As a LabKitten, I never once saw the movie 2001 in its entirety. I would fast-forward through the monkeys at the beginning ('cause I was ascared of 'em) and turn it off when things got weird at the end ('cause what the Hector Lonzo is going on?). To me, the whole monolith thing was a distraction -- I just liked the cool space stuff. Who wouldn't want to go to Jupiter, or live on a moon base, or vacation at an orbiting hotel via PanAm shuttle?
Well, the year 2001 has come and gone, and we haven't gone to Jupiter, there's no base on the moon, and PanAm went out of business some time ago. But revisiting 2001 lo these many years later, I'm in a better position to appreciate the deeper themes in Clarke's story, even if the nerd in me would rather just go to Jupiter, live on a moon base, or vacation at an orbiting hotel via PanAm shuttle. But, as they say, the whole raison d'être of science fiction is the exploration of Deep Themes, so here we are.
2001: a Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke. Published 1968, by New American Library.
Here is my review.
Plot Summary
Apollo, you are go for spoilers
Our story opens in prehistory, the protagonists a protohuman tribe mulling about the savannah. In between bouts of grooming and foraging for food, our heroes are repeatedly getting the crap kicked out of them by a rival tribe. As recourse to a court of law is not yet an option, things are not looking good for our heroes. That is, until one morning they wake to discover someone has planted a ginormous black monolith in their gorilla midst (it looks sort of like your Hans Solo carbonite action figure after a certain depraved little sister sanded off all the Hans Solo bits sticking out of it).
The apes go, well, ape, as apes are wont to do. Unexpectedly, after much shrieking and caressing of the monolith, the apes turn smart. They arm themselves with the jawbone of a protoass, go slay the rival ape tribe at the watering hole, and "drink their milkshake" as the kids say. Thus was gorilla warfare invented, and if you didn't see that joke coming from a mile away, you just aren't paying attention.
Fast forward a few million years. Humans have invented Strauss waltzes and hotels in space and whatnot. Then, bam!, another monolith shows up, this time on the moon. The assembled moon dudes all look around for moon jawbones with which to make ready themselves for combat. Fortunately, the situation is curtly defused when the monolith begins broadcasting a radio signal to Jupiter.
Fast forward again, and we're now on the spaceship Odyssey, which has flown out to Jupiter to investigate. There's a crew of five on board, only two of which we get to meet because the rest are in freezy sleep (science fiction authors do so love the freezy sleep). In between bouts of grooming and foraging for space food, our heroes are repeatedly getting the crap kicked out of them at chess by the ship's computer, the HAL-9000.
Alas, the ship encounters yet another monolith as they approach Jupiter, this time a big honkin' one floating in orbit. With no monkeys at hand, the monolith makes HAL smart (apparently the humans were maxed out).
HAL goes ape. He turns the folks in the freezers into spacicles, then goes after our two heroes (who, by the way, are named Dave and Something). HAL tricks them into going outside to fix the rabbit ears then locks all the doors. At this point we must pause and wonder if the monolith was hoping for something with a little more pizazz from HAL's murderous rampage. It's kind of like taking the trouble to turn Pinocchio into a real boy only to discover he just wants to sit in his room and play Xbox. At least the monkeys threw poop.<
Anyhoo, HAL cuts Something's air hose when he's not looking. Dave wants back in, HAL says no, and this leads to the famous "open the pod bay door HAL / I can't do that Dave" thing. Dave sneaks in through a side door. Understandably peeved, Dave pulls the plug on HAL.
Unfortunately, with no computer Odyssey is uninhabitable (it's like trying to drive your Escalade after the OnStar goes out, I guess). Dave hops into a space pod and heads for the monolith, because why not, and then things get weird in ways I can't really describe. You'll just have to watch it yourself.
VERDICT
Clarke wrote 2001 in parallel with Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation. Neither would have a prayer of getting made today. There's no 'splosions or jive-talkin' robots. No midriff-barring ultravixens inexplicably dressed in space leather. Heck, the stewardess (sorry: "flight attendant") on the PanAm shuttle is about as titillating as a Circle Pines librarian, as the saying goes. This in an era when the real-life PanAm didn't exactly hire stewardess for their SAT scores, if you know what I mean.
