I had always thought that Jacob was accidentally killed by a member of his platoon, and his mind made up the whole drug experiment story to justify such a horrible thing happening; don’t we actually see the American soldier stab him, or, because this took place in part of his pre-death fantasy world, is this considered to be another facet of his delusion?
It’s part of his fantasy world, at least that’s how I interpreted it, the book isn’t exactly clear on this point, because it’s merely the “vehicle” to get the plot where Jacob is trapped between worlds.
I just called it that (and don’t forget “utterly criminal”) strictly in bad-writing terms. I hear your argument that the HAL plot parallels the broader plot, but it’s a real stretch. And it always infuriates me when a movie appears to be made of two unrelated plots stitched together – e.g., From Dusk to Dawn, which is a typical Tarantino story about two criminals on the run and then suddenly, for no apparent reason, turns into a vampire story. Or Three Men and a Baby, which was about three self-indulgent womanizing yuppies suddenly being thrust into dealing with family responsiblities, and then they threw in this drug-deal subplot just to . . . just to . . . I have no idea. (And the guys are so dumb they take the baby along while they’re dealing with it!) In the case of 2001, Kubrick & Clarke might have crafted a coherent and philosophically challenging story about humanity encountering a higher intelligence that has been guiding its development, if they had just focused on that. Instead of which, we got a farrago of incomprehensible special effects, padded out in the middle with a hoary-SF-cliche tale about the Robot Rebellion.
I think the monument was a metaphor, and not meant to be taken as literally as the original POTA ending. It’s as if Davidson thinks he’s awakening from a bad dream, thinks he has returned to normalcy, only to discover that reality and fantasy are now turned upside down. What if he’s spent his life as an oppressed human, and his belief that humans were paramount was only a fantasy into which he escaped when the oppression became too much? He then undergoes a shattering experience that destroys his fantasy and he has nothing left but the grim reality. Sort of like what happens when we grow up and aren’t able to retreat into childhood fantasies any more.
Maybe I’m overthinking this.
Oh, it makes a little more sense if you know that Nowhere is the kinder, gentler sequel to Doom Generation. I actually liked it a lot. I know someone who was scarred for life by the soup can scene, though.
I’ll add the original Planet of the Apes. Sure, it’s an iconic image with “damn them all to hell” and Lady Liberty and all, but… he’s been running around on a planet where the air is breathable, the water is potable, the climate is the same as Earth, there are apes and horses and dogs and plants like Earth’s, and as if that’s not enough of a hint- the apes are not only speaking English but American English (not some dialect as removed from us as the language of Beowulf). He needs the Statue of Liberty to figure out he’s on Earth?
And while I love the movie My Cousin Vinnie, that’s one of the biggest deus ex machina endings on Earth, and it makes no sense. Obviously Vinnie knew the tire tracks didn’t come from his cousin’s car, so why drag in Mona Lisa and treat her as a hostile witness when all he had to do was cross-examine the prosecutor’s expert witness? And it’s still a bit odd that two such similar cars came to the same tiny town at the same time and the other one had just happened to be caught with a .357 magnum.
The night sky should have clued Heston in (criminy he’s an astronaut who typically would need the stars to navigate by). Yeah in 2,000 years some of them would have moved around a bit but most would still be in the same places and constellations pretty much recognizable. If Alpha Centauri and Sirius are more or less in the same location he would have to conclude that he is on Earth.
What happened was that they attempted to rework the novel’s original ending into this version of the movie, only made to fit the extraneous material they added to this one.
Pierre Boulle’s book is a SF satire on bourgeois society and how man’s belief that he’s paramount neglects to take notice that he is after all another species of ape. The plot gimmick/backstory is that in the actually alien planet, everyone thinks that apes evolved intelligence and humans stayed wild, but in the course of the research around Ulysse (=Taylor), it is discovered that in fact a human civilization existed but became so stagnant and decadent that the apes leapfrogged it and took over civilized life, while humans just went feral (NO nuke disaster! And, if you noticed, that’s a lot of the plot of POTA movie #3.). After escape, Ulysse returns to Earth, thinking of warning his compatriots of what could happen, but when he lands he finds the ground crew is made up of apes. In the book he *does not find anyone recognizable from the alien planet, * but we’re to infer that the same thing happened in parallel on Earth during however many thousand years relativity made pass while Ulysse traveled back and forth. It is implied that in this corner of the galaxy everywhere the “humans” evolve, eventually they blow it to the apes. (BTW in the novel, the Ape civilization is fully industrialized and technological, while the “humans” have reverted to paleolithic.)
You were supposed to get that he was changed, genetically, in the same way the ape-men were changed, genetically, in the beginning of the movie. There’s a book by Arthur C. Clarke (who wrote the screenplay w/ Kubrick) that was written at the same time as the movie (put out afterwards) that explains thing pretty clearly.
I also read the novel a long time ago. As I recall, the two plots are connected like this:
Plot 1, some nasty secret government guys investigate a monolith on the Moon. They also know that there is a larger version around Saturn.
Plot 2, some different scientists, nice guys, build a spaceship that will go on Man’s first manned mission to Saturn
The connection between the two is the nasty secret guys reprogram the ships computer with a secret mission to investigate the Saturn monolith. The computer’s creator doesn’t know. The astronauts don’t know. And what the nasty guys do causes the computer to go mad.
