Zu den Restaurierungen von "2001" in 2018 bemerkte Kubricks späterer Assistent Leon Vitali:
Q: What did you think of Christopher Nolan's yellow print on 2001: A Space Odyssey? He was probably preserving the film.
LV: " I understand that the big romance with film doesn't exist in digital. It's just two different things, we should never try to compare them.
I did the full K print of 2001, and then I went and did the color timing on the 70mm print. They are totally different animals. You can't think or look at them in the same way. With film, you make one color change, it's the whole picture changes with it. Digital, you get into a little corner, you can get into a shadow area and you can keep that part the same. You can do anything. It's a new creative tool you've got.
But with film, whatever you change, the whole picture changes with it. So you have to be very careful. And there has to be a lot of compromise. There really does. If you want to see deep into the shadow areas, the rest of the picture may look washed out, pale. You've got to figure those things out.
That's what I love about the work. Because you're constantly trying to figure things out and make them work in some way or another. I applaud Chris Nolan for wanting to keep celluloid film alive. He respects Stanley, and he's a big big big big fan. Being a fan is one thing. There are millions of fans, and they all have a different idea of what something should be like, or what it should look like. But I applaud his efforts to keep it. It reminds me of vinyl LPs coming back, maybe the same is going to happen with film, the specialized way of showing something on screen. Who knows? It becomes quite tribal in a way."
Etlichen Punkten darf widersprochen werden.
