2001: The Greatest Work of Art Ever Created by Cultured Man

Rating: Null/10 (22 August 2001)

2001: A Space Odyssey My Notes and Interpretations By Scott Holman

On the End -	- As Bowman and space pod eject from the Discovery spacecraft we get a significant impulse of viewing a, so to say, new renaissance. Perhaps this is because of the significant subconscious correlation between the mechanisms and sexual intercourse, the Discovery as a phallic image, and the pod as sperm. These perhaps unrealized metaphorical entities symbolize the beginnings of an entirely new step. The psychedelic leap which soon ensues is, symbolically speaking, a parallel between the path to conception and birth, and the same to death and the inevitable after-product.	- Again, we have the linking of birth and death, as Bowman, fresh from the for-mentioned journey, finds himself thrown into a cold, different, and thoroughly disturbing new world, in the guise of the Louise XVI suite. It is there that he is forced to confront his life as it would have been had he not been taken from it so abruptly. After this eerily profound display, he is given an option; to live out the life he has just witnessed, or take place in the next step in human evolution. Reaching for the solemn Monolith, possibly a fathomable image of God, his choice has been made. He will now cease to become the working man, whose mind functions merely to control his body, but become the thinking man, whose body is nothing more than a vessel to hold his newly formed mind. -

On the Banality of Characters -	- In the views and opinions of the author, spontaneity is a prime step towards the development of personality. In the films near future, as we have progressed into a thoroughly mechanical social order, so also have our personalities. When a life leads such a linear and predictable pattern, there is little chance of freak alterations, lending every person his exclusive one-dimensionality. -

On HALs Mutiny -	- It is well believed that emotions are the key separation between man and animal. Therefore anything endowed with these emotions is, perhaps non-technically, human (a la HAL). However, humanity is not selective, but a package deal. Therefor anyone filled with the essence of humanity carries the ability to act upon all that entails, whether helpful or harmful to those around him. Perhaps no one can be good without the ability to do evil. -

On Extraterrestrial Existence -	- Anyone, whether confiding in the belief of God or not, must believe that the universe is infinite. And in the infinite, an infinite amount of things are possible. This then, ironically, makes it highly improbable that extraterrestrial life (or anti-life for that matter) does not exist. However, this also lends to the possibility that these beings would be, rather than the bug-eyed monsters of the perennial pulp magazines, unfathomable to earthbound minds. It is therefore probable that these beings could exist in another spectrum, made up of a variety of unimaginable colors. The same goes for lines of symmetry, and physical plains. In infinity there can only exist infinity.