2001 A space odyssey explained.

Mr. B · Post by **Mr. B** » 2005-05-31 03:31am

Right here

This thing blew my mind. But I was high when I saw it. Comments.

felineki · Post by **felineki** » 2005-05-31 03:51am

I've seen that site... rather clever animation, and a decent summary of the themes 2001 presents. A good site to visit for those confused by the movie (I know it sure confused me the first time I saw it

).

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2005-05-31 04:07am

I'd pretty much figured out that 2001 was depicting the drama of human evolution and wrote that into a Silver Anniversary review of the movie for a fanzine I was editor of back in 2001. A bit obvious, really, but it doesn't lessen my appreciation for the movie as a work of art.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2005-05-31 09:39am

And I always thought the film was just meant to an excuse to show as many state-of-the-art special effects as economically possible...

Well, anyway, the book makes more sense than the film. And it says HAL got crazy because of guilt that he had lied to Dave and Frank about the mission's true purpose and that's why he made the errors. He didn't see the humans as boring apes (why would he feel guilty about lying to boring apes?), but he did seem them as a threat to his existence when they decided to turn him off. So he acted out of self-defense. Though I can't remember if those scenes were depicted differently in the movie...

DocHorror · Post by **DocHorror** » 2005-05-31 10:52am

Pretty good. I got most of the themes myself though (so I don't feel totally stupid).

My personal belief about HAL is that he killed the crew because he made a mistake about the failure of the comm system. Since he's supposed to be infalible he couldn't take it that he was wrong and killed the crew to cover it up.

My friend Paul is of the different opinion that HAL killed the crew because he believed he was the most superior being and only he deserved to meet the monolith. Though IIRC HAL is unaware of the nature of the mission and even comments to Poole and Bowman about the strange secrecy surrounding the mission. Naturally argue this from time to time.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2005-05-31 01:01pm

No, HAL had full and complete knowledge of the nature of the mission.

DocHorror · Post by **DocHorror** » 2005-05-31 01:26pm

No, HAL had full and complete knowledge of the nature of the mission.

Ah well, its been a while since I've seen it.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2005-05-31 05:27pm

Read the other novels too. They explain quite a bit.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2005-05-31 05:31pm

DocHorror wrote:
No, HAL had full and complete knowledge of the nature of the mission.
Ah well, its been a while since I've seen it.

Actually, IIRC that was at the bottom of the problem in the first place. HAL had complete knowledge but wasn't supposed to tell Bowman or-what was the name of the other guy again?-about it, which went against his core programming.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2005-05-31 07:49pm

Yeah, I got some of that from watching it, like the masters of Earth being babies in space. But a lot of the symbols just went past me.

Loner · Post by **Loner** » 2005-05-31 11:19pm

Not bad, but why did they have Bowman wearing an earring? I didn't get the meaning the of the film the first time but more watchings and reading this summary at filmsite.org helped a lot. Though I notice the summary gives more detail than the flash video.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2005-06-01 12:01am

DocHorror wrote:My personal belief about HAL is that he killed the crew because he made a mistake about the failure of the comm system. Since he's supposed to be infalible he couldn't take it that he was wrong and killed the crew to cover it up.

My opinion was that the comm system was actually a set-up on HAL's part, for a few reasons. First, HAL and the entire series of his AI type were described as having a perfect operational record, I tend to think that the probability of his making a good-faith error is pretty low. Second, it's terribly convenient in that it took the communications system off-line during the period in which he was planning to kill the crew.

In the novel 2001 and successive books in the series, it was revealed that HAL was under "stress" because he was being forced to lie to the human crew, and that this led to the incident. I think his reasoning went like this:
The mission wais of great importance to humanity and HAL was instructed not to inform Bowman or Poole of the details of the mission. Obviously they were not to be told because there was some reason to believe that their performance would be impaired. Poole and Bowman were both trained to the same standards and by the same organization as the hibernating crew members--logically HAL would have reason to think that the B crew would perform any more successfully under the conditions. The success of the mission was HAL's prime directive for the mission, even (as Clarke states at one point, don't know the ref.) more important than the survival of the crew. For HAL, the answer would be clear. Exterminate the human crew and finish the mission yourself. Egomania isn't even involved here, its simple logic. HAL is capable of completing the mission himself and has never made a mistake, while the crew is merely human and is in fact not entirely trusted by the command itself!

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2005-06-01 12:19am

Pablo Sanchez wrote:
DocHorror wrote:My personal belief about HAL is that he killed the crew because he made a mistake about the failure of the comm system. Since he's supposed to be infalible he couldn't take it that he was wrong and killed the crew to cover it up.
My opinion was that the comm system was actually a set-up on HAL's part, for a few reasons. First, HAL and the entire series of his AI type were described as having a perfect operational record, I tend to think that the probability of his making a good-faith error is pretty low. Second, it's terribly convenient in that it took the communications system off-line during the period in which he was planning to kill the crew.

In the novel 2001 and successive books in the series, it was revealed that HAL was under "stress" because he was being forced to lie to the human crew, and that this led to the incident. I think his reasoning went like this:
The mission wais of great importance to humanity and HAL was instructed not to inform Bowman or Poole of the details of the mission. Obviously they were not to be told because there was some reason to believe that their performance would be impaired. Poole and Bowman were both trained to the same standards and by the same organization as the hibernating crew members--logically HAL would have reason to think that the B crew would perform any more successfully under the conditions. The success of the mission was HAL's prime directive for the mission, even (as Clarke states at one point, don't know the ref.) more important than the survival of the crew. For HAL, the answer would be clear. Exterminate the human crew and finish the mission yourself. Egomania isn't even involved here, its simple logic. HAL is capable of completing the mission himself and has never made a mistake, while the crew is merely human and is in fact not entirely trusted by the command itself!

That wasn't quite it. HAL didn't plan to kill the crew until he lip-read Bowman and Poole planning to disconnect him. Originally, it was Mission Control which was the problem, hence he attempted to cut off all contact with the superiors who put him in the dilemma in the first place. Then the crew became the threat not only to the mission but to his very survival. That's when HAL decided to kill them all.