Uh… no. The thighbone is thrown into the air, and you jump cut to the 21st century equivilant of an airliner. Not a weapon.
The shuttle docks with the rotating space station that theoretically COULD contain weapons, but no such are seen or implied. In fact, the station is shown as a multinational effort, with both American and Russian particupation, which makes weapons even less likely, given the political context of the period.
Your thesis is unsupported by the facts.
No, I’m afraid stranger got it right – the thighbone does jump-cut to an orbiting weapons platform, not the PanAm Space Cruiser (check the film again – the PanAm shuttle doesn’t come in until we’ve seen a few of these orbiting devices). At least one of Clarke and Kubrick (I think, in fact, both) has gone on record at the time as identifying these satellites as orbiting weapons, so the identification of thigh bone with futuristic weapons is correct and intentional.
Kubrick and Clarke wanted to make, as they put it, “the first good science fiction movie”. I think they succeeded. In tone, effects, appearance, writing, etc. 2001 represents a quantum leap over anything that came before it. For the first time spaceships didn’t look like smooth cigars out of the pulps, but like the irregular, attachment-filled reality we saw being launched from Cape Kennedy. (asnd ever since, space ships have looke, as one critic put it, as if “dipped in glue and rolled in old model parts”. For the first time we were spared adolescent (or puerile) subplots, characterization, and dumbed-down explanatory dialogue. The special effects, on all levels, were superb, from the ape-man costumes to the centrifugal-effect artificial gravity to the spaceships in flight to the slit-scan “acid trip”
The use of classical music was an inspiration. “Nothing gets you as far from the cliche of space music”, Kubrick said.
Kubrick and company came up with new special effects for this, and lavished money on hand-drawn colored-separated mattes. I don’t think anyone will ever be able to afford to do it this way again. In this way, the film is like King Kong, which also pioneerred the use of so many special effect techniques that have since become standard.
If you want to see the effect 2001 had, dig out a copy of George Pal’s Conquest ogf Space. Made in the 1950s, ts spaceships and rotating space station were 1940s vision, vs. 2001’s 1960s vision. Its plot and writing were contrived and unconvincing. You couldn’t really buy things happening as in CoS, but 2001 looked like an only slightly extrapolated version of the Apollo flights we saw with regularity on our TVs.
The ending is incomprehensible and unsatisfying, but it does retain the “Sense of Wonder” so beloved of SF fans, without being trivial or absurd. As noted above, look up Jerome Agel’s book The Making of Kubrick’s 2001. Includede in that is an analysis that was written by a N.J. high school student (My H.S. English teacher knew her English teacher, who had, I think. submitted it to Agel, so I knew about this before it was published, and sought it out).
For all its faults, 2001 is one f my top two favorite SF films, alternating fof first place with Forbidden Planet. FP is the finest cinematic depiction of 1940s science fiction, as 2001 is the finest depiction of 1950s SF (SF cinema is always at least a decade behind literature. I can make this case concrete by noting the film’s dependence on Clarke’s 1950s short stoery “The Sentinel”)
If I want to impress upon someone that science fiction can be a very adult medium, I show them this. Nothing else is so obviously Science Fiction (you can get up on arguing if Fail Safe or Charly or Gattaca really is science fiction) and so far removed from the cliched space-opera trappings of, say, Star Wars as 2001.
And 2001 is still about the only film in which spacecraft really do move like proper space ships.
I first saw 2001 in its original run in NYC, and ultimately hated it. After thinking about it over the years, and seeing it again, I think, overall, it’s an OK film, but not a great one, and has a lot of bad things to answer for.
The big problem is the ending. Kubrick punted. He painted himself into a situation where he needed a transcendent payoff, and all he could think of was a fancy light show that meant nothing. It was a matter of dazzling the audience with bright shiny lights to hide the fact there is no real substance. Ultimately, the film says nothing about man or anything else, but since it’s so empty of actual content, it allows viewers to see whatever meaning they want.
So if you want to see it as anything, you can, primarily because there’s nothing there to see.
As for the bad things – this was the first film where style was more important that substance. It showed that if you used flashy special effects, you didn’t have to worry about mundane things like plot or characterization. That’s a failing of all too many films today – they are essentially the same as 2001: breathtaking special effects, but intellectually empty.