As I recall, this was clearly explained in the book, but totally incomprehensible in the film.
I’ve watched it twice now…and yeah. I’m not so sure you’re supposed to get all of it.
Not quite. Heywood Floyd is a scientist, but now an administrator. They are concerned about the impact of the discovery on humanity, and keep it excessively secret. In 2001. They got that prediction right! The radio signal from the monolith was directed to Jupiter (which we find out in Floyd’s recorded briefing after Dave lobotomizes HAL) so Discovery is built (retargeted in the book) to investigate the destination of the signal. Again, to keep secrecy the scientists in hibernation know, HAL knows, but Bowman and Poole don’t. Clarke says that the programming that forced HAL to lie about the mission drove him insane.
As for the connection - think about tools. Moonwatcher wins the survival of his species by inventing the first tool - the bone used as a club. This is under the guidance of the first monolith. That propels him and his tribe into the next stage of evolution. Man in 2001 has invented the ultimate tool, an intelligence greater then their own. Bowman has to dismantle this tool, and meet the unknown without it, to go to the next stage of evolution as the starchild.
I saw it in Cinerama right after it opened in New York, and I had no problem understanding it. The Life magazine article helped, and that I had read all of Clarke’s books.
Cant say about the end cos I walked out but Highlander 2,in the original the immortals dont know why they dont age but in 2 it turns out that they came from another planet but forgot all about it ,all of them .
Later on Sean Connery who was killed in the original but was wanted back in the movie (for Box office reasons I guess)is brought back to life by the main character wishing it so (and handily in his location).
It reminded me of the Peter Pan Pantomime where all the kids are told to believe in fairies to bring Tinkerbell back to life.
Apart from the absurdity(not to mention the insult to the audiences intelligence)it didn’t do much for building tension ,it doesn’t matter if any of the heroes are in danger if they die they can just be wished back to life ,either in this or the next movie.
As I said I walked out halfway through and spent the rest of the film chatting to the staff,my friends being made of sterner stuff grimly watched it to the bitter end,afterwards they wished they hadn’t.
“Leaving Las Vegas” WTF was the point of that movie?
Ditto “Eyes Wide Slut.” In fact, the whole movie was basically a WTF moment.
Of course, the best WTF ending was “Sixth Sense.” I’ll admit to being totally surprised.
As others have pointed out, he most emphatically did have an idea, and a great one. I was only a kid when I saw it during it’s first run at theaters, and I didn’t really get it then either, even though I loved it.
In college, years later, when I read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I got a much better handle on it. I’d thought the theme music – The Dawn from Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra – was chosen just because it worked so perfectly with the images, but when I read Nietzsche it occurred to me that Kubrick chose it for a deeper reason as well. In Zarathustra, a major theme is the path from ape to man to superman…
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide also points out that we find our ancestors embarassing, which is why we never invite them 'round to dinner
The Ninth Gate.
Take an old idea with new twists and a great build up and then finish it with nothing. No ending, no explanation. Just a dude walking off. I stayed up really late when I had work the next day because of that shite. And you finish the film like that? I will punch you in the neck Roman Polanski.
That gimp George Clooney in Solaris.
I thought they stopped writing films based on acid trips years ago! Or atleast adding some actual plot after some drug addict puts pen to paper.
Speaking of 2001 and HAL, does anyone else not buy the explanation provided in 2010 for HAL’s breakdown?
Every time I’ve watched 2001, the reason just screamed out to me. HAL is consistently praised as being a super-genius, beating Poole at chess and several times it is mentioned that no HAL 9000 has ever made a mistake or distorted information. In the news report we see early in the Jupiter mission, the newsman not only points this out, but later says that HAL seemed to “take pride” in himself. Later, in what I consider the critical scene of this subplot, HAL and Bowman are seen “chatting” conversationally, and HAL brings up the topic of “strange things”, such as something being dug up on the moon. Bowman catches HAL in his psychological game-playing, and retorts, “you’re working up your crew psychology report, aren’t you”.
It very much seems to me that HAL was caught off guard and was humiliated by Bowman out-thinking him. So in embarassed desperation, he immediately tries to change the subject by reporting a fault with the AE-35 unit. Now, HAL’s in a heap of trouble because this is a lie, and what’s worse, he’s stuck with his lie because Bowman immediately asks for the “hard copy” of the report.
Thus, once the astronauts learn of HAL’s lie/“mistake” and HAL learns that they’re considering disconnecting him, HAL feels he has no choice but to kill everyone to prevent that, because in his arrogance, HAL is convinced he’s the only one who could carry out the mission correctly.
Whaddya think, folks?
According to various books I’ve read, including Michael Palin’s diaries, Holy Grail ended like that because the film company ran out of money.
I’ve not heard that story. I was irritated by the ending of both films. So I second both.
But my nomination?
The Lord of the Rings directed by Ralph Bakshi.
It doesn’t actually finish! The last you see of the Ringbearer, he’s in the middle of the Dead Marshes. The final scene is a distraction to make the viewer forget. (I understood at the time that it was supposed to be two films, and given where the story ends it’s plausible. It’s another case of insufficient budget, only the first film didn’t do well enough to convince the backers there was a profit in the second.
And don’t get me started on the subject of proper footwear for Balrogs.)