2001DL@WEEBLY.COM
Abstract:
This article originally published in 1968, was Eberts initial review upon the release of Kubricks 2001:
A Space Odyssey. Ebert, who was a Pulitzer Prize winning film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times,
revisited the film with praise in subsequent reviews and essays, but his initial review was strikingly
lukewarm toward the film. Ebert address various plot points and the cold, mechanical way in which he
saw Kubrick handle the characters and humanity. This review is an excellent record of how film critics
had first reacted to the film and how their assessment has evolved of the decades.
Ebert, Roger. (1968, April 12). 2001: A Space Odyssey. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved from
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/2001-a-space-odyssey-1968
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What Kubrick is saying, in the final sequence, apparently, is that man will eventually outgrow his
machines, or be drawn beyond them by some cosmic awareness. He will then become a child again, but
a child of an infinitely more advanced, more ancient race, just as apes once became, to their own
dismay, the infant stage of man.
And the monoliths? Just road markers, I suppose, each one pointing to a destination so awesome that
the traveler cannot imagine it without being transfigured. Or as cummings wrote on another occasion,
"listen -- there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go."