I finally viewed 2001: A Space Odyssey

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Della said:
Yeah, it runs for 2 hours 27 minutes. It could have been cut by 27 minutes and lost nothing, IMHO. I won’t advise you to see it or not see it. Maybe you will enjoy it–I may not have the right mind set for it. 🤷 I only watched it so I could say that I did. 🙂
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I finally watched the whole thing. I had to break it down into 3 viewings, due to time.

I guess I liked it, but it is not an easy film to watch (the pace is very slow, and it’s easy to lose focus, so I think breaking it down into 3 viewings for me was a good idea)

The cinematography was very beautiful, and the special effects were very good especially since Kubrick didn’t use any CGI.

I agree that it could have been edited to a shorter film and not lost much impact.

I saw a parallel between the evolution of the simian creatures and the evolution of HAL.

I guess this would be a spoiler for those who haven’t seen it.

The simian creatures evolve to use the tools for self defense and self preservation. So they become more human that they could use tools and defend their watering hole from the competing simian tribe.

HAL evolves as well. There are some hints that he does, when he tells Dave and Frank that the part of the ship will malfunction, and they ask him if a computer like him would make a mistake. He responds that it would be a human error. HAL is evolving to be human like, so he uses his own judgment and not only his programmed knowledge. That’s when he makes a mistake, his judgment failed him, not his knowledge.

He attempts self preservation. He overhears that Frank and Dave are planning to disconnect him. Or better, reads their lips. So he kills the astronauts preemptively, so he doesn’t become destroyed.

Dave then dismantles him, HAL tells him to stop and that he’s afraid. So HAL was able to develop human emotions to an extent.

I did see some of the inspiration for Wall-e and for Buzz Lightyear. The screen caption says, “Jupiter and beyond the infinite.” That gave me a big smile. The Wall-e part is when the prerecorded message comes on right before landing on Jupiter.

I didn’t “get” the room scene with the aging Dave. BUT it did remind me of the Overlook Hotel from the Shining. I was almost waiting for a scary hag to jump out of the tub.

So, if I were a film critic I’d give it a thumbs up, because it is well made. But I completely understand not liking it. It’s a better film then, “Logan’s Run” for example, but “Logan’s Run” is more fun too watch.

In a broad sense it reminded me a bit of Metropolis (I’ve started to watch that one, but haven’t been able to finish it) What I feel is similar is how the view of the future is so dated. The costumes in Metropolis are very 1920’s. The costumes, hair styles, and furnishings are very 1960’s here.
 
Mary_Gail_36 said:
Dave then dismantles him, HAL tells him to stop and that he’s afraid. So HAL was able to develop human emotions to an extent.
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Frank explains in the interview that HAL is programmed to respond in the way he does to make it easier for them to talk to him. I don’t think that he developed human emotions; I think he was cold and calculating just like a computer would be. Remember that computers don’t “think;” instead, they respond how they are programmed to respond. HAL told Dave that the mission was too important to take a chance on letting them foul it up and computed that in order for the mission to succeed, Dave and Frank had to go. Or, at least, that’s how I see it!
 
Making the movie rather mysterious and ambiguous was probably a good move on Kubrick’s part. After seeing it the first time, as I was leaving the theater I overheard some guy saying in awesome tones: “Man, I’m going to keep seeing this until I get it figured out!” The movie got a lot of repeat viewers.
 
Tim_D said:
Oh, how so true.

I remember reading how someone compared the supposed “golden age” of the Church in America during the 1950s as a Christmas ornament; beautiful and shiny on the outside and hollow and empty on the inside.

I’ve always wondered how things supposedly just went off the deep end in 1964.
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No need to speculate. Christianity was actually lived daily during the 1950s and early 1960s. Then certain groups were formed to derail all that. I thought about God daily. No, life wasn’t perfect but a great deal better than today.

