George Lucas Declared This Classic Film 'The Ultimate Science Fiction Movie'

In 1977, George Lucas was busy. He showed the world a movie that would become the foundation for a billion-dollar science fiction franchise and one of the biggest fantasy movies of the 1970s: "Star Wars." Few other directors have come close to creating a world as big and groundbreaking as this one, but the director made it clear that, even with his universe of warring rebels and angry Wookiees, one movie had reached levels that Lucas could only dream of.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, the "Star Wars" director chimed in on what he thought was the best of the best when it came to science fiction at the time and proclaimed that "2001: A Space Odyssey" from Stanley Kubrick was light-years ahead of the competition. "Stanley Kubrick made the ultimate science fiction movie, and it is going to be very hard for someone to come along and make a better movie, as far as I'm concerned. On a technical level, it can be compared [to 'Star Wars'], but personally, I think that '2001' is far superior."

Lucas' opinion has remained common ever since apes were throwing bones into the air in 1968, almost a full decade before he introduced us to Luke Skywalker and his adventures. He's not the only legendary filmmaker to look to Kubrick's chest-rattling space movie and be inspired by it, either.

During an appearance on The Rewatchables for "Disclosure Day," Spielberg recalled seeing "2001: A Space Odyssey" for the first time and the audience's collective reaction when that iconic score reached its peak: "So as the music was decaying after that big explosive chord, I was aware that everyone was still. It was kind of, in itself, before the film started, mind-blowing. And then what began, I think, for a lot of people in that theater, was a religious experience fueled by whatever they were on."

Thankfully, Spielberg was fortunate enough to collaborate with Kubrick on "Artificial Intelligence," a film that, much like "Disclosure Day," remains one of Spielberg's most underappreciated sci-fi movies – and homes a great Robin Williams cameo.

Another director who marveled at Kubrick's world is one often deemed to be on the same level as him. In 2013, Christopher Nolan remembered his reaction to seeing Kubrick's classic. "I just felt this extraordinary experience of being taken to another world. You didn't doubt this world for an instant. It had a larger-than-life quality," he told Entertainment Weekly. "I remember very clearly just the experience of being transported to another world. I was a huge 'Star Wars' fan at the time. But this was a completely different way of experiencing science fiction. I was seven years old, so I couldn't claim to have understood the film." Thankfully, whatever he understood was enough, because without "2001: A Space Odyssey," we might not have had "Interstellar" or so many other films that were influenced by a true master at work.