Divided into four more or less loosely related vignettes, the movie spans practically the whole course of human history. First, a twenty-minute segment follows a group of primitive ape-men as they forage for food, fight over watering holes, and pick nits out of their fur. But the discovery of a mysterious black monolith is thematically linked to the discovery of tool and weapon use.
Second, the first of two space-age vignettes depicts an astronaut’s journey from Earth to an orbital space station, and then on to the moon where he was ostensibly called to help deal with an outbreak of a deadly disease. But upon arriving he learns that this is simply a cover story meant to hide the fact that the lunar exploration team has uncovered a monolith similar to that in the first vignette.
The third episode takes place eighteen months later when two other astronauts are sent on an expedition to Jupiter -- which was the target for the sole observable radio transmission from the monolith. On the way there, the ship’s artificial intelligence -- a computer named HAL-9000 -- malfunctions and starts hunting the crew members, as it believes they are endangering the mission.
And finally, the last vignette finds one of the astronauts from the Jupiter mission completing his objective and passing through some kind of (very lengthy) dimensional doorway to a world that resembles a brightly lit baroque palace. After aging through several life stages, he is either reborn as or incorporated into or possibly simply observes the advent of a giant space baby that floats back towards Earth with unclear but hopefully peaceful motives.
Is it any good?
Back in the mid 1990s when I first saw this movie, I didn’t have much experience with movies outside of the usual mainstream multiplex flicks. So back in those days, a twenty-minute dialogue-free stretch of caveman antics in a sci-fi movie was just about the craziest thing I could think of. Of course, by the time I had finished watching this movie, my horizons had already been considerably expanded and the new craziest thing I could think of was a twenty-minute dialogue-free stretch of an astronaut flying through photographic special effects towards a space baby.
These days, it’s a lot easier to see truly weird movies since we’re no longer confined to watching only what’s on the shelves of the local video store. So 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY actually looks pretty tame by comparison. But luckily its weirdness was never really its main asset, and in fact nothing in the movie really feels like weirdness for its own sake. I think the ending vignette particularly goes on too long, but it does seem to have a point even if I don’t know exactly what it is.
One thing I do know is that the point of the opening caveman section went right over my head the first time I saw it. For some reason, I thought the discovery of the monolith by the ape-men was what led them to violence and war. But that’s not what happens at all. Before the monolith, the ape-men are pure animals -- they grub in the dirt for food, fight over watering holes, run from predators, and that kind of thing. Violence and death are already unavoidable parts of their lives -- just as for any animal. What the monolith represents is the discovery of tool and weapon use, which is what allows the ape-man (and eventually man-man) to dominate the rest of the natural world.
So as near as I can tell, the first vignette is meant to set up the function of the monoliths -- they are either catalysts, portents, or symbols of game-changing evolutionary advancement. So when another one is discovered on the lunar surface, it seems to suggest that some equally great leap forward is about to happen to the human race. (That’s how I interpret it anyway -- but if anybody has a better idea, let me know.) Following this reading, the space baby or star child or whatever would be the likely candidate for that next step. But then, of course, you have to wonder whether the entire middle of the movie is really necessary, or if it’s just a very elaborate McGuffin.
Another way to look at the movie is to turn this interpretation completely inside-out. Instead of examining the beginning and the ending for the “meaning”, it makes a different kind of sense to temporarily ignore those parts and focus primarily on the middle two vignettes. I don’t think that’s totally satisfying, since there are too many unanswered questions and dangling threads in those sections. But heck, those are the parts of the movie that are really most like what we would usually call sci-fi.
In any event, one of the best things about the space age parts is the detail and (seeming) realism that goes into the scenes of spaceship life. It’s not that the movie makes a big deal about how “THIS IS WHAT LIFE WOULD BE LIKE” but there is definitely an accumulation of tiny details that really start to feel real. The production design certainly favors the clean, sterile, brand-new type of spaceship (as opposed to the dirty, used, lived-in kind that would become popular later). I think conventional wisdom has pretty much accepted that not everything in the future is going to be sparkling clean and fresh off the assembly line, and in fact that a lot of nifty futuristic gadgets will be old and broken down. But regardless of that, the pristine condition of everything in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY gives it all an alien and intimidating air. It’s no doubt intentional -- space is very underpopulated in these segments. Despite accommodations that would comfortably fit dozens of travelers, the shuttle to the moon has only two passengers. You get the sense that this is the night before opening day in space -- everything seems ready to receive an onslaught of visitors, but none of them have shown up yet.
