"Getting It" can take a while

Rating: Null/10 (31 January 1999)

I was amazed at how many did not "get it" at first. Then again, I did not either. I saw this movie when it first came out in '68. Then, I was impressed by the "Thus Spake Zarustha" opening sequence, the technology of the space station, moon shuttle, the Jupiter probe and HAl, the dysfunctional computer. I saw the ending sequence as a "cool psychedelic trip." Life went on, about 30 years worth, I went back to school and decided to write about science fiction for an English Comp essay. It only then dawned on me that there was more than one level to this film. Now, I see two interwoven themes and I think one was original with Clarke, the other with Kubrick. Clarke has given us the broadest canvass of all: the evolution of life and inteligence in the universe. The aliens are so far ahead of us that we can no better grasp their technology than a chimp in Tanzania could comprehend a 747 flying overhead. That is why the trip "through the monolith" appears to us as fantastical magic. Kubrick's theme is more set in the present of the film. The aliens have given humanity the gift of technology and one million years later we have crawled into the technological cocoon. We must emerge or stagnate or even perish, as is symbolized by the death of the crew members who have kept been suspended in the probe's cocoons. Now "through the monolith" becomes the transcendent act, the symbolic rebirth of humanity as the "star-child", which, again is something beyond present comprehension.