--- product_id: 271769589 title: "2001 A Space Odyssey [1968] [Blu-ray] [Region Free]" price: "VT12473" currency: VUV in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.vu/products/271769589-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968-blu-ray-region-free store_origin: VU region: Vanuatu --- # 2001 A Space Odyssey [1968] [Blu-ray] [Region Free] **Price:** VT12473 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** 2001 A Space Odyssey [1968] [Blu-ray] [Region Free] - **How much does it cost?** VT12473 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.vu](https://www.desertcart.vu/products/271769589-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968-blu-ray-region-free) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Stanley Kubrick's dazzling, Academy Award winning achievement is a compelling drama of man vs. machine, a sunning meld of music and motion. Kubrick (who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur C. Clarke) first visits our prehistoric ape-ancestry past, then leaps millennia (via one of the most mind-blowing jump cuts ever) into colonised space, and ultimately whisks astronaut Bowman (Kier Dullea) into uncharted space, perhaps even immortality. "Open the pod doors, HAL." Let an awesome journey unlike any other begin. Commentary by Kier Dullea and Gary Lockwood. Channel Four Documentary 2001: The Making of a Myth. 4 Insightful Featurettes: Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The legacy of 2001. Vision of a future passed: The Prophecy of 2001. 2001: A Space Odyssey- A look behind the future. What is out There? 2001: FX and Early Conceptual Artwork. Look: Stanley Kubrick! Audio-Only Bonus: 1966 Kubrick Interview Conducted by Jeremy Bernstein. Theatrical Trailer. Review: A classic from a different time - * Introduction The film took 4 years to create, produce and release. The initial audience misunderstood it. It eventually became a hit movie in 1968. The film, I believe, was John Lennon's favourite at the time. This film is open to many interpretations, and here is mine for what it's worth. The film '2001: a Space Odyssey' I. m. h. o runs on these two ideas. The physical distances in the story, Africa, Moon, Jupiter, and galactic travel are increasingly distant, and thus, how small humankind is in the scheme of things. The second idea is the film is the portrait of an old man dreaming from the start to the end of this movie. Another handle on this movie is the growth of technology. It's initial stages. Then, the flow and its failure. Then maybe as a species and given time, we will eventually get it correct in the future. * Initial story The initial shots of the movie, 'Dawn of Man', were taken in the Spitzkoppe mountains, in what was then South West Africa. For lesser cost, and simply being physically easier to do, they were not captured with a bulky movie camera, but with a top-notch Hasselblad stills camera. The grain on this still camera film is comparable to movie footage quality. The structure of this film is that when the monolith on the African plain is placed with the apes, its physical symbol of the first logical thought by the apes. These are the size ratios of the squares of the first three integers, 1:2:3, (1:4:9). This is symbolic of the logical change from eating plants to eating meat. These changes increase our brain structure and our likelihood of surviving more than other animals. The film has the biggest jump-cut in movie history. With hundreds of thousands of years. (Until superseded by Luc Besson's 'Lucy' with Scarlett Johansson in the lead.) And when the same monolith on the moon is uncovered, this time, an alarm is to be sent to the sentient beings that humankind has reached the technological milestone of interplanetary flight. * The technology piece The first 65 or so minutes of this movie are a guided exploration of the growth of technology. Kubrick was very interested in the new technologies. It gives this movie its technology backbone. And including the use of the animal bone to kill the Tapir. Such as on the space station, a video telephone, bank cards, Security methods with voice print verification, the space shuttle, velcro shoes to enable walking in zero G, and the space wheel simulating gravity. An astounding and subtle scene within the space shuttle is when a Dr. Floyds pen floats in the cabin and is retrieved by a stewardess. There are three charming vignettes of people having birthdays and interacting with technologies. The young daughter, 'Squirt', ( she, Vivian, being the real daughter of Kubrick) of Dr Heywood Floyd, Chairman of the United States National Council of Astronautics. And the astronaut, Dr Frank Poole, is playing chess with HAL. The technology of the single-occupancy E.V.A. vehicle is realistic and impressive. Another forecast is the massive video screens. The two moon-shuttle stewardesses watch Judo on what we would say now is a wide-screen television, showing its multi-cultural backgrounds to these technologies. Also, there is an explosion in the