Beefy: Your argument, if I follow it correctly, is an interesting one: It consists of two points, if I follow you:

1. That film, because it is prey to technologically-wrought "flux" (advancement in quality?), can never be considered Classic.

Why? Because the viewer is ever canny of this, which is distracting. Just by knowing that a film "looks dated" invalidates the film--because its datedness is distracting (Post 64).

If this is your point, I disagree. In my opinion, this is Film's strength. Artists like Kubric know that Film is subject to the limits of technology; what makes these films great is the fact that knowing these limitations, Kubric etc., proceeded to push the medium to its limit, utilizing every thing they had to create a product that was representative of the best product that medium was capable of producing. 2001 was and is a monument to Film, just as Beethoven's 9th Symphony or the works of Jackson Pollack are among the best renderings of their media, simply because they found a way of pushing the media available as far as they were capable.

2. I agree with you, that special effects should not drive a story (movie) (Post 59). That being said, I don't think they drove 2001. True, there were some terrific shots (as in the girl in the spaceship who walks upside down). But these are rare; the rest were used in the context of the story, which was the driver of that movie. The rest, as they say, was window dressing! (Amen, Troy!)

* Oh, and one other thing. Photography is now, as it was in days of yore, just as difficult and technologically constrained as any "art form". Although it is now possible for even a monkey to take a snapshot that is reasonably composed and focused, students of photography (or film) will tell you that taking a really good shot--that is well composed and reproduced in a way that is not only aesthetically pleasing but downright artistic--takes years of hard, backbreaking and heart-rending effort. Come to Charleston, and I will introduce you to a man who has taken pictures throughout his life and now runs a gallery of his work. He and his technicians (who are photographers as well) will tell you so....

Take a look, now, and read the pages: http://www.imagingarts.com/