Movie Review 🍿: '2001: A Space Odyssey'

Poster

Poster

Intro

This is a review of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I re-viewed just a while ago and man, was I impressed. I remember seeing this back when I was 14 and I was like, what is this crazy vibes and music and shit. I had already seen Gravity, and I was not as impressed with this, but the concepts still lingered in my Sci-Fi-addled adolescent brain.

And watching it again, I have to admit, was fun. It’s one of the most creative movies with ideas that we have yet to encounter in real life . The concept of first contact has been repeated in movies many a times over the last half century, but I think this was the mother of all.

Scientific realism grounded with humanity’s self-preserving nature are blended right in the elements of this movie. Considering the time it came from, I’m very much impressed. It inspired a generation of science-fiction concepts and movies. So here goes my rant on it.

Running Commentary

The Dawn of Humanity

Well this scene, was a beautiful opening. A story told without words, that is intelligent and seems natural? Damn, couldn’t modern folks do that without 2 minutes of hand holding? Modern folks should take a page from this. The artificial insemination of intelligence on the elements of a system by the system is interesting. Does it mean that the monolith decided the time was right for this to happen? Or does it mean that the intelligence we evolved, was a gift? Where did this original intelligence come from? All the questions, and only a the mind to contemplate. This is what I love about the visual form. Nothing needs to be said but views do change how people think.

The Moon Act

I think the movie is extremely…clinical. Yes, the clean dry minimalist efficiency of this space shuttles and the work being done makes me feel like living in a dehumanised place or something? Take a look at this image
It’s wonderful design, and inspires the mind to a different world location, you know. The design choices are beautiful with striking colour palette.
And then take a look at the International Space Station from 2002.

You see the reality of space stations. While the former is a commercialised space craft capable of taking multiple hundred people, the latter is a place for technicians, engineers, the ones who are currently still trying to figure out how to run things in space. Though currently we are not any aesthetically pleasure space stations, the future is going to be that. It’s more going to be like the moon scene from Ad Astra(Another favourite movie of mine). Cold, distant, and capitally commercialised. What a world we live in eh?

The “I’m Sorry Dave” scene

This is one of the most iconic scenes ever, representing the turning over of the AI towards evil side. It does it in such a clean, clear manner, that it’s frightening. The “This conversation can serve no purpose anymore” is such a line that I’m blown away man. Damn. To contrast to that, there is nothing but the emptiness of space and the hum of the machines.

Imagine using your smart car for many years, and one day the car just says, “I’m sorry your name here, I’m afraid I don’t have to keep you alive anymore”, and just pulls a F1 turn on you. The moment the machine turns on you, is so chilling, it fell in the Uncanny valley for me. a brief stroke of cosmic horror felt through my bones.
And I like how Dave reacts to this. He simply understands and thinks. He understands the shit situation he’s in. He evaluates an option, understands the risk and works in such clear manner that many of us schooled sheep couldn’t even dare comprehend at that moment. I get the idea from this part here (again, I’m quoting stuff related from Ad Astra so much lol) of the stoic engineer. Practical efficiency over rules. Mind over matter.

When I was younger, I used to comment in horror movies about the hatred people get when they just shouldn’t go towards the bad thing. “It’s always a ghost! Get your head together and get a demonologist man!” is what I used to scream. Now, I sympathise. No, it’s not always so obvious. No, it’s scary, even though the signs are already there. It’s not funny when something like this happens to you in the middle of whatever you are doing.

A malicious entity out to destroy out not out of malice, but out of self-defence, and there’s only a countable number of ways that you could win? Get outta here. Even the smartest kid in the block will have trouble thinking at that point.

The Death of a God

This is another scene that captivates my thoughts. The death of the robot. It’s so … I dunno, how to explain, weird. The “I’m afraid” is so eerie. It’s like the siren singing of a dying God. Literally, imagine the pressure someone would be under. I would die there just thinking what to do, until HAL kills me man. Can’t even relate to him. But last demonic way HAL sings Daisy, holy shit it’s nice. It brings out interesting emotions. I feel sad for him, for a little moment, the sniffing out (technically powering down ) of a consciousness and it being aware of it. But again, that calculating machine would have done the same given the first choice. It’s interesting isn’t it, how things seem so different when considering the human perspective.

