2001: Filming The Future by Piers Bizony

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2001: Filming The Future by Piers Bizony

Aurum Press Ltd. 169 pages. Price: £14.99 (UK). $24.95 (US). ISBN: 1-85410-706-2

It was to be expected with the new year, that there had to be a new book about the film that made this year popular back in 1968.

'2001: A Space Odyssey' is regarded by many as the film to show how space flight would be accomplished given the constraints of our reality. The fact that it is part and parcel of an SF film makes it even more remarkable.

The reality depicted illustrates how far we might have gone had NASA's funds not been curtailed in the early 70s. Actually, this isn't a new book. It's a revised edition of Bizony's previous book on the film.

I've got a copy of it somewhere in my collection come to that. Quite where at short notice, I don't know.

My collection is due to have one almighty database made of it this year. If you're fascinated by 2001, then you'll enjoy this book. There's a lot of behind the scenes photos as well as a lot of stills from within the film.

The text covers a lot of ground with info coming from both cast and crew. For those with a special effects bent, there is also some detail on how it was done. 2001 led the way to showing how good special effects made spectacular SF films.

There's also some interesting pre-production sketches. The one that catches my eye the most is that of the spacesuit design that changed little from sketch to final costume.

We'd certainly not have any of the SF films of such a standard if Stanley Kubrick hadn't led his team with demands to improve all the time.

I wouldn't call this book the most definitive on the subject. Although the rules for using the video-telephone are displayed, it was a shame that Bizony neglected to show the ones for using the zero-gravity toilet.

All right, so a lot of us have seen copies of this by now but in a definite volume, this is a serious oversight. It was even missed out in the text.

Speaking of which, Bizony spent far too long padding a chapter detailing 2001's storyline. It's a fair bet that the casual reader isn't likely to pick up this book without at least seeing the film and such information is pretty much redundant to anyone else.

It might have been more interesting to have replaced this with a small chapter on the little associated merchandising with the film. Some emphasis was placed on the importance of the HAL 9000 computer to the film but there was scant reference to the man behind the voice, Douglas Rain - actually mis-spelt as 'Raine' in the text.

Looking at the above website under Bizony's recommendation, it indicates that Rain doesn't want to talk about his involvement with the film.

Even so, to neglect to show even a photo for admirers to put a face to his voice isn't particularly clever. How many of us use HAL phrases for the voice of our own computers?

I don't think 2001 lovers will want to miss this book so I'm probably talking to the converted already.

If you want to know more, this is a good place to start and have on your bookshelf.

Check out: http:www.//underview.com.2001.html

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