 When the film was sold to British TV, Stanley Kubrick (qv) urged  that it be shown in "letterbox" format, with a black area at the top  and bottom of the screen. The BBC complained that while this was  fine for dialogue sequences, viewers would become confused when the  scene shifted to outer space. The BBCs solution, used during the  first TV presentation, was to add fake stars to the black areas  above and below the picture area. Bitterly opposed by Kubrick, this  disastrous experiment was never repeated.