The very beginning of the movie is like an orchestra tuning up; there's black, before you even see the MGM logo there’s a droning orchestra fading in with the picture. It’s blackness, and music, and then the MGM logo. The film immediately suggests itself as something more than just commodity, since there is something pre-MGM logo, and then there’s the BUM BUM BUM BUM, it has a theatrical intro. STANLEY KUBRICK- 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY!
Then the first sequence begins, and it’s untamed and so real, it's surreal; moreso, it begins with the monkeys, and pig looking things, tapirs. He has these monkey people in suits, but like really fucking good ones, and they’re yelling and screaming at the tapirs to leave but they won’t do so. You can see how frustrated and anxious these monkey people are throughout the whole sequence too, they stay awake in the cave because they hear roaring so they sense it’s too dangerous to fall asleep, and it’s the beginning of a futuristic sci-fi movie, it’s amazing.
Then a yellow eyed wild cat kills a fucking guy, and it’s not CGI, it’s not a puppet or anything like that, it’s so fucking real.
Then the monolith shows up and there’s the crazy YEEehuhYEEYEEYEEehheyYEYE, like an anxious choir chanting, HEEYEYEHEEYEYEYeuuehYEEH, and they chant over each other and it introduces the monolith as powerful and chaotic. And when the monkeys lean in to touch the monolith but at first its sort of too hot to touch but then they’re really able to trace their hands along it. And as soon as that scene begins to really warm up, it cuts to just gorgeous scenery and natural beauty which is all filmed here but it looks so foreign and mars-like, its incredible, and it leaves you unresolved and nauseous, begging for more.
Then there’s the transition with the bone, it’s almost corny but it’s good, where a monkey man throws a bone into the air and as it spirals back down it cuts perfectly into a shot of a spaceship. Then this beautiful music charges up and sort of suggests that there’s beauty in our aggression; that our aggression leads to things that are celestial and beautiful.
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