2001: A Space Odyssey

Ethan Evans

12/02/09

2001: A Space Odyssey

            With the discovery of tools has come amazing technology, and there will be more to come.  I feel that the way Stanley Kubrick opened this film was probably the best way of starting the film.  When the apes discover that they could hunt using dry bones and also defend themselves with them.   But what I don’t understand is what role that the blaack rectangle played; there was some type of pattern that came along with the appearance of the rectangle though.  It seemed that when the black rectangle made an appearance that something dramatic happened: the apes discovered tools, on the moon the astronauts heard screeching noises, and when it showed up on the Jupiter mission the astronauts discover that HAL their main computer that controls much of the mission is defective and it kills all but one of the crew members.

            Kubrick shows space travel very well in this film showing the zero gravity in the ships.  But there were some times where in which I was confused, like why didn’t the flight attendant, in the beginning, float like Dr. Floyd’s pen?  Actually, none of the flight attendants showed any signs of zero gravity, neither did the pilots.  Seems a little odd that certain people and things are susceptible to zero gravity and others aren’t.

            This film is very slow to start out, which personally I don’t care for, but once it does and it captures your attention, you cannot look away.  For me the real attention grabber was in the beginning when the apes discovered the black rectangle.  That got me thinking as to what Kubrick was using it to symbolize.  Or did this rectangle serve as some other purpose; it was all a big mystery.  At first when I had been told there was some kind of epidemic that has broken out on the moon on the base of Clavius, I didn’t know what to think but I soon found out that there was a black rectangle appearance.  After we see the rectangle Kubrick fast forwards us eighteen months into the future while the Jupiter mission is being performed. 

Three of the crewmembers of the Jupiter team are in cryo-chambers; this is to save air and food.  While the other two members of the team are eating breakfast they are watching themselves on a news report that had been recorded some time earlier in the mission.  This is when HAL is first introduced to the audience and we are informed how important and how involved HAL is with the mission.  HAL is a twin to another HAL 9000 series computer and these computers have a clean record as far as miscalculations and errors go, they are “foolproof,” If you will.  A problem arises with the satellite on the ship and HAL tells the two crewmembers about it and once they examine it the two crewmembers aren’t able to find anything wrong with the part they brought into the ship.  After a radio transmission with the ground control the two crewmembers learn that HAL’s twin was defective, this had put some doubt about HALs capabilities and whether or not he was defective or not too.

            HAL catches on to what the astronauts had planned to do about HAL, and HAL tries to kill everyone on the ship.  HAL is successful until it came time to kill the last man on the ship, and that’s when HAL had underestimated humans.  After Dave disconnects some of HAL’s brain from working.  Since HAL isn’t a threat anymore Dave continues on with the mission.  Once at Jupiter Dave tries to go to land on the surface and while entering the atmosphere he is sent through time.  After Dave landed he discovered he wasn’t on Jupiter but he was in a room, he is confused and walks around to investigate, and he sees an old man sitting at a table.  The old man is really Dave, the time warp he had been sent through flung him into the future.  Dave is now a fragile old man laying in his bed, and the black rectangle makes its last appearance in the film, as the camera focuses on the rectangle something happens to Dave, the camera comes back to show him and Dave has been turned into a fetus. At the end of the movie we see the fetus that is supposed to represent Dave, but it was confusing to me how he became a baby.