2001: A Space Odyssey Review

Megan Cole
2001: A Space Odyssey
The film starts out by showing various scenes of deserts with a caption reading “The Dawn of Man.” The movie goes on by showing how apes live. One morning the apes wake up to find a rectangular black monolith right in front of their shelter. The apes were confused at first, but later one of the apes learned how to use bones as weapons and tools. The next scene shows them eating meat and taking over a watering hole from another ape tribe.
The next segment of the film is about Dr. Heywood R. Floyd flying out to a space station. He is there to study another monolith that has been discovered on the moon. Floyd and a few others from the moon base ride out to the site. Once there, they walk around the monolith, observing it. The group gathers for a picture with the strange artifact but it starts to emit a high-pitched tone. The last scene is the sun rising over the monolith, then, the screen goes black.
The next scene is of a spaceship with the caption “Jupiter Mission: Eighteen Months Later.” Aboard are two pilots and three scientists. The scientists are closed away in hibernation. The ships operations are controlled by artificial intelligence called HAL 9000. It is stated many times in the film that the HAL 9000 series are completely error free, and that any failed computer is due to human error. HAL talks to one of the pilots, Dave, about the mission they are embarking on. During their talk, Hal states that the unit controlling the communication to earth will fail within 72 hours.
The other pilot, Frank, goes out and replaces the unit. Meanwhile, Frank, nor Dave, can figure out what is wrong with the old unit. They talk with Earth-based ground control and suggest that Hal has made a mistake. Frank and Dave are once again informed that the HAL 9000 computers have a perfect operational record, and it is just a small glitch that can be fixed. The Hal computer aboard the ship says that they should put the unit back and let it fail. Before replacing the units, Dave and Frank go into a pod and talk about disconnecting Hal. What they don’t know is that Hal is reading their lips through the window of the pod.
Hal begins to turn on the crew of the Jupiter mission. He snips Frank’s oxygen cord while he is trying to replace the units, and he terminates the hibernating scientists. In the meantime, Dave goes out to retrieve Frank, but Hal will not let him back inside the ship. Dave makes his way in through the emergency air lock and begins to disconnect Hal.
The next part of the film, Dave leaves in a pod and encounters a monolith around Jupiter. He begins to speed through a tunnel of light and finds himself in a bedroom. He sees himself getting older until he is lying on the bed with the monolith at his feet. He is then transformed into a fetus floating next to earth.
My first reaction to the movie was I did not like it at all. I am used to faster paced movies with more action and dialogue. This movie was extremely slow and I did not think there was much conversation as a movie nowadays. It was also hard for me to understand what was going on. After the first time watching it, I just stared at the screen with a puzzled look because I was so confused. I had to search for reviews and summaries of the film to grasp an understanding.
Even though it was not my favorite, I was quite impressed with the special effects and intelligence behind the film. The spacecrafts and the HAL 9000, was very unique and futuristic. I found it a bit disturbing when the computer started killing its passengers. A machine with that much intelligence can obviously be dangerous. I also did not like the beginning of the movie. Simply because I do not believe in evolution, I actually strongly disagree with it. The last few scenes were also a bit out there for my taste. I did not understand that Bowman was the man in the house, and that it was him that was shown getting older and eventually turning into a fetus. I still do not understand the significance of that transformation or the point that was trying to be made.

Another Update

Our project is coming along great. My group worked on it for a couple of hours yesterday during the original class hours. We made a lot of progress. We have all of our pictures together along with interesting facts and ways that college students can help be green on college campuses. The only thing we really need to do is add the song and just do some touch ups to make it nice.

Update on Project

Our project is still going really well. We have taken most of our pictures and we are taking a few more today. I also found some fun facts about recycling that we might include in our video. All we need to do is get our pictures put together into a video format. I think we are going to be using Windows Movie Maker. Nobody in our group has a specific job. We are all helping each other out with taking pictures, finding information, and putting the video together. Four heads are better than one!

Going Green!

For our group project, "going green" seemed like an ideal topic. It is beginning to be very popular around college campuses and work places. Our job is to inform other college students of what they can do on a college campus to help keep this planet clean. We are going to make a video with examples of "going green" acts. It will be humorous and keep the attention of the audience watching. We will also post it on YouTube so others can watch and become part of this huge task. We will explain the positive effects that being green has on society and also some consequences that can result from not doing your part.

Media and Design...HEYO!!

Basically, what chapter 47 of the Norton Field Guide to Writing is about is what kinds of designs are there to choose from. It had bullet points to state which elements are the most important. These include type, layout, paragraphs, lists, headings, and white space. I'm a visual type of person. I like to see things and how they happen. That's why it's kind of difficult for me to read a huge text that is just words. I like things that show me what I'm reading such as graphs or charts. Chapter 48 is about spoken texts, which I don't even want to think about. I absolutely hate giving speeches. They are not my forte at all. In the book, it states that you should speak clearly, pause for emphasis, avoid reading the presentation, stand up straight and look at the audience, use gestures, and practice. For me, though, no matter how much I practice, I always seem to violate these rules for public speaking. Chapter 49 talks about electronic texts, such as websites or e-mail. In the book, it listed key features for e-mail on page 478 and key features for websites on page 479. Long story short, it needs to be clear and organized.

The Beginning and the End

I was always told in elementary school all through high school that the beginning paragraph of a paper is the most important. If you didn't catch the reader's attention within the first few sentences, then it is likely that he or she will not read your paper. Once again, that concept is put into my mind. In the readings for chapter 28, it states that the beginning and the end are the most important parts of a paper. We want to be able to catch the reader's attention, and then leave them satisfied at the end. All their questions are answered, and they have a better understanding of whatever it was that he or she read. I always begin my papers with a question, some sort of backgroung information about my topic, or an interesting fact. My thesis statement is always the last sentence of the first paragraph. It's a good location to start the argument of my paper. A good ending is important also. The book states that "they're the last words readers read." I think that means that whatever the ending words are, the reader will remember those the most. I was always taught that the first sentence of my last paragraph should be a restatement of my thesis. It's just like a cross country race, you have to finish strong. To give an idea of what the reader will be reading, it's good to point out little hints. And when I say hints, I'm talking about a good title, thesis statement, and topic sentences. Once again, in high school, I was taught that every first sentence of a paragraph should be an overview of what the paragraph is going to be about.

Causes and Effects: Which Are Most Efficient?

Cause and effect are big factors that make or break an argument. There are strong points and weak points within cause and effects. It's sometimes hard for me to choose which would be the best to support whatever I am arguing. The book stated that "you will always need to qualify what you say about causes and effects-to say that something could explain or that it suggests." I think that statement is very impotant because most of us do not have the authority to determine whether something will cause something else to happen. The book showed three different ways to organize cause and effect situations. "1. Idenitfy a cause and then discuss its effects. 2. Identify an effect and then trace its causes. 3. