The Sci-Fi Cast

Many years ago, I went into a movie theater with my father to see 2001: A Space Odyssey, and left utterly baffled by what I had seen; baffled and amazed. To young Dave, 2001 didn’t make a bit of sense but also grabbed my attention like nothing else.

Today, love it. In a recent episode of The Sci-Fi Cast it received a beating, and friend-of-the-show Louie Mantia also gave it a poor review earlier this week. With that in mind, I want to share why I love my favorite movie.

First things first: By definition, it’s impossible for one’s opinion to be right or wrong. I know there are legions of people who dislike 2001. The point of this post is not to persuade. If you hate this movie, by all means, hate it! I’ll not condemn you for doing so.

When I first saw 2001, as I said, I left the theater baffled.

What the hell was that?

It didn’t make any sense.

I have no idea what just happened.

Even today, I lack a solid interpretation of what 2001 is about. Of course, that was by design. In a 1968 interview with Playboy magazine, Kubrick stated:

“You’re free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film — and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level — but I don’t want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he’s missed the point.”

That was the tipping point for me. I didn’t understand the story, but was so enthralled by the rest of the movie that I felt compelled to try and understand it. Or, more to the point, discover if there even was a story.

After reading the book by Arthur C. Clarke and repeated viewings of the film, I’ve come to the following understanding of the story.

THE STORY

The film begins at dawn, somewhere in prehistoric Africa. However, the story begins before that. A race of aliens travel an incomprehensible distance to plant two monoliths: One on Earth, and one on the moon.

The first is planted next to a small tribe of pre-historic humanoids (we’ll call them “apes”) while they sleep. When they awake at dawn, they freak.

This is one of my favorite scenes. It’s easy to dismiss it as a bunch of monkeys going nuts over the sight of a black box. But think about it — this is the first time any of them have ever seen anything so “perfect.” It’s got 90˚ angles. It’s completely black and its surface is perfectly smooth. What’s ordinary to us was utterly foreign to the apes; something they’ve literally never seen before.

Why is it there? Many people think that the monolith itself somehow prompts the apes, or shows them what they need to make the next great leap in their evolution … the use of tools. But I think its function is different.

The monolith offers a challenge to their thinking. In trying to understand this completely alien object, the apes must dramatically alter their thinking and assumptions about everything in their environment. One of the apes, whom the book calls “Moonwatcher,” is idly fiddling with some bones as he has probably done countless times before. However, he’s doing it with a fresh perspective, and notices that one bone can have an effect on another. Specifically, one bone can break another. He’s made human kind’s first tool.

It doesn’t take long for Moonwatcher to try and use his new tool as a weapon. Typically, Moonwatcher and his tribe would go to the watering hole for a drink, and occasionally come across a neighboring tribe, there for the same purpose. This meetup would result in some shouting back and forth but that was about it.

However, Moonwatcher brings his bone with him and uses it to kill a member of the rival tribe. Two things happen: The members of the rival tribe are dumbfounded — nothing like this has ever happened before — and more importantly, Moonwatcher stands erect on his hind legs. Another first.

At this point, humankind has made a quantum leap in its development, thinking and understanding of the world. No longer hunter/gatherers, defenseless against the attacks of predators, they have reached the end of that point in their evolution.

Then, in the most dramatic jump cut in the history of film, Moonwatcher tosses humankind’s first weapon into the air, only to have it turn into his latest: An orbital gun platform hovering above the Earth. His tools have evolved with him, and in fact, are quite “human” in their own way.

Humankind has mastered its terrestrial life. In fact, he has begun to venture into space.

That’s where things are different.

In space, he must eat “baby food.” Without gravity, he must learn to walk again (remember the trouble the flight attendant has while walking across the ship; Kubrick lets us see her struggle intentionally) and become “potty trained” all over again, as Dr. Floyd struggles to figure out the Zero G toilet. Kubrick is telling us that, in a way, humankind is still in its infancy.