My biggest complaint about the second vignette is that it ends abruptly with the monolith on the moon emitting a radio transmission. We’ve followed an astronaut on most of his uneventful journey from lower Earth orbit to the lunar surface, and have learned about the security measures being taken to keep the monolith a secret. But then almost as soon as we get a glimpse of it, the vignette ends and we move on to the next episode where a ship is headed out to Jupiter to investigate what the monolith might have been transmitting to. But we never get any more information about what happened to the people we met in the last part.
Anyway, the third vignette is the part that everybody thinks of when they think about 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. It’s the bit where the super-computer HAL-9000 decides the human crew of its spaceship (just two guys, really) is too unreliable to carry out the mission and so plots to kill them. It’s the most story-like part of the movie, but it’s also the part that seems to have the least to do with the rest of the movie. At first glance, it seems like nothing more than a detour on the way to Jupiter. Somebody has to get there eventually so they can go through the next stage of human evolution, but the malfunctioning computer doesn’t seem to have any purpose beyond simply making that objective more difficult to achieve.
Of course, there probably is more to it than that. In some movies, I would assume that it was just shoddy storytelling. But everything in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY feels planned out, so HAL-9000 no doubt serves his purpose too. I don’t claim that I have any real answers to what it might be, but it is kind of interesting to think what might have happened if HAL-9000 had beaten the humans and succeeded in killing them both. The computer’s homicidal tendencies weren’t mere craziness -- it was specifically doing what it thought was necessary to complete the mission. So if HAL-9000 had reached the objective alone, would it have itself been the next step in evolution? Would it have ushered in a world where computers replaced humans in every respect? Admittedly, it’s hard to speculate on what a different ending for the movie would be when the actual ending isn’t even particularly clear. But if all the pieces of the movie are supposed to fit together somehow (and I suspect they are) then that is my best guess so far as to what the completed puzzle is supposed to look like.
I think you might be on to something with that HAL thing. Thinking about it, whoever built the monoliths essentially created humanity as intelligent life. Even as the humans are being tested and lifted up to the next stage by the cosmic whatevers, you've got humanity creating its own form of life as a microcosm of the process. The difference seems to be that humanity doesn't really have a handle on its own abilities yet, and so HAL is monumentally messed-up. If I remember right, Arthur C. Clarke was always big on the notion of technology transcending itself to the point where it comes to seem "natural".
ReplyDeleteYour idea about HAL being the next stage of evolution, in conflict with humanity, certainly makes sense as a mirror of the battle between the uplifted ape-man and the primitives next door at the start of the film.
Also, I first saw this when I was fifteen, had no idea what was going on, and only understood it because I read the book.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah I meant to say that I have totally never read the book. Everybody says it helps explain a lot of things though, so I should probably do that.
ReplyDeleteDoes the book also have the ape-man stuff? Or is it just the space parts?
It has even MORE ape-man stuff!
ReplyDeleteThe book is indeed very helpful, and I seem to recall enjoying it.
ReplyDeleteThe book explains a lot, and the movie sequel explains it, too, though I cannot recall if it explains things in accordance with Clarke's notions or if it was simply a Cold War Science Fiction Movie. The movie does return to the man who was featured in the second vignette, so it is interesting in that respect. It also reminds me how certain everyone was that nuclear war would occur.
ReplyDeleteI've never read the book, but I've given the movie a bit of thought and decided I like this idea:
ReplyDeleteThe monolith in the beginning grants early man the ability to figure out tool use. By the second part, man has not only mastered the Earth via tool use, but has become able to leave the planet itself. And lo, they find the next monolith on the moon -- the obvious first destination for spacefaring humans.
If we assume the moon monolith was planted at the same time the early-man monolith showed up, it starts to look like an achievement marker, doesn't it?
Ok, so in the third bit, we're off to Jupiter. But HAL, the most impressive tool man has made to date, decides it's going to try to overcome its human counterparts. Dave overcomes this tool through masterful use of the lesser (though still pretty fancy) tools at his disposal. Think of it as man striking a balance: he can't get along without tools, but he's not playing second fiddle, either.
And then there's the fourth part. Consider the spaceship. Looks kind of like a sperm, doesn't it? And it's delivering man (playing the role of genetic material) to a massive sphere called Jupiter (playing the role of the egg).
The light show? Ok, hard to account for. But I suppose we can think of it as a visual aid for insemination. And Dave's progression into old age and death as, perhaps counterintuitively, gestation. It's weird, yeah, but it's a metaphor, right?
And so you have the space baby, some kind of "next step" in the human story. Man was a dumb animal, and then a smart animal, and now, by developing a symbiosis with his technology, has transcended his planetary home and become some kind of higher form.
I guess.