This belated sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is
directed by Peter Hyams. Roy Scheider plays the astronaut/skipper of a
U.S.-Soviet space mission, sent to find out what happened to the missing
Discovery flight that carried Keir Dullea into the beyond in the
original 2001. Scheider's polyglot crew includes Americans John Lithgow
and Bob Balaban (the latter a computer whiz, responsible for the
notorious HAL 9000) and Russians Helen Mirren, Elya Baskin and Natasha
Schneider.
The reason for
this international mixture is that the world is on the brink of nuclear
war, and it is hoped that the space mission will assure east-west
solidarity (in this respect, 2010 dates far more than 2001, given the
collapse of the Iron Curtain). When the astronauts catch up with Dullea,
still in orbit around Jupiter, producer/director/writer Hyams attempts
to demystify the enigmatic climax of 2001. Arthur C. Clarke, author of
the story upon which 2001 was based, appears in 2010 as a man on a park
bench. Incidentally, the voice-over credited to Olga Mallsnerd is
actually Candice Bergen. (The name Mallsnerd is a play on the name of
one of the characters created by her ventriloquist father Edgar.)
Directed By:
Peter Hyams
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