number of digital channels. When a recording of an interview of these two astronauts on the Discovery ship is played, they both see it on a tablet-like device. And on channel BBC12. There is a scene of the crew being cryogenically suspended until the craft is in Jupiter's space. Stanley Kubrick liked filming 'impossible' shots, such as astronauts standing in differing orientations to each other in the same scene. Kubrick had a 30-short-ton (27 t) rotating "Ferris wheel" built by Vickers-Armstrong Engineering Group at a cost of $750,000 (equivalent to $6,600,000 in 2023). And the difficulties of landing the space shuttle into the rotating space wheel station. The design of the space transport of passengers system, the space shuttle up to the space station. The craft from the space station to the moon is a more economical and viable method, even if never built in reality. It's an elegant design and is Soviet. When compared with the real Saturn V rocket, Americans built in reality one - way with only three passengers. This isn't economic. Also, the electrical circuit testing system, when the crew is testing the faulty AE35 unit, is similar to the present electronic simulator 'Spice'. * Music score Most of the music in this film is also its academic backbone. It's avant-garde at times and beautiful. In another differingly world - way. The opening of the spacecraft accompanied by the 'Blue Danube' is just exquisite, delightful and of true art in cinema. Gayane Ballet Suite -- Gayane's Adagio Music by Aram Khachaturyan, Atmospheres Music by György Ligeti, Lux Aeterna, Music by György Ligeti, Requiem "Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs, and Orchestra"), Music by György Ligeti, The Blue Danube, ("An der schönen, blauen Donau, op. 314 (The Blue Danube)"), Music by Johann Strauss, Music by Richard Strauss, Adventures, Music by György Ligeti. * The section with HAL, the sentient computer. And of course, the sentient A.I. computer 'Hal'. If you are interested in the philosophical possibility of science and technology as described in the film, I can recommend the following book, 'Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality' by Stork. To find it on desertcart, I needed to copy this text into Google, then desertcart could locate this book in its databases. The technological breakdown of H.A.L is discussed in the movie '2010: The Year We Made Contact' and it covers this well. About 50% of the predictions seem to have held true. It's more interesting when you consider that even low-tech items at the time of the movie were sci-fi, such as cellophane for sandwiches and bank cards! The absence of PCs in this mainframe world is an oversight. I have seen quite a few movies, but I have never seen a murder described only in the graphical display of the crew's vital functions. It's suitable for a cold machine killing other crew. * The ending Its ending is uniquely beautiful and beyond words; it's a visual experience. This connection, when Discovery reaches Jupiter, those living are sent through interstellar flight via a cosmic 'motorway' to be examined. Other crafts, in the shape of octahedra, are using this transport system too. This can be seen with many cryptic communication indication signs during its journey. It’s a portrait of the infinite size of the universe through sheer travelling over the time used to show these shots. And how strange to our eyes the universe is. The ending is not obvious. The long dream that has been the film's flowing structure has finally caught up with the present. The interstellar trip Bowman has undertaken is a parallel with the long journey all of us take in life and living. This last night alive of an astronaut, in an elegant room, dying in his bed. He thought, if all of this I have recalled is outstanding, then, with the Starchild appearing - think what our offspring may be capable of? It's a positive hope for the future of mankind and interplanetary travel. I prefer this explanation to the higher dimensional plane of humanity angle, as it is not substantial enough for me. * BONUS MATERIAL!! I, accidentally discovered, that the Blu-ray edition of this movie has several related topics for 2001 anoraks. Press the TOP MENU button on your Blu-ray player handset to access these hidden video files. They are as follows: Commentary by Actors, 2001:Making of the Myth, Standing on the Shoulders of Kubric, Vision of the Future Passed, 2001: A Look Behind the Future, What is Out There? 