Ed
 
edwest2 said:
No need to speculate. Christianity was actually lived daily during the 1950s and early 1960s. Then certain groups were formed to derail all that. I thought about God daily. No, life wasn’t perfect but a great deal better than today.
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What groups? Do you have names? What was the date that they implemented their plan?
 
I saw the movie many years ago when it first came out. I thought it was a waste of time.
 
Tim_D said:
Frank explains in the interview that HAL is programmed to respond in the way he does to make it easier for them to talk to him. I don’t think that he developed human emotions; I think he was cold and calculating just like a computer would be. Remember that computers don’t “think;” instead, they respond how they are programmed to respond. HAL told Dave that the mission was too important to take a chance on letting them foul it up and computed that in order for the mission to succeed, Dave and Frank had to go. Or, at least, that’s how I see it!
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Actually the Novel gives a more sinister explanation. After the obelisk was discovered on the Moon, IT communicated the location of the Stargate(orbiting Saturn in the Novel, but Jupiter in the film) allowing a mission to be planned. In the process of this communication, which required the astronauts to touch the obelisk, it literally gave them an extreme form of Schizophrenia as their brains were overloaded with alien information.

This incident was made classified and kept from the public and also from the astronauts sent on the mission to Saturn/Jupiter for fear there would be a backlash. The ships onboard computer HAL 9000 had this communicative information(including subsequent effects on the astronauts) programmed in his Database along with instructions concerning the obelisk orbiting Saturn/Jupiter, with the added command to protect this sensitive information from Dave Bowman at all costs. In transit, HAL computes the mission’s first order “to communicate all mission data to Earth” to be impossible without violating his second programmed order as apparently this would require the Astronauts involvement in broadcasting the same sensitive information he has been programmed to keep from them.

He deduces coldly that to for fill the initial parameters AND the classified secondary parameters he would now have to kill Bowman and the other astronauts and automatically transmit the information by himself.
 
colliric said:
Actually the Novel gives a more sinister explanation.
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Thanks but I prefer to let the film stand on its own. Details like this tend to ruin the experience that Kubrick achieved. I think it works a lot better by purposely leaving details ambiguous.
 
Tim_D said:
Thanks but I prefer to let the film stand on its own. Details like this tend to ruin the experience that Kubrick achieved. I think it works a lot better by purposely leaving details ambiguous.
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Personally I disagree, as I felt the book gave a clearer picture to me. I felt when reading the novel that Kubrick and Clark probably worked in tandem developing the film’s “rendition” of the plot in relation to the novel’s rendition. I felt the film was deliberately designed somewhat ambiguous so audiences would be enticed to then go and read the novel to find out “what it all meant”. I think the film does stand on it’s own, but it was mostly likely also deliberately designed to be symbiotic with the book for those who felt they wanted to know more of the story.
 
I saw the film when I was in middle school but read the book first & was really impressed. I must admit that on viewing it years later I was . . . much less impressed. If it were done y any lesser director I’m sure the studio would probably have demanded at least 45 minutes be cut out.

Btw, there’s a video, Red Rum Getaway showing Jimmy Stewart wandering thru Kubrick movie scenes. WARNING: contains female nudity (Eyes Wide Shut, Clockwork Orange – about 10 seconds total). I must say the expression on Stewart’s face when he stumbles into Eyes Wide Shut is priceless.
 
colliric said:
Personally I disagree, as I felt the book gave a clearer picture to me. I felt when reading the novel that Kubrick and Clark probably worked in tandem developing the film’s “rendition” of the plot in relation to the novel’s rendition. I felt the film was deliberately designed somewhat ambiguous so audiences would be enticed to then go and read the novel to find out “what it all meant”. I think the film does stand on it’s own, but it was mostly likely also deliberately designed to be symbiotic with the book for those who felt they wanted to know more of the story.
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Horses for courses…I do not believe, though that Kubrick deliberately designed the movie in order to entice people to read the novel. That’s like saying that Michelangelo sculpted the Pieta to entice people to check out his Sistine Chapel work.
 
