YMMV / 2010: The Year We Make Contact

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • In this movie, Heywood Floyd has a much more down-to-earth and blue-collar personality than his officious, patrician portrayal in 2001. Although this could easily be explained by his fall from grace due to the events of the first film.
  • We also don't really know if Heywood was telling the truth when he claimed he didn't know about HAL's secondary instructions.
• Awesome Music:
  • The film's theme "Nova/New Worlds" is really beautiful.
  • Really, the whole score, composed by David Shire and mostly performed by Craig Huxley, qualifies with its skillful use of 1980s digital synthesizers.
  • Special mention for the Jupiter escape sequence, with the synthesized score blending seamlessly with Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, suggesting the Monolith's involving before we even find out it's responsible.
  • Using Lux Aeterna as the Monolith's motif in this film could arguably count, as its distantly mysterious vibe makes it more flexible than the Requiem used in 2001, which was more overtly creepy and tension-inducing.
  • Of course, the film held back using Thus Spake Zarathustra til the very best moment.
• Contested Sequel: Upon its release, it was fairly divisive due to it being much less "artsy" than the first film and more action-oriented, to say nothing of ''2001'' in general being a Tough Act to Follow. However, it has found itself a growing fanbase in those who appreciate that it replaces the long, silent transition shots with character development, managing to redeem HAL in a way that doesn't come off as overly corny, actually answering many of the questions posed at the end of the first film without downplaying their significance or sense of wonder, and having a scarily timeless impression on Russian/American tensions with the former's recent invasion of Ukraine.
  • On the other hand other fans of the original film dislike this sequel because it removes the mysteries surrounding the nature of the monoliths and the causes of HAL's breakdown by spoon-feeding the audience with canned explanations.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Early on, Chandra plans to do a dry run of repairing HAL by putting SAL through the same process. He calls the project "Phoenix." When he asks SAL if she knows what he's referencing, she bypasses the obvious answer and suggests he means, "the tutor of Achilles." If you have some knowledge of Greek mythology, you can work out that SAL is subtly teasing Chandra. Chandra gets the joke and can't help laughing.^note  For a quick explanation, in Greek mythology, Phoenix was one of Achilles' tutors (the other being Chiron), and SAL is suggesting that HAL's behavior is an example of Achilles in His Tent, so she's saying the right answer in a very roundabout way.
  • Orlov notes that Chandra couldn't have simply erased HAL's memory beginning at a certain point in time because the 9000 series has holographic memory. This is almost an exact quote from the book, and appears to be a wink by Clarke to the fans who complained about the sequence in the 2001 novel where the monolith transferred all of Bowman's memories into his new form, which was represented by what was essentially a filmstrip of his life running backwards. The human brain... doesn't work that way.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Even with the end of the Cold War, political barriers that prevents international cooperation in space exploration still occur. For instance, US legislation prevents NASA from cooperating with China's CNSA, therefore barring China from participating in the International Space Station, and leading the CNSA to build their own space station Tiangong.
  • In the early days of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Roscosmos threatened to end cooperation with NASA and ESA, stop using Russian spacecraft to boost the International Space Station's orbit, and detach the Russian section of the station to operate independently, which bore an eerie resemblance to the orders to segregate the Soviet and American crews in 2010. However, as it became apparent that the war was going badly for Russia, this rhetoric seems to have been quietly dropped.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The USSR and Cold War still exist in 2010... 2001 had Russians, but no indication of Soviets. 2001 was more accurate in “predicting” the future.
  • Dave Bowman's widow is seen wearing an off-the-shoulder Flashdance-style T-shirt. These actually came back into fashion in the real 2010.
  • Dr. Floyd's son has a poster of the Olympics in his bedroom reading "Beijing '08" at the bottom. For added flavor, keep in mind that this film was made in 1984, and that the IOC wouldn't declare Beijing host of the 2008 games until... 2001.
  • The film also correctly predicted that the head of NASA in the year 2010 would be African-American.
  • One of Milson's lines implied that the American President in 2010 would be a Republican. While that prediction was a complete miss, Clarke's Creator Cameo as the President^note on the cover of Time makes a passable Dick Cheney.^note VP under George W. Bush, so the "heir apparent" if he ran in 2008.^note The line also implied that Milson started under a Democrat, which proved true with Bolden.
    One good thing about a reactionary President: we get to eat; under the last guy, we grazed.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER, USE THEM IN PEACE.
  • "You see, something's going to happen." "What?" "Something WONDERFUL."
  • "My God, it's full of [X]!"
  • Humorous variations on the title of the film were used quite a lot as newspaper headlines in the year of 2010.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • "Dave's" visit to his wife through the television. While his message is supposed to be reassuring, the soundtrack gives the scene a creepy feel, as does "Dave's" distorted voice and the weird flickering light in his eyes.
  • When Heywood tells HAL that he can't do something drastic without knowing who's sending the message, HAL replies, "I understand. It is important that you believe me. Look Behind You." The orchestral warning and the Oh, Crap! look on Heywood's face makes for a seriously spooky moment. And then, all the stuff that follows...
  • The creepily distorted version of Bowman's "My god, it's full of stars!" that plays right before the recap.
  • In one scene, the tensions between the superpowers get so bad that the two crews are forcibly separated from one another. The space agency director's haunting words and the music make the scene subtly chilling.
• So Okay, It's Average: 2010 is certainly no masterpiece on par with 2001, but it is still considered a decent science film on its own.
• Special Effects Failure: Gloriously averted throughout the film, but on VHS copies of the film, the glow from the travelling mattes/"garbage mattes" of spacecraft are clearly visible. They are much less so in DVD and Blu-ray editions of the film.
• Vindicated by History: Time has freed the baggage of the film as a sequel to 2001 and it is much more appreciated nowadays, especially with the separate questions it raises about human nature and life.

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