I wasn't aware that
Stanley Kubrick had cut 17 minutes out of the finished cut of
2001: A Space Odyssey that premiered in 1968 but I'm sure curious. It seems the footage was initially axed due to pacing issues and would never be screened again, and over time it seemed like it was lost to the world.
Doug Trumbull, who worked on the visual effects of the film (and would later go on to direct the excellent Bruce Dern sci-fi thriller
Silent Running) announced the unexpected news at a special screening of the film in Toronto that Warner Bros. have found the complete and perfectly preserved component negatives of the lost footage in a salt mine in Kansas. Warners are now mulling over ideas of what to do with it. What could the new footage show?
Herc at AICN pointed out this segment from
Wiki...
Kubrick filmed several scenes that were deleted from the final film. These include a schoolroom on the moon basea painting class that included Kubrick's daughters, additional scenes of life on the base, Floyd buying a bush baby from a department store via videophone for his daughter, details about the daily life on Discovery, additional space walks, astronaut Bowman retrieving a spare part from an octagonal corridor, a number of cuts from the Poole murder sequence including the entire space walk preparation and shots of HAL turning off radio contact with Pooleexplaining the non sequitur of HAL's response to Bowman's question, and notably a close-up shot of Bowman picking up a slipper during his walk in the alien roomthe slipper can still be seen behind him in what was then the next shot. The most notable cut was a 10-minute black-and-white opening sequence featuring interviews with actual scientists, including Freeman Dyson, discussing extraterrestrial life, which Kubrick removed after an early screening for MGM executives. The actual text survives in the book The Making of Kubrick's 2001 by Jerome Agel. If the music intro and outro are included, 29 minutes of film have been excised from the theatrical version.
There is of course a good chance the footage will never see the light of day because unlike say the newly found reels of
Metropolis that were recently restored where previously
Fritz Lang's final cut had simply been lost over time, Kubrick's final cut of 2001 was the one shown in theatres and on home video after that initial premiere. The version we are all familiar of is his director's cut, and the footage was left out for a reason... because he thought it bored audiences and was unnecessary. With Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey having already been out
a few years on Blu-ray, Warner Bros. might be reluctant to ask fans to double dip, either as supplementary extras, or cut back into a now extended transfer, because not everyone is going to go crazy over 17 minutes of film. As much as those like me and you, and others who are Obsessed With Film, and who know every single frame of 2001, inside/out would want to see it... does the average Joe Blu-ray have much desire to lay down £10+ again?
What do you think should be done with the footage? Do you want to see it released, either as extras on a new Blu-ray or restored into the film??