Fails the Bechdel test
2010: The Year We Make Contact
1984. Directed by Peter Hyams, written by Arthur C. Clarke and Peter Hyams.
The Bechdel test
Bechdel score
1 / 3
Fails
-
Yes
1. At least two women
7 women characters. 5 of them speak. -
No
2. Who talk to each other
Our parser found no scene where two women talk to each other. -
No
3. About something besides a man
Not reached: the film fails an earlier rule.
Second opinion
Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 1 out of 3.
The film
In this sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), a joint American-Soviet expedition is sent to Jupiter to discover what went wrong with the U.S.S. Discovery against a backdrop of growing global tensions. Amongst the mysteries the expedition must explain, are the appearance of a huge black monolith in Jupiter's orbit and the fate of H.A.L.; the Discovery's A.I. computer. Based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke.
- Released
- 07 Dec 1984
- Genres
- Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi
- Rated
- PG
- IMDb
- 6.7 / 10
- Metascore
- 53 / 100
- Awards
- Nominated for 5 Oscars. 1 win & 10 nominations total
- Elsewhere
- View on IMDb
Starring, by lines spoken
- Women
- Men
- Not in the cast list
- Bigger name, more lines
- Floyd 107 lines, man
- Chandra 88 lines, man
- Hal 69 lines, man
- Curnow 58 lines, man
- Kirbuk 44 lines, woman
- Noyd 40 lines
- Milson 33 lines, man
- Moisevitch 25 lines, man
- Caroline 24 lines, woman
- Orlov 22 lines, man
Full cast, 27 people
- Roy Scheider as Dr. Heywood Floyd
- John Lithgow as Dr. Walter Curnow
- Helen Mirren as Tanya Kirbuk
- Bob Balaban as Dr. R. Chandra
- Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman
- Douglas Rain as HAL 9000 (voice)
- Madolyn Smith Osborne as Caroline Floyd
- Savely Kramarov as Dr. Vladimir Rudenko
- Taliesin Jaffe as Christopher Floyd
- James McEachin as Victor Milson
- Mary Jo Deschanel as Betty Fernandez
- Elya Baskin as Maxim Brailovsky
- Dana Elcar as Dimitri Moisevitch
- Oleg Rudnik as Dr. Vasili Orlov
- Natasha Shneider as Irina Yakunina
- Vladimir Skomarovsky as Yuri Svetlanov
- Victor Steinbach as Nikolaj Ternovsky
- Candice Bergen as SAL 9000 (voice)
- Gene McGarr as Commercial Announcer
- Herta Ware as Jessie Bowman
- Jan Tříska as Alexander Kovalev
- Larry Carroll as Anchorman on TV
- Cheryl Carter as Nurse
- Ron Recasner as Hospital Neurosurgeon
- Robert Lesser as Dr. Hirsch
- Delana Michaels as Commercial Announcer
- Arthur C. Clarke as Man on Park Bench (uncredited)
Who talks, scene by scene
Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 18% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.
Women
Men
Scene 1 Scene 110
Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.
Show the numbers
| Scenes | Women's lines | Men's lines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | 0 | 54 |
| 4 to 6 | 35 | 38 |
| 7 to 9 | 0 | 18 |
| 10 to 12 | 3 | 2 |
| 13 to 15 | 19 | 14 |
| 16 to 18 | 0 | 0 |
| 19 to 21 | 0 | 0 |
| 22 to 24 | 0 | 6 |
| 25 to 27 | 4 | 11 |
| 28 to 30 | 1 | 23 |
| 31 to 33 | 0 | 6 |
| 34 to 36 | 0 | 9 |
| 37 to 39 | 0 | 3 |
| 40 to 42 | 0 | 5 |
| 43 to 45 | 0 | 22 |
| 46 to 48 | 0 | 8 |
| 49 to 51 | 0 | 2 |
| 52 to 54 | 0 | 2 |
| 55 to 57 | 10 | 33 |
| 58 to 60 | 0 | 0 |
| 61 to 63 | 1 | 1 |
| 64 to 66 | 18 | 43 |
| 67 to 69 | 0 | 39 |
| 70 to 72 | 8 | 7 |
| 73 to 75 | 0 | 15 |
| 76 to 78 | 0 | 11 |
| 79 to 81 | 0 | 27 |
| 82 to 84 | 0 | 4 |
| 85 to 87 | 0 | 9 |
| 88 to 90 | 0 | 8 |
| 91 to 93 | 1 | 19 |
| 94 to 96 | 0 | 1 |
| 97 to 99 | 0 | 0 |
| 100 to 102 | 0 | 7 |
| 103 to 105 | 0 | 1 |
| 106 to 108 | 0 | 2 |
| 109 to 110 | 0 | 1 |
The evidence
- Straight from the script
- Counted from the script and the credits
Tap an exhibit to open it.
Exhibit A: every 100 lines
Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 18 are women's.
100 lines from women, 451 from men.
- Women
- Men
Exhibit B: who's in it
7 women and 18 men in the cast. 5 women and 10 men from it get lines.
Characters
With lines
- Women
- Men
Exhibit C: who gets heard
The first woman speaks at line 73 of 673.
The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 111 lines.
Every line of dialogue, first to last
- First line by a woman
- Longest stretch with no woman speaking
Words spoken
Women speak 13% of the words (1,053), men 87% (6,781). Women have 18% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.
Exhibit D: the test the other way
Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.
Conversations between two named characters
Two women
0
Two men
40
Exhibit E: behind the camera
3 of the 11 people in these jobs are women.
Across the whole crew, 12% of the people whose gender is listed are women.
- Directed by
- Peter Hyams (man)
- Written by
- Peter Hyams (man)
- From the novel by
- Arthur C. Clarke (man)
- Produced by
- Peter Hyams (man)
- Shot by
- Peter Hyams (man)
- Edited by
- James Mitchell (man), Mia Goldman (woman)
- Music by
- David Shire (man)
- Production design by
- Albert Brenner (man)
- Costumes by
- Patricia Norris (woman)
- Cast by
- Penny Perry (woman)
The crew, department by department
-
Sound
0 women, 8 men, 10 not listed
-
Other crew
1 women, 11 men, 3 not listed
-
Art
0 women, 5 men, 5 not listed
-
Camera
0 women, 4 men, 1 not listed
-
Costume & Make-Up
2 women, 1 men, 2 not listed
-
Directing
0 women, 4 men
-
Production
1 women, 2 men
-
Visual Effects
0 women, 0 men, 3 not listed
- Women
- Men
- Gender not listed on TMDB
Exhibit F: how old the stars were
Women: 33 on average. Men: 43 on average.
The top-billed cast, at the film's release.
Women
Madolyn Smith Osborne 27, Helen Mirren 39
Men
Taliesin Jaffe 7, John Lithgow 39, Bob Balaban 39, Keir Dullea 48, Savely Kramarov 50, Roy Scheider 52, James McEachin 54, Douglas Rain 56
Exhibit G: the money
It made 1.4 times what it cost.
- Budget
- $28 million
- Box office
- $40.4 million
From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.
About this analysis
Our parser read the script: 110 scenes and 673 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works
