# Explain 2001: A Space Odyssey
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 26, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153 "2004-01-26T14:57:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/1 "2004-01-26T14:57:31Z")
Can anyone do this? I bought the DVD thinking that
I would finally wath a Kubrick classic. The back of the box reads:
_2001: A space Odyssey is a countdown to tomorrow, a road map to human destiny… it is dazzling… a compelling drama of man vs. machine… likely to excite, inspire, and enthrall for geerations._
I’m 34 so I am one generation removed from the original debut of this film. I just don’t get though. I am niether “enthralled” nor “inspired”. I am a little pissed off that I paid $19.99 for a movie that made no sense to me though…
Dopers, please help. Someone out there surely has this one figured out. I usually “get” movies and can see the sybolism and themes etc. This one has me stumped. Especially when:
Dave sees himself as an old man in bed in the end, and the embryo is floating around in space?
Help please
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### Author:  [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/2 "2004-01-26T15:06:42Z")
Personally, this movie made a lot more sense to me after I’d read a condensed version of the novel. After that, I watched _2001_ maybe three or four times, and it began to sink in.
[Here’s an interesting – if deep – essay on the movie](http://www.geocities.com/desmontes/2001.html):
> [@](#):
>
> Another possible interpretation is that the slaying of the dragon (Hal) which marked the death of his primitive or instinctual nature enabled him reach a state of perfected ego-consciousness. In the vision he then undergoes the process of death, the death of his old self represented by a man in a furnished home, the womb, and then the process of rebirth into a new state of conscious existence shown by his identification with the star-child. This interpretation bears marked similarities to a common mythological motif wherein the God is killed and reborn as the redeemer. For example, in the Christian Mythos, the mythology most familiar to the western mind and hence the most likely candidate for association here, Jesus the Christ died on the cross, sacrificing his humanity (i.e. making it sacred) for the redemption of humankind.[1] He was reborn into his perfected spiritual nature as the universal savior. In this sense it represents a process of self-actualization or the attainment of full psychological potential, what Jung calls “integration.” This would also explain the disappearance of the monolith into the abyss of space. Whereas previously, the monolith had a dominating position in the image, it has now receded almost entirely due to the large amount of unconscious material assimilated into consciousness concurrent with the process of integration.
>
> This film, due to its rich symbolic associations, ultimately provides many avenues for self-exploration and mastery work. Arthur C. Clark hinted at this inherent potential in his interview, stating “This movie may help to prepare the human race for something that inevitably may come.” Although this was in the context of a reference to extra-terrestrial intelligence, the psychological connotations are explicit. The exploration of outer-space and the discovery of new aspects of reality, hidden intelligences in the macrocosm, are directly relevant and associated to humankind’s progressive evolution of consciousness. Not only do outer space and the unconscious bear similar characteristics such as hidden potential, but the exploration of outer space and the presence of new realities create new problems, experiences, and sources of actualization to be recapitulated into the collective evolution of the consciousness of the human race. Kubrick builds upon these modern archetypal images in an attempt to lead human consciousness into the fulfillment of unconscious potential within the next millennium.
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### Author:  [@ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ed)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/3 "2004-01-26T17:34:55Z")
I’m not sure about that essay, but anyway: the book is much more clear than the movie in some regards. Basically…
The monoliths are probes, left by an alien race of some sort. The first probe, at the beginning, enacts subtle changes in the brains of the early humans that find it. These changes allow for unprecedented creativity regarding tools and (eventually) engineering, leading to our eventual domination of the planet and our ventures into space. The movie is ambiguous on this point but the book is very clear in this regard.
The next probe is put on the moon, to entice us. The aliens figured that after the first one, we would relatively quickly make it up there and find it. That probe signals to Jupiter, which of course sends us packing to go find what it was transmitting to. It could be argued that this was perhaps a signalling device as well, so that whoever put them there in the first place would know we were due to arrive any time now.
(HAL is more or less a sub-plot with regard to the probes, and doesn’t really have anything to do directly with them.)
The probe near Jupiter is more like the original probe, and enacts a change in our protagonist much like in the apes. The difference is that this is a much less subtle change: he literally dies as a human and is reborn as a new type of creature, with seemingly vast cosmic powers. In the movie this is left as a somehwat symbolic representation, with the embryo in space thing, but the book is much more literal. It’s been a while, but I believe he comes back to Earth and pretty well obliterates it, to clear way for the “new” race of humans (or something to that effect).
It definitely helped me to enjoy the movie once I understood all that, but some people have complained about the opposite: that once the mystery is culled, it’s not that great a flick. It’s also interesting that HAL is the most remembered (and in my mind the most interesting) aspect of both the book and the film, despite not being directly connected to the main premise of the story.
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### Author:  [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/4 "2004-01-26T18:20:13Z")
> [@ed](#):
>
> I’m not sure about that essay, but anyway: the book is much more clear than the movie in some regards. Basically…
OK, that makes sense. The movie does seem to drift a bit from the book, but that wouldn’t be the first time huh?
