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2001: A Space Odyssey - 50th Anniversary Trailer Comparison


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Feeling a little conflicted now ... originally thought the whole trailer was graded WAY off, but this comparison made me reconsider a little bit, because the corridor leading to the pod bay really always was a little warmer as I recall. And I've seen this movie projected nearly two dozen times, at least ten of those times in 70mm, going all the way back to summer 68 in L.A. when I was 7-1/2.

 

The rest of the trailer still looks too dark, and softer too.

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go to youtube comments ... they got some very interesting post :

 

pinguposer :
If the Nolan version is from "new print elements taken from original negative", who did the colour timing, and what were they referring to to ensure they matched the director's wishes?
darwinia55 :
Yes! After film is exposed it has to be color corrected. Just because you're presenting an uncorrected negative of the film doesn't mean you're showing the director's vision. And there's no way that Kubrick would have allowed this green monster to be presented to the public.
TheStockwell :
Thank you for doing this! When I saw the "unrestored" trailer, I wondered who the Hell thought the film looked better in turquoise and teal. I owned the Criterion edition of the film which was supervised by Kubrick. It wasn't color graded into blue green with weak contrast, dingy, and with virtually no blacks or whites.

 

A Motion Selfie :
Stanley Kubrick supervised a remastering of 2001 in the '90s. The current 70mm prints that have been in circulation for nearly 20 years do not look like the Nolan print. Ive seen them projected maybe 4-5 times. The Nolan version looks like a print made from faded 50-year old materials. I do not believe that's what Kubrick would've wanted people to see. He would've wanted a version remastered using the latest technology -- in fact, it was remastered in 4k for a new video release later this year. It's not "digital trickery," it's not the Star Wars special editions -- it's the same process used to restore all older movies.
TheStockwell :
It was a long time ago, in 1993 - remember laserdiscs? The Criterion release was for the 25th anniversary of the film. The film was split into 30-minutes sides. Great bonus features, though - everything from hundredsof production stills, Arthur C. Clarke reading "The Sentinel," to the text of the 20-minutes of interviews that was to be the film's introduction. Since Kubrick supervised the colour matching and transfer for the Criterion release - and wrote a few lines saying it was authorised by him - all Nolan really has to do is use it as a reference.
onthe trail :
Ermmm why does this "As Kubrick intended it" colour timing look like Nolan's Interstellar?
Edited by panagiotis agapitou
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Id cut Nolan some slack here, theres no way to make a new print off of a 50 year old color negative and have the colors look like they did 50 years ago. 2001 has a lot of whites in the production design and its going to be much harder now to print them to neutral when they are also skin tones in the frame due to the color layers fading at different rates over time.

 

Sure, you could do a 6K/4K restoration but purists would complain about that too.

 

Any new version would be influenced by the people who color-correct it now, even if they were basing it on references. You cant turn off your aesthetic decision-making completely.

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Id cut Nolan some slack here, theres no way to make a new print off of a 50 year old color negative and have the colors look like they did 50 years ago. 2001 has a lot of whites in the production design and its going to be much harder now to print them to neutral when they are also skin tones in the frame due to the color layers fading at different rates over time.

 

Sure, you could do a 6K/4K restoration but purists would complain about that too.

 

Any new version would be influenced by the people who color-correct it now, even if they were basing it on references. You cant turn off your aesthetic decision-making completely.

 

I belive that all that "Nolan" involment is just a commercial trick of the Studio to take advantage of the name of a modern director for the re-release and make some buz around it ...

 

The only guy that should make restorations is Leon Vitali ... period ...

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Wait... I have no idea what this is suppose to show... How good a digital transfer is? Who knows what elements they used to make this new release trailer from. They may have used the same digital source elements and timed them differently, who knows?

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At the end of the documentary "Filmworker", they mention that Leon Vitali was supervising the 4K restoration of "2001".

 

That's right Dave !! Leon Vitali had supervised all Kubrick films restorations (always in collaboration with Kubrick as he was alive) from the VHS time till the Blu-ray's ... And not only restorations but any kind of TV releases, Translations etc ... He was also supervising the 5.1 SOUND remix for Blu-ray's

 

He was the Authorised (By kubrick himself) supervisor of his material ...

 

And suddenly Nolan come up 19 years after Kubrick's death and presents an unrestored version as "The movie as Kubrick wanted you to see"

Edited by panagiotis agapitou
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  • 1 month later...

Am looking forward to seeing the new print. It's playing at our local cinema in 70mm. Have seen this film so many times over the decades. It was one of the first films I ever saw, which might account for my obsession. But then Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was also one of the first films I ever saw and have had no compunction whatsoever to revisit that film at all.

 

C

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Ooh, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is great. The windmill on the hill, and Dick Van Dyke and Sally Anne Howe. The grandpa singing Oh the Posh Posh Life.... And the rest of the music. It's a good memory for me. I will try and see the 70mm print of 2001 in Brisbane. Didn't know they still had the projectors around this neck of the woods.

Edited by Jon O'Brien
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