10 Movie Scenes That Fans Tried To "Fix"

4. The Iconic Match Cut Matches "Perfectly" - 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Edit

There's no match cut in the history of cinema more iconic or memorable than the jaw-dropping one from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

At the end of the opening "Dawn of Man" sequence, a bone flies up into the air and, as it spins, Kubrick cuts to a similarly-shaped spaceship floating through space. It's a perfect embodiment of man's journey from discovering its first tool to harnessing space flight, and absolutely breathtaking.

But some have taken umbrage with the fact that Kubrick doesn't make the match cut a precise, 1:1 match between the position of the bone and the spaceship, prompting fans to "fix" the scene themselves.

Did It Work?

Functionally yes, this re-edit works, though many Kubrick fans have also criticised it for being too safe and predictable, something few would ever accuse the filmmaker himself of being.

Moreover, the "continuity of motion," as one YouTube commenter puts it, feels less pronounced in this more precise match cut, whereas in the original version, the flow of the camera movement is decidedly smoother.

Basically, putting the hatchet to Kubrick was always going to be a thankless task, and bar the OCD proclivities of those who hate that the shots don't match precisely, there wasn't really anything here to be fixed in the first place.