# 2001: A space Odyssey. Huh? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 1, 2003, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321 "2003-03-01T03:58:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321/41 "2003-03-02T00:00:16Z")
> [@](#): > > from _Talking Meat Puppet_ > 8. Why the psychadelic acid trip between disconnecting HAL, and being on “Jupiter” if that’s where he was? That’s called **Padding The Film**. Same thing they did in _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ with those approximately 6 1/2 hours of footage of the ship travelling through the innards of the V-ger cloud to get to the actual center… ---
**Author:** ![skaterboarder87](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@skaterboarder87](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skaterboarder87)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321/42 "2003-03-02T00:03:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Monstre \* > \*\*That’s called **Padding The Film**. Same thing they did in _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ with those approximately 6 1/2 hours of footage of the ship travelling through the innards of the V-ger cloud to get to the actual center… \*\* It’s way more than that. If you saw 2001 in theaters, it truely was an awesome site to behold, albeit, a creepy one. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321/43 "2003-03-02T00:05:12Z")
[packing up my analysis and going home] > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*John Kelly of Bell Laboratories in 1961 programmed an early voice simulator to perform “Daisy Bell” (a.k.a. “A Bicycle Built for Two”). It was the first song ever sung by a computer. Arthur C. Clarke visited Bell Labs and heard it, and that is how it ended up being used in **2001**. Clarke writes in the forward to the book _HAL’s Legacy_: \*\* ---
**Author:** ![MusicJunkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@MusicJunkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MusicJunkie)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321/44 "2003-03-02T04:11:39Z")
Don’t be sad TWDuke. The fact that it wasn’t supposed to mean that, doesn’t mean it doesn’t. (Is that sentence comprehensible to anyone but me?) They needed something, be it a song or speech or anything, in that point in the movie. Ok, so Clarke thinks the song is there only because he had already heard a computer sing it. That needn’t be the only reason. If it was not so appropriate it might not have been chosen or even sugested. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321/45 "2003-03-02T04:21:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by skaterboarder87 \* > \*\*It’s way more than that. If you saw 2001 in theaters, it truely was an awesome site to behold, albeit, a creepy one. \*\* I saw _2001_ for the first time as a midnight movie at the IMAX theater on Chicago’s Navy Pier. It was _awesome_, man. Seeing it later on the small screen was totally different, and it did feel a bit like padding then. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321/46 "2003-03-02T06:00:57Z")
Couple o’ notes: Details like the orbiting H-bombs, the emotional distance between humans, and the fact that Bowman and Poole were kept in the dark about the true mission of _Discovery_, show that _Homo Sapiens_ is still in a tribalistic stage of development, with serious potential for self-destruction. HAL might be seen as, in a way, a higher moral intelligence, since (according to the novel) he is unable to reconcile his core function of analyzing and providing accurate information, and his instructions to withhold crucial information from Dave and Frank – to lie. The “light show”; I always saw this as cinematic shorthand for an experience that was simply beyond a modern human’s capacity to absorb and comprehend. _2001_ should have won an Oscar for makeup, for the Australopithecines; however _Planet of the Apes_ came out the same year. The monoliths are my idea of what a truly advanced machine would look like: no apparent moving parts, but with a definite AI and the ability to manipulate matter and energy in ways we’re only beginning to imagine. And yes, the movie is a masterpiece, in the old sense of demonstrating that its maker was a master at his art. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@Dave\_D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_D)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321/47 "2003-03-02T07:27:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Osiris \* > \*\*Might I also suggest you read the book by Clark. The movie is directly from it but a lot of things are much clearer once you’ve read it. \*\* I’ll second this. I tried watching the movie but I couldn’t stomach it at the time. What the other poster wrote is pretty much it. The black thingies are supposed to advance human evolution. They’re also spaced out so advancement doesn’t happen at the wrong time.(To avoid having god monkeys or something like that.) I suppose others could answer this better since I read the book about 15 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![skaterboarder87](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@skaterboarder87](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skaterboarder87)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321/48 "2003-03-02T07:37:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dave\_D \* > \*\*I’ll second this. I tried watching the movie but I couldn’t stomach it at the time. What the other poster wrote is pretty much it. The black thingies are supposed to advance human evolution. They’re also spaced out so advancement doesn’t happen at the wrong time.(To avoid having god monkeys or something like that.) I suppose others could answer this better since I read the book about 15 years ago. \*\* It’s important to note that the movie and book do differ in several places, and one such place (at least IMO, though I’m fairly certain it’s fact) is the ending. _SPOILERS_ The book explains the room that David ends up in as an alien recreation, designed to mimic an actual hotel room. Apparently, the aliens gathered this concept from out broadcast TV waves (no joke, the book fell apart at the end). David then opens a cupboard and opens a box of cereal (or some food container) and finds a blue sticky substance, because apparently, aliens didn’t know, or couldn’t recreate what we eat. _sigh_ I loved the book up until that point; I nearly cried. ---
**Author:** ![skaterboarder87](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@skaterboarder87](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skaterboarder87)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2003, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321/49 "2003-03-02T07:39:17Z")
“out” should be “our” in my previous post. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-huh/158321.md?page=2)