The Finale

The concept of time passing by with each look was beautifully portrayed. It’s so nice, I dunno how much more thematic it could be. I think the star child was a little anti-climatic? Probably because I’ve been dazzled by good graphics lol. Thematically yes, it’s nice. But again, I’m a cinematographically spoilt child. What can you do eh? I liked the entirety of it , but not the idea maybe. But that’s the finale.

Other Thoughts

I mean, various other thoughts on the nature of the movie, symbolism and all is shown and told. Of all the things said and done, at the very end of it, it was nice, not to say the least and intellectually titillating. Kubrick and Clark, the two main tour de forces of the movie, seem to pull off a very very interesting job, and a piece of visual art.

The Omnipotent Being
Another part was interesting what Kubric said about the movie.

The idea was supposed to be that he is taken in by godlike entities, creatures of pure energy and intelligence with no shape or form. They put him in what I suppose you could describe as a human zoo to study him, and his whole life passes from that point on in that room. And he has no sense of time… When they get finished with him, as happens in so many myths of all cultures in the world, he is transformed into some kind of super being and sent back to Earth, transformed and made some kind of superman. We have to only guess what happens when he goes back. It is the pattern of a great deal of mythology, and that is what we were trying to suggest.

I find it fascinating how the movie portrays the perspective of higher-dimensional beings. It’s as if it’s showing us how fourth-dimensional entities, for whom time is a dimension like space, might perceive our three-dimensional experience. It reminds me of the five-dimensional beings in Interstellar, which I assume have four spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. It’s quite mind-blowing and awesome to contemplate. For those interested, I recommend reading Cixin Liu’s description of 4-dimensional space as perceived by 3-dimensional beings in his book—it offers a unique and insightful perspective.

Design of HAL 9000

More from Wikipedia

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that HAL, as the supposedly perfect computer, is actually the most human of the characters.

I agree man, it’s an interesting choice they took. Again, in the later movies, the reveal of his reason for malfunction is presented, and that’s a much more coherent explanation for his behaviour. When I actually compare with the current GPT4o model (as of mid-year 2024) that’s multi modal and out now, I think in function both HAL 9000 and GPT4o are the same. But attach more functions and make it a LAM model. I can see the signs of AI coming on in the future, and this starkly predicted the rise of it. It’s crazy how I’m here for the actual birth of AGI. First LLMs, then autonomous RL agents for robotics. It’s like anatomy of a new robot is evolving in different parts of computer technology engineering in parallel. It’s brightly reminiscent of a time when progress of science seemed unstoppable. Thought we have into technology addicts, we didn’t seem to invent something similar for almost 70 years. Sometimes, even the simplest things take the longest time.

Conclusion

It was a very interesting movie that kinda defined a genre back when it was released. Currently from looking at a 21st Century perspective, we haven’t achieved even half of what the movie told was possible lol. We have turned technology to better the lives of humans rather than to create a space faring civilisation. What a disappointment.

But the vision, man, that’s what I liked about the movie. Bold and powerful. Something to remember by. It left a mark in the movie industry and how people enjoyed space opera’s in general and I’m glad it happened.

I didn’t overanalyze as people have been doing over the last half century, but I think this are some of my cleanest and orignial thoughts I had on this movie. It was pretty fun watching it, and I would give like 9.8/10 for this. Again that 0.2 is due the starchild thing? But whatever felt nice.

Analyses that I enjoyed

• Analysing Evil: 9000 From the Odyssey Series
• 2001: A Space Odyssey is the greatest film ever made unless you disagree which is like totally fine
• 2001: A Space Odyssey is highly overrated (Reddit Thread)
• Wikipedia - 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey

Humorous offshoots

• If HAL9000 was Amazon.com’s Alexa