York premiere, including several MGM executives. Kubrick cut nineteen minutes in the following days and never restored them.

Alex North wrote a full score without knowing Kubrick had kept the temporary Strauss and Ligeti tracks, and learned he had been replaced when he watched the premiere.

> I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

[2001: A Space Odyssey on IMDb: full cast and crew](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/?utm_source=slatesource)