2001: An Internet Odyssey

Posted Wednesday, April 11, 2001 at 4:34 PM Central

by John Couture

The late, great Stanley Kubrick would be proud indeed. The year in which he portrayed man taking frequent trips to space and manned explorations to Jupiter, man is conquering new horizons in space, cyberspace that is.

Following a standard first set by the makers of The Blair Witch Project in terms Internet marketing of films, a crop of new films are using the Internet in truly unique ways to complement the films themselves. One of those movies is A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, ironically the last project that Kubrick planned to take on before his untimely death.

For A.I., director Steven Spielberg, who ironically took the helm of this project after Kubrick's passing out of respect for him, has fashioned a vast network of "real" websites set in the mid 22nd century. If that wasn't all, he didn't even publicize the sites. He embedded a cryptic hint in one of A.I.'s theatrical trailers which led fans here, a launching pad if you will to a hidden cyberspace world.

Another movie recently took a completely different approach to the Internet. The movie Rock Star made a barebones, fan site for the fictional band in the movie, complete with a self-referential plug for star Mark Wahlberg. You can find that site here.

All in all, 2001 IS shaping up to be a year of surprises, uncharted territory and robots out of control...