2001: A Space Odyssey

Golden Age Author, Ground-breaking Auteur

2001: A Space Odyssey brought director Stanley Kubrick, already famous for Spartacus, Lolita and Doctor Strangelove, into close collaboration with sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke. Together they expanded on Clarke's short stories to write the novel version of 2001, which was written simultaneously with the screenplay. One major inspiration for 2001 was a Clarke short story, The Sentinel, published in 1951. In brief, it describes the discovery of an artifact on the moon's surface which is transmitting into space. Breeching its forcefield causes it to shut down; the implication is that it was placed there by a race that wished to be informed, by the cessation of a signal, by mankind's attaining the technology of spaceflight. It is left to the imagination of the reader why they would be interested in this information.

An Incidence of Intelligent Design

The movie opens at the 'Dawn of Man'. We see groups of prehuman homonids, interacting in animal tribe fashion. A mysterious monolith, a large rectangular object of densest black, is somehow erected in their midst. And they change. The first signs of their burgeoning 'intelligent life', of course, is warfare and murder.

Perhaps one of the most famous (and lampooned) scene shifts takes us from this early scene to 'today', when the successful war-leader ape tosses his newly invented bone weapon over his head in jubilation and it morphs into an orbiting space station, signalling to the viewer that we have jumped forward considerably in time.

If only 2001 Could Have Been Like 2001

Those of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies have been fairly disappointed in the millenium so far. Because our authors and directors promised us so much. Space flight, space colonies, artificial intelligence, autonomous cars and every labor saving device imaginable. And the closest we've seen so far to the life the Jetsons promised us is the robo-vacuum cleaners.

2001: A Space Odyssey contributes to this sense of letdown. One of the most famous characters in the film is the computer HAL, with his mellow voice and his underlying psychopathy. But as far as computers have advanced in my lifetime, the decision-making chores still seem to be reserved for humankind.

Watch 2001: A Space Odyssey for the lovely imagery, the impressive score and the human-computer battle of wills. Don't expect to be awed and moved by the quasi-mystical ending; I have it on good authority that it makes the most sense if you view the movie while stoned. (NOTE - this is not my editorial recommendation, however.)

After 2001

Arthur C. Clarke followed up 2001 with a series of books, one of which, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, was also made into a movie in 1984. Directed by Peter Hyams, it starred Roy Schieder of Jaws fame, and (fortunately, in this viewer's opinion) lost much of the psychedelic mystical overtones that hampered the original movie.

Clarke also published 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey in the same story universe. Rumors emerge periodically about potentially filming one or both of these, but so far they have been without foundation.