The Jules Verne Festival celebrates the 40th Anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Oct. 12, 2008, Part Eight (Continued)
The show began with a welcome from JVA founders Jean-Christophe Jeauffre and Frederic Dieudonne. JVA creators presented a check to a representative, which was dedicated to all the children of Los Angeles. They then announced their plan to auction off model-maker Scott Alexander's Discovery One XML spacecraft and donate the funds from the sale to the same cause.
Scott Alexander's Discovery One XML spacecraft and signange. Nobody bought the model.
Wally Fields introduced the host of the 2001 event, Ben Mankiewicz from Turner Broadcasting, to the stage. Then Mankiewicz welcomed 2001 star Kier Dullea, who played astronaut Dave Bowman, to the stage and the audience erupted into applause. Dullea sat down carefully on the oddly-shaped Djinn sofa as the ominous red eye of HAL 9000 appeared on the large video screen behind him and the voice of HAL, played by Wally Fields, greeted him. As Wally describes in his ning blog, Dullea didn't have the advantage of a script in front of him. He was supposed to correct Fields and say, "Call me Keir" and he did, but not before accidentally calling Fields Dave! HAL replied with something like: "I see things haven't changed... you still flub your lines." Keir laughed, as did the audience. It was eerie to hear Fields play HAL with Dave Bowman.
Mankiewicz interviewed Dullea for a few minutes and then brought Vivian Kubrick onto the stage for a brief interview. Actor Daniel Richter, who performed as the lead man-ape in the film's opening sequences, was next to join them, and talk about his role working on the set of 2001.
