Awesome designs for its time

I mean, it's 1972 and a small budget movie, I was expecting lots of random flickering lights, flick switches, transistor mentioning jargon and other obvious 70s flashy old tech made to look futuristic to the point where it's laughable now. But the sets look damn impressive and realistic, even the robots and robotics look like they were built to function and look pretty actual, compared to other movies of the time.

It seems this and 2001, A Space Odyssey raised the bar from the get go in terms of set designs and interiors, accurately predicting a plausible working, futuristic environment. It should've set the standard, it's just too bad the later sci-fi movies didn't quite get it, the more random lights and plastic the better. I don't think people realized how amazing this was back in 72 in terms of art direction, really.

Lastly, I thought Ron Cobb (he designed the Nostromo ship from Alien) was responsible for the designs, since industrial and realistic looking tech are his thing (check his stuff http://bit.ly/ao5nbW), but it seems it was all Doug Trumbull who worked on 2001. As for the movie, yeah, was a bit slow and uneventful, but the sets paired with the beautiful photography and lighting more than made up for it.