Review Detail

I thought this was a tremendously successful edit! It absolutely redeemed this film. The original is, in my opinion, the greatest film ever made. This opinion means that I’ve always felt pretty negatively about this sequel. Subjectzero’s edit has really caused me to reevaluate this film.
The music substitution was perfect. Ditching the sax and synth heavy original score alone drug this into the same universe with its distinguished older sibling. I have mixed feelings about the musical prelude over the black screen, simply because I feel it sets the film up to be something it is not, namely an artistic continuation of A Space Odyssey. However, I can see the reason behind including it. It allows the viewer who has seen and enjoyed the original version of this film to adjust their expectations.
I really enjoyed the additional footage pulled in from Ad Astra, Interstellar, and Jupiter Ascending. I agree it would be perfect if the insert shots could be graded (or degraded) to match the footage from the original. However, that’s a very small quibble.
My biggest criticism with this edit is that it cuts too much from the final scene between Hal and Dr. Chandra. I felt like there was meaningful character growth from Chandra that was displayed when he responded to Hal’s “will I dream” question with an honest, “I don’t know”. This perfectly bookends Chandra’s conversation with Sal at the beginning of the film, in which he tells her with certainty that she will dream as “all intelligent creatures dream”. I just felt like the dialogue in this scene was trimmed a bit too harshly. We need the back and forth between Hal and Chandra to truly feel the emotional weight of Hal’s acceptance of his fate. And to make the reactions of Floyd and the rest of the crew to Hal’s “I understand” feel more earned.

I really can't recommend this edit highly enough. This will definitely replace "2010: The Year We Make Contact" as the sequel that comes much, much closer to being the one that should have followed A Space Odyssey.