alternative science

Rating: Null/10 (31 December 2002)

While creationists and evolutionists believe that life stems from god and evolution respectively, so-called "interventionists" believe that human life came about thanks to a helping hand from aliens.
Very simply, this film is about interventionism.
Beautifully photographed - the scenes showing the blandness and sterility of space travel are portrayed with great elegance.
HAL, of course, is everyone's favourite, although quite obviously not as intelligent as we're led to believe. Given the chance to kill off a couple of astronauts on board a giant spaceship, I'm sure even my humble Pentium 166 could have done a better job!
Perhaps needless to say, it's all rather pointless. If human life really did come about due to alien intervention, then we're only left wondering how those aliens in turn came about. Ultimately, everything comes back either to "god" or evolution/darwinism.
That said, 2001 is still up there with the greats and remains one of my favourite movies.
The only puzzling thing is how a director capable of making an epic as stunning as this could then go on to blunder so tragically over the next three decades.