A Real Classic Film: 2001: A Space Oydessy

**Robin Sena** · 06-17-2010 08:17 PM

Over the decades, film companies would make a mockery over the realites of outer space when it came to sci fi cinema. For instance, everyone knows there's no air in space so as a rule, you need air to hear sound in space, so with no air in space, there can be no sound, yet we hear sound in space. Also, space craft and orbiting platforms come up with artificial gravity so people can walk normally. Not so, with what I believe is the grandfather of sci fi--the film that truly defines the real reality of outer space and of of science fiction, if not of space travel--2001: A Space Oydessy. Based on Arthur Clarke's The Sentinels, it's a masterpiece the illustrates the passage of time from the beginning of the world to the distand future and of mystery, with the help of the 4,000,000 year old black monolith on the side........

The Dawn Of Man:
And the dawn of woman as well, but seriously, none needs to be said as we see several tribes of monkey living for survival in the vast plains, fighting with each other, until they first encounter the monolith, just as the moon in the sky lines up with it. Then they all jump up and raise a hullabaloo. Then one of the monkeys, after having been bullied by a larger one, takes out a wilderbeest with just a bone.....before coming back to his enemy and blugeoning him in the same way, then tosses the bone in the air. Fast foward to the future, the Pan Am space jet heading for the spinning Ferris wheelesque staion, with The Blue Danube Waltz playing. Enter Heywood Floyd, who converses with his daughter on the picture 'phone, and meets with some Russians prior to heading for the station on Clavius, on the moon, where people dug up the monolith, near the crater Tyco. We see Floyd and his fellow team members getting ready for a photo opportunity with the monolith--which gives off a high pitched radio sound, aimed at the planet Jupiter, whilst the sun and earth align......

The Jupiter Mission, 18 Years Later:
Now we get to the highlight of the film when we see the 700 foot atom powered computer controlled Discovery, en route to Juipter, (the Gayane Ballet Suite playing with it, by the way) and with it, the real stars of the show--Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea), Frank Poole (Garrison Lockwood) and the one and only HAL 9000 super computer (Douglas Rain), with almost human feelings. Who can forget Poole's jog up on side of the wall to the other side when it turns out it's one big centrifuge he runs in. Then there's the broadcast of their interview, and then HAL makes up a story that the feedhorn unit in the ship's AE 35 dish antennae is faulty, yet it still works, not only murders Poole but the three remaining team members who were in frozen sleep, then locks out from the ship, Bowman, who sneaks in through the emergency airlock, and turns off HAL's higher brain functions, the computer singing Daisy, Daisy with his dying "breath," but in doing so, he also triggers the playing of a recorded briefing of Heywood Floyd, explaining the truth behind the whole miss ion, that the Discovery's crew was to investigate yet another monolith near Jupiter, which is alos emitting the same radio waves the one on the moon did.........

Jupiter, & Beyond The Infinate:
As with The Dawn Of Man, not much is said here at all, as Bowman's journey to Jupiter continues; upon arrivng at the planet, there's the monolith, larger and Jupiter and its moons align with it, so our hero uses his pod to take a closer look before he is taken into a surrealistic warp of confusion like no other, billed by some as "The Ultimate Trip." After that the pod is seen in an all whitewalled, white light manor interior from the main hall to the bathroom to the bedroom, Bowman staing in middle age, old age and even older age, laying on the bed, facing a smaller version of the monolith, before her transforms into the Starchild, designed by Carlo Rimbaldi and floating in a bubble, before heading back to earth whilst Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) plays, then The Blue Danube plays again during the end credits. The end.

Confusing? Maybe. Is there a prediction to what the future holds behind the stroy? Who knows? All the same, 2001: A Space Oydessy is truly a space oydessy indeed.

**DOOM!** · 06-18-2010 04:28 AM

TL;DR, Dave.

There are some messages in Kubrick works, but they are very hard to descifre as they are not very common. Most of them being during the warp trip: I can't tell if each image has something to it, or if they were just some random effects they could do best at those times to give it some feel.

**Eris** · 06-18-2010 04:51 AM

Yeah, it's a great film, even if it gets kinda trippy towards the end.

The attention to detail is staggering, especially seeing as how it predates most space exploration.

**miniPhil** · 06-18-2010 07:38 AM

Kubrick was a bit of a legend. Just over a dozen films under his belt and near half of them are classics. Hard to get that kind of track record. Not my favorite film of Kubrick's but dam good.