From today's special-effects-saturated perspective, it is hard to appreciate the social, political and financial effect that the April 1968 premiere of Space Odyssey had on the world. It was the first movie of this kind to be so widely seen. It is easily forgotten that the world was only just recovering from the stunning announcement, a few short weeks before, that extremely regular radio pulses had been detected coming from a star in a direction between Altair and Vega -- speculation as to what these signals might mean was of course rampant, even though the theory behind pulsars was already being discussed by astrophysicists. Manned launches were still rare (in fact, only 32 people had flown in space by this point).
I actually went to the premiere in London, at the ripe old age of five. I certainly don't remember much about that night, except for looking up at the marquee, the black monolith standing in the faux Louis-XVI bedroom, and Bowman's aging face. It suprises me that I don't remember a thing about the apes, or about the psychedelic flight and space sequences, which later in life proved so fascinating to me. At age 11 or so, I actually drew up construction plans to convert my own room into a part of the space station, lit from below by fluorescents under frosted glass. Lack of independent funding put an end to that...
I'm amazed that 2001 holds up so well, even today. It certainly kicks its own sequel's ass... because 2010 was firmly in the "B" column. Keir Dullea should never have agreed to the part in the sequel. I admit to owning 2010, but I have to say I have only ever played that DVD once...
OK, this is really creepy - while I was putting the final edits on this post, Thus Spake Zarathustra streamed through on iTunes...
(Avi's BackDrop module on my Newton MP2100 with image from Andreas Lindkvist)