Additionally, humans lose control of their tools in space. A pen escapes Dr. Heywood R. Floyd’s pocket and floats aimlessly during flight.

While surveying the moon, a team uncovers the second monolith. Their reaction is much different than that of their ancestors. There’s none of the fear, the wonder. They stand around for a bit. Take pictures.

This one was programmed to send a signal to its creators when exposed to sunlight. Of course, that would only happen when human explorers reached the point of being able to excavate such a large object on the moon.

They discover that the signal traveled to Jupiter, and send a team of astronauts to investigate 18 months later. The team boards the Discovery and travels through space along with HAL 9000, the ultimate tool. In fact, HAL is the central nervous system of that ship, and the humans are merely the maintenance crew. They needn’t be there at all, in fact.

But remember, man loses control of his tools in space.

HAL makes a mistake, and the humans decide to turn him off. The battle of man vs. tool has begun, and the humans win. By deactivating HAL, man has evolved beyond the need for tools.

Again, they’ve reached an endpoint in their evolution. The next step, as before, will be unfathomable.

The alien forces that challenged prehistoric man to reach beyond himself, and invited contemporary man to a meetup beside Jupiter, are waiting for Dave.

This is where many people understandably throw their hands in the air and walk away from 2001. If you thought Act I and II were weird, than Act III is just plain ridiculous. But here’s how I understand it.

In the book, Dave travels an incomprehensible distance across unknown dimensions to where the aliens originate. Kubrick presents this journey with the crazy colors and tunnel. Suddenly, we see Dave in a Victorian hotel room.

WTF.

In the book, we learn that the aliens set up the “hotel room” (don’t take it literally) to make Dave feel at home. However, the information they used to construct the room (radio waves or whatever) took a very long time to travel from Earth to them. In fact, by the time Dave himself arrived, the aliens were using data from the Victorian period. Hence the look of the room.

Clarke also describes boxes of nondescript, tasteless, blue food that isn’t much to eat but keeps Dave alive.

So how long does Dave spend in the hotel room? That doesn’t really matter, nor can the question be answered. There’s really no time in space. That is to say, there’s no chronology that can be measured without a reference point. In New York City it might be 12:00 noon, but on the surface of Jupiter … or wherever ever Dave is … that doesn’t matter.

Still, Kubrick shows the passage of time. Dave looks up to see “Old Dave.” Are there really two Daves in the room? No. Kubrick is showing us that Dave has spent time in the room.

While eating, Dave knocks his glass into the floor and it breaks. The glass has shattered (the body) but the wine (the spirit) remains.

Humankind no longer needs its body, and makes the next quantum leap in evolution. The Starchild is born.

WHAT I LOVE

Many people complain, “This movie is slow.” They’re right. In 2001, spaceships don’t zoom across the stars at breakneck speeds, banking and roaring as they go. Instead, Kubrick’s spaceships do what spaceships actually do: They travel in a perfectly straight line in a laborious manner. It’s understandable why a generation of moviegoers bred on flashy films like “The Fast And The Furious” have trouble with sitting through a slow scene. But they’re slow for a reason.

As I said in the podcast, each shot is composed as if it were a gorgeous photograph. They’re just gorgeous.

There’s no CGI in this movie (almost … save Dave’s journey beyond the infinite). It’s all hand made. These are real sets and real human beings. All SFX Scenes from the Movie are cut together in full length and in chronological order. There are no green screen Clone Troopers here!

Plus, 2001 has tremendous science images. From HAL’s status panels to the guesses at tech that we have today (like webcams), it still holds up after more than 30 years.

More than anything, what I love about 2001 is the challenge. It sparks discussion and thought. What I’ve described above is my own interpretation. Yours might be completely different, and I’d love to hear it.

This is a movie I like to watch on a quiet day when I can sit on the couch, draw the curtains, focus my attention and travel beyond the infinite.