"It felt to me like the artifact of a lost civilization," said author Ann Druyan after watching Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. "It was like a meditation by someone who had survived post-Copernican stress syndrome." The Contact writer was joined by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, MIT professor, Marvin Minsky, and actor Matthew Modine for a panel, 2001: A Space Odyssey - Ahead of Its Time, at the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend.

Of the group, astronaut Aldrin was the most critical of the film. "In my days of growing up, the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, the people who wrote those were trying to be as absolutely realistic as they possibly could and then I think we started getting esoteric," he explained. "I'm not sure exactly when in 1968 I saw this but I remind myself that I had done space walking in November of 1966. So I had a rather critical analysis." After watching it again he still prefers something like Apollo 13, a movie he says, "testifies to the fact that you can tell a fantastic story and stay right with the simple basic reality."

As to the future possibility of a moon base, said Aldrin, "Having been there, the moon is just a sorry place for habitation." Adding, "I'm just trying to get people to think differently about a second habitation for the earth, and it's not on a space station. It would be logically on Mars."

Modine, who worked with Kubrick on Full Metal Jacket recalled how his interpretation of the film set the temperamental director off. "We were driving to work one day and were angry at each other about something," said the actor, "I said 'Hey Stanley, I figured out what 2001's about: You're born, life sucks and you die,' He got really mad at me."

Druyan, whose late husband, Carl Sagan, spoke with Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke about the film's portrayal of extra terrestrials, shared her own memory: "My recollection of Carl's story is that he said, 'Whatever you do, don't show them' because of course they are just the transparent projection of our fears." As fears change, she explained, film's that portray them become quickly outdated, "It seems to me that there was a period where all the extra-terrestrials looked like James Carville."