The parts in 2001: ASO that looks like they are in zero gravity (they're close enough.)
Err, no.
There are three sequences which take place in zero G; the Pan Am flight, Bowman's re-entry to the Discovery, and the lobotomy of HAL.
Within the Pan Am flight, the following is shown; a man strapped in his seat, asleep, with one arm moving as if weightless. Two pilots, also strapped in their seats, moving normally. A stewardess in (purportedly) velcro shoes, walking in an unusual fashion but otherwise showing no signs of lower gravity. A trick shot of the same actress moving VERY carefully in a rotating set. And two FX shots of a pen, neither of which is the least convincing in describing a free trajectory or motion about its own center of gravity.
In both other sequences, the actor is suspended from a single-point flying rig; in the famous entry sequence, the camera is looking straight up and Bowman is being lowered towards it. His motions -- such as the complete lack of any movement about any other than a single axis -- reveals the trick. The lobotomy sequence breaks this up by shooting from several different directions, but the actor never propels himself or somersaults or does any of the other motions other astronauts typically perform in zero G. He stays in a single limited orientation throughout the sequence.
I believe I might suggest you watch the film before making further commentary on it.
The scenes shot on the moon were intentionally made to look bad.
So lemme get this straight; your best evidence that the Apollo surface video would be easy to fake is that there is a contemporary movie
that does a bad job of faking it?Are you even listening to yourself here?
Kubrick would have been told to do an intentionally bad job showing them walking on the moon in 1968, a time when he would have been working for NASA. The moon scenes are the only scenes in the movie that look fake. The lack of continuity is obvious and sticks out like a sore thumb. Kubrick knew walking on the moon wouldn't have looked like that.
You got one thing right; Kubrick knew better, and made choices for drama and story-telling.
You are wrong otherwise. Every space scene is flawed. The lack of any real zero-G and the failure of most of the gags that were used. The presence of stars (and absence of a real starscape). The line-up of the planets, astronomically implausible and wrongly proportioned. The various circular promenades; from the stumbling Russians up on the curve of the space station, to the lack of any shot where both astronauts are moving freely around the Discovery ring at the same time.
And you are still requiring that Kubrick...that Stanley Kubrick, the man whose picture appears in the definition for "auteur film-maker"...would chose to produce intentionally poor shots that sabotaged the quality of his most ambitious film.
For what? For the loan of a couple lenses? (Good lenses, but still...!)
But I'm unwilling to accept your premise here. 2001 is a great film, and the choices are sound for that film. He didn't arbitrarily insert a jaguar to the detriment of the Dawn of Man sequence because he was getting a pay-off from the fledgling Apple Corporation (looking forward a few decades to their cat-themed operating systems). And he didn't chose claustrophobic shots filled with glare and stately motion because he was requested to do so as a contrast to the radically different kinds of shots of Apollo EVAs.
Sheesh. As if you wanted a man who told stories and was famed for lighting and the framing of image and the creative use of FILM to direct long unbroken video from a single camera moving restlessly about the same landscape for hour after hour.
The first hoaxie that mentions Doug Trumbell instead will have my undying admiration. Still a poor match, but....!
