Film Review: 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

Science fiction films, at least those with plots set in fixed points of future time, run risk of looking obsolete when their fictional visions fail to resemble reality. This is fate that was mostly evaded by 2001: A Space Odyssey, undisputed genre classic and one of the best films ever made, even when it became obvious that real life 2001 would look very different from the one depicted in Kubrick’s masterpiece. History was, however, somewhat less kind to its sequel, 1984 film 2010: The Year We Make Contact, directed by Peter Hyams.

The film is based on 2010: Odyssey Two, novel by British author (and co-writer of 2001) Arthur C. Clarke. The plot begins nine years after the events depicted in the first film and summarised in the opening, which describes how exploration mission of US space ship USS Discovery failed after ship’s computer HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain) went insane and the last surviving crew member Dave Bowman (played by Keir Dullea) disappeared while approaching mysterious large monolith in Jupiter’s orbit. Discovery is now losing its orbit and Heywood Floyd (played by Roy Scheider), former head of US National Council of Astronautics who blames himself for the failure, is more than willing to accept Soviet offer to bring him and few other American astronauts on Jupiter mission aboard Soviet onboard Soviet spaceship Leonov. Floyd, together with HAL’s creator and computer expert Dr. Chandra (played by Bob Balaban) and Discovery’s engineer Walter Curnow (played by John Lithgow) joins the Soviet crew led by initially hostile Tanya Kirbuk (played by Helen Mirren). As Soviet ship approaches its destination, political situation on Earth worsens with USA and USSR getting close to open warfare. All that seems to be of little concerns for crew of Leonov, which is more concerned with practical issues of their mission and finding answers why HAL 9000 malfunctioned, where Dave Bowman disappeared and whether huge monolith has something to do with life forms that might dwell under the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa.

When 2010 appeared in cinema, many fans of 2001 expressed displeasure and feared that the legendary film’s legacy might be forever tarnished by predictably inferior sequel. Although Peter Hyams happened to be quite capable film maker, with his previous film Outland even having the same Jupiter setting as 2010, few believed that his work could match epic scope and cold perfection of Kubrick’s work. Hyams probably didn’t believe too and his ambitions were quite toned down; for him 2010 was just an opportunity to deliver another stylish but rather conventional space adventure story. The mystery of 2001 ending leaving room for countless different interpretation was replaced with straightforward and simplistic approach (although ending in this film is more in line with Sentinel, Clarke’s short story which served as template for Kubrick’s film). Hyams also used this approach to make his film not only look but feel original, while trying to be as faithful to the first film as possible. In that he had good assistance by talented art designers and composer David Shire, whose synthesiser-heavy soundtrack works well with the popular “Also Spracht Zarathustra” theme from the first film. Hyams as cinematographer did very good job at the scenes that take place at Leonov, a ship that is very different from Discovery (which appears in relatively few scenes) and looks much darker and warmer.

The most noticeable difference between two films is in characters, who are much warmer. This is especially so in the case of Heywood Floyd, who was played by William Sylvester in previous film as cold bureaucrat. In this film he is played by always dependable (and much younger) Roy Scheider as dedicated family man whose letters home serve as narration and skilfully provide exposition to audience unfamiliar to 2001 or hard science issues that play important part of the plot. Scheider does good job, just as Keir Dullea as Bowman repeats the best role of his career. Hyams, who also wrote the script, allows the film some humour that was lacking in 2001 and even allows audience to get emotionally attached to characters, especially in case of Curnow and his newly-found best friend and Soviet crewmate Max (played by Elya Baskin).

Hyams as director, producer and cinematographer uses his skill well and manages to produce film that, while expectedly failing to meet high standards of its predecessor, still serves as a very good piece of science fiction cinema. However, as scriptwriter, Hyams is responsible for the film’s biggest flaw – not hiding that is product of its time. Subplot dealing with Cold War escalation seems to be overly influenced by 1984 news headlines, including Central America as the most likely theatre where the war could ultimately turn hot. Only seven years later USSR self-imploded in real life, making this film and its premise looking more obsolete than in case of 2001 where Cold War motives served more as semi-ironic flavour than one of the main points of the plot. Hyams was perhaps, like many in early 1980s, scared that the Cold War might indeed escalate into humanity-ending apocalypse and used this film to preach peace, coexistence and co-operation. Because of that, in post-Cold War decades that came, 2010 looked more dated than Kubrick’s film. On the other hand, in more recent times, when the winds of new conflict between superpowers are blowing again, strong pacifist message at the end of this film doesn’t look that superfluous.

RATING: 7/10 (++)

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