I am sorry, Dave

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Adam’s rating: ★★★★ ½   (out of 5)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Rated: none. 141 min.

No. 22 on  AFI 100

No. 15 on AFI 100 reissue

No. 86 on IMDB Top 250

Starring: Keir Dullea,
Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

“2001: A Space Odyssey”: No. 22 on AFI 100;
No. 15 on AFI 100 (2008); No. 86 on IMDB Top 250

When it comes to science fiction, this film is Mecca.

The story – although long, drawn-out and a little boring at times – offers up very little dialog and relies on demonstration to get its point across throughout the entire film. The story covers human evolution, artificial intelligence (with a human-like computer that runs an entire spaceship) and life outside of Earth.

While some consider this film an epic, due to its story mixed with a classical score and broken into three different parts, the special effects for space travel are what make this movie epic in its magnitude.

There are several memorable scenes in this film, most notably a spaceship docking at a space station, spinning in motion to the sounds of Johan Strauss II’s “Blue Danube Waltz”; Dave Bowman shutting down the HAL 9000 (more on this later); and the final scene transition where Bowman travels through a time-space continuum to ultimately what we can presume is his death and rebirth.

The special effects for 1968 are astonishing, really.

But this is a work of art and it’s arguably the pinnacle of Kubrick’s work (although I’m just as big a fan of “Dr. Strangelove,” “Barry Lyndon” and “Paths of Glory” as I am this piece).

To me, the best science fiction element in this entire film – and it’s an element that seems to be the common thread of most science fiction – is the HAL 9000, or Hal, the computer that controls the ship (and the mission) in Act III, Jupiter Mission. Rated at No. 13 on the AFI’s list of best villains, Hal starts off as a likeable, artificial intelligence character. He converses with astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole aboard the ship and he keeps them company for the long duration of their trip.

But when they suspect that Hal is malfunctioning and plan to shut him down, they take the precaution of making sure he can’t hear them – but overlook the fact that this A.I. is so advanced he can read their lips.

As Frank is out performing some maintenance on the ship, Hal severs his oxygen and lets him drift into outerspace. Dave goes on a rescue mission in a pod and doesn’t realize that Hal is responsible until he arrives back at the ship and Hal informs him that he isn’t going to let Dave in because the mission is too important to be jeopardized by the humans. (Hal also kills the remaining crew members sleeping in their cryogenic chambers aboard the ship.)

Dave then bursts his way into the ship in the airlock with a manual override and without a helmet, holding his breath all the while. He then proceeds to shut Hal down – with Hal pleading for his life the whole time. Once shut down, Hal’s messages for the crew about the purpose of their mission start playing once the ship begins its final approach of Jupiter. Dave is finally informed of the perilous mission at hand – that a monolith (extraterrestrial life) has been found and that the last expedition sent to investigate mysteriously disappeared and that his mission was to help the Hal recover data from the monolith.

Upon descent into Jupiter, it appears you – the viewer – has taken some LSD, as strange, vibrant colors float around the screen. I’m kidding of course and the bad trip ends when Dave awakes in a bright, white, pristine room. He sees something and walks to the door where he sees himself eating and suddenly he becomes the Dave he sees. Then he drops his fork, and as he looks up, he sees himself as an old man on his deathbed and he again becomes the Dave he sees. Then he sees the monolith, and in an instant, he is dead and being reborn as we are taken to the image of a fetus in outerspace looking at Earth.

The themes and elements of science fiction are at the top of their game in this film. And despite all of that, the most impressive element to me is the special effects, since the majorities were performed by hand with miniatures, models, etc. since this movie was made pre-CGI.

Kubrick really made a masterpiece here, despite stretches that seem dry and mundane as there is nothing happening in the film.