As a surprisingly forum-appropriate yet off-topic aside, I'm sure all 2001 aficionados know that Kubrick commissioned a de novo film score, delivered by Alex North, which he ultimately discarded (perhaps apropos of Mr. Brennan's penile comment above).
Some years back, that score was released; I'd encourage 2001 fanboys/completists to give it a listen.
The story I've always heard is that the early test screenings, at least for the studio executives, received such a glowing response to the test score made up of existing classical music recordings that Kubrick decided (and was possibly pressured a bit) into using it as-is.
The glacial pace was , I believe, a very deliberate choice by the filmmaker.
Not a lot of explosions, nor even funny aliens.
I do feel bad for Kubrick's lack of foresight in imagining that Pan Am and IBM (umm... HAL) would still be iconic brands in the 21st Century.
oops.
IBM is still a pretty iconic brand, and still builds a lot of high-end industrial and scientific computers. They're one of the companies that have been pioneering the AI industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)
Zoroastrianism is an ancient monotheistic religion; perhaps the oldest (I am too lazy to actually look it up).
Yeah, I forgot the Bell System videophone.
I do remember the zero-g toilet instructions -- "the film's only intentional joke"
As to the book "vs." the movie; the book was, as I recall, written after the movie -- although based on the early intention to have the extra-terrestrial setting to be Saturn rather than Jupiter (them rings, you know; a bleedin' sign, they are, eh what?). I like the book, but it's cut from a very different cloth than the movie.
Also, as to an earlier comment about 1968 and what we did or didn't "know" about space -- don't forget that the movie was in production for a long, long time (most of the sixties, again, if memory serves).
Another movie hjames probably doesn't like is Silent Running, made by 2001 special effects maven Douglas Trumbull and starring the weird, talented Bruce Dern.
Silent Running does tackle Saturn, and introduces us, literally, to the movie forebears of another galaxy's Artoo Detoo
The last scene of Silent Running always makes me sniffle a little bit when I watch it.
The book and movie were written concurrently, Kubrick and Clarke bounced ideas back and forth, and both had final release approval on both versions. The book came out shortly after the film because, in one of Kubrick's infamous dick moves, he withheld his approval of the novel just long enough to make sure that the film would be released a few weeks before the book.