2001: A Space Remake: a story by: GF Willmetts.
‘Put that by me again. You want to remake ‘2001’? The Kubrick movie. Why?’
The producer looked ardently at the director, not sure if he should have dollar signs in his eyes.
‘Well, at least you’ve heard of it. Hopefully seen it, too.’
‘Once or twice, a long time ago. Again, why?’
‘No one’s done it before except for ‘The Shining’. It’s just some of the views have changed over the years. Take the opening apes scenes. One of them kills a tapir and eats it. So do the rest of them. That puts off the vegetarians and vegans from watching any further.
‘Then he murders the opposing tribe’s boss. Hardly a good prospect for the future, is it? I mean, the next scene shows the future with nukes orbiting the Earth. Is this the monolith masterplan? To have mankind at each other’s throats for a couple thousand years just before we send a mission to Jupiter to see what it wants and go in peace?’
‘How can you make that better?’
‘The Monolith gets the apes to learn how to farm. Pick the right vegetables. Introduce fire. Be nice guys. Invite the other tribe over, so it becomes one big family. Real neighbourly. Becomes a family movie.’
‘And then kill them?’
‘No, no, no. It just removes that rivalry. A future with less pollution and enemies. No wars. Maybe not even a religion. A thousand years of bad history wiped out at once. Think of that at the box office. It can even justify calling it ‘1001: A Space Odyssey’ and people will think it a prequel.’
‘And the man-apes evolve?’
‘Not if we don’t have to. Give ‘em suits and such but we have a different history.’
‘Like having Planet Of The Apes meets 2001? They did originally come out at the same time.’
‘If you like and the budget is there. It sends out a message to the viewer. We can have peace and space. Great slogan by the way. How often do we give messages in a movie anymore?’
The producer paused to drink his coffee. ‘We’d need a better date. Sometime further into the future. That can be decided later. What always puzzled me is the change in violence from the apes to the space wheel. Floyd should have thumped the Russian guy Smyslov for being nosy about American security. He was obviously a spy.’
‘He didn’t do. His people did. We are supposed to be at peace with the Russians. Floyd is supposed to be friendly with them not a thug.’
‘Not according to the sequel when they had a war going on for two years. This is a remake for the modern age.’
‘And…?’
‘Why not combine the films together. The Russians aren’t that slow getting intelligence. They would certainly wonder at the American rush to Jupiter with frozen crew and send one of their own spaceships to see what they’re up to.’
‘Aren’t we missing the Moon trip?’
‘That can be shortened. Kubrick used that to get his money’s worth out of the Blue Danube.’
‘I thought it was to show how long a trip was from the Earth to the Moon, show the Russian interest, establish something odd was discovered and then show a second monolith. Back then, Man hadn’t reached the Moon…well, not outside of films. Quite a lot was happening.’
‘People are familiar with it. It can be shortened and even included in Floyd’s speech to Bowman. Give more time for the Russians to catch up. Hell, we might even put the Chinese in there. Indians, too. Get world-wide appeal.’
‘Speaking of Bowman, I still want his and HAL fighting it out.’
‘Keep the violent aspects. Bowman brains HAL with a stick rather than pull his memory chips out.’
‘HAL’s a computer. Fat lot of good that will do unless you make him a robot. Anyway, if we have those other spaceships nearby, Bowman could just as easy get to one of those and the chase is on. The Discovery goes through the giant monolith and evolves into the new entity Starchild.’
‘Or the other spaceships stop the Discovery some way and someone else goes. Hey, they could all go. World-wide sales.’
‘Or we could have the first star wars. Space battles still sell. Best one wins.’
‘Which one has the biggest stick?’
‘All right, so they all go. Maybe age or the monolith arrives early to look them over before selecting all or one to become the starchild.’
‘You can have an even better message that Kubrick. Like, they do that the apes and astronauts on the Moon did, inspect it and then attack each other with sticks. Message being, all that evolution and Man still hasn’t learnt anything. That would make a better message than that…what was it? Manipulated evolution.’
‘What about ‘Forbidden Planet’? Maybe we should look there as well? Bring the Krell in at the end to kick the monolith over.’
‘That gets too complicated. We can always reboot ‘Forbidden Planet’ later.’
‘I’m beginning to think we have two films here,’ the potential director muttered.
‘Two remakes a couple years apart. That has possibilities. You want a more family film and I want something showing Man hasn’t changed much from being a violent ape. Both make money,’ this time the producer was sure dollar signs were showing.
‘Both can show the starchild getting a big stick?’
cue music
end
© GF Willmetts 2021
All rights reserved
Please ask before borrowing
As a satire no copyright infringements on
the 1968 film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ are intended.
It’s more a matter of pointing out
the difficulties of making a remake.
