Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvOUnz4T7Q

2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick from 1968 (Before the moon landings) was so far ahead of its time that it even outdoes many modern sci-fi movies in its visuals and story. It completely redefined what sci-fi is, showing the world that it too can be a serious genre with complex subject matters and an artistic flair, unlike most earlier sci-fi which had a more whimsical feeling.
One sequence I like in particular is at the start of the movie, where we see a space-plane approaching a rotating space station in Earth orbit, and then docking with it, accompanied by the Blue Danube waltz composed by Johann Strauss.
The careful maneuver of the plane flying in, then lining up perfectly and matching the rotation is done with such elegance that it's very much like a dance itself.
The very concept of space station to using centripetal force as stand in for gravity, all the way back in 1968, is astounding to me too, as are the practical effects of the physical models, the floating pen in the plane, and people-filled control rooms at different gravity orientations in the same shot.
As much as Kubrick was a perfectionist, there is one major oddity in the scene. It's how bright and washed out the Earth looks. Having grown up in a time where we know quite well what our world looks like from above, it's clearly depicted too bright in the movie. However, when the film was made, this was flat out not yet known. We had hardly any photos from orbit, and the ones we did have were all monochrome. Kubrick was assured by his scientific advisors, such as Harry Lange, that at Earth has a relatively high albedo of 0.38, and that that would result in this look, thus Kubrick insisted on overexposing like this. What they'd failed to consider is that the 0.38 is the average of the dark blue oceans, dark land, and very bright white clouds.
For my recreation here, I've chosen to not depict the earth washed out.