So, you'll notice that humans had that sort of flattened affect you're looking for in Kubrick's 2001, but he placed it in contrast to HAL, which for most of the film is the only character who communicates with an emotive affect.
You need some emotion, some performance. Kubrick got that and managed to achieve this in 2001 by combining the emotional austerity of spaceflight with an artificial intelligence who, in an inversion of expectation, is the emotive one. Then he exploited this for the climax, the loss of HAL's personality, being.
Lacking a HAL like element, especially in a film that has one actress, you can't make the humans dull, you need some emotional experience to attach to. In the context of Gravity, that means dramatic calls and the sounds of her human presence. People don't go to the cinema to listen to an ATC feed.
You need some emotion, some performance. Kubrick got that and managed to achieve this in 2001 by combining the emotional austerity of spaceflight with an artificial intelligence who, in an inversion of expectation, is the emotive one. Then he exploited this for the climax, the loss of HAL's personality, being.
Lacking a HAL like element, especially in a film that has one actress, you can't make the humans dull, you need some emotional experience to attach to. In the context of Gravity, that means dramatic calls and the sounds of her human presence. People don't go to the cinema to listen to an ATC feed.