Watch a Newly-Created “Epilogue” For Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

If after watch­ing Stan­ley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, you imme­di­ate­ly want more 2001: A Space Odyssey, then you are a true fan—especially if you don’t con­sid­er the sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Con­tact, to be any­thing of the kind, Arthur C. Clarke’s impri­matur notwith­stand­ing.

But how will true fans react to the three-and-a-half minute, “epi­logue” to Kubrick­’s film, above, set 203 years after 2001 and fol­low­ing astro­naut Frank Poole’s body as it tra­vers­es Jupiter’s space and encoun­ters a mono­lith?

Poole (played by Gary Lock­wood), you’ll remem­ber, was killed by the HAL 9000 com­put­er when he became an incon­ve­nience to the AI. In 3001, the final book of Clarke’s tril­o­gy, his body is found, pre­served, 1000 years lat­er and brought to life. Here, things turn out a lit­tle dif­fer­ent­ly. No fan of Kubrick’s film will care much about the depar­ture from canon.

But what about the cin­e­mat­ic lan­guage? Is the epilogue’s cre­ator, Steve Begg, a pro­fes­sion­al visu­al effects artist, able to con­vinc­ing­ly mim­ic the master’s touch? I’d say he comes as close as any­one could, though the final shot does not feel par­tic­u­lar­ly Kubrick­ian to me. This labor of love was also a labor of cin­e­mat­ic art, “using prac­ti­cal mod­els and dig­i­tal ver­sions of the tricks used in the orig­i­nal,” as Begg writes on the project’s Vimeo page.

He offers his imag­i­na­tive adden­dum “with respect to Stan­ley K., Wal­ly Veev­ers and Doug Trum­bull” (the prac­ti­cal visu­al effects mas­ter­minds of the orig­i­nal film). Begg also admits to “ignor­ing 2010 and 3001 sor­ry, A.C. Clarke.” You’ll rec­og­nize the music as that of Richard Strauss and Gyor­gi Ligeti from Kubrick’s orig­i­nal score. The musi­cal cues, silences, abrupt edits and shifts in per­spec­tive, rhythm, and tem­po, and the ambi­tious grandeur all ring true.

If you don’t con­sid­er it a sac­ri­lege (and if so, fair enough), you might see Begg’s epi­logue as a work of art all its own, one that impres­sive­ly res­ur­rects the chilly epic feel of the 1968 clas­sic using dig­i­tal tools from fifty years lat­er.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stan­ley Kubrick Explains the Mys­te­ri­ous End­ing of 2001: A Space Odyssey in a New­ly Unearthed Inter­view

Watch the Open­ing of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey with the Orig­i­nal, Unused Score

Watch Steven Soderbergh’s Re-Edit­ed Ver­sion of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey Free Online

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.