It builds, softly, with three ascending notes...then an eruption of strings and woodwinds, punctuated by colossal timpani hits. That's when the light crests over a gigantic planet—the view of a sunrise as seen from an orbiting space station, or witnessed by God Himself. Stanley Kubrick wanted to use classical compositions instead of the commissioned (and discarded) Alex North score to attain an appropriately massive soundtrack to his cerebral sci-fi masterpiece, and Richard Strauss's tone poem supplies the film's opening moments with an immediate sense of scope and grandeur: This is what the majesty of the universe sounds like. Everyone from Elvis Presley to the makers of cat-food commercials has since hijacked this Nietzsche-inspired work for their grand entrances, but Kubrick got there first; by the time 2001's title credit shows up under that sustained musical burst, the combination of sound and image has already transported you to infinity and beyond.—David Fear

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