2001, Good Movie: A review of sorts.

[TMA_1]

WARNING: This review contains many spoilers to 2001 the movie, as well as the books 2001 and 3001.

just finished watching it last night. I woke up at about two in the morning and decided on seeing the whole thing.

Though I don’t accept evolution as a viable theory for the progress of mankind, that doesn’t mean I am an asshole about it, or find it bad entertainment! It brings up many good points on evolution and the social evolution of mankind. (After all the whole point of the movie is evolution)

It starts out with The Dawn of Man sequence, and boy what a portion of film that is! They give ancestral man such dignity and honor, never seen it done as it was. When the monolith meets with the undetermined "missing link", and feeds it ideas of things beyond itself, you get the feeling of it's actions on the group of animals. It then pans to a sequence where one of the "apes" (not really an ape, but the best word to use for it) takes a bone, and begins to smash the remnants of some dead carcass. You can see it slowly start doing so, and see the intellectual stimulation it gets from doing so. You can tell a huge light bulb go off in the creature's mind. It gets the idea that it could be used as a weapon. The 2001 theme plays in the background at a triumphal point and begin to realize that it is one of the greatest moments of ingenuity of all time. To us, the simple thought of smashing something seems pointless, but imagine how big a step that is! It is given as much dignity and hope in that film as when David becomes the star child. That simple invention of a weapon of death grows to something that will change the face of the world. It is also such a paradox, that an invention of death is the invention that will make man progress and grow to enormous heights, absolutely amazing. It then shows the one group of apes (standing upright now, notice that?) fight over the water hole with another group, (also notice that almost no noise comes from the apes with the weapons, pure determination). You see the first slaying of that sort in the history of earth, and then the triumphant creature throws the bone into the air, and suddenly it switches scenes to a cigar shaped craft in the year 2001. (the last scene of the bone flying in the air is positioned almost exactly where the ship would appear, probably the most prolific scene switch was made here.)

The absolute awe you get from the first 20 or so minutes is amazing, but it gets better. You watch a dry sequence with dr floyd discussing the discovering of TMA-1 (love that name), discovered at the Tyco crater. They go to observe it and it then shows it strangely interacting with the people observing.

Again a switch occurs with a span of 18 months elapsing. You watch the beautiful Discovery space craft move along in the quiet of outer space and observe the subtle interplay between the humans and HAL, a thinking computer. It is done so well that you get a feeling it is still a computerized cold thinking machine, but at the same time feel the overtones of all human emotions, humor, pride, fear, love of sorts.

It goes on in the film and you see HAL turn insane, trying and successfully "killing" Frank Poole (where in 3001 his body will be discovered in the deep of space). There is a long sequence where David Bowmen tries to save poole, but is then kept out of the ship by HAL, with obvious intents to let david die out in the cold of space. This is where one of my favorite scenes in the movie comes about. He goes to open the airlock, exhales out all of his breath and opens up his small pod, there is a few moments of quiet, and david is shot around the vacuumous airlock, he presses the lever and you hear the hiss of air and pressure come to the room. Loved the special effects there.

It then goes to one of the most prolific scenes in film history for me. David goes to shut HAL down, but while trying to do it HAL tries to talk David out of everything. At first HAL has the subtle intonations of stress and a bit of anger, then pride, then finally fear. Finally you hear him relent in almost a cry, with him saying, "Dave, stop... Im afraid. I am afraid Dave. Dave, stop." It is funny that throughout the movie almost every actor lacks any sort of real human emotion, but the most "human" character in the entire movie is HAL. It always makes me cry when he is being shut off. After doing so and a few hours pass, David gets a message from Command telling him he has reached the destination, and finally spilling the beans about why he and his crew went to Jupiter, (they had no idea what was happening, and thought that HAL lying wouldn’t cause any problems at all, you later find out that the simple act of holding information back from the crew destroys HAL, it isn’t his fault at all.)

Then the most spine tingling scene happens. David exits Discovery in another pod, and closes down on the Monolith orbiting Jupiter, where TMA-1 was sending a signal to in order for humans to track it there. He then "enters" the monolith, which is basically a huge stargate.

You see some of the first uses of computer effects, and boy does it work well! you see an awe inspiring sequence of him traveling through the gate, obviously going millions upon millions of light-years away from earth, and beyond. (which is why the scene at the beginning of it pops up a blurb saying "Jupiter, and beyond the infinite".

He finally stops, and realizes that he is in some sort of synthesized complex obviously set up by some alien intellect. He see's himself growing older, each time he does grow older, he see's a mirror image of himself older than he previously was. Finally you see him old and decrepit in bed, pointing out a needy hand to something, and then it finally shows what that something is, another monolith. It pans back to David, but he isn’t really david anymore, he is a fetus, a child. The next in human evolution has just taken place, and this new "starchild" goes back to earth, hovering over it and watching, with the 2001 theme playing in the background. Just like when it played during the scene when the ape began to use a bone as a weapon of death. That is where the movie comes to an end.

I haven’t seen a movie before that sparked my intellect like this one. It is such an epic, that they correctly titled it "2001: a space odyssey". Such a mix of emotions hasent filled me while watching a movie like this one. It is one of those movies that everybody needs to see. It is also probably the most beneficial movie for the Science Fiction genre. It gave a needed boost to the true intelligence and wonder that science fiction has to offer.

And all of this was done with about 45 minutes of actual speaking in the movie. About 2/3rds of the movie has no dialog at all. It is one of those movies that doesn’t depend on actors, but the director. Many don’t like Stanley Kubrick, but I love his directing, and this is one movie that shows how amazing a director he really is.

[Andrew]

I liked the movie also and have it.

Sometimes confusing when it goes on it's "trips"

didnt read your post much, as you said it has spoilers to the books which I haven't read.