2001 & Stanley Kubrick

[Rob G]

So I just forced myself through 2001. I have tired to watch this film a dozen or so times. But I always miss shit cause its so fucking boring I stop paying attention. But I loved 2010 and one cannot exist without the other so whenever i wanna watch 2010 I have to try and watch 2001. So after fully watching it I gotta say. Fuck this movie.

The concept of an alien monolith meddling with Human evolution was GREAT. The camera work is EPIC. But simply lingers too fucking long. I feel like kubirck was super impressed with his cool sci fi special models and neato scenes that he just felt they should liner on screne for all to absorb whilst playing some classicla music. And the whole HAL thing while really neat had nothing to do with anything. The Hal scenario should have been a different movie.

Heres the movie:
Monolith appears at the dawn of mankind. Monolith either causes, encorages, or bears witness to the massive evolutonary step of human tool usage. Which interestingly enough the first thing thats used is a weapon, first to kill an animal and next to kill another human.

SKIP 10,000 years

They fina monolith on the moon. It was buried there on purpose and is sending radio waves to Jupiuter. The humans go down and touch it just like the early humans did. Something seems to happen to them just like the monkey men but its never made clear what. Presumable all the men on the moon will now make an evolutionary leap foward like the monkey men.

This is the movie becomes a different movie.

BAM----
Skip to a space ship with all new characters on its way to Jupiter to investigate the destinaton of those radio waves. All new charatcers appear. With very little buildup and for no apparent reason or plot related advancment the onboard computer goes nutso and kills everyone on board except for Dave who escapes. He destroys the onboard computer.

Only moments after killed the onbaord computer we see he ship reaching jupiuter and there is a massive Monolith in space. A 20 minute psychodelic music video ensues and for some reason dave is now outside the ship in his space suit traveling through a vortex. At the end of the Vortex dave finds himself in a room. Now presumable Dave is now in captvity of the aliens who built the monoliths. Hes in a room cause thats a humans natural enviroment. Its like putting a fish in a fish tank. Dave seems to lie his life out in this room. Every now and then he looks up to see an older version of himself. The older version looks back to not see the younger one. Finally on his death bed he sees a monolith before him. It transforms him into the Star Child. Then we see the Star Child returning to earth. ROLL CREDITS>

No explanation no nothing. FUCKING BANANAS.

[Max Headroom]

First part:
The monolith creates evolutionary leap in the monkeys.
The monolith then hides on the dark side of the moon.

Second part:
Mankind evolved to the point they could travel through space to the moon.
When uncovered the monolith transmits signal to another monolith deep in space.

Third part:
When the spaceship approaches the monoloth in deep space, it attempts to evolve it. This means the computer intelligence on board gets tinkered with.
The spaceman disables the ship's intelligence. Then he drifts closer to the monolith and undergoes the next step in the evolution.

The end.

The 2010 groups of monoliths working in unison suggests (to me) the potential for them surrounding the Earth during dinosaur days to kill off the beasts.

It might be 3010 where the monolith has merged the intelligence of the dead spaceman jettisoned into the abyss and HAL. Anyway, the central theme is the monolith being the catalyst for leaps in evolution.

The Books of course actually explain this. The movie basically throws it up there as if you are supposed to grasp the meaning from disparate imagery. I saw it recently here at a showing and there was a reaction by someone as genuine as when it first aired: someone blurted out "what the fuck was that?"

[Rob G]

Hey Max:
Is that your intrpretation of the movie. Or is that what you recall from the books?

In 2010 which i thought really changed alot of shit they said Hal malfunctioned due to conflicting orders. This is the first I have heard about Hal becoming evolved. Though I like it. And your saying the monolith on the moon is actually the same Monolith that was on earth with the monkeys. Is it the same one that appears on Europa at the end of 2010?.

Yeah I read the books too. Except for 3001 which I could never get through. Though I did like that Frank Pool, the dude jetisined in 2001 gets revived.

Though I thought Hal merged with the Star Child Dave Bowman at the end of 2010.

"2068: Odyssey 3" explained the most shit but still was a little ambiguous.

[Max Headroom]

I read the books back when people played Second Edition DND. Memory is a funny thing you know. I'm sure complete book synposis are available online. But I don't think that it is a coincidence that the supercomputer just so happened to coincidentally go ape shit (pun, pun!) when it approaches the evolutionary catalytical monolith. HAL has gained emotions and self-awareness somewhere between takeoff and murdering the crew. It's always possible I inserted this into the story when I read it to make it more enjoyable, but at the very least I think there is room for it.

I always thought the monolith on the moon was the same as the monkey monolith. I seem to recall it sending radio signals to a point in space that the scientists tracked to other monolith. Because of their interacting "monolith" is like "fish", one or a million, what the difference. Borg.

Anyway the movie itself, what I liked about the movie was that it was not A to B to C. The older I get the more I hate that disjointed stuff for that very reason, but this was not too far out there for me. Lots of room to think, especially with the abundance of silence or classical music. Plus there is a fucking intermission. Who the fuck makes a movie with an intermission? Someone inviting people to leave without disrupting the rest of the performance! These guys knew they were making some out there shit and it is not for everyone. I think the movie looks great, I dig the music, and the story is enough to give me room to think about things which is enough to make me happy. I liked how unintimidating HAL was. All he appears as is a voice and some beeps. But he kills ruthlessly. This is more the threat we face from technology, not bounding robot men firing laser beams out of their assholes. It took me forever to get over the ending, which still makes me a little uneasy, but it is not meant to be taken literally in stark contrast to the rest of the film. "Filmic" is the word.

I am not impressed by much of Kubrick's work, no matter the hype over him. Telling a story was not necessarily his method, more painting a (moving) picture for you to draw out a story from. Eyes Wide Shut for instance I think is worse for that very reason. It actually works to his advantage in The Shining because the silence and slow development builds up tremendeous suspense and lack of details suits fear plots better because the unknown is fear-inducing. I love Full Metal Jacket, but that too is two completely different movies sewn together. And I hate Clockwork Orange. Dr. Strangelove brings up some funny things, some interesting thoughts, but ultimately does not hold together as a plot too well. It seems more a cast of characters thrown together in sub-plots, again with no ending.

[Max Headroom]

Also, Rob you noted the ape's first intelligent act is to murder another ape. I always suspected that as a natural advantage of our species over others, but it is also precisely what HAL does. He murders the other intelligent beings around him. The characters could take from that what they will and draw their own conclusions, but mine is that damn dirty monolith.

[Rob G]

Somewhere along the line i lost track of these cool ass conversations on the message boards.

So yeah you sumed it up preatty tight. I do think maybe you inserted some stuff into your synopsis but the shit you came up with was WAAAAAYYY better then anything i saw or read. I think I will have you explain more movies to me. Ever see Vanilla Sky.

I completely agree with your whole kubrick breakdown. I forgot that Full metal Jacket just like 2001 was basically 2 movies. What up with that.

One thing i noticed big time after going back and watching 2001. Alien is a massive bite. Ridley scott was basiclaly watching 2001 and was like man this is creepy. I need to make a space horror movie. The ship design is identical. THe creepy music is identicial. The long pondering exterior shots, Identical. The onboard computer is similar. Hal goes crazy, the android ash goes crazy. Scott just came up with the alien. I'm telling you watch these two movies toegtehr and you'll seee how bad it is.
Hiowever JAmes Cameron ALIENS was the SHIT