2001: A Space Odyssey

Rating: Null/10 (12 November 2012)

Kubrick and Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey is the greatest science fiction film of all time, not because it is based entirely on sound scientific premises, or because it works completely as a movie within the science fiction realm, but because it includes elements from nearly all scientific areas of inquiry—from archaeology to astronomy, artificial intelligence to exobiology—and because—more importantly—like science itself, it strives to explain that which has come to pass and to predict that which is yet to come, in a story that spans the far reaches of space and time, told from a cosmological perspective that characterizes the scientific pursuit of ultimate truths about man's existence and man's place in the universe. The film proceeds in four parts, the third of which, titled "Jupiter Mission," takes up nearly half of the film's total running time and operates as a mini-movie within the larger work. This third part most resembles a traditional movie in form and feel, and, accordingly, it is the most humorous and dramatic segment. My endorsement of 2001 is based sufficiently on this entertaining third segment, which sets astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole on a course for Jupiter, guided by one of the most memorable nonhuman characters in movie history: the on-board mission-control computer, HAL. The purpose of the mission is not known to the human crew of the spaceship, which includes a number of members in hibernation. The human characters in 2001 speak in a perfunctory tone, while HAL's voice, although meant to be artificial, draws our empathy. Bowman's patronizing dismissal of HAL after HAL erroneously detects a fault in a communication device is the closest a human character comes to sounding human. The implication is that, among other human faculties like motion and calculation, man has delegated his humanity to his machines, which include physical machines, as well as the machinery of bureaucracy—a recurring theme in Kubrick's work. When HAL gets "confused" after discovering Bowman and Poole's plans to disconnect him, another recurring theme of Kubrick surfaces: a mistrust of the machines and institutions man has invented to compensate for human nature. "It can only be attributable to human error," the puzzled HAL 9000 responds when asked about his discrepancy with the twin 9000. For how can man blame something manmade when things go awry? Unless we are to believe that HAL has been programmed to prioritize the needs of the mission over the lives of the crew—and to view his role as indispensable to the mission's success—then HAL's decision to terminate the crew is a sign of insanity (yet another recurring topic of interest found in Kubrick's work). Whatever the cause or nature of HAL's behavior, he is a product of human creativity, and human creations are imperfect. The message of this third segment is one against complacency, driven home by the sharp contrast with the showboating technological calisthenics done during the "Moon Mission" of the second segment. The surrounding first and last segments deliver the film's larger, more problematic messages, as they feature the strange effects of the only "characters" common to all four segments: the alien monoliths. Contact with a monolith, when accompanied by Richard Strauss's Thus Spoke Zarathustra can apparently induce evolution. These evolutionary developments happen in the first and last segments; it is later revealed that the high-pitch tone emitted by the monolith found on the moon is indicative of its communications with the monolith in Jupiter space. But what type of evolution takes place in the first segment, titled "Dawn of Man"? If it's biological, then it happens in the wrong way, at the wrong time. This ape-man we are presented with, who learns to use an animal bone to acquire food and to defend territory—if he is a new, improved species, would be a product of an advantageous genetic mutation that would have happened to his mother. If the evolution is cultural, then every major insight, invention, or industrious feat commonly credited to human beings and/or their ancestors—from tool usage to the construction of the pyramids, from the generation of fire to the splitting of the atom—would have required the presence of, and would owe credit to, an alien monolith. The second evolutionary encounter—and the "corrections" it achieves—symbolizes an even more fatalistic view of humankind, despite the disconcertingly triumphant musical theme that accompanies it. For this one is meant to be a biological evolution; the "star child" is a new species, descendant from man, that doesn't need man's inventions to exist in space. The implication here is that man in space is like a fish out of water. But why go as far as space to find an environment in which human beings, in their natural form, lack necessary equipment? Even on Earth, we require fire to soften our food, clothing and shelter to protect us from the elements, schools to fill our heads with useful thoughts that wouldn't be there otherwise, courts to settle disputes, and machines to do work that we're not built for. Every invention, whether social, physical, or otherwise, compensates for a deficiency. And yet, the ability to create, through intellect and opposable thumbs, an environment in which human beings thrive, rather than adapting to an environment, is what sets us apart from other animals. The film celebrates this unique ability at the same time that it downplays it; the match cut between the end of the "Dawn of Man" and the beginning of the "Moon Mission"—in which the ape-man's rudimentary instrument becomes a space vehicle with roughly the same shape—implies that the only progress we are making is acquiring an ability to toss more and more sophisticated tools into the air, when all we really have to do is wait to be converted into—to be replaced by—a better species. Not a comforting thought. But then again, who says that good science fiction—or good science for that matter—needs to be comforting?