Conference back40::soapbox

    
    I have an unrelated question.  I was haphazardly watching the tube the
    other evening and came across an obvious, dated, sci-fi movie on public
    television.  I watched it for a while and thought how beautiful, if
    dated, it was. Immediately I knew that I had seen it before.  It turned
    out to be 2001 A Space Odyssey.  I actually stayed up late and watched
    the whole thing (which I have seen at least twice), regretting it 
    somewhat in the morning.
    
    I have a few questions for those who are familiar with the story.
    
    Was the monolith supposed to be a living being?
    
    Did HAL murder the awake man and the suspended folks as well as the
    attempted murder of the survivor, strictly to protect himself from being
    disconnected?
    
    What was happening to the man when he went through all of those colors
    and over that planet?  Because of his older age at the arrival at that
    "house" was he supposedly moving through time more quickly or that it 
    took a long time to get there?
    
    Why did he view himself, older, sitting at the table then next be the
    man sitting at the table who thought he heard/saw someone?  Then why
    did he view himself in the bed, ancient, then next be the man in the
    bed?  Did the monolith then turn him into a cosmic fetus?  Was the
    monolith controlling all of that happened to him?
    
    Was the monolith a symbol or actual imagination of a metaphysical
    explanation for life or the cosmos or something like that?
    
    jeff

    You'll find a few answers in the sequel...  8^)

    "2001: A Space Odyssey" is one of my favorite movies, though I haven't
    watched it in years.  If I recall the interviews with Kubrick at the
    time, he resisted any attempts at literal interpretation of the
    people, objects, events, etc., in the film.  I think he wants it
    to be kind of like "great art", where the interpretation is up
    to the individual.
    
    It's possible to read Clarke's novelization (he was also involved
    in the screenplay and production) to get his own interpretation, but
    then that's just one interpretation (and his book does diverge from
    the film in some areas).
    
    For example, I've heard several possible interpretations of the
    monolith; most of them fall into one of two categories, "alien"
    or "God": alien teaching machine, alien forced-evolution machine,
    alien being manifested in the physical presence of the monolith,
    alien spacecraft with other-dimensional aliens "inside", God,
    other supreme beings from various religions, etc.  Ultimately it's
    whatever/whoever you want it to be.
    
    Chris

    
    thanks, Chris.  So is the interpretation of HAL's behavior debatable? 
    What about the trip through the colors and to the house and then what
    happened there?  Any take on that?
    
    jeff

    The last segment of the film is called "Beyond the Infinite."
    
    I guess that means anything goes!

>    The last segment of the film is called "Beyond the Infinite."
    
>    I guess that means anything goes!
    
    I guess you're right!
    
    Was HAL's errant behavior merely a straightforward subplot?  
    
    Was his maliciousness being caused, for whatever reason, by the monolith?
    Was there any obvious value to the mission, from either the monolith's
    "perspective" or the command's perspective, in the murder and attempted
    murder of the crew?  If he had been disconnected would the mission have
    been achieveable?  It appeared so from the conversation between the two
    crew members.
    
    The movie is beautiful.  The effects are excellent for the period.
    The images are crisp and the colors deep.  The designs of the ships
    and interiors are clean and noticeable.  Even the guys space suits
    look highly designed, like art.
    
    It is a quiet movie.  Those relatively long periods of the crew member
    working outside, with no other sound but his breathing, are really 
    enjoyable.  And the soundtrack is classic, of course.
    
    jeff

>    thanks, Chris.  So is the interpretation of HAL's behavior debatable? 
>    What about the trip through the colors and to the house and then what
>    happened there?  Any take on that?

Some spoilers if you want to read the book...

HAL's contradictory orders drove him nuts. The big, secret mission being his
primary objective, he tried to eliminate the contradiction. He does similar,
but different things to kill off the crew in the book.

The colors thing was ultra-condensed from the book. Dave takes a long,
detailed trip through space and time at that point, with recognizable, if not
exactly ordinary, things along the way.

The final few scenes (the room, the "star-child") are equally vague in the
book.

