2001 and Beyond

2001 & Beyond

This one-hour documentary unveils the creation of one of the truly magnificent films of our age. Kubrick and Clarke's 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, was four years in the making. 2001 AND BEYOND travels back nearly 40 years to explores every stage of its evolution.

Participants include Screenwriter ARTHUR C. CLARKE, Visual effects supervisors DOUGLAS TRUMBULL and WALLY GENTLEMAN, actor KEIR ("DAVE BOWMAN") DULLEA, actor/choreographer DANIEL ("MOONWATCHER") RICHTER, Former NASA Chief Administrator Daniel Goldin, physicist FREEMAN DYSON, authors LARRY NIVEN and ROBERT J. SAWYER, and many more.

2001 AND BEYOND contains never-before aired footage of Stanley Kubrick at work and play on the set, along with stories and anecdotes from the actors and technicians who worked closely with him each day.

The film also details the parallel history of our actual and on-screen adventure in space, from the shooting days of 2001 to the long-awaited target year and beyond. And we look at the origin of much of the technology featured in the film, most of which was based upon real designs from the era.

Did you know the film's spacecraft Discovery was originally going to be modeled after a very real, top-secret project from the early 1960s to explore the outer solar system using a huge spacecraft powered by a nuclear pulse engine - basically a series of exploding nuclear bombs? One of Project Orion's designers explains the evolution and ultimate fate of this "Star Trek"-ian spacecraft, while recalling his own very odd experiences on the set of "2001".

"2001 AND BEYOND" first aired on The Discovery Channel (Canada) on Thursday January 11th, 2001 at 10:00 PM eastern time.