I’m glad that helped!
Cabbage, I loved your interpretation. Let me add another…
The mysterious aliens send the monoliths to assist in the development of intelligence among the proto-humans. It spurred them to move from instinct to thought. It created minds where before there had just been potential. This requires them to learn to use tools, and to use their tools against the weaker tribe nearby. They are assisting evolution by eliminating any people not smart enough to survive against them. Brutal, but it got results. The result was us.
The bone fading into the space station always symbolized, for me, the fact that we have, since that beginning, been tool users. The space station is just the logical end of what the bone started.
On the way to Jupiter, we are acquainted with HAL. He is a true AI. He doesn’t just have programs, he has a mind. The monolith created our intelligence, and we created HAL’s.\
HAL’s mind also results in violence. He is such a ‘new thing’ that no one can predict his reactions. He reacts to the mission by deciding he’s the only one capable of carrying it out. The humans can’t help, so they shouldn’t be there at all.
Fortunately for David Bowman, he has a mind of his own. Unlike the monkey-people across the river, he can defend himself from this new thinking being that wants to destroy him.
When he gets to the other monolith, he is given the next lesson in the development of mind. He is made into a new being, capable of thinking on a new scale. Now he can help the rest of the humans earn the same gift.
The great thing about 2001 is that it is one of the few actual science fiction films ever made. There are a lot of action and horror films made using the conventions of science fiction, but they don’t quite earn the title. To be science fiction (in the tradition of science fiction writing), there needs to be a grand idea at the heart of the story. This film qualifies in ways unequalled by any other.
I came in too late to give my plot synopsis, but Cabbage sums it up very well. Here’s mine, just because it’s simmering in my brain and wants to get typed out:
Apparently there is a super-intelligent uber-species keeping an eye on us, and for reasons of its own, wants to help us along on the path of evolution towards our own super-intelligence. Monoliths are the tools it left here in the Sol system to help us along that path.
The first monolith exerts some sort of stimulus on our early ancestor hominids to boost us out of evolutionary kindergarten and into the third grade of tool usage. Then for a few tens of millions of years, we’re on our own.
The second monolith is buried on the moon for a purpose: the uber-species knows that by the time we can get to the moon and dig it up, we’re ready for the next evolutionary boost, so the second monolith is programmed to signal the Jupiter monolith to stand by. We trace that signal and go out to see whatinhell is up there.
The whole Hal and astronauts part is a subplot, but a fascinating complement to the creation/God/evolution main plot.
The third monolith is a stargate, enabling faster than light travel, and Dave Bowman enters it, is transported to where the uber-species has an Earthlike environment waiting for him, and lives his whole life in that peculiar, alien-created hotel room. He is then reborn as the next stage of intelligence, courtesy of this mysterious other entity/species.
The lyrics to “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” that powerful, Zenlike theme music to 2001, are something like this (I knew it once, but my memory is faulty):
What is ape to man?
A laughingstock, a thing of shame
Thus will be man to the superman
A laughingstock, a thing of shame
The next book/movie, “2010,” is also great. It tells what happens the next time we go mucking about around Jupiter and how the uber-species is rearranging things up there this time. How come the actor who plays David Bowman looks so young in this movie? You’d think he didn’t age a day since 1969.
There is much on the web discussing 2001. The ending has always confused me. Arther C. Clark ended his book with the star child heading back to earth, its ‘atomic playtoy’. The movie had no such visual reference to earth, merely the star child in space.
I suspect Kubrick wanted to keep the ending more open, letting the viewer’s cosmology frame their own interpretation. Arther C. Clark wanted no confusion about the meaning of the star-child.
2001 is a rare film, written and polished during production. Arther C. Clarks book, completed with the film, was released well after the film.
Created by the media and such. I’m wondering if the same
thing happened in 1984 to the book “1984.” Since I was only two then, I wouldn’t remember.
[/quote]
Only 2 in 1984? Stop making me feel old; that’s when I graduated from college, you young whipper-snapper!
And yes, to answer your question, there was a certain amount of hubbub about the book and a mediocre film of the novel with Richard Burton and John Hurt was released that year.
Just wanted to throw another $0.02 (or more). My apologies in advance for the shameless stemwinding of this post.
