I’ll second sleestak, and say “Read the book!” then watch the movie again.
It’s a quick read, and a great novel.
Also, remember that the story borrows a number of elements and images from Homer’s Odyssey, from the Laestrygonians to the cyclops.
Uh, don’t hate me, but i actually quite like 2010: Odyssey Two (The Year We Make Contact). Sure its less a work-of-art than a solid science-fiction tale, but its intelligent, something sorely lacking in many sci-fi features…
The book is pretty good too, as is 2061: Odyssey Three.
The final book: 3001: Final Odyssey, didn’t really impress me, though there are rumors that 3001 will be released in the theatres instead of 2061…
Dang, I have to explain the story.
Spoiler space:
…
Here we go
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2001:
At the start of the movie-book, an alien encounters apes on earth. The aliens, in the form of the Monolith, teach the apes to use tools. The apes evolve into us humans. The aliens put another monolith on the moon. When the humans discover the monolith on the moon the monolith sends a signal to the monolith that is orbiting Jupiter. The whole point of the monoliths is to track the evolution of the humans. The humans send a ship to find the monolith around Jupiter. On the way Hal goes nuts. Hal is pretty irrelevant to the story. Anyway, when the ship gets to the monolith the only person left is Dave. Dave takes off towards the monolith and is taken in by the monolith and goes through a big long process so Dave can communicate with the aliens. He ends up as the star baby. He becomes a conduit between the aliens and the human race.
I’ll be back soon to explain the rest of the story.
Slee
Well, let’s face it. It’a little out-dated.
I mean, It’s basically Electric Drams with apes.
Electric Dreams*
The cyclops?
Do you mean hal’s eye?
The Laestrygonians?
Help me out here, I’m clueless.
Alzarian, I hate you.
This is my take as to why HAL goes nuts:
HAL is programmed to collect, process, and deliver data accurately, without omission or distortion.
However, It was also told to keep the Alpha crew (Dave Bowman and Frank Poole) in the dark, and turn over the mission to the Beta crew (the three in the hibernaculae). The basis being National Security and"need to know".
This is a contradiction in HAL’s programming.
It tries to find a way out of this dilemma by attempting to break communications with Earth by causing the antennae to fail.
When Dave and Frank conclude HAL is malfunctioning and conspire to shut down its higher reasoning functions, HAL panics.
The only way HAL can nowfulfill its programming is to eliminate the humans on board and complete the mission itself…which it fails because of a ballsy maneuver by Dave to swim in a little bit of vaccuum and pull the plug on HAL.
WHAT??? 3001 sucked! Especially in that he ripped off Independance Day for his Deus Ex ending.
Outdated? How? The movie doesn’t become outdated just because we passed the date the story is set. I can’t think of anything in the movie invalidated by social or technological changes since the movie was made. (Except for a few nitpick details, like the existance of Pan Am)
The Odyssey is about a clever warrior who is trying to find his way home after a war, who has blasphemed against the gods, and is sent on a deadly 10 year diversion. Meanwhile, back at home, his wife is beset by the “suitors” who have come to claim the warrior’s kingdom since he is presumed dead. He loses all his companions, but is not dead, and arrives home to put his house in order.
2001 is based on it. Brother Where Art Thou is based on it. Ulysses is based on it. Parts of Lord of the Rings are based on it. It is a standard plot of literature. The variations on the theme in 2001 are the mystery of the enemies encountered and the nature of the transformation of the journey, but these are only superficial changes. The story is fundamentally the same. Learn who you are in your travels, survive because you have done that (and your companions don’t), come home and put your house in order.
Yeah, sorry, I was kinda exaggeraring for comedic effect.
In part, I agree with you. The mystery and complexity remain fresh. But if someone is interested only in the plot and not the themes, I can understand why it seems dated to them. Computers were relatively new gizmos to the public in 1968 and perhaps we were more intimidated by them.
Also, In 1968, we hadn’t seen special effects like that before. they were startling!
Arthur C. Clarke’s favorite essay on the film was written by a fifteen year old girl. I would love to find a copy of it.
I’ve forgotten now who mentioned the music when HAL was shutting down. I used to have that playing on my computer as it shut down too. The song was “A Bicycle Built for Two” and begings with “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true…”
I think the problem was that it relied quite a bit on the Cold War Subplot, as well as having a style far more like that of “Alien” and “Star Wars” then of “2001” which paid a lot of attention to detail (Notice, No sound in space, no zooming spaceships in 2001? 2010 completely junks it). As well as the “Aliens save Humanity” ending.
3001 was a political diatribe with trappings of sci-fi, with little story and a pretty stupid ending.
[Spoiler]
The Aliens can modify our genetic makeup, Make themselves godlike, create star gates, turn Jupiter into a sun, and blow up a sun, but they can’t develop decent anti-virus software? Right…
[/Spolier]
That and I just got really sick of hearing about “Why the 20th century totally sucked and why religion is so horrible” in such a trasparent and preachy manner.
Besides, Frank Herbert did a far better job at it.
In most Sf, aliens turn out to look and act basically like humans. (OK, with better FX they are now looking less like humans, and there’s always the Star Trek amorphous blob. But still.)
Kubrick’s version (IMO better than Clark’s) posits that an encounter with aliens will be completely incomprehensible to us. They would just be too different.
The mystery of it all it what makes it a great movie.
One of my favorite touches in 2001 is that it is divided quite neatly into sections. And if you pay careful attention, you will notice that the first section, titled (IIRC) “The Dawn of Man” doesn’t end until after the monolith on the moon is discovered.
QUE?!?
HAL completes the trio of different consciousnesses the run the film:
The aliens, who guided us to intelligence and self awareness;
The humans, who guide HAL to intelligence and self-awareness;
HAL (last in line)
Not to mention the above-mentioned connection with the cyclops from the Oddessy.
Also, many film critics have pointed out that despite being a computer, HAL delivers the most human performance in the entire movie.
It’s one of the essays on the site I linked to above. Here is a direct link.
All I’ll say for now is that I LOVE this film. After I got my DVD player the first DVD I purchased was none other than 2001. Glorious.
Global Citizen
Feel the Love <hearts bursting>
Yeah, Global Citizen, me too.
It’s probably not relevant now, since there’s an internet link, but the essay was published in The Making of Kubrick’s 2001 , edited by Jerome Agel, back about 1970. My high school English teacher was good friends with her high school English teacher.