I too would have instantly said Zardoz. Many years ago, as both a SciFi and Bond fan - and my mom too - it was no trouble talking her into seeing it in the theater opening week lol

( the two of us were also there for a matinée of Kubrick's 2001 - I can still remember us stumbling back into the light of day trying to understand the ending )

Having been a video/computer gamer all these decades too, of course I read Ready Player One soon as it was in paperback, and all his (few) books which followed.

I did greatly enjoy Hail Mary, as the First Contact genre is one of my favorites. I was pleasantly surprised when I learned they were going to adapt it to the big screen. It's hard not to be skeptical that something so nuanced and unique could reach a very large mainstream audience, here's hoping...

As far as 2001....
I saw it in one of Manhattan's last Big fancy movie houses! Then it closed down and became a preacher's place. But not changed. Decades later it's now an event's place - still as it was built and inside. The outside is not attraction the sometimes sort of over the top inside is!

And it showed 2001 on it's 50th Anniversary along with a Q&A by ?Ken Dullea.
The funny thing was how boredI was during the ape scenes after a few minutes! I was like, "Uhhhnnnnn, enough!" 😑😄
Enjoyed the rest with the "trip" through the monolith still being amazing!

By pure chance, I took a Fine Arts class at UCLA taught by the filmmaker responsible for that.

He told us all about the process (he was John Whitney, Sr. - a descendant of the 1700's inventor Eli Whitney - known as the "Grandfather of computer animation" - his son, John Jr. was one of the people behind the original Tron) was it was all filmed with the aid of mechanical step motors and a camera on a track. He called the process a slit-scan technique, using time exposures while the camera would slide along its track - building layers of the colored light streaks one from at a time into each frame of film.

Amazing class lol

was a photo of that camera on a track. This was waaaay back after the movie had opened, and people were interested.

And it passed by various designed slit screens? And using differrent colored lights shining through.

Good memory lol

He first used his slit scan technique to make an intro clip for Doris Day's "The Glass Bottom Boat" directed by the former animator Frank Tashkin (probably the one that knew Whitney).

The clip was the film title which starts to get wavy and fades

Funny stuff

I tend to a good to excellent memory (not always, but a lot).

That stuck bc 1) the on screen results (especially during those big screen years), were so amazing, 2) as a artist and amateur photographer I was fascinated with how it was achieved. 👍