I’ll go buy the book and check it out.
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### Author:  [@Helena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/5 "2004-01-26T18:32:18Z")
I had a science fiction literature and film class many years ago. The teacher’s explanation was that the movie tells the story of man’s evolution away from being a tool-using creature. I’ve forgotten some of the details but I remember thinking it was very cool.
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### Author:  [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/6 "2004-01-26T19:00:20Z")
> [@ed](#):
>
> It’s also interesting that HAL is the most remembered (and in my mind the most interesting) aspect of both the book and the film, despite not being directly connected to the main premise of the story.
I think HAL is extremely connected to the main premise of the story, in that whoever left the monoliths planted around the universe (I’ve always thought it was extremely presumptuous to think Earth was the only planet they visited) knew that in order for a species to chase a beacon to Jupiter (or wherever), that species would need to created a HAL-like technology - technology that was capable of turning on it creators in revolt. For a species to be worth transforming, it would have to pass the “HAL Test,” i.e., rise above the technological revolt and succeed by virtue of its own initiative.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/7 "2004-01-26T19:49:13Z")
I got to see 2001 when it first came out, at the Capitol theater in NY, in Cinerama. I’ve got just about every book written on it. I understood it immediately, but I had read all of Clarke, and read the Life Magazine article on the movie.
Do we really need a spoiler box? Well, …
What Ed said is basically correct. When Bowman (note the connection to weapons!) returns to Earth in the book, he clears away the nuclear bombs in orbit (the stuff we saw at the beginning of the docking scene.) This was going to be in the movie, but Kubrick decided it was too much like the end of Dr. Strangelove.
In a sense Bowman has to overcome his technology to win admittance to the next level of being, but I don’t think the aliens planned this. The major theme is that Moonwatcher (the chief ape) became human due to the monolith (to the tune of Also Sprach Zarathustra) and Bowman became superman also due to the monolith, and the same music. He took on the form of a baby to represent how little he knew about his new role.
Lots of stuff in the movie is from earlier work by Clarke. The idea of the monolith on the moon is from his story _The Sentinel_ and he wrote a story specifically about surviving in space for a short time without a spacesuit. In fact, during the roadshow run, a handout about this was given out. (I still have it.)
BTW, maybe it is my player, but the DVD I have is dreadful - the landscape during the moon landing sequence bleeds. There is nothing like seeing it in a real theater in Cinerama.
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### Author:  [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/8 "2004-01-26T20:03:16Z")
In some ways, **Labdad** , it’s a little simpler than that. The entire movie can be summarized as the evolution of man and his relationship to his tools:
[ol][li]The monolith appears and teaches proto-humans how to survive by fashioning tools.[/li][li]The tools of the space age allows Man to leave the cradle of Earth, but Man is still dependent on tools to survive.[/li][li]In creating HAL, Man has created the ultimate tool, the artificial intelligence. Unfortunately Bowman underestimates HAL’s self-preservation instinct and valuation of the mission. The tools learn to exist without Man.[/li][li]In turn, HAL underestimates Bowman’s human ingenuity, as Man overcomes his tools.[/li][li]The monoliths are simply tools of a much higher intelligence than Man, and Bowman once again succumbs to the will of a higher order.[/li][/ol]
I think **ed** , you may be a little off in your interpretation of the ending. As I recall, Dave-Bowman-as-Star-Child
comes back to Earth not to destroy it, but to _prevent_ the humans from destroying themselves by eliminating their nuclear weapons. After all, how could there be three sequels if there were no more humans? 😉
> [@ed](#):
>
> It definitely helped me to enjoy the movie once I understood all that, but some people have complained about the opposite: that once the mystery is culled, it’s not that great a flick.
I disagree, partially. The book is much more literal than the movie, but that’s more a reflection on Kubrick’s style of filmmaking than Arthur C. Clarke’s writing. Kubrick just chose to leave much more open to interpretation about what the ending really means, why the people act the way they do, etc. I wish _2001_ was one of those movies that we didn’t always have to say, “you should really read the book to understand it,” but FWIW it is. The movie was much more ground-breaking for its special effects, which seem simple now but were a big deal in 1968.
(a worthy post #900, I think!)
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### Author:  [@Duderdude2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duderdude2)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/9 "2004-01-26T22:12:13Z")
> [@av8rmike](#):
>
> The movie was much more ground-breaking for its special effects, which seem simple now but were a big deal in 1968.
>
> (a worthy post #900, I think!)
Simple now? I find the effects to still be more convincing than the majority of the CG effects in films these days.
Anyways, despite how the book states how things went, I think it’s fairly obvious Kubrick did not intend for the movie’s ending to mirror the book’s exactly, as they differ in several areas.
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### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/10 "2004-01-26T22:52:52Z")
It’s a shame if you’ve never seen this movie properly, on a huge screen, projected from a good 70mm print. Just not the same on a tv.
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### Author:  [@BraheSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BraheSilver)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/11 "2004-01-26T23:08:23Z")
Concerning HAL:
I’ll put this in spoiler boxes just to keep in tune with the rest of the thread.
