The aliens in most science fiction films were out simply to destroy or take over humanity they were expressions, to use the title of a Susan Sontag essay, of “ the imagination of disaster”.

They were cultural, cinematic imaginations of the danger of communism, which in the overheated political atmosphere of the time was seen as an imminent threat to the American way of life. They involved alien invasions with an ideological and allegorical subtext. Most 1950s science fiction films, though, were cheap B-movie fare and looked it. Destination Moon, directed by Irving Pichel and produced by George Pal in 1950, and, in mid-century, Byron Haskin’s Conquest of Space both fantasised space travel and, in Haskin’s film, a space station, which Kubrick would elaborate on in 2001. There had been serious attempts to foretell space travel. During its heyday, there was a considerable variety of content within the overarching genre. You just don’t do that.”īy that point, the golden age of science fiction film had run its course. When Stanley Kubrick began work on 2001 in the mid-1960s, he was told by studio executive Lew Wasserman: “Kid, you don’t spend over a million dollars on science fiction movies. The visuals, music and themes of 2001 left an inedible mark on subsequent science fiction that is still evident today. It is not an exaggeration to say that 2001 single-handedly reinvented the science fiction genre. And since 1968, it has penetrated the psyche of not only other filmmakers but society in general.

It is a work of extraordinary imagination that has transcended film history to become something of a cultural marker.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a landmark film in the history of cinema.

2001 a space odyssey movie