2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
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2001: A Space Odyssey on DVD 2001: Books
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick, written by Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke. The film deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous and often surreal imagery, sound in place of traditional narrative techniques, and minimal use of dialogue.
Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, 2001: A Space Odyssey is today recognized by many critics and audiences as one of the greatest films ever made; the 2002 Sight & Sound poll of critics ranked it among the top ten films of all time. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and received one for visual effects. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.
Clarke and Kubrick wrote the novel and screenplay simultaneously, but while Clarke ultimately opted for clearer explanations of the mysterious monolith and the StarGate, Kubrick chose to keep the film mysterious and enigmatic with a minimum of dialogue in order to convey what many viewers have described as a powerful sense of the sublime and numinous, without specific explanations of events. For this reason, an encyclopedic plot summary of this film is difficult.
Plot
The title sequence begins with an image of the Earth rising over the Moon, while the Sun rises over the Earth, all in alignment. (This is the first of three occurrences in the film of the iconic "Thus Spake Zarathustra" theme. See Music for further discussion of the use of music in the film.)
Over images of an African desert, a caption reads "The Dawn of Man." A tribe of herbivore apes is foraging for food. One of them is attacked and killed by a leopard. They are driven from their water hole by another tribe. Defeated, they sleep overnight in a small exposed rock crater. Waking at sunrise, they find that a mysterious black, rectangular monolith has appeared in front of their shelter. They approach the monolith shrieking and jumping. Subsequently, one of the apes, played by Daniel Richter, realizes how to use a bone as both tool and a weapon while having mental flashbacks to the monolith, indicating that the monolith has either "taught" or inspired him to this knowledge. The apes are now able to kill animals and eat meat. Next morning they wrest control of the water hole away from the other tribe, killing their leader in the process. Exultant in victory, the ape leader throws his bone into the air which switches via match cut to a shot of an orbital satellite millions of years in the future, circa 2000. This satellite and three more immediately following it are generally identified as orbiting nuclear weapons.
The camera pans from the nuclear satellites to a Pan American space plane which takes Dr. Heywood R. Floyd (William Sylvester) to an orbital rendezvous with Space Station 5 in an elaborate space flight and docking sequence. (See Music) Upon disembarking, Floyd is greeted by an old colleague with whom he chats before making a videophone call to his daughter, played by Vivian Kubrick, to wish her a happy birthday, expressing regrets he cannot come to her party. Strolling down the main corridor, he comes upon a group of Soviet scientists and mentions that he is on his way to Clavius Base, a U.S. base on the moon. The Russians query him anxiously about the “great big mystery” of what has been going on there, questions that Floyd initially shrugs off. Floyd refuses to discuss the subject further when they press him about the rumor that a serious epidemic has broken out in the base.
Floyd travels to Clavius base in a moon shuttle. There he heads a debriefing session, beginning by apologizing for the epidemic cover story, mentioning he had been personally embarrassed by it. The actual purpose of Floyd’s mission is to investigate an artifact dug up on the moon, initially detected by its anomalous magnetic signal and subsequently named "TMA-1," for "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One." Geological evidence shows it was deliberately buried four million years ago. Floyd and his men ride in a Moonbus to the archeological site in a journey illuminated by earthlight, chatting idly. In a large rectangular pit dug around it, the artifact is revealed to be another monolith similar to the one encountered by the apes millions of years ago. Floyd’s staff examine the monolith and pose for a photo with it. As they do, the sun rises over the top of the monolith, which then emits an ear-piercing high-pitched radio signal.
Jupiter Mission
A title caption reads "Jupiter Mission: Eighteen Months Later." On board the spaceship Discovery One, bound for Jupiter, are two mission pilots, astronauts Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Francis Poole (Gary Lockwood), and three scientists "sleeping" in cryogenic hibernation. Bowman and Poole watch a BBC television story about the mission, in which the TV audience is introduced to the ship’s on-board computer HAL 9000, addressed as "Hal" and voiced by Douglas Rain, who has human-like intelligence and runs most of the ship’s operations. The BBC announcer notes that Hal seems supremely self-confident, as if he has emotions. This is followed by another broadcast of a birthday message from Frank’s parents during which Frank Poole seems indifferent.
