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There is no "canon" explanation for the film, since Kubrick did not provide one, and 2001 was, at heart, his movie, independent in significant respects from Cla

There is no "canon" explanation for the film, since Kubrick did not provide one, and 2001 was, at heart, his movie, independent in significant respects from Clarke's novelization and later sequels. That being said, I think the onscreen evidence for Clarke's version is compelling. Most notably, it solves the mystery highlighted by the article as to why HAL didn't kill Bowman on the first EVA: If the computer could have engineered a plausibly innocent loss of contact with Mission Control, he could have acted freely to preserve both the astronauts' ignorance and the success of the mission without worry of being contradicted by the ground-based twin computer (which he surely knew would eventually diverge from his decision-making, having not been informed about the Monolith). Once the astronauts were told of the divergence and took it seriously enough for their discussion in the pod, HAL had no remaining options.

munin 10y ago
I recently re-read 2001 and there was a forward by Clarke that explained something I hadn't known before - the screenplay and the book were developed simultaneously, in a joint collaboration between Kubrick and Clarke. Kubrick wanted Clarke to come up with an epic space story and put it on the screen, but didn't want to burden Clarke with having to write a screenplay. So I don't think you can really call the book a "novelization" because both worked on it.
SilasX 10y ago
>There is no "canon" explanation for the film, since Kubrick did not provide one, and 2001 was, at heart, his movie, independent in significant respects from Clarke's novelization and later sequels. If you reject the canonicity of Clarke's novel, then everything after the "Jupiter and beyond..." card is nonsensical. What is the viewer supposed to think about the space baby that's actually grounded in something within the movie? (Edit: Ditto for the aging sequence. I know that you can fit the events into the "alien zoo" framing, but since the film doesn't direct us to that explanation, and if the novel doesn't count, it can't be any more than a fan theory.) Incidentally, that's why I think the film went sharply downhill after that card.
- nerdponx 10y ago
  > that's why I think the film went sharply downhill after that card. Agreed. I loved the first part of the movie, but this part literally did not make sense.
  - twoodfin 10y ago
    We could get into a long discussion about Kubrick's attempts to communicate in a uniquely cinematic way, but in the specific context of 2001: Why would you expect the first direct human encounter with an interstellar intelligence to make sense?
    - SilasX 10y ago
      Yeah but you can't let that dynamic turn into license for incomprehensible scripts! "Oh, the movie doesn't have to make sense because maybe they encountered something no one can understand. Mind blown, right? Yeah, here's where to ship the Emmy..."
- Udik 10y ago
  > What is the viewer supposed to think about the space baby that's actually grounded in something within the movie? Let's see. At the beginning of the movie we witness the dawn of Man. That is, we see tribes of apes shaken by beastly emotions, fear, rage, aggression; eaten by predators, sleeping under rocks, fighting with each other for food and water. Not a pretty sight. The tribe that wins and will give birth to mankind is the most violent one, the one that discovered how to use tools to kill. But jump forward a few million years of evolution, and a seemingly refined humanity is travelling in space and having civilised (if somewhat cautious) conversations about science and current events. On the spaceship (curiously spermatozoa-shaped) that is sent to investigate the mystery of the monolith, there's a crew of hyper-rational astronauts together with science's latest, most refined tool, an evolution of man itself: a super-human intelligence that embodies an ideal of rationality and civility. And how does this end up? In a violent bloodbath, with men fighting to death, tooth and nails, with their own super-human creation. Clearly, anything men can produce is tainted by the original sin of violence. So David Bowman is transported to a place that seems to be outside space or time, a room decorated in a style that's the essence of civility but also of sterile coldness; in this space he sees himself living by a futile ideal of sophistication, only to proceed towards his inevitable decay and death. And as he's approaching his last moments, the monolith (the otherness) intervenes again, extracting from his consumed shell, at last, a really new kind of humanity. Does it make sense? :)
randcraw 10y ago
Clarke addressed this question directly in his sequel "2010", in which Dr Chandra describes Hal's descent into madness as a "Hofstadter-Moebius loop", in which a lie from a trusted authority figure (the US government) contradicted HAL's instructions from another trusted authority, the crew, which introduced an insoluble logical impasse, resulting in a breakdown in HAL's executive function -- a homicidal level of frustration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000#2010:_Odyssey_Two https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000#2010:_Odyssey_Two

