One of the
best science-fiction movies of all time was Stanley Kubrick's 2001, A Space
Odyssey. Many people nowadays wonder
what the big deal was with this movie. They have only seen it on the small
screen. With digital special effects in more modern movies, the special effects
seem ho-hum. In 1968, in a theatrical release, it was spectacular. I was one of
the lucky ones who saw it in Cinerama in a wide-screen theatre. It was nothing short of mind blowing.
The film
deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial
intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific
realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous imagery that is open-ended to a
point approaching surrealism, sound in place of traditional narrative
techniques, and minimal use of dialogue.
In my opinion
such movies as Star Wars and Alien probably would not have been
made were it not for the success of 2001. It was the first movie to show
that a serious SF film with great special effects could draw a large audience.
Perhaps one of the reasons for this was that the Apollo space program and other
NASA space probes were gaining popularity. It was only a year later that Lance
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the moon. Four years
later Pioneer 10 had reached the planet Jupiter.
For those of
you who had never saw the movie, here is a synopsis (warning, it contains
spoilers): The movie starts millions of
years ago when a group of subhumans are competing with tapirs and other homids
for food. One morning a tall, thin, rectangular black monolith stands among the
rocks. The apemen are excited but touch the object and calm down. By touching
the monolith, they have learned to use bones as weapons and tools.
In the next
scene the action moves to the near future where travel to the moon is an every
day affair. A similar monolith is found on the moon and sends a signal towards
Jupiter.
Eighteen
months later a manned spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to investigate. Two of the
team are awake to run the ship with the aid of an almost human AI called HAL.
The other three are in hibernation. Hal
announces that there is a problem with the AE-35 unit and it will fail with
100% certainty within 72 hours. The astronauts go EVA to replace the unit. The
two astronauts scan the removed AE-35 unit but can't find any defects. Hal
suggests putting it back in service to let it fail. Mission Control believes
Hal has made an error because their HAL9000 unit, a twin to the one aboard
Discovery, finds no flaw in the AE-35. Hal denies any chance of computer error.
The astronauts go to a pod to have a private chat and decide to disable Hal's
higher functions without disturbing the automatic ship control functions. Hal
can see the men through the pod's window and reads their lips. When Poole goes out in the EVA pod, the pod murders him. When Dave
uses a pod to recover Frank's body, a computer malfunction alert goes off and
the life signs of the three hibernating astronauts flat line. Hal refuses to
open the pod bay doors for Dave, explaining that he knows Dave is planning to
disconnect him because he was able to read Frank and Dave's lips when they
discussed it. He says the mission is too important to allow humans to
jeopardize it. Dave releases Frank's body and maneuvers the pod to the
emergency airlock hatch. He uses the pod's arms to open the door, holds his
breath and jumps over to the ship. Dave goes to the computer room and shuts
down HAL.
A much larger
black monolith floats in Jupiter orbit,. Bowman leaves the Discovery in another
EVA pod and enters a wormhole. The pod ends up somewhere in time and space in a
bedroom with luminous white walls and floor and furniture in the style of Louis
XVI. Dave ages swiftly until he is a dying old man. A monolith appears and
transforms him into a star child.
If all of
this sounds sort of mundane, it is because there is no way to describe the
marvelous cinematography, special effects, music and emotional impact of the
movie.
The idea for
the movie was taken from an Arthur Clarke short story, The Sentinel.
Clarke also wrote the script.
A sequel to
the movie was released in 1984 called 2010: The Year We Made Contact
starring Roy Schneider. The plot is based on Arthur Clarke's novel 2010:
Odyssey Two.
It is a
rather good movie itself, but nowhere as spectacular as 2001.