Still, the portrayals of life in space are quite good, and the Hal story is nicely done. The silliest moment is when the people on the moon agree to go along with keeping everything secret because the Government Knows Best.
I’ve seen the movie (with a friend), and read the book.
The movie was Dullsville. Lacking the patience to sit through the long opening and ending sequences, we watched it in fast forward and the movie was still just as (in)comprehensible.
(BTW, I thought the final pose of Poole on the bed was supposed to echo the creation of Adam painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.)
The book definitely was much more coherent and thought provoking.
The video played after HAL’s shut down too, supposed to be hidden until arrival at Jupiter would suggest secrecy.
I was just wondering about HALs breakdown. He couldn’t accept he had made an error diagnosing the fault in the communications array. But when did HAL feel the humans were putting the secrecy of the mission in jeopardy? Was that just something that he decided after going mad?
I have always enjoyed the movie for two very different reasons: 1) the underlying concept of the story about man’s eveolution being driven by an alien “presence” that we have mistaken for God, and 2) Kubrick’s visualization and imagery, which actually tended to muddle up the underlying story. I came away from the movie awed at the concept that “God” could be finite, have a definite lifespan, and man was being “groomed” to be the successor to the all-powerful being. Hence, the Star-child was the next “God”, ready to start the process anew. Look into the Star-Child’s eyes, they are keenly aware and full of wisdom far beyond the ability of man.
The ending in the book only strengthened this impression, where the Star-Child seems to turn it’s attention to Earth and prepares to wipe it clean to start over.
I have always enjoyed the movie for two very different reasons: 1) the underlying concept of the story about man’s eveolution being driven by an alien “presence” that we have mistaken for God, and 2) Kubrick’s visualization and imagery, which actually tended to muddle up the underlying story. I came away from the movie awed at the concept that “God” could be finite, have a definite lifespan, and man was being “groomed” to be the successor to the all-powerful being. Hence, the Star-child was the next “God”, ready to start the process anew. Look into the Star-Child’s eyes, they are keenly aware and full of wisdom far beyond the ability of man.
The ending in the book only strengthened this impression, where the Star-Child seems to turn it’s attention to Earth and prepares to wipe it clean to start over.
hijack Could someone tell me how these duplicate posts happen?
Cal, you are usually right about these things, but it’s not the way I remember it. I’ll have to go dig up a copy and check it out. You are absolutely correct about the brilliance of the classical score.
There were no bad characterizations (a la fifties space operas) in 2001 because there WERE no characterizations. The only human moment was Dr. Floyd talking on the videophone to his daughter, which was just product placement for Ma Bell – which ironically didn’t exist when 2001 finally rolled around.
As I have said, I love this movie, but, I just don’t think it themes are “timeless”.
How can you belittle A Clockwork Orange? Yes, EWS was laborious and even pretentious at times but Clockwork is superlative film-making. I have read the book and Kubrick was able to capture the times, the atmosphere and the depraved character of Alex on film.
I think it ranks with 2001 and Strangelove as the best films Kubrick made…
Now, why is this film timeless? Because it is the essential science-fiction movie. While we have so many science-fiction themes revolving around aliens, mutations, monsters, wars etc., this film takes sci-fi to its core… a meditation on Man’s evolution across time and the possibility of superior Life somewhere else in the universe. It talks of technology that are at the forefront of human science, the space program and artificial intelligence. I can’t think of a more essential sci-fi theme…
Nope. Having been up on my Clarke when I saw it originally, the meaning was quite obvious. It was probably the first movie where you needed some background in either space or science fiction to get. When it opened critics and other “adults” hadn’t grown up watching Star Trek or Star Wars, and a lot were totally lost. Read the reviews in Agel’s book. Half of them thought the Star Gate went to Jupiter.
Now Kubrick was sly when talking about the meaning, but they discovered that lots of people were seeing it multiple times, which was good for the bottom line. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Kubrick was a filmmaker, working in images, not words. Early versions had talking heads explaining things (like the narration at the beginning of Strangelove) but they were wisely dropped.