2001; FX and Early Concepts, Look at Stanley Kubrick, Interview with Stanley Kubrick, Original 2001: A Space Odyssey Trailer, online sites. * Background Kubrick picked the best of other ideas and compiled them into his movies, such as the strange music from 'Forbidden Planet', and the lack of editing in many scenes that go on for several minutes. At the time, Bell Labs and IBM, amongst others in the technology fields, would create film shorts for cinema and for training internal staff with the same playful pitch. This is the source of the three vignettes mentioned earlier. And the long silences in 2001 are inspired by the movie, 'The Heroes of Telemark'.And the space wheel by the V2 rocket designer, Von Braun. The scene of the Stargate using multicoloured shots of sea and land was shot from a helicopter in the Isle of Harris, Western Isles, Scotland. The film stock was developed using costly chemical methods to give false colours. This is Kubrick's way of suggesting to the audience that the planet is different. Not even the light from this star is the same as our Sun lighting our planet Earth. And our eyes are shown this difference. In the film itself, Kubrick and his staff used over 200 optical effects new to film. My older brother said some at the time went into the cinema with smoked weed when this film section was reached for its enhanced hallucinatory session, and this is one small reason why it became popular. * Why does the film have this ending? Three and a half years into this movie, the executives supporting the Shepperton Studios and at MGM Borehamwood in Elstree, noticed that the film had no ending in sight. Kubrick wanted another 18 months on top of the three and a half years. They were worried. They forecast a potential black hole of endlessly increasing costs and diminishing potential financial returns. They thought few people would pay to see a planned four-hour, slow-paced movie with an unconventional story structure, a poverty of speech, and a bizarre and unfashionable music score. The executives were pressuring Kubrick to produce many dailies, or film excerpts. However, the older senior staff, schooled in an older comprehension of what makes movies sell to the public, basically 'bums on seats', had some appreciation of the technical aspects of what they were being shown. The 'Stargate' sequence was a platform for a much more explanatory and majestic story to follow. Kubrick and the actors devised a cheaper, shorter, and more philosophical ending that would try not to discredit the shots already taken and carry the story ending. So this 'room's' ending results from strong financial pressure from the senior staff and a flexible artistic response to bring the story to its conclusion. * What if the senior staff had gone ahead and backed Kubrick? What could the movie ending have become? If the senior staff had held their nerve, trusted Kubrick, and gone with his planned ending. Would it have become a bigger financial and artistic success? The film, before the 'Rooms' is spectacular, and grows, but the ending is somewhat abrupt and welded on. So the story up to this 'rooms' part is promising. My best guess is that the plot could have moved into exploring the idea that this race of beings behind the monolith also helps create new life on suitable planets. This was hinted at in the ending chapters of the paperback book of 2001. But, eventually, after 4 hours, even Kubrick's creative talents could plateau under the cumulative weight of the story. Perhaps unable to pull any more 'rabbits - out - of - the - hat', that would delight and wonder the viewers? Review: Stunning 4K transfer in a beautiful package! - This is without a doubt the best 2001 has looked for home viewing! The transfer is one word WOW! I went to see the Christopher Nolan 'unrestored' 70mm print at The Prince Charles Cinema in London and despite being a fan of Kubrick and the film this was my first time seeing it on The Big Screen. Well I was amazed more then ever as Kubrick's genius took over the full booked auditorium and my senses were addicted to the experience. Well needless to say was excited for this package and using both Nolan's new negative which was scanned in 8K and under the supervision of Leon Vitali's colour grading for home viewing this is the closest the film looks to an actual 70mm version. The transfer is deep and rich with strong black levels and highlights, colours pop off the screen, skin tones are natural/close to their original print colour and there are no scratches or dirt anywhere or appearance of artificial sharpening with a fine film grain texture. Once again with the colour as many pop off the screen but the Crimson Red which Kubrick used in most of his colour films just sparkles and shines on screen. This is the best 2001 has looked in it's digital form and all the team involved should be applauded especially Vitali who literally supervises the transfers of all of Kubrick's films for free overseeing every single frame from start to finish. Him and the team have done a fabulous job. Not only is the picture amazing but so is the soundtrack. The film originally had a 6 channel stereo track that has been mixed into DTS HD 5.1 format that will please many but to my happy surprise the disc also comes with the original stereo 6 track itself which I personally prefer on a purist level. Fans will love this option and just listening to the dark atmospheric moods of Ligetti or the sweet sounds of The Blue Danube on any sound system (even televisions) is well worth it. Lastly we have all the great features from the original blu ray and the lobby cards and booklet are nicely package in the box. Speaking of the box I am not a fan of most modern designs but this looks beautiful with the Red and Black. This one gorgeous set and one thing I forgot to say is that the included blu ray has the 4K transfer as well so if you not upgraded yet you can still enjoy the film with it's beautiful new picture. A Must for all Fans! ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Contributor | Daniel Richter, Douglas Rain, Frank W. Miller, Gary Lockwood, Keir Dullea, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Beatty, Sean Sullivan, Stanley Kubrick, William Sylvester Contributor Daniel Richter, Douglas Rain, Frank W. Miller, Gary Lockwood, Keir Dullea, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Beatty, Sean Sullivan, Stanley Kubrick, William Sylvester See more | | Customer Reviews | 4.7 out of 5 stars 2,428 Reviews | | Format | 4K | | Genre | science_fiction | | Language | English | | Manufacturer | Warner Bros | | Number of discs | 3 | | Runtime | 2 hours and 29 minutes | ## Product Details - **Format:** 4K - **Genre:** science_fiction - **Language:** English - **Runtime:** 2 hours and 29 minutes ## Images ![2001 A Space Odyssey [1968] [Blu-ray] [Region Free] - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/8118Q76FLDL.jpg) ![2001 A Space Odyssey [1968] [Blu-ray] [Region Free] - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81tr3nonjZL.jpg) ![2001 A Space Odyssey [1968] [Blu-ray] [Region Free] - Image 3](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91-BplkGsFL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A classic from a different time *by A***C on 9 May 2021* * Introduction The film took 4 years to create, produce and release. The initial audience misunderstood it. It eventually became a hit movie in 1968. The film, I believe, was John Lennon's favourite at the time. This film is open to many interpretations, and here is mine for what it's worth. The film '2001: a Space Odyssey' I. m. h. o runs on these two ideas. The physical distances in the story, Africa, Moon, Jupiter, and galactic travel are increasingly distant, and thus, how small humankind is in the scheme of things. The second idea is the film is the portrait of an old man dreaming from the start to the end of this movie. Another handle on this movie is the growth of technology. It's initial stages. Then, the flow and its failure. Then maybe as a species and given time, we will eventually get it correct in the future. * Initial story The initial shots of the movie, 'Dawn of Man', were taken in the Spitzkoppe mountains, in what was then South West Africa. For lesser cost, and simply being physically easier to do, they were not captured with a bulky movie camera, but with a top-notch Hasselblad stills camera. The grain on this still camera film is comparable to movie footage quality. The structure of this film is that when the monolith on the African plain is placed with the apes, its physical symbol of the first logical thought by the apes. These are the size ratios of the squares of the first three integers, 1:2:3, (1:4:9). This is symbolic of the logical change from eating plants to eating meat. These changes increase our brain structure and our likelihood of surviving more than other animals. The film has the biggest jump-cut in movie history. With hundreds of thousands of years. (Until superseded by Luc Besson's 'Lucy' with Scarlett Johansson in the lead.) And when the same monolith on the moon is uncovered, this time, an alarm is to be sent to the sentient beings that humankind has reached the technological milestone of interplanetary flight. * The technology piece The first 65 or so minutes of this movie are a guided exploration of the growth of technology. Kubrick was very interested in the new technologies. It gives this movie its technology backbone. And including the use of the animal bone to kill the Tapir. Such as on the space station, a video telephone, bank cards, Security methods with voice print verification, the space shuttle, velcro shoes to enable walking in zero G, and the space wheel simulating gravity. An astounding and subtle scene within the space shuttle is when a Dr. Floyds pen floats in the cabin and is retrieved by a stewardess. There are three charming vignettes of people having birthdays and interacting with technologies. The young daughter, 'Squirt', ( she, Vivian, being the real daughter of Kubrick) of Dr Heywood Floyd, Chairman of the United States National Council of Astronautics. And the astronaut, Dr Frank Poole, is playing chess with HAL. The technology of the single-occupancy E.V.A. vehicle is realistic and impressive. Another forecast is the massive video screens. The two moon-shuttle stewardesses watch Judo on what we would say now is a wide-screen television, showing its multi-cultural backgrounds to these technologies. Also, there is an explosion in the number of digital channels. When a recording of an interview of these two astronauts on the