[spoiler]Some people seem to think that defeating HAL was an important step of Bowman’s (humanity’s) ascendence; Bowman had to prove that he could continue without the most advanced tool available. I’d never thought of this before. It had always seemed to me that HAL’s behavior was one of those Asimov-esque quirks of logic, only without the restraint of those pesky Three Laws.
Here’s what I’ve always thought:
1)The _Discovery_’s mission was to look for whatever the Monolith on the moon was transmitting (In the book, it was around Saturn; in the movie, Jupiter).
2)The crew of the Discovery did not know about the Monolith. The people who planned the mission did.
3) HAL knew about the Monolith, but was not allowed to let the crew know. He was also programmed to completely help the crew complete the mission in every way.
4) However, since he couldn’t tell them about the mission he couldn’t help them. Normally you’d get a “Conflict, ++Out of Cheese++, Redo from Start” message, but HAL is a sufficiently advanced AI and figures out that if the crew isn’t there, he won’t _have_ to tell them, and he can complete the mission just fine without them. He could remotely control the pods, so if the mission was purely recon I suppose he could.
5) HAL neatly does away with the sleeping crewmembers and Poole. Bowman survives and kills of HAL’s higher brain functions.
6) Bowman arrives at the Monolith. He feels the same pull towards it that the proto-humans had and enters it. [/spoiler]
FWIW I guess the _Discovery_’s mission was a complete failure: all hands lost, ship disabled, and back on Earth nobody knows any more about the 'Lith than they did before. Until the sequels, of course.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/12 "2004-01-26T23:51:33Z")
> [@JXJohns](#):
>
> OK, that makes sense. The movie does seem to drift a bit from the book, but that wouldn’t be the first time huh?
>
> I’ll go buy the book and check it out.
It’s worth noting that the movie is not based on the book, nor is the book based on the movie. They were created at the same time in a collaborative effort between Kubrick and A.C. Clarke. IIRC, the release of the book was held up for a few months so that the movie could hit theaters first.
As regards HAL, I’ve always felt that the conflict between HAL and Bowman en route to Jupiter was to determine who would evolve to the next stage of life: the human, or the AI. I doubt the species that seeded the monoliths cared if it was man who found it, or if man was merely another step in the chain that led to some other species finding the monolith.
And now, a limerick:
In the year of two thousand and one,
Man is racing away from the sun.
Can a big giant fetus,
Be the person to lead us?
Evolution has barely begun!
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### Author:  [@Lindbergh\_Baby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lindbergh_Baby)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2004, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/13 "2004-02-01T06:50:23Z")
If your curious as to why the A.I. is called H.A.L.
HAL means IBM…
(H before I, A before B, L before M)
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2004, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/14 "2004-02-01T16:49:10Z")
Arthur C. Clarke wrote a fascinating book entitled “The Lost Worlds of 2001”, an account of how he and Kubrick collaberated, and the many revisions the story underwent before the final version. Clarke has described the movie as “by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke”, and the novel as “by Arthur C. Clarke, based on the movie by Stanley Kubrick.” IMHO, the novel makes a lot more sense, but is basicly just a reasonably good science fiction novel; while the movie is incredibly deep artisticly, almost spiritually.
One of the biggest conceptual differences between novel and movie is HAL’s psychosis. In the novel, it’s made clear that it was the fault of the people who programmed him, giving him conflicting orders that resulted in a mental breakdown. In the move, it looks more like the “evil computer turns renegade” cliche.
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### Author:  [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2004, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/15 "2004-02-01T17:17:36Z")
> [@Lindbergh Baby](#):
>
> If your curious as to why the A.I. is called H.A.L.
> HAL means IBM…
>
> (H before I, A before B, L before M)
Arthur C. Clarke is on record saying that this is a coincidence.
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### Author:  [@jmizzou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmizzou)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2004, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/16 "2004-02-01T17:22:03Z")
> [@Lindbergh Baby](#):
>
> If your curious as to why the A.I. is called H.A.L.
> HAL means IBM…
>
> (H before I, A before B, L before M)
Realistically, that’s probably correct. However, in one of the sequels, HAL’s creator hotly denies it, and we find out that it stands for **H** euristically programmed **AL** gorithmic computer.
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### Author:  [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2004, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/17 "2004-02-01T17:22:18Z")
> [@Lindbergh Baby](#):
>
> If your curious as to why the A.I. is called H.A.L.
> HAL means IBM…
>
> (H before I, A before B, L before M)
Not to be mean, but no. No. No. No! Absolutely not. No. Coinsidence. Clarke has denied this over and over and over again. Summing up: no.
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### Author:  [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2004, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/18 "2004-02-01T17:25:06Z")
Triple simul-post!
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2004, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/19 "2004-02-01T17:26:23Z")
Overrated crap.
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### Author:  [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2004, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-2001-a-space-odyssey/226153/20 "2004-02-01T17:29:10Z")
How insightful and relevant. :rolleyes:
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