Later, while Dave is showing Hal some sketches of the hibernating astronauts, Hal asks Dave some pointed questions about suspicions he has about the air of mystery and secrecy surrounding the mission. Hal then interrupts himself to state that the AE-35 unit, which controls the antenna that provides communications with Earth, is going to fail in 72 hours. Dave takes an excursion outside of the ship in an EVA pod, the hatches of which are rigged with explosive bolts, to replace the unit with a spare. After returning to the ship, Frank and Dave examine the unit Hal claimed was defective, but they are unable to find anything wrong with it. They contact Earth-based ground control, who tell them that their own HAL computer states that their on-board HAL 9000 computer is in error predicting the fault. This is striking--and shocking, since the 9000 series has a perfect operating record.
The astronauts query Hal as to what he thinks has happened, and Hal insists it can only be due to "human error." He suggests placing the unit back in the antenna and waiting for it to fail to see what the problem is. After coming up with a pretext, Dave and Frank go into one of the EVA pods to talk without Hal overhearing them. Frank says he has “a bad feeling about him.” They decide to follow Hal's suggestion and replace the unit, feeling that this does suggest Hal is self-confidently sure of his prediction. Frank makes the suggestion that if Hal is proven to be malfunctioning, Hal will have to be deactivated. Unbeknownst to them, Hal is reading their lips through the window of the spacepod.
As Frank attempts to replace the AE-35, his spacepod, controlled by Hal, turns and accelerates towards him, severing his oxygen hose and setting him adrift. Dave then goes on a rescue mission in another EVA pod, but without the helmet or gloves of his spacesuit, to recover Frank. While Dave is out of the spaceship, the life functions of all the crew in suspended animation are terminated while a screen flashes "Computer Malfunction." When Dave returns to the exterior of the ship, he asks Hal to open the pod bay doors to let him inside. But Hal refuses to do so, stating that Dave’s plan to disconnect him puts the mission in jeopardy. Risking decompression sickness from explosive decompression, Dave enters the ship through the emergency air lock, aligning the EVA pod with it and detonating the explosive bolts of its hatch to do so. Securing his spacesuit with the helmet, life-support pack, and gloves from the EVA suit in the airlock, Bowman makes his way to HAL's LOGIC MEMORY CENTER in order to disconnect Hal. Hal tries to protest and reassure Dave that everything will be all right although he has “made some very poor decisions recently,” but Dave ignores him.
As Dave slowly disconnects one module after another from Hal’s circuitry, Hal continues to protest. Eventually he ends up repeating, “My mind is going. I can feel it.” Then he repeats, “I'm afraid.” Hal then goes into a monologue about his first day of operation, regressing to his earliest days. During this he offers to sing the song ("Daisy Bell") his instructor taught on his first operational day. Dr. Bowman replies he would like Hal to sing the song. As Hal sings, his voice continuously slows down. When Hal is disconnected, a television monitor is activated showing a pre-recorded briefing that was supposed to be played only when they reached Jupiter's space and the entire crew had been revived. It is the last piece of dialogue in the film. “
Good day, gentlemen. This is a prerecorded briefing made prior to your departure and which for security reasons of the highest importance has been known on board during the mission only by your H-A-L 9000 computer. Now that you are in Jupiter's space, and the entire crew is revived, it can be told to you. Eighteen months ago, the first evidence of intelligent life off the Earth was discovered. It was buried forty feet below the lunar surface, near the crater Tycho. Except for a single, very powerful radio emission aimed at Jupiter the four million year old black monolith has remained completely inert, its origin and purpose still a total mystery. ”
Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite
A caption reads "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” Dave leaves the Jupiter ship in an EVA pod, and encounters another monolith in orbit around Jupiter. While approaching it, he finds himself suddenly traveling through a tunnel of colored light (generally known as the “Star Gate”) racing at great speed across vast distances of space viewing many strange astronomical phenomena, concluding with earthlike landscapes with altered colors. He eventually finds himself in a bedroom containing Louis XVI-style decor. He repeatedly sees future versions of himself, with the film's POV each time switching to the later Dave. Finally an elderly and dying David Bowman is lying on the bed. At the foot of the bed, another monolith appears. It transforms him into a fetus-like being enclosed in a transparent orb of light, the “Star-Child”. The final scene shows the “Star-Child” floating in Space next to Earth.