Discovery ship is played, they both see it on a tablet-like device. And on channel BBC12. There is a scene of the crew being cryogenically suspended until the craft is in Jupiter's space. Stanley Kubrick liked filming 'impossible' shots, such as astronauts standing in differing orientations to each other in the same scene. Kubrick had a 30-short-ton (27 t) rotating "Ferris wheel" built by Vickers-Armstrong Engineering Group at a cost of $750,000 (equivalent to $6,600,000 in 2023). And the difficulties of landing the space shuttle into the rotating space wheel station. The design of the space transport of passengers system, the space shuttle up to the space station. The craft from the space station to the moon is a more economical and viable method, even if never built in reality. It's an elegant design and is Soviet. When compared with the real Saturn V rocket, Americans built in reality one - way with only three passengers. This isn't economic. Also, the electrical circuit testing system, when the crew is testing the faulty AE35 unit, is similar to the present electronic simulator 'Spice'. * Music score Most of the music in this film is also its academic backbone. It's avant-garde at times and beautiful. In another differingly world - way. The opening of the spacecraft accompanied by the 'Blue Danube' is just exquisite, delightful and of true art in cinema. Gayane Ballet Suite -- Gayane's Adagio Music by Aram Khachaturyan, Atmospheres Music by György Ligeti, Lux Aeterna, Music by György Ligeti, Requiem "Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs, and Orchestra"), Music by György Ligeti, The Blue Danube, ("An der schönen, blauen Donau, op. 314 (The Blue Danube)"), Music by Johann Strauss, Music by Richard Strauss, Adventures, Music by György Ligeti. * The section with HAL, the sentient computer. And of course, the sentient A.I. computer 'Hal'. If you are interested in the philosophical possibility of science and technology as described in the film, I can recommend the following book, 'Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality' by Stork. To find it on Amazon, I needed to copy this text into Google, then Amazon could locate this book in its databases. The technological breakdown of H.A.L is discussed in the movie '2010: The Year We Made Contact' and it covers this well. About 50% of the predictions seem to have held true. It's more interesting when you consider that even low-tech items at the time of the movie were sci-fi, such as cellophane for sandwiches and bank cards! The absence of PCs in this mainframe world is an oversight. I have seen quite a few movies, but I have never seen a murder described only in the graphical display of the crew's vital functions. It's suitable for a cold machine killing other crew. * The ending Its ending is uniquely beautiful and beyond words; it's a visual experience. This connection, when Discovery reaches Jupiter, those living are sent through interstellar flight via a cosmic 'motorway' to be examined. Other crafts, in the shape of octahedra, are using this transport system too. This can be seen with many cryptic communication indication signs during its journey. It’s a portrait of the infinite size of the universe through sheer travelling over the time used to show these shots. And how strange to our eyes the universe is. The ending is not obvious. The long dream that has been the film's flowing structure has finally caught up with the present. The interstellar trip Bowman has undertaken is a parallel with the long journey all of us take in life and living. This last night alive of an astronaut, in an elegant room, dying in his bed. He thought, if all of this I have recalled is outstanding, then, with the Starchild appearing - think what our offspring may be capable of? It's a positive hope for the future of mankind and interplanetary travel. I prefer this explanation to the higher dimensional plane of humanity angle, as it is not substantial enough for me. * BONUS MATERIAL!! I, accidentally discovered, that the Blu-ray edition of this movie has several related topics for 2001 anoraks. Press the TOP MENU button on your Blu-ray player handset to access these hidden video files. They are as follows: Commentary by Actors, 2001:Making of the Myth, Standing on the Shoulders of Kubric, Vision of the Future Passed, 2001: A Look Behind the Future, What is Out There? 