Two years after Star Trek had premiered on network television and many years before Star Wars was a glimmer in George Lucas’ eye, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was released.

It was 1968 and not everyone thought that commercial space travel, artificial intelligence or extraterrestrials were evocative of a future to be. Maybe it was the long view of Kubrick’s take on the future fate of humankind through the use of a genre that focused on little green men & flying saucers. There’s quite a few themes kicking around the plot which could, understandably, throw some into a existential funk or stop watching to go find less ambitious content. His film is beautiful to watch, but not everyone will be down with it’s ambitious storytelling as well as a plot spanning millions of years.

Reviewer Pauline Kael wrote this in her Harper’s Magazine article from over half a century ago: “The ponderous blurry appeal of the picture may be that it takes stoned audience out of this world to a consoling vision of a graceful world of space.” My take away when I read this was that cannabis enthusiasts were pushing the envelop of cinematic storytelling by supporting such a visionary, timeless work. Or maybe 2001 is the perfect Marijuana Movie Night flick. I watched it again a few weeks ago to see where my spacecraft landed on the topic. Depending on what mood or high you are rocking when you put it on, your space/time mileage will vary.

There is a future retro feel to the art direction which makes the film look as legitimately modern as its big brain themes. 2001 is a strange journey into the now. OK,. well that’s not exactly right. It’s more like a not-so-far-off-future from now, but without the misery of global warming, war, economic inequality or rising authoritarianism. Find your nearest cannabis stash and be like Dave Bowman, tripping balls inside his space pod, facing potential evolution or annihilation, whichever comes first.