munin 10y ago

I recently re-read 2001 and there was a forward by Clarke that explained something I hadn't known before - the screenplay and the book were developed simultaneously, in a joint collaboration between Kubrick and Clarke. Kubrick wanted Clarke to come up with an epic space story and put it on the screen, but didn't want to burden Clarke with having to write a screenplay. So I don't think you can really call the book a "novelization" because both worked on it.

SilasX 10y ago

>There is no "canon" explanation for the film, since Kubrick did not provide one, and 2001 was, at heart, his movie, independent in significant respects from Clarke's novelization and later sequels. If you reject the canonicity of Clarke's novel, then everything after the "Jupiter and beyond..." card is nonsensical. What is the viewer supposed to think about the space baby that's actually grounded in something within the movie? (Edit: Ditto for the aging sequence. I know that you can fit the events into the "alien zoo" framing, but since the film doesn't direct us to that explanation, and if the novel doesn't count, it can't be any more than a fan theory.) Incidentally, that's why I think the film went sharply downhill after that card.

nerdponx 10y ago
> that's why I think the film went sharply downhill after that card. Agreed. I loved the first part of the movie, but this part literally did not make sense.
- twoodfin 10y ago
  We could get into a long discussion about Kubrick's attempts to communicate in a uniquely cinematic way, but in the specific context of 2001: Why would you expect the first direct human encounter with an interstellar intelligence to make sense?
  - SilasX 10y ago
    Yeah but you can't let that dynamic turn into license for incomprehensible scripts! "Oh, the movie doesn't have to make sense because maybe they encountered something no one can understand. Mind blown, right? Yeah, here's where to ship the Emmy..."
Udik 10y ago
> What is the viewer supposed to think about the space baby that's actually grounded in something within the movie? Let's see. At the beginning of the movie we witness the dawn of Man. That is, we see tribes of apes shaken by beastly emotions, fear, rage, aggression; eaten by predators, sleeping under rocks, fighting with each other for food and water. Not a pretty sight. The tribe that wins and will give birth to mankind is the most violent one, the one that discovered how to use tools to kill. But jump forward a few million years of evolution, and a seemingly refined humanity is travelling in space and having civilised (if somewhat cautious) conversations about science and current events. On the spaceship (curiously spermatozoa-shaped) that is sent to investigate the mystery of the monolith, there's a crew of hyper-rational astronauts together with science's latest, most refined tool, an evolution of man itself: a super-human intelligence that embodies an ideal of rationality and civility. And how does this end up? In a violent bloodbath, with men fighting to death, tooth and nails, with their own super-human creation. Clearly, anything men can produce is tainted by the original sin of violence. So David Bowman is transported to a place that seems to be outside space or time, a room decorated in a style that's the essence of civility but also of sterile coldness; in this space he sees himself living by a futile ideal of sophistication, only to proceed towards his inevitable decay and death. And as he's approaching his last moments, the monolith (the otherness) intervenes again, extracting from his consumed shell, at last, a really new kind of humanity. Does it make sense? :)

randcraw 10y ago

Clarke addressed this question directly in his sequel "2010", in which Dr Chandra describes Hal's descent into madness as a "Hofstadter-Moebius loop", in which a lie from a trusted authority figure (the US government) contradicted HAL's instructions from another trusted authority, the crew, which introduced an insoluble logical impasse, resulting in a breakdown in HAL's executive function -- a homicidal level of frustration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000#2010:_Odyssey_Two https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000#2010:_Odyssey_Two