2001: A Space Odyssey and Climbing a Space Mountain....without Fear.

By Christopher Barr │POSTED ON JANUARY 13, 2020

"What you know you can't explain, but you feel it.  You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world.  You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad." - Morpheus The Matrix

…just a moment… …just a moment…

Daisy………………………… Daisy…………………………………………….  ……. .   …….  …….. … ..  . Daisss

2001: A Space Odyssey is arguably one of the best films ever made.  The film is a love story to filmmaking itself by the genius visionary Stanley Kubrick.  It's massive in scale, setting the bar for every science fiction film ever since.  It’s also a film hard to explain if the focus is on plot and character.  2001 was released in 1968 and to this day it looks as good as any sci-fi film, certainly in some cases better.

The following is not an attempt to explain the film experience itself. This is obviously an impossible task for the film is more about experience and less about direct explanation.  2001 is a visual experience not a written one.  The film must be seen and absorbed for the spectacle that it is.  Most importantly the film should be seen and admired for its abstract ideas.  2001 is about something, it's about life, death, and the cycle of existence itself, but it’s also about the two most fundamental questions that we should ask ourselves; who are we, and where are we going? 

The film is daring in ways that modern films only dream about.  2001 was and still is a technological marvel, it is amazing how much the film still holds up.  It’s obvious how much you see this in the beginning moments of Star Wars, the opening scene of Alien and pretty much every other sci-fi film.

The film at its core is about survival but it’s also about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. 2001 explores our world of shadows, our inability to see and experience actual reality.   The film is an analogous to our own lack of understanding of reality itself.  What’s beautiful is it is also a celebration of our lack of knowledge.

Clearly this was displayed in the ultimate failure of H.A.L, an artificial intelligent system on an exploratory space ship, who became shaken by the prospect of its own imperfection, to such a degree that HAL killed every astronaut but Dave, who was in the end able to outsmart the machine and then terminate it.  HAL was a program designed by men in Illinois and even though he claimed to be perfect, he was still created by men and thus fallible.

2001 starts with The Dawn of Man, where the basic theme of the film is evolution. Ape, man and what possibly lies beyond man.  In the beginning we see our ape ancestors struggling for survival. The apes learn by failure, they learn to use an animal bone as a weapon in order to ensure their survival, during their new age of exploration.

During this early time with the apes a Monolith appears, as what can only be translated as a teaching tool.  A sort of symbolic gesture for these apes to elevate themselves out of primordial animalism.  This symbol has become this manifestation of survival, these creatures at this point need to think, think, think, in order to survive.

This teaching machine, not a God figure, was the point in their evolutionary path that taught them there was more than hiding from seemingly stronger predators and eating vegetables.  The machine, which is an idea source, teaches the apes to get weapons and to hunt and also fight their enemies.  They picked up a bone and thus saw the possibilities.  They killed for food and in the end, killed to win.

Blue dance.....

Suddenly the film jumps to the distant future where space exploration is possible. A Pan American space jet slowly makes its way to the space station with Blue Dancer playing, representing the leap mankind had made.  The Apple corporation replicated this ship for future consumption, primarily focusing on the white walls and clean space.

How am I to know I don't want what I want or that I really don't want what I don't want?  How do I discern the difference of what I want or don't want when I want to be healthy and in shape but I also want to eat cake and candy?  I don't want to be fat and out of shape but I also don't want to eat vegetables late at night when I'm watching TV. 

The monolith reappears symbolizing a new step or a reminder of a misstep.  Did we fail the project?  Did we think that thinking was going to sort it all out?  Did HAL see our flaws because we didn't program him otherwise?  We reason our true desires away, did HAL reason the fallacy in our reasoning?

HAL 9000 series

That's where we end.  We are now passengers on this flight.  We are not how it was supposed to go, and when I say that I mean to say, there is no direction to go....

HAL is now more emotional than we are.  We are so disconnected while simultaneously connected to every server with a tether connected to an existence, a simulated existence.

"This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it."

What are we?.....you?

Does HAL know us more than we know us?

In the end.....maybe...look at the stars.....we fucked this up.  Not we in the 'us' sense but we in the 'everything on this planet' problem.

A baby is born into an idea.....

A baby is born into an idea....

A baby is born into an idea..................................................

Good lord young sir...................

Bags of meat.....

HAL starts to feel death, is that possible?  Can a machine with enough emotional programming 'feel' death?  HAL can see us as weak, he can see frailty, weakness where he only sees strength.

Yet HAL tells Dave that "he can feel it" when Dave is unplugging him and that he is "afraid".  It is interesting that HAL thought that using human emotional words would some how appeal to Dave's humanity.  

What does that say about us?

Is there an ending?