MIDDLE-AGED MATINEE! #2 - '2010: The Year We Make Contact'

'2010: The Year We Make Contact' (1984)

Welcome back to “Middle-Aged Matinee!”, the article where I take a look at films that came out in the year of my birth, 1984. This time, I’m taking a look at the often overlooked sequel to “2001: A Space Odyssey” called “2010: The Year We Make Contact”.

In 1982, Arthur C. Clarke wrote “2010: Odyssey Two”, a sequel to the book “2001”, though he did change certain elements to match the sequel up to the film instead of the original novel. MGM quickly obtained the film rights and tried to ask Stanley Kubrick to come back and direct the film. However, Kubrick had no interest in returning to the series and passed. MGM then turned to director Peter Hyams to take on the picture.

However, before Hyams accepted, he sought out the approval of both Clarke and Kubrick. Clarke quickly accepted him as the director and when he met Kubrick, the famed director told Hyams to not be afraid and simply make his own film. Hyams then said yes to the movie.

Hyams definitely made his own film here. In the movie, it is established that the Discovery is still in orbit around Jupiter, but its orbit is decaying. Roy Scheider’s Dr. Heywood Floyd is then told that the Soviets will have a ship ready before the U.S. in order to get there and recover the ship. However, none of the Russians know the Discovery’s systems and a plan is devised for Floyd, engineer Walter Curnow (John Lithgow), and computer engineer R. Chandra (Bob Balaban) to be onboard the Leonov that is commanded by Helen Mirren’s Tanya Kirbuk.

The reason Chandra is along for the ride is due to the fact that he created HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain), the computer that went crazy and killed most of the crew of Discovery. The idea is to reboot HAL from the moment before he malfunctioned and discover why things went bad in the first place. There is also the giant Monolith that is still hovering above Jupiter that they still don’t have answers for.

Dr. Heywood Floyd seeks to find answers in '2010: The Year We Make Contact'.

The first thing to note about this movie is that it is a far more straightforward sci-fi film when compared to Kubrick’s more enigmatic masterpiece. So, for the sake of saying it, “2001” is the superior film. However, Hyams and co. do an excellent job at creating an engaging sci-fi action film with characters that you love and special-effects that still hold up pretty well after 40 years.

Scheider is great as Heywood Floyd, the scientist who authorized the mission in 2001 and feels guilty for its failure. He has an obsession to find the answers about what happened onboard the Discovery. He’s also the most level-headed scientist onboard the Leonov when relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union sours back on Earth, causing tension with the rest of the Russian crew.

The rest of the performances are rock solid as well. Mirren is great as the no-nonsense Soviet commander of the Leonov. Lithgow is great for some comedic relief (alongside Elya Baskin’s Maxim Brailovsky) in an otherwise serious story, and Balaban is fantastic as Chandra, a character that is more machine-like than the AI programs that he’s created. He seems to have more love for HAL than he does his human companions.

The special-effects are great, though I must admit that the Leonov looks like a ship that would be more at home in “Alien” than it would in this sequel to “2001”. One thing about the original film is that Kubrick had all the sets for the Discovery destroyed after filming was complete. Therefore, the production designers had to completely recreate the ship from scratch, using the film and set photos as references.

They did an excellent job recreating the sets and suits from the original film. Down to the last detail, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that this was a completely different set from the ones used in “2001”.

Another aspect of the film is the mystery of the Monolith and why it’s even there at Jupiter in the first place. There are answers, but whether or not you’ll care about those answers depends on whether you wanted the mysteries of “2001” to be solved or not. I personally like the twist of why it’s there and why it is using an evolved version of David Bowman (Keir Duella) to communicate with Earth.

I also like the tension that was built around the reactivation of HAL. After all, his menacing actions in “2001” made the machine one of the biggest villains in film history! Now, they want to turn him back on and see what happens. The film does a good job developing this side-plot with both Floyd and Curnow concerned that HAL may go crazy again.

At the end of the day, this is a pretty solid sci-fi film if you can get past the fact that it is a sequel to “2001”, one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made. For those who wanted more answers out of the original film, you get them along with some pretty solid performances and special-effects.

It may be an inferior film to the original, but '2010' is still a solid sci-fi film.