A lot of stuff that isn't terribly obvious in the flick is made clear. For
instance, the whole scene of arriving at the dig site on the Moon, walking
down into the hole, and the things that happen there just isn't very
impressive on the screen, compared to the book.

About 2001 movie special effects:  I was wondering if someone could verify/
refute an "urban legend" how the colored lights effect was filmed.
The story was, they took a camera down NYC's Broadway during the height
of Christmastime and filmed all the lights and decorations, and then
manipulated the images into the lights in the movie.

-Madman

>HAL's contradictory orders drove him nuts. The big, secret mission being his
>primary objective, he tried to eliminate the contradiction. He does similar,
>but different things to kill off the crew in the book.
    
    Oh, I see.  Was the contradiction his knowledge of the the mission and the
    crews' ignorance?  Was he supposedly so advanced that he "felt" a guilt
    of sorts that he knew and they didn't?  Or was it just a matter of
    having knowledge and not being able to divulge it, maybe knowing how
    profound/dangerous the mission might be but not being able to say so to
    people he knew would want to know, who would actually be terribly
    upset/angry if they had known? 

>The colors thing was ultra-condensed from the book. Dave takes a long,
>detailed trip through space and time at that point, with recognizable, if not
>exactly ordinary, things along the way.
    
    It was probably impossible to produce, back then, convincing images
    which would have been self-explanatory.  And soliloquy or narration
    hardly ever works in movies.

>The final few scenes (the room, the "star-child") are equally vague in the
>book.
	
    Oh well.  I can accept that.  At least they didn't recieve some of the
    off-the-wall explanations one might find in a Steven King novel. 
    Metaphysics are hard to impress onto film.
    
>A lot of stuff that isn't terribly obvious in the flick is made clear. For
>instance, the whole scene of arriving at the dig site on the Moon, walking
>down into the hole, and the things that happen there just isn't very
>impressive on the screen, compared to the book.
    
    You're right, it wasn't impressive.  But I sensed that it should have
    been.
    
    Thanks for your comments!
    
    jeff

    Re .63:
    
    > Was the monolith supposed to be a living being?
    
    No.  It's a device aliens use to make animals smarter, and for various
    other uses, such as travel.
    
    > Did HAL murder the awake man and the suspended folks as well as the
    > attempted murder of the survivor, strictly to protect himself from being
    > disconnected?

    HAL was ordered to run the mission to Jupiter and help explore Jupiter
    and its moons and to report back.  These orders were public.  HAL was
    also ordered to investigate the monolith and keep it secret from
    everybody, including the crew.  But if the crew explores Jupiter,
    they'll find the monolith, which violates the secrecy HAL was ordered
    to maintain.  So killing the crew keeps the secret.
    
    > Did the monolith then turn him into a cosmic fetus?
    
    The fetus symbolizes rebirth -- life in some sort of new body given to
    Bowman by the aliens.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

 ...ah brings back discussions we used to have in the car after one of the
 many times seeing the movie back when it came out.  Though many of the
 discussions consisted almost entirely of "wow", "heavy", or "far out".

    .73
    
    ain't that the truth. ;-)

    re. .70 and fx in general
    
    I'll have to dig up my ancient copy of "The Making Of Kubrick's '2001'"
    to get the exact details, but I believe the "urban legend" is
    incorrect.
    
    A number of techniques were used in the stargate sequence - slit-scan,
    rear projection plus slit-scan (the so-called "mind-bender" scene),
    chemicals reacting in a clear chamber the size of a paperback book,
    the "exploding galaxy" (which was one of the first fx filmed in "2001"
    and done in a water tank in - of all places - an abandoned corset
    factory in Manhattan) and various outdoor locations films with wild
    color filters.
    
    Put 'em all together and you have a helluva lightshow -- one that
    captivated me at the ripe young age of 16, and still does today
    through the magic of videotape.
    
