Was anybody else thinking of Star Trek while watching this?

DarthBrooks: Aulus: Kubrick made the right decision.

It's strange - if you read contemporary criticisms of the film, the critics deride Kubrick for using "The Blue Danube" during the rendezvous with the space station. But if you watch the movie, it's impossible to think of that sequence with any other music behind it.

/Maybe the Benny Hill Theme

As much as I hate waltzes (*for dances with which to get closer to girls, I prefer booty music) it is a very fitting example of pairing sight and sound to fantastic effect.

Ninja_Pancakes: Wow, that sounded awful.

Then again, if this was what we had, I'm pretty sure the movie wouldn't have turned into the cult classic that it did.

I would submit that it is a regular, plain-old classic movie, not a "cult" classic.

Just watched it again over the weekend. Cool thing about it is that while it's kind of boring for them, it's appropriate enough to let a six year old watch it. And for the most part, the special effects hold up really, really well.

/Same goes for 2010, though it's a different kind of movie.

Wasn't Floyd's "Echoes" supposed to be what he passed on due to a dispute?

\I actually like the Echoes version better

Coelacanth: Was anybody else thinking of Star Trek while watching this?

Yup...

Kubrick was a genius and he made the right call.

For some reason, when I read the headline, I thought Peter North. Apparently I watch too much porn.

Tuba or Not Tuba?

From an interview (new window) with Alex North:

"Then I didn't hear anything from Stanley until I went to the opening of the picture in New York, where I heard all the classical music instead of mine."

I know Kubrick is notorious for being a bit of a jerk, but that's cold.

Aulus: Kubrick made the right decision.

Though I do own both soundtracks on CD, Kubrick did make the right choice. North's version was too 'busy' compared to what was going on on-screen (and you can tell it from this clip).

That was weird. I just watched 2001 on Blu-Ray this past weekend. It's one of my favorite movies of all time and it's hard to imagine any bit of the movie differently. The leopard attack scene in this version was just.. wrong.

That music might be fine for Discovery Channel documentaries and Superman films -- but wow that does not fit 2001.

Marla Singer's Laundry: JohnnyCanuck: Wasn't Floyd's "Echoes" supposed to be what he passed on due to a dispute?

\I actually like the Echoes version better

groan, just....no.

Yes.

Yeah, that was a good call on Kubricks part.

The Alex North score makes it sound like every other movie.

JohnnyCanuck: Marla Singer's Laundry: JohnnyCanuck: Wasn't Floyd's "Echoes" supposed to be what he passed on due to a dispute?

\I actually like the Echoes version better

groan, just....no.

Yes.

Early on Kubrick asked if they'd be interested, but they didn't end up getting very far. They did score [I think Waters did most of it] the entirety of Zabraskie Point, which is worth a listen to.

Especially the Love Scene [version six]. Version 4 pianos and soft, and version six is the same exact notes but with porno guitars. Hilarious.

Who knew 2001 was a western?

moulderx1: Who knew 2001 was a western?

The Monolith's a Spa-*BONG*!

One of my most favoritest movies ever. The score used in the final version was the right one for the film.

well that was forgetable

SK made the right choice to tie the images to sounds that had already become iconic in their own way.

enry Quote 2010-09-08 09:37:00 AM
Aulus: Kubrick made the right decision.

Though I do own both soundtracks on CD, Kubrick did make the right choice. North's version was too 'busy' compared to what was going on on-screen (and you can tell it from this clip).

Exactly.

Here's a cooler Alex North story.

I was visiting my parents in Philadelphia, and I was with my mother and she needed to drop by a jewelry shop to pick something up. So I'm at the shop, bored out of my mind. I'm walking around it and see something that looks like an Oscar statue. I look closely at it and it says it's an honorary Oscar for Alex North. It turns out that the jeweler was Harry North, Alex's brothers. But there's more: next to the Oscar there's a picture of a ten year-old Kevin Bacon getting out of a car. Bacon grew up from blocks from the jewelry shop (that much I knew - Bacon's father was a famous city planner), and apparently Bacon's sister worked in Harry's jewelry shop when she was a teenager. How about that for six degrees of separation?

/This was about 10 years ago.
//The shop was at 2001 Sansom St in the basement - above it is now Village Whiskey and Tinto

Green Discharge: Yeah, North's soundtrack was all uplifting and reminiscent of a sci-fi tv series, not a prolific monolithic movie like 2001.

