2001 -- The Heritage & Legacy of the Space Odyssey

When Stanley Kubrick first met Arthur C. Clarke he said that he wanted his help to make the "proverbial good science fiction movie". The implication of Kubrick's comment was that no one had yet made one. Their collaboration culminated in "2001: A Space Odyssey"; which in 1968 was the latest film in a multi-decade history of movies about space. Beginning in 1902 and continuing to the present day the allure of spaceflight has resulted in such massive cultural epics as Star Wars and Star Trek, as well as the latest box office block buster Gravity. However, despite over 30 years of advances in space flight and movie-making it is still 2001: A Space Odyssey which most fans, film makers and critics use as the yardstick against which all other space films are measured. In 2001: The Heritage and Legacy of the Space Odyssey authors Frederick I Ordway III and Robert Godwin take a trip through more than eleven decades of space films. This fascinating study shows just how far "2001: A Space Odyssey" pushed the state of the art and how it continues to affect motion pictures today.