    						--Eric--
    
    P.S. I recently discovered "what might have been" when I bought a CD of
    Alex North's *original* music he had written for "2001".  This gorgeous
    music was unheard and largely unknown to the general public, due to a
    bizarre decision of Kubrick's.  As the film was being made, Kubrick was
    using "temporary tracks" in the rough cuts to help him set the mood,
    while he commissioned Alex North to write the soundtrack.  North had
    written some 40 minutes of music when Kubrick abruptly decided to keep
    the "temporary" tracks in the film!  While this resulted in some great
    music being heard ("Also Sprach Zarathurstra" "Gayne Ballet Suite" "Lux
    Aeterna" etc.) it also consigned some truly wonderful work to the scrap
    pile.  Not until a couple years ago - after North's death - was this
    music released to the public on a CD which was conducted by North's
    good friend, Jerry Goldsmith.

*   What drove HAL to "murder"?
    
    Some facts:
    
    * No HAL 9000 series had ever been ordered to lie.
    * No HAL 9000 series had ever made an error.
    * No HAL 9000 series had ever discovered it might be terminated.
    
    * HAL was ordered to lie.
    * HAL made an error.
    * HAL discovered it might be terminated.
    
    Known - a complex machine was operated outside tested limits,
    and it failed.
    
    Unknown - if the machine "knowingly" executed the crew.
    
    
    Because HAL had behavior that we would associate with human
    intelligence, reviewers of the movie and novel often try to find
    a human motive to HAL's actions.  (In 2001, Kubrick and Clarke did
    a good job of letting the popular media describe HAL as human, while
    Bowman and Poole were agnostic on the question.  In 2010, that
    attrocity of a sequel, Chandra describes HAL in human terms.  Perhaps
    it was just his brilliant attempt at communicating with the other
    members of the crew, who he considered inferior.)
    
    
*   The monolith.
    
    Known - something that looks and feels physical to humans was shown
    three times in the film.
    
    	1st - to early humans
    	2nd - to moon explorers
    	3rd - to Jupiter (or Saturn) explorers
    
    
    "Something wonderful" happens each time.  There is a correlation, not a
    clear causation.  (Is the something making something wonderful happen?
    Or is the something observing something wonderful happen?)
    
    
*   Special effects question:
    
    Oil, water, class, mirrors.  Effect composed "in-camera".
    
    								-mr. bill

 I like the part in the beginning when the ape tosses the bone in the air
 and it segues into the space scene.

    .77
    
    great scene.  oh, and the music.  awesome. 

    The "Dawn of Man" sequence frequently gets ignored, but it's one
    of my favorites (though I hated it as a young teenager).  The moment
    when the human-ape looks at the bone and realizes he can actually
    do something with it, is impressive.  The scene portraying the
    (apparently) first incidence of a (proto-)human taking another
    human's life is nothing short of profound.
    
    So, whatever happened to Stanley Kubrick?  :-)  Has he been up to
    anything interesting in the last decade or so?
    
    Chris

    
>    So, whatever happened to Stanley Kubrick?  :-)  Has he been up to
>    anything interesting in the last decade or so?
    
 
  His last flick was "Kingpin" and he's also directing the TV show "Men
  Behaving Badly".



 Jim

    
    That's funny, Jim!
    
    I prefer the ape sequence from Kentucky Fried Movie.
    
    jeff

    
    Now that I think of it, I bet the ape scene in Kentucky Fried Movie was
    a parody of the 2001 scene.
    
    jeff

    
    <admiring glance>
    

    Personally,I prefered "Full Metal Jacket" and "A Clockwork Orange"
    (banned here in the UK).
    
    Mainly `cos there was some good punch ups.
    

    Gee... hype? Less try craking our systems to 2000 and see what
    happens.:)

    
    	The systems here only go to 11.
    

    The news media folks have finally latched onto the Year 2000 issues.
    I guess they needed something to get hysterical about after O.J.
    
    It's always interesting to watch them attempt to deal with technical
    issues (look out, the asteroids are a'comin!, etc.).  Maybe they
    ought to stick to fires, murders, and car crashes.
    
    Chris

    MY computer won't die.  Of course, it may not adequately calculate anything
    date-oriented.  8^)
    
    It's been a long time since I took COBOL, but I'm thinking about
    specializing in it in the near future.  Time to take some more classes!
    8^)