Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: Both director Stanley Kubrick and author Arthur C. Clarke originally chose Jupiter as the Discovery's destination, and production of the Jupiter sequences and elaborate special effects were already finished ("in the can") when Kubrick abruptly decided to change the destination to Saturn. Kubrick thought Saturn with its rings would be more visually exciting than the Jupiter footage that he had already finished, so he ordered his special effects team to begin work on the Saturn effects. At the same time, Arthur C. Clarke changed the destination to Saturn in his "2001" novel that he was writing concurrent with the movie's production. Stanley Kubrick was well known for making such sudden and costly changes in the middle of production, but money wasn't really an issue; in fact, when Kubrick showed MGM studio heads and investors his early special effects footage, they were so awestruck that they all agreed to pay any price for the finished film. The real reason that Kubrick didn't go to Saturn was the protest of his exasperated special effects team, who had spent an enormous amount of time and effort on the already-completed Jupiter footage and had stretched their ingenuity to the point of exhaustion. The FX artists and technicians were extremely proud of their work and argued against simply discarding it to the cutting room floor. Kubrick, in typical fashion, abruptly dropped the Saturn idea without a second thought and stayed with Jupiter. (Strangely enough, Arthur C. Clarke still thought Saturn was a better destination, so he kept it in his novel, which published shortly after the movie premiered).

Charles Austin Miller