2010: The Year We Make Contact

2010: The Year We Make Contact
by Peter Hyams

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Movie Reviews of 2010: The Year We Make Contact

Movie Review: My god, it's full of stars...
Summary: 5 Stars

2010 begins 8 years after the Discovery disaster. The massive ship had been dispatched to Io in orbit around Jupiter to investigate a second monolith, identical but larger than one found on the moon. A Russian scientist Moisevitch (Dana Elcar) informs Floyd that the Soviets will reach the Discovery almost a full year before the Americans will and that Floyd should check Discovery's orbit. When he does so Floyd learns that the ship's orbit has begun to decay and will fall towards Io unless it is recovered. Moisevitch convinces Floyd that having American scientists onboard would make the trip go much smoother. Now that the scientists agree it is the politicians who now must be convinced. Unfortunately, the Americans and the Soviets are headed for a showdown off the coast of Honduras which may lead to war.

Four months later aboard the Soviet ship the Alexei Leonov, the joint American-Soviet crew arrives at Jupiter and in a spectacular sequence must use a process known as aero-braking in order to slow down enough to put the ship in position to rendezvous with Discovery. After this we are introduced to Walter Curnow (John Lithgow), the engineer and brains behind the Discovery II, the ship the Americans were building to go to Jupiter. Curnow and Russian Maxim Brailovsky (Elya Baskin) must transit over from the Leonov to the Discovery with the violent moon of Io spinning dangerously beneath them. Once on board the spinning American ship, they get its systems operational and pull it out of the decaying orbit. It is then they release Chandra to see if he can recover the damaged HAL-9000 (Douglas Rain). (Interesting tidbit: Add one letter to HAL and you get IBM).

Once recovered both ships move towards the second monolith which is two kilometers long. Things sour back home on Earth and both crews are ordered by their governments to return to their respective ships It is here that Floyd, aboard Discovery`s bridge, receives his first message from David Bowman (Kier Dullea), that he must leave the area within two days. Believing it a hoax, Floyd asks HAL who is sending the messages, to which the computer replies "...I was David Bowman." then, "Look behind you..." And we see David Bowman for the first time-still young and still wearing the orange spacesuit. Floyd follows him into the pod bay where Bowman is revealed to be an old man. Floyd is told that "...something wonderful is going to happen." and then watches dumbfounded as Bowman transforms once again into the starchild.

Back on the Leonov, Floyd argues with Captain Tanya Kirbuk (Helen Mirren) that perhaps they really ought to head back home. Kirbuk is skeptical and can't find any reason to go along with Floyd's crazy plan. Only after they concoct a plan to use the Discovery as a massive booster rocket that the large monolith vanishes is Kirbuk convinced. Only problem now is convincing HAL to go along with the plan- the AI was created to be curious, but also to look after the Discovery and if the ship is left behind it may be destroyed. It then becomes a race against time as a large black spot appears on Jupiter that seems to be consuming the planet. The massive gas giant begins to shrink.

Ultimately 2010 boils down into a wonderful science fiction movie- yes, it's `science fiction' and not `sci-fi'. The only reason I think that abbreviation is used is because most people have short attention spans. It is not 2001, as the movies are separated by a generation of directors who had different values and a different audience. Strangely enough, Arthur C. Clarke's book makes far more sense than Kubrick's film does and even the short story that the book and then the movie were drawn from is more conclusive. 2010 is a sequel and not the same film as 2001, if it were, Kubrick would have directed it and it would have been called 2001: Part II. Both films are excellent, but they aren't the same.

Summary of 2010: The Year We Make Contact