FTFY

2001 is one of those classic films I just can't get into.

My wife and I were dead asleep until the one scene where there is some loud high-pitched squeel on the moon.

That woke us up real good.

thornhill:
//The shop was at 2001 Sansom St in the basement - above it is now Village Whiskey and Tinto

Fire water and Native Americans are *NOT* a good combination.

thornhill: above it is now Village Whiskey and Tinto

mmmm

expensive tapas

Has anyone mentioned that Kubrick made the right choice? Was it really a "choice" though when it came down to it? I would think it was an utter no-brainer.

a thus spoke zarathustra reference, and I'm the first?

/hot

Green Discharge: Yeah, North's soundtrack was all uplifting and reminiscent of a sci-fi tv series, not a prolific movie like 2001.
Kubrick's decision brought suspense, mystery, and of course his signature "dark element" to the opening sequence.

Me too and I agree. North's is a more "traditional" soundtrack and far more evocative of the era it was written in. It sounds like it could be in Ben-Hur or any of the big Hollywood productions of the time.
Kubrick's gamble paid off pretty handsomely I'd say.

I kept expecting to be Rick Rolled.

I read that as *Peter* North

"... open your pod bay mouth, HAL..."

thornhill: It turns out that the jeweler was Harry North, Alex's brothers. But there's more:

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!!!!


!!!! BACON !!!!

Made me think of the original Planet of the Apes.

All I can think of when seeing that is Mel Brooks' "Dawn of Man."

Marla Singer's Laundry: JohnnyCanuck: Marla Singer's Laundry: JohnnyCanuck: Wasn't Floyd's "Echoes" supposed to be what he passed on due to a dispute?

\I actually like the Echoes version better

groan, just....no.

Yes.

I'm pretty sure that the Strauss worked out pretty well for him, in case you didn't notice.

I noticed. However someone mentioned if it would have been as successful without. I feel the North version would not have been but the Floyd version would have been indeed...maybe even more so due to Floyd's involvement and their growing fanbase at the time. I may have overstepped slightly by saying Echoes was better, however, if it had been used instead of Strauss we would probably be having the same discussion with the scores reversed.

Meh. The North score has been available for years (I think it was even on the laserdisc of 2001 as an alternate audio track). Wake me when they put the movie out with the narration track Kubrick cut at the last minute.

Link (new window)

Here's what the ending to 2001 sounds like with the Pink Floyd Echoes song synched with it. I think it works amazingly well.

ridonkulous: Has anyone mentioned that Kubrick made the right choice? Was it really a "choice" though when it came down to it? I would think it was an utter no-brainer.


It's a little unfair on North since the video is basically some geek who overlayed a CD of North's music over the beginning of the film.

I would like to know that if the actual music was composed with those intended visuals by North. If not, it's pretty bogus.

/has the CD and not that geeky to try and sync it up.

ClintonKun: Link (new window)

Here's what the ending to 2001 sounds like with the Pink Floyd Echoes song synched with it. I think it works amazingly well.

Yeah, that is pretty cool. Roger Water's has said that one of his biggest regrets while in Pink Floyd was turning down Kubrick's offer to score 2001. I think echoes was kind of an effort to do it anyways after the fact.

trotsky: Green Discharge: Yeah, North's soundtrack was all uplifting and reminiscent of a sci-fi tv series, not a prolific movie like 2001.
Kubrick's decision brought suspense, mystery, and of course his signature "dark element" to the opening sequence.

Me too and I agree. North's is a more "traditional" soundtrack and far more evocative of the era it was written in. It sounds like it could be in Ben-Hur or any of the big Hollywood productions of the time.
Kubrick's gamble paid off pretty handsomely I'd say.


I was going to say that this music reminded me of a John Ford western or a Biblical epic ... then DarthBrooks posted the picture from Spartacus. Oh, yeah. Alex North did write the score for that one and this score sounds remarkably similar.

Kubrick, after Lolita, rarely used original music in his movies. He often used original arrangements of familiar classical pieces, but I think The Shining is the only late Kubrick film I can think of that used a bit of original music (Wendy Carlos' main title based on Dies Irae).

awfulperson: moulderx1: Who knew 2001 was a western?

Haha...I was actually thinking, "meanwhile, on Tattooine..."

Good one.

/Sand People!

Also Sprach Zarathustra by Phish (pops) is a very cool version of the original theme song if you like space-funk. There is a long lead-in to the familiar music that we all know and love...deal with it