There was a score composed for 2001, but Kubrick decided that the music he had used while cutting the film was better. Did you know that the music used behind Discovery is from a ballet from Russia about tractors? (Actually about a collective farm.)
My new girlfriend and I are about to take the ultimate test of commitment and compatibility. We’re going to watch “2001” together this weekend. She fell asleep midway through “Spartacus” last week, so it’s not looking promising…
… anyway, it may be a load of bunk but it’s two cents worth on , for me, easily the greatest film ever made.
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The Mad parody of 2001 (201 minutes of A Space Idiocy, which is hilarious, and which I have committed to memory) shows the thighhbone segueing into the Pan Am space clipper, but of course they’re a bit pressed for space, and so they naturallt cut out a lot of things, like the orbitiong bombs. (Apparently one idea was to have the “Star Child” blowing up these bombs, but like the “Orion Spacecraft” propelled by nuclea explosions they hoped to use in 2001, it never happened.)
There may not have been anny characterizations (contemporary reviews noted how the hardweare overwhelmed the human aspects of the story), but the military/industrial poker-faced laconic attitude was the new norm at the time, and to my knowledfge is first portrayed here. In any case, you certainly don’t get the over-the-top religious nut character as in Conquest of Space or the “Ordinary Blue-Collar Working Joe” character of Destination Moon in 2001, and it’s much the better for it.
Cal is right. The Pan Am spaceplane appears just as the Blue Danube finishes the introductory part and goes into the main theme. (I’ve seen this movie way too many times!)
And Howard Johnsons, though it still exists, is unlikely to be on a space station. (There was a Howard Johnsons kids menu with a 2001 comic book in 1968, btw.)
I disagree about the characterization - HAL was a good character. Floyd was a bureaucrat - it is interesting how Clarke’s and Kubrick’s view of him are so different. I think Clarke made him the hero of 2010 as an apology. How could anyone not hate him after he asked for loyalty oaths. I think they got the politics of the US government in 2001 exactly right.
BTW, it struck me when watching EWS that some of Tom Cruise’s facial expressions were exact duplicates of Keir Dullea’s. Now that’s directing!
And the reason it never happened was that the ending was considered to be too close to the ending of Dr. Strangelove.
I loved the Mad parody too. “Is it a prehistoric transistor radio?”
I think so. HAL kept trying to suggest that something was wrong (re: his discussion with Bowman “There is something very odd about this mission,”) but of course couldn’t divulge his secret directives. This secrecy was probably in direct conflict with his general instruction to share all pertinent data with the crew. On top of that, I think HAL was cognizant enough to be lonely and disconnected from the crew by his secret knowledge. His final speech, (“I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.”) indicates that he was not above emotion and fear.
I wonder if he didn’t actually have to segregate different directives into seperate parts of his “psyche” (hence, his subterfuge in incorrectly diagnosing a problem with the AE-35 unit but his inability to find a failure in the unit once it was removed and tested.) Bowman and Poole’s discussion in the pod bay about shutting down HAL (where they turned off the sound but failed to conceal their lip movements) seems to have been the trigger for HALs homicidal actions, but clearly he was becoming unstable before then (and paranoid, though rightfully so, about the crew’s actions against him.)
Stranger
When he read the lips of Bowman and Poole, he decided that he was so essential to the mission that being shut down would jeopardize it. The killings were to cover up the mistake he had made already. The conflict, as explained by Clarke, was in his knowing the secret of the mission but not being able to tell the awake crew. He was built to not distort information, but his instructions were to lie. That is what caused the problem. HAL was right - it was human error after all.
It is interesting that of all the deaths in the movie, only HAL has a death scene. The others are silent. All the other deaths are caused by technology - including the man ape at the beginning, killed by the latest technology at the time.
Clarke has Bowman bring HAL into starchildhood at the end of 2010, just before the Discovery is destroyed by the explosion of Jupiter.
“A dawn of man tape deck?”
“And you, big black monolith. Before I die, tell me what you are.”
“Gee, people dance around me and photograph me, but nobody ever asks. Are you ready?
I’M A BOOK!”
(Book opens to title page:)
**How to Make an Incomprehensible Space Movie
and
Severl Million Dollars
by
Author – Producer – Director
Stanley Kubrick**