2001; FX and Early Concepts, Look at Stanley Kubrick, Interview with Stanley Kubrick, Original 2001: A Space Odyssey Trailer, online sites. * Background Kubrick picked the best of other ideas and compiled them into his movies, such as the strange music from 'Forbidden Planet', and the lack of editing in many scenes that go on for several minutes. At the time, Bell Labs and IBM, amongst others in the technology fields, would create film shorts for cinema and for training internal staff with the same playful pitch. This is the source of the three vignettes mentioned earlier. And the long silences in 2001 are inspired by the movie, 'The Heroes of Telemark'.And the space wheel by the V2 rocket designer, Von Braun. The scene of the Stargate using multicoloured shots of sea and land was shot from a helicopter in the Isle of Harris, Western Isles, Scotland. The film stock was developed using costly chemical methods to give false colours. This is Kubrick's way of suggesting to the audience that the planet is different. Not even the light from this star is the same as our Sun lighting our planet Earth. And our eyes are shown this difference. In the film itself, Kubrick and his staff used over 200 optical effects new to film. My older brother said some at the time went into the cinema with smoked weed when this film section was reached for its enhanced hallucinatory session, and this is one small reason why it became popular. * Why does the film have this ending? Three and a half years into this movie, the executives supporting the Shepperton Studios and at MGM Borehamwood in Elstree, noticed that the film had no ending in sight. Kubrick wanted another 18 months on top of the three and a half years. They were worried. They forecast a potential black hole of endlessly increasing costs and diminishing potential financial returns. They thought few people would pay to see a planned four-hour, slow-paced movie with an unconventional story structure, a poverty of speech, and a bizarre and unfashionable music score. The executives were pressuring Kubrick to produce many dailies, or film excerpts. However, the older senior staff, schooled in an older comprehension of what makes movies sell to the public, basically 'bums on seats', had some appreciation of the technical aspects of what they were being shown. The 'Stargate' sequence was a platform for a much more explanatory and majestic story to follow. Kubrick and the actors devised a cheaper, shorter, and more philosophical ending that would try not to discredit the shots already taken and carry the story ending. So this 'room's' ending results from strong financial pressure from the senior staff and a flexible artistic response to bring the story to its conclusion. * What if the senior staff had gone ahead and backed Kubrick? What could the movie ending have become? If the senior staff had held their nerve, trusted Kubrick, and gone with his planned ending. Would it have become a bigger financial and artistic success? The film, before the 'Rooms' is spectacular, and grows, but the ending is somewhat abrupt and welded on. So the story up to this 'rooms' part is promising. My best guess is that the plot could have moved into exploring the idea that this race of beings behind the monolith also helps create new life on suitable planets. This was hinted at in the ending chapters of the paperback book of 2001. But, eventually, after 4 hours, even Kubrick's creative talents could plateau under the cumulative weight of the story. Perhaps unable to pull any more 'rabbits - out - of - the - hat', that would delight and wonder the viewers? ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Stunning 4K transfer in a beautiful package! *by R***N on 14 October 2020* This is without a doubt the best 2001 has looked for home viewing! The transfer is one word WOW! I went to see the Christopher Nolan 'unrestored' 70mm print at The Prince Charles Cinema in London and despite being a fan of Kubrick and the film this was my first time seeing it on The Big Screen. Well I was amazed more then ever as Kubrick's genius took over the full booked auditorium and my senses were addicted to the experience. Well needless to say was excited for this package and using both Nolan's new negative which was scanned in 8K and under the supervision of Leon Vitali's colour grading for home viewing this is the closest the film looks to an actual 70mm version. The transfer is deep and rich with strong black levels and highlights, colours pop off the screen, skin tones are natural/close to their original print colour and there are no scratches or dirt anywhere or appearance of artificial sharpening with a fine film grain texture. Once again with the colour as many pop off the screen but the Crimson Red which Kubrick used in most of his colour films just sparkles and shines on screen. This is the best 2001 has looked in it's digital form and all the team involved should be applauded especially Vitali who literally supervises the transfers of all of Kubrick's films for free overseeing every single frame from start to finish. Him and the team have done a fabulous job. Not only is the picture amazing but so is the soundtrack. The film originally had a 6 channel stereo track that has been mixed into DTS HD 5.1 format that will please many but to my happy surprise the disc also comes with the original stereo 6 track itself which I personally prefer on a purist level. Fans will love this option and just listening to the dark atmospheric moods of Ligetti or the sweet sounds of The Blue Danube on any sound system (even televisions) is well worth it. Lastly we have all the great features from the original blu ray and the lobby cards and booklet are nicely package in the box. Speaking of the box I am not a fan of most modern designs but this looks beautiful with the Red and Black. This one gorgeous set and one thing I forgot to say is that the included blu ray has the 4K transfer as well so if you not upgraded yet you can still enjoy the film with it's beautiful new picture. A Must for all Fans! ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ All time Favourite *by J***E on 31 December 2008* It's curious how all my favourite things - books, music, films, were discovered when I was age 15 or 16. I guess this is the age when such discoveries make the most significant shifts in the foundations of one's outlook? I was 11 when this came out, and space mad. I had huge scrapbooks of all the space race news, both Russia and America. And of course, the Apollo project was heading towards it's climax the following year, and the first manned round trip to the moon and back, Apollo 8, made it a particularly special Christmas that year. I had no adult willing to take me to see the movie, but all the same there was a huge flurry of media interest, with lots of newspaper and magazine articles, and making-of documentaries. I cannot believe there was ever a better time to be an 11 year old boy, obsessed with science. 2001 seemed so far away. I would be old by then, and after a lifetime of developments in space exploration, it seemed a near certainty that I too would have gone into space, and maybe to the moon or beyond by that time. People not born into that era cannot imagine how limitless the horizon seemed. I got to see the film eventually when I was 15 and of course, it blew my mind. I didn't really know how to describe the experience, but I knew that I had seen something that was more then just a film, more than just telling a story in pictures. As my mind was opening to the world of classical music I sensed that the way the film made use of music, in particular the awesomely, eerie, Ligeti vocal works, was something more than just incidental. It was as though the film itself was music, or meta-music, but I didn't have such concepts then, just spooky, ineffable feelings. The feelings the film puts you through: the dawn of mankind and the dawn of human thought. Yes, we could probably CGI the hominids better now, but they are pretty darned good for people in monkey suits. The bone is thrown up and turns into a spaceship - just like that! What a moment in cinema? What a way to make a statement that captures the entire history of our species? Space ships dance with balletic grace and zero gravity is portrayed more convincingly than in anything I have seen since. And space is huge and dangerous. The moon is bleak and cold but full of mystery. And then we move to the Discovery, Jupiter mission. We experience the ennui of deep space flight, with a minimal waking crew of two, filling in time with routine tasks, in the company of an eerily human-like Artificial Intelligence HAL. The remaining crew is in suspended animation in the iconically spooky sarcophagi, around the wall. As a programmer there are still days when I walk into work and switch on my machine and mutter "Good morning Hal - Good morning Dave". The introduction to HAL was to be the beginning of my life-long fascination with AI and with the mind-body problem in philosophy. That we do not have HAL-like intelligent machines is if anything, even more surprising than the way the promise of space-travel fizzled out. The battle of wits between HAL and Bowman is very cleverly conceived, still riviting, and introduced a new kind of villain into the movie landscape. In the final part of the film we have the prolonged psychedelic journey through some unspecified, trans-dimensional void, again accompanied by the amazing music of Mr Ligeti. At 15 I knew not what to make of this aspect of the film beyond finding it compellingly beautiful. With subsequent viewings and exposure to the more demanding but wonderful Russian movie, Solaris, I came to realise that the significance of this section was a depiction of an encounter between humanity and something way beyond it's comprehension, and that such an encounter might not be describable in terms of any conventional narrative. I'm guessing that the more disappointed reviews are coming from people who grew up with Star Trek, and Son of Star Trek, and are just wondering where the plot and explosions got lost. I just ask them to imagine growing up in a time when this movie seemed to be as much predictive documentary as a work of science fiction. ## Frequently Bought Together - 2001 A Space Odyssey [1968] [Blu-ray] [Region Free] [4K UHD] - Pulp Fiction --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.vu/products/271769589-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968-blu-ray-region-free](https://www.desertcart.vu/products/271769589-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968-blu-ray-region-free) --- *Product available on Desertcart Vanuatu* *Store origin: VU* *Last updated: 2026-06-04*