2001: A Space Odyssey is a film classic that I only in recent years was able to wrap my head around after the 3rd viewing in my lifetime. So it makes sense that it would take me awhile to get around to this sequel that came almost 15 years after the original. What I found interesting about it right off the bat is that just without Stanley Kubrick, the tone of the film changes drastically. 2010 does a lot of things right, but exists in a Monolith sized shadow that is hard to ignore. What it has though is a cast of great actors and a really interesting concept... what if they went back?Being that I've watched both films well after their original release, I have a unique perspective on the reason for the film or maybe it's intentions. Clearly, there are several sequels to the original book that the 2001 film was based on, but at the time of release space movies were catching on fire in the theaters. Things that resembled hits like Star Wars in the theaters and Star Trek from television, were all the rage and movies like Alien were finding themselves audiences. It may just be me, but I felt a lot of Alien influence in this film with the plot being similar and the portrayal of the ship(s). The crew going back to a puzzling, lost ship in space to see what happened on an expedition of course reminded me of the simple concept behind Alien and many other space thrillers, "what if they go back?"Without Kubrick, I felt that the space sequences inside of the spaceships really lacked the style or polish that 2001 had. There was something magical in the way that scenes were constructed in the original, to where all of the interior sequences in 2010 seem styled after Alien. The all-white interior no longer had the shine of 2001, but the dark, ominous feeling of trouble in space. It's a standard science fiction plot, but 2010 benefits from being the successor to one of film's all-time classics. These movies were like the Interstellar of old, where they really tried to tackle existential concepts by using space as the backdrop of the human experience. 2001 does so by plotting a human against a robot, and 2010 does so in pitting many of them against artificial intelligence in the final frontier.Roy Scheider stars as the captain of the ship, who has to go back to see what happened to the original crew. "My God, it's full of stars" is the communication he listens to over and over, wondering what it is in space that he is searching for. I found it funny that I knew of him as a captain of a boat that hunts a giant shark in Jaws, and here he is captaining a crew to hunt the lost voyage of a prior expedition in space. Helen Mirren plays a Russian crewmate which is where the politics of the space race is also tied into the story, showing its age and also reasons for popularity or release in the 80s.2010 also stars a young John Lithgow who has quite possibly one of the worst scenes that I think I've ever seen in a film, due to no fault of his I'd hope. In a sequence where he goes out into space with another crewmate, he cannot breathe normally as instructed by the captain. He starts breathing really shallow and at a rapid pace, which for some reason someone on the film thought would be best laid out to play over the entire scene and every other one that is cut into it. It becomes quite irritating to listen to what sounds like a panting dog for nearly 10 minutes, but otherwise the film is really well-crafted for the time.Overall, this is a pretty good sequel and entry into the science fiction genre. It's not for everyone, but I'd say it largely benefits from the classic film before it by giving it very significant context. Otherwise, it's a fairly standard film that you see the likes of still today and doesn't particularly hold up in any particular way. If you're interested in continuing your voyage after Kubrick's 2001 or are going through the discography of many of this film's great actors, this film is worth watching for the right price. I definitely want to read the books now seeing how this story has continued and added even more thought-provoking concepts.Case came in great condition with a Blu-ray disc that contains only 1 very dated behind-the-scenes Special Feature.