Docking With the Future
In comparable scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Interstellar, we see how science fiction has evolved in what it holds important.
“I first saw 2001 on 70mm when I was seven years old,” Christopher Nolan said in 2018 presenting an unrestored print of Stanley Kubrick’s space opera at Cannes for its 50th anniversary, “and I think that to a certain extent I’ve been chasing that experience with all of my own work.” I can relate to Nolan’s affection for the film because my own story with it is quite similar. I was twelve, not seven, but I did see it for the first time in a theater (the AFI Silver) in 70mm. It was November 2014, and just a couple weeks earlier I had seen Interstellar on its opening weekend at the Uptown, the biggest screen in D.C. and incidentally the theater where 2001 had its world premiere in 1968. The composite experience of seeing those two films on huge screens in such a short period was probably more impactful than any other at getting me to start exploring cinema seriously, so I associate the two films tightly and consider each very important to me.
