2001: A Space Odyssey has been a personal obsession for years. Since I first saw the movie many moons ago, I’ve praised the genius and brilliant execution of its minimal, modernist visual aesthetic. From the futuristic look of Space Station 5, to HAL’s red eye of death, to the amazingly detailed and scientifically accurate spaceship Discovery One, I’m constant awe that these visuals were conceived and executed over 40 years ago.

Say what you will about the movie, to me there hasn’t been a movie that’s employed silence so well. Ultimately, though, this movie is all about the visuals, which brings me to my favourite scene of the movie. This scene unfolds as Dave Bowman boards an EVA Pod to save his shipmate Frank Poole, after the psychotic HAL (his psychosis is still up for debate though) had his way with him while trying to repair Discovery One’s failing transmission antennae. The overhead shot of Dave Bowman piloting his EVA Pod drives my eyes crazy, in a good way. The composition of his dashboard and colouring of the controls is what I love. It’s perfect eye Candy and just goes on and on while you hear a few bleeps and blips and Dave’s air supply in the background. A perfect tension building device.

So, after watching the movie on Blu Ray for the first time and seeing many details I could never see before, I decided to create a desktop background of this scene for my work and home computers. The result, with a little help from Photoshop, is pretty amazing. I’ve created a 1920 X 1200 version of the background so download it and set it as your own desktop background if you’d like.