Given that it is now 2010 it seemed a good time to re-watch this film from 1984.
2001 A Space Odyssey was always going to be a tough act to follow, iconic and posing more questions about its meaning than it ever answered.
2010 has burden of having to provide some answers with a joint Russian/American mission back to Jupiter to re-board the stricken Discovery.
As a backdrop to the whole mission is tension between America and Russia back on Earth, which seems more stuck in 1984 than 2010. Also it is interesting to see the take on how technology would look, they are pretty unambitious here - other than than the (still) futuristic HAL all the other computers on board ship look like they are from the 1980s.
We learn why HAL malfunctioned, essentially conflicting orders from above. We do not learn much more about the Jupiter monolith. A warning is given to the crew to get out of the Jupiter system that needs HAL's cooperation to perform the engine firing. A scene of tension is played out between the creator of HAL being questioned by the computer over why they are leaving so abruptly.
Despite the flaws mentioned I still like this film, it is stuck in its time and perhaps did not make enough of an attempt to predict life in 2010. Of course the things it did predict it got wrong, manned missions on this scale are still a long way off.
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