I literally had to scroll all the way to the very bottom in order to get to the point. If journalists want us to pay them then they must abandon this cancerous writing style of endless fluff and nonsense.
It's not "some journalist," it's Michael Moorcock, and not only that, he's recounting personal first-hand details of his interaction with a friend.
And you didn't even condense the salient detail for us, being that Kubrick had cut Clark's extensive voice-over narration, which wasn't revealed until the premiere, provoking Clark to walk out of the screening.
I think you nailed it. Clarke's dialogue in his script was mostly removed.
Relevant passage is this:
"Close to tears, he left at the intermission, having watched an 11-minute sequence in which an astronaut did nothing but jog around the centrifuge in a scene intended to show the boredom of space travel. This scene was considerably cut in the version put out on general release.
If Arthur was disappointed by Kubrick’s decision to cut his dialogue and narrative to the bone, he was eventually reconciled by being able to put everything left out of the film into the novel, meaning that each man was able to produce his own preferred version. The success of the film ensured that the book became a bestseller, as audiences sought answers to questions raised by Kubrick’s version, and Arthur soon got over his disappointment, going on to write three bestselling sequels to his novel, only one of which has been filmed so far."