To my mind, 2001 has more in common with an extended piece of music, like a symphony, than with most other films. The intention is not, strictly speaking, to tell a conventional story.
Despite this, and I don’t think I’m any kind of Big Brain, here, I have to say that I was 15 the first time I saw this film and had no particular problem understanding the plot. I feel that the story is perfectly easy to follow as long as one does not expect it to be told through characters explaining plot points to one another, as is the case in most films.
Without necessarily hammering you over the head with philosophy, the movie touches on themes such as “Are we fundamentally different from out ancestors?”, “Why does only man use technology?”, “Is natural selection really all there is?”, “Whom does government secrecy serve?”, “Can a machine be conscious?” and “What is it like to be alone in the vastness of space?” If one is unable to find these themes in the film, or finds them of no interest, then that person will indeed find this movie painfully boring, and should look elsewhere for entertainment.
Here are a few more random thoughts:
a) 2001, more than most films, was made for a certain type of presentation (a large theater with a wide screen and good sound system). Video or DVD really doesn’t do justice to the magnificence of the images and music. I’ve seen it twice in its original 70mm format, and seeing it on video, by comparison, is like looking through the wrong end of the telescope while listening to a transistor radio.
b) Criticism of the effects generally concentrates on the obvious men-in-ape-suits shown in the “dawn of man” sequence. Yet, in 1968, how else might one have portrayed the precursors to man? I think Kubrick did as well anyone could have done with this sequence.
c) There’s a lot of very dry humor in the movie, if one pays attention, particularly throughout the sequence involving Dr. Floyd’s trip from Earth to the space station and eventually to the Moon.
d) The dialogue in the middle section of movie is completely banal, but it was intended to be so: partly as a sort of a joke, a deliberate contrast between people’s everyday concerns and the majesty of space; partly as an extension of the businesslike attitude shown by the Mercury and Gemini astronauts during their extraordinary flights, and partly, I think, as a way of setting the audience up for the depth and impact of HAL’s emotional breakdown.
e) It can certainly be argued, OTOH, that the entire subplot involving HAL has nothing to do with the rest of the film, except perhaps as a plot device to make sure Bowman raches Jupiter alone. It’s interesting trip down a side road, just not essential to the main theme of the film.
f) I am always amazed at how emotional I get over the fate of the hibernating scientists on the Jupiter mission, even though all we ever see of them is their sleeping faces, through the glass of their capsules.
g) Kubrick could have made it clear that the orbiting satellites earlier in the film were nuclear weapons, then ended the film as Clarke did the novelization of the film; this might have made the movie more conventionally satisfying by tying things up neatly, but I have to say I like the way the question “what happens next?”, as the Starchild returns to Earth, is left open to speculation.
Personally, 2001 is on my top ten list of the greatest films ever made, and I don’t think it’s because I’m reading meaning into it that isn’t there. IMO, to criticise this film because it is “boring” is akin to criticising Mozart becasue it doesn’t have a beat.
Ahhhh, glad I could get all this off my chest…
As Rocket88 points out;
A) The movie must be seen in a theater to be properly appreciated.
B) The bone fades into an atomic weapons platform and not a space station.
A few other points;
[li]They were unable to depict the monolith when it goes semi-transparent and begins to display symbols and relationships that educate “Moonwatcher” the leader of the homonids, to use tools.[/li]
[li]They were also unable to show that the first action of the star child when it returns to earth is to detonate all of the orbiting weapons platforms.[/li]
[li]c_goat, please read the book and them make sure to see the movie on the largest screen possible. Prepare to see ART and not just your run of the mill movie.[/li]
[li]The effects are not crappy. Even to this day they are seamless and difficult to discern from real cinema.[/li]As Dust_Magnate points out there are lots of movies that cost much more than 2001 and are pure sh!t.
The plot synopses are all quite good, each exploring a different aspect of this great film.
Regarding the re-release in 2001 … which is where this all started … wouldn’t it be great in IMAX?
“2001” played in full 70mm Cinerama - curved screen and all - during the summer of 1968 in Jacksonville. My first job was as an usher at the theater, it was the only movie that played there all summer. For you younger folk, at some movie theaters your ticket had a seat number, and you needed someone to guide you to your seat. And yes, we had a lot of long-hair types who bought front row seats, and, near the end of the movie, violated the No Smoking policy.