The overall plot is a science fiction staple (humans encounter alien artifact, things happen) and 2001 itself has origins in a short story Clarke had written twenty years prior called The Sentinel (Clarke has dismissed the connection as slight). Nevertheless, the film execution resulting from Clarke and Kubrick's collaboration is spectacular.
The special effects won awards at the time and hold up surprisingly well to this day. A number of NASA engineers were consulted in order to get the physics right, and by and large the film did. Only the depiction of Dave's consciousness-expanding trip through the monolith suffers from the constraints of a pre-CGI film industry, relying on whatever could be generated by practical effects such as filming back-projected images through a slit screen.
Whatever your impression of the film's technical implementation, it can't be denied that the finale was conceptually gutsy. Clarke and Kubrick either respected or mocked the viewer's intelligence, with strong opinions both pro and con generated by the film's conclusion. We can at least agree that the cinematography is gorgeous and that the whole thing is superbly creepy (check out the shot of Dave's glazed-over face inside his helmet at the end of the monolith ride. Yeesh). The juxtaposition of the futuristic pod and the classical trappings of the mansion somehow has a certain primordial logic even if the details make no sense. The net result is either ridiculous or perfect. Maybe it's ridiculous and perfect.
Grade: A<
Epilogue
But does it mean?
Much ink has been spilled over the meaning of 2001's end sequence. One interpretation is that throughout history, when it becomes necessary for humans to advance, the monolith appears to install an upgrade, sort of like the guys from GeekSquad popping by to switch you from DOS to Windows, Windows to Mac, or Mac to Linux.
The first advance depicted in the film was from dumb ape to tool-using ape. The second was to force humanity out of their local Earth neighborhood and take their first step toward the stars by traveling to Jupiter. The final transformation was from human to something beyond human, the film's depiction of which intentionally made beyond the viewer's comprehension, just as a modern human would be beyond the comprehension of a protohuman ape. Stephen J. Gould would take you to task if you called this "evolution," not even if you're talking some serious punctuated equilibrium. Individuals don't evolve, species do. I'm not sure what label to hang on the thing.
HAL's nervous breakdown may have been an unintended consequence of Odyssey's encounter with the monolith, a variant of the ole' cupid-misses-the-target plot device that's been used by everyone from Aristophanes to Edward Zwick. Or, perhaps it was a manifestation of the violence that progress invariably visits on those left behind, be they man, ape, or Tandy. We were oft reminded in engineering school that every technological advance in history, from pointy sticks to partial differential equations, was almost immediately put to use devising more efficient ways to kill each other. Sic transit gloria mundi.
And this Zarathrustra guy?
Also Sprach Zarathustra is German for "Thus spoke Zarathustra." It refers to the leitmotif played anytime the monolith appears and comes from the Strauss song of the same name, although Strauss himself titled the piece something like "palace fanfare #31."
More to the point, TSZ is a book by 19th-century German philosopher Fredrick Nietzche in which he portends the emergence of a superman that will rise above the rabble and go on to do Great Things (cf. monolith). Nietzche structured his book as a collection of revealed truths from the otherworldly character Zarathustra, whose long ramblings are punctuated by an occasional "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," apparently as Zarathustra paused to get a sip of water, another S'more, or a hit off the hash pipe.
Nietzche's works are often cited as contributing to the rise of fascism, specifically German fascism, in the early 20th century, although the Nazis probably didn't need him (or anyone else) as an excuse. Those in the know claim that Nietzche stole most of his stuff from Kegel, and that Kierkegaard had earlier expressed the same ideas within a framework of semiotics. Or something. The last time I paid any attention to philosophy was back in the day when this sort of talk would get some exchange student to show you her underpants.
At least that's my take on it. If you don't like it, then there's still the going to Jupiter, living on a moon base, and vacationing at an orbiting hotel via PanAm shuttle.
Cover image from 2001 a Space Odessy claimed as fair use under provisions of United States copyright law as these image(s) illustrate an article discussing the work in question and do not in a reasonable person's mind constitute an infringement of the owner's rights to receive compensation for the copyrighted work.
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