2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

 

How on Earth - or even space - do you follow up an absolute masterpiece? Because no matter how you cut, slice, dice or purée it, '2001 - A Space Odyssey' is an absolute masterpiece. It is thought-provoking, visually stunning, brain-teasingly conceptual.

Well, you know. It's pretty good. 

So when Peter Hyams decided to adapt the second book to a feature film, a lot of people were sceptical. And let's just get it out of the way: this one isn't as impressive as the first one. But that does not make this a bad film, not in the least. In fact, this one is actually very good. It just gets overlooked, as it stands in the shadow of another one.

Damn you, Kubrick. 

Like the title says, this takes place in 2010 and no one really knows what happened to the spaceship Discovery. They only know that the crew is gone, astronaut David Bowman presumed dead and that the computer HAL-9000 malfunctioned. Both the Russians and Americans are planning an expedition to the Discovery close to Jupiter in order to find some answers. But here comes a twist in the tale: as it is the Cold War, cooperation is tricky, if not nearly impossible. 

Yes, by now we know the Cold War officially ended, but this wasn't the case in 1984, so give it some leeway.

Because the Russians are almost ready with their vessel, they propose to take a few Americans with them, as a joint venture. But during their 2 year trip to Jupiter, tensions on Earth are high over a conflict in Central America and war is imminent. This does not make things easier for our intrepid astronauts. They find the Discovery and reactivate HAL-9000. It transpires that he malfunctioned due to conflicting programming the US government installed without any of the scientist (both on Earth and in space) knowing. 

To make things even freakier, the massive monolith still doesn't give away any secrets and David Bowman (or a facsimile) appears and tells them to leave, because 'something wonderful is going to happen'. 

In contrast to '2001', this one is a lot more straightforward. But that is okay, as this one is also mostly about wonder and amazement and the mystery. Even if the final mystery revealed is a bit bizarre and really creates more problems on a physics level than would seem, but hey. 

This is a slow burn and many questions that are asked, never receive an answer, yet this doesn't detract from the experience. This is still a very decent film, with solid performances from a great cast. Heck, with heavy hitters like Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren or John Lithgow, how could it not be? And you know what? The special effects look amazing, even to this day. They stuck fairly close to the visuals of the first one, but this one feels as close to scientifically possible yet again. 

In essence, this story is about working together and how we as a human race have to rise above petty differences. At one point Scheider even says to the Russian crew: "We're not our governments! We can work together." 

If that isn't a clear message, I don't know what is.