The thing about space is that it's big. Really big. You might consider this to be its defining characteristic. Even our fastest rockets are agonizingly slow when faced with the gulf of interplanetary space.

Most movies get around that by using warp drive, hyperspace, stargates, or whatever. But 2001 got this right--not surprisingly, since it was penned by the great science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. In the movie, the trip to Jupiter takes years. Some of the crew are in suspended animation during the journey to save on resources. A spinning centrifuge provides artificial gravity for the astronauts who man the ship.

And everything happens very slowly--which, to be honest, makes for something of a dull movie, but quite a realistic one. The slo-mo of bodies moving in zero-g (as seen at right) is also eerily depicted. In fact, most scientists consider 2001 to be the most scientifically accurate movie ever made.