Tim_D said:
Horses for courses…I do not believe, though that Kubrick deliberately designed the movie in order to entice people to read the novel. That’s like saying that Michelangelo sculpted the Pieta to entice people to check out his Sistine Chapel work.
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I agree. Unless we have solid evidence that they had ulterior motives, I think it’s prudent not to assign such reasons to why Kubrick directed the film as he did.

It is a lovely film to look at, as gazing on any other work of visual art can be. Kubrick made space come alive for people who had never seen real space craft in space. Indeed, he made space travel seem romantic showing space vehicles gliding along against a velvet background dotted with twinkling stars–the reality is far less engaging, as we now know from seeing the real thing. He caused many young people to consider new fields of study/careers. 2001 inspired other filmmakers, who took elements of his work and adapted it in their own. It has many pluses, as do other innovative films by other filmmakers, such as Orson Wells and Alfred HItchcock.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we all must love any particular film, nor that those films can’t have faults that make them hard to watch/appreciate. As an overall film I found it tedious and pretentious, but I can see how it can have loyal devotees for whom the very things that annoy me might give them raptures of enjoyment. :tiphat:
 
Tim_D said:
Thanks but I prefer to let the film stand on its own. Details like this tend to ruin the experience that Kubrick achieved. I think it works a lot better by purposely leaving details ambiguous.
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This is the perfect illustration of the difference between those that like and dislike the film. I don’t think anyone is wrong, it’s just opinion. To me, that ambiguity is incredibly poor storytelling. And since the story is the reason I see the movie, it makes ruins the experience.
 
Well, the storyline begins with the planting of the monolith among the prehistoric simians, sparking the use of tools and the evolution of man. It continues with the discovery of a similar monolith buried on the moon, eons later, which sends a signal to the vicinity of Jupiter when it is discovered.

That leads to the Jupiter mission in which a similar monolith is found in Jupiter orbit. Bowman approaches the monolith and is sucked into a space warp where he ends up in an artificial environment, becomes an old man, and is confronted by the monolith a final time as he lies in bed, an old man near death. He is transformed into a star child, in presumably yet another stage of human evolution. The movie ends with the star child approaching Earth, contemplating his next activity.

That is a far more developed plot line than is found in the original short story, “The Sentinel,” in which the action is limited to the finding of the alien artifact on the moon. HAL’s interaction and murder of most of the crew is not even essential to the plot, but it makes for a good side story in the movie and provides the opportunity for some special effects.
 
“How much would we appreciate La Gioconda today if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: “This lady is smiling slightly because she has rotten teeth”—or “because she’s hiding a secret from her lover”? It would shut off the viewer’s appreciation and shackle him to a reality other than his own. I don’t want that to happen to 2001.”

—Stanley Kubrick, Playboy, 1968
 
JimG said:
Well, the storyline begins with the planting of the monolith among the prehistoric simians, sparking the use of tools and the evolution of man. It continues with the discovery of a similar monolith buried on the moon, eons later, which sends a signal to the vicinity of Jupiter when it is discovered.

That leads to the Jupiter mission in which a similar monolith is found in Jupiter orbit. Bowman approaches the monolith and is sucked into a space warp where he ends up in an artificial environment, becomes an old man, and is confronted by the monolith a final time as he lies in bed, an old man near death. He is transformed into a star child, in presumably yet another stage of human evolution. The movie ends with the star child approaching Earth, contemplating his next activity.

That is a far more developed plot line than is found in the original short story, “The Sentinel,” in which the action is limited to the finding of the alien artifact on the moon. HAL’s interaction and murder of most of the crew is not even essential to the plot, but it makes for a good side story in the movie and provides the opportunity for some special effects.
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So the monolith is more or less God (the basic life force - source of life, knowledge…) - at least I was right about that. And, as I recall, that was pretty much the main question. What was the monolith. I didn’t understand the house at the end, and what happened to the astronaut either, other than aging and dying and confronting the monolith. And that the baby was the transformed astronaut.
 
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