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Kubrick never recorded the narration
Writing The Narration
Clarke wrote his sections of voiceover between lectures on a tour of the United States, where he was in great demand. There were no fax machines, so the pages traveled by Western Union and post.
Going Nonverbal
At some point Kubrick decided that the film would be a nonverbal experience. The audience would become the character, making meaning because it was in the spacecraft and in the Stargate, and he would not explain any of it. His notes to Clarke on the novel's description of Moonwatcher complained that it took all the magic out.
Interviews And Other Films
Early in production, a crew also filmed interviews with astrophysicists and Nobel Prize winning scientists about the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligence. The footage was meant to open the film as a documentary, and it was never used. It may still exist.
The film before 2001, Dr. Strangelove, and the film after it, A Clockwork Orange, both use voiceover, along with back projection that looks cheesy on purpose so that the artifice shows.
How did Clarke and Kubrick share the writing?
They met in New York in April 1964 and began building the story from Clarke's short story The Sentinel. Rather than adapt a finished book, they wrote a novel and a screenplay in parallel, trading drafts. The film premiered in April 1968, and the novel followed shortly after under Clarke's name. The Sentinel, published in 1951, is about an artifact found on the Moon.
How did Kubrick use narration in other films?
The Killing, from 1956, uses a deadpan narrator who recites the times of each event, in the manner of a documentary. Barry Lyndon, from 1975, has Michael Hordern as a narrator who comments ironically on the characters. A Clockwork Orange follows Alex's own voiceover through its story. Full Metal Jacket, from 1987, opens with voiceover from Private Joker.
Why were telegrams used instead of faxes?
Facsimile machines existed in the 1960s, but they were slow and rare. The Xerox Telecopier, introduced in 1964, took about six minutes to send a single page. Western Union sent text over telegraph wires and delivered it by messenger, with prices set per word. Western Union ended its telegram service in 2006.
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