se71

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July 06, 2002

2001:A Space Odyssey

Beautifully crafted SF classic

It really is a beautiful film, full of images that still look good decades later, though fashions are obviously a bit sixtyish in the way that the original Star Trek's were.

Apes are a bit stupid on pre-historic Earth, until a black obelisk appears, and this sparks the tribe from fairly peaceful hunter gatherers to tool wielding flesh eating aggressors. Cue bone throwing spaceship segue.

In the future then, another obelisk is found hiding under the surface of the Moon. It sends a signal to Jupiter, and a spaceship is sent there to investigate. The HAL9000 computer looks after the ship and people on board, though a meteor strike knocks it off kilter and it goes mad and starts killing everyone. The last survivor (named David Bowman) eventually manages to shut it down.

Another obelisk is found orbiting Jupiter, and Bowman takes a look. Psychedelic visuals, then a dodgy ending where he is transformed into an old man, then finally a baby back orbiting Earth, must have left audiences baffled, and it only makes any sense when you see 2010, the sequel.

Having read "The Sentinel", a short story by Arthur C Clarke on which the film was based, I'll explain what was going on. An ancient extra-terrestrial civilization gave intelligence a kick start, and hid the obelisk on the moon so that when life on Earth was advanced enough they would find it, and it would then send a signal that the next stage could be started. Mr Clarke insists that the book and film are only slightly related, but I think he was only saying this to boost Kubrick's ego, there is more in a 2 hour film than a 15 page short story, but not that much.

Strauss Waltzes and spoked orbital spacestations are an enduring memory, much better than that other avant-guard music trying to sound spooky.

AE 0

Posted by se71 at July 6, 2002 11:08 AM

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