Family movie this weekend was 2001–A Space Odyssey

I was surprised at how well it’s stood up. For all the wonders of computer-generated footage, the space shots in the latest Star Wars are only an incremental improvement on the ones Kubrick showed us 37 years ago. The light show at the end is hokey of course — that stuff comes as screen savers now. The monkey suits at the beginning aren’t up to 2005 standards, either.

Yet just subtract 37 years from 1968. That gets you 1931. Compare movie technology 1931 with movie technology 1968. Different worlds.

Movie-making’s a mature technology. It’ll improve around the edges a bit, but the heavy lifting was all done in the first half of the 20th century.

Same planes. I first took a plane ride in 1964. Now, 41 years later, the experience has barely changed. The main difference is that back then everyone smoked. And again, subtract 41 years from 1964; there barely WAS any passenger plane travel in 1925.

Yeah, yeah, yeah: cell phones, home computers, GPS. The big stuff was all done by our grandfathers, though.

The most striking thing about 2001 though, was its p–a–c–e. Who would make a movie that slow-paced nowadays?