I am a big fan of both films, and have over many years come to the firm conclusion that, while 2010: The Year We Make Contact could never live up to its best-films-of-all-time predecessor, it’s both a terrific film on its own merits and could be tweaked even today to be better.
What it needs, fundamentally, is the Blade Runner treatment: Kill the expository voiceover, tighten up the edit, make the ending less sentimental and more mysterious.
Sean Bean meme saying “one does not simply make a sequel to 2001”.
I would completely redo the sets and get rid of CRTs everywhere, add understandable displays in Russian to the Leonov, and re-add the 1:1 flat displays to the Discovery. Also, remove the keyboards, which weren’t there in 2001.
What it needs, fundamentally, is the Blade Runner treatment: Kill the expository voiceover, tighten up the edit, make the ending less sentimental and more mysterious.