Oh, I selected my sig before I came across this thread.
There are two other things about 2001 that set it apart. One is a sort of expository stinginess. Maybe I’m complimenting what some people dislike about the movie, but I think it’s worth explaining. Most movies let the audience in on their secrets. When characters in most movies are bewildered or awestruck, we know what they’re seeing and we understand how we’d feel in their situation. 2001 shows us the characters bewilderment by trying to bewilderus too. And if that’s frustrating and you want to curse Kubrick’s name I understand, but it’s an interesting way to do things.
Secondly, I think the special effects in 2001 may be more realistic than almost anything since. If they don’t seem that way, it may be because so many other movies share a common unreality. There’s some justification to that. Think of a movie like Top Gun, for example. From other things I’ve read, I gather that the dogfighting scenes in that movie weren’t terribly realistic (If someone like Johnny L.A. wants to jump in here, I’ll defer to experience). The planes were too close together, there was too much mindless chatter and not enough precision in the tactics, the Russian planes were glossy, evil black instead of camouflage. But it looked good. Most movies don’t try to show things the way they really are, they show things the way we expect them to be and that feels more real. When the Space Shuttle is docking with a satellite or the space station, it’s a very slow process. Working in zero-g has got to take a lot of practice, there’s no reason to rush and lots of things can go wrong. Footage of the shuttle in orbit is almost grand and stately. That far away from everything, it really does look like it’s floating. 2001 is the only film I know that’s even tried to capture that.
OK, I’m new at this, commented on my sig, then left it out. Going down and checking that box now. By the way, a great quote from someone in the audience, who came out during the Dawn of Man section to complain, “Hey, I thought this was gonna be a SPACE movie?!” My guess is, he didn’t “get” it, even after they got to space.
Too true. Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where a movie is being filmed, and there’s a couple of guys running around under a cow costume.
“Cows don’t look like real cows on film.”
Some random observations on easily the best SF film ever…
[li]The greatest jumpcut ever. From one tool (the bone) to another (the spaceship), the expanse of civilization crossed in a split second.[/li][li]The greatest use of classical music in a film. No, I’m not talking the Strausses (R&J), I’m talking the Adagio from the “Gayaneh” suite by Khachaturian. 2001, more than anything, strikes me as an unbearably sad movie for much of its length (best emulated by Frank’s birthday greeting); I think this is due largely to the use of the Adagio in introducing us to Bowman & co. and their life out in space.[/li][li]Kubrick has dispatched many a person in his films, but no killing is as chillingly cold-blooded as that of the three hibernating crewmen, with their entire demise succinctly summarized in a montage of impersonal medical monitors.[/li][li]Similarly, no death in his films is as moving as that of HAL, the most “human” of everyone we get to know (his is the only voice we hear in the movie that conveys any emotion; even Floyd talking to his daughter seems so blase and impersonal). HAL, in his dying words, makes a genuine attempt at real connection with another entity (compare this to the banal “smalltalk” on the space station and the hyper-formality on the moon), and his ultimate failure to do so is both pathetic and poignant.[/li][li]No SF film has ever seemed so authentic (yes, including the very simple but believable special effects). The quiet, the tedium, the sparseness, the monotony. Life and death are equally cold and distant.[/li]
Although I know both the book and the film sequel provided a further “explanation” as to the conception and purpose of the Starchild, I am hesitant in using this additional information when “reading” the film text itself.
I think it’s interesting that when we jumpcut those untold millenia, we also jump over any vestige of civilization. Think of where the astronauts sleep, what they use to eat, the complications just going to the bathroom–it’s all so sterile, almost inhuman. It is practically a comfort when Dave crosses over and finds himself with a bed and table and silverware.
He obviously goes through a transformation, a rebirth. To what end? Facilitated by whom? Personally, I don’t care. The image of a new life–mystical, transcendant, even humbling–is a powerful one, giving a sense of hope amidst the coldness of what humanity, with the help of technology, has become.
I am a film purist by most any standard, but I find myself willing to compromise some aesthetic considerations if I want to relive a film, resorting to the small screen even for big epics. There is only one film I absolutely refuse to watch on TV. That film, which I’ve seen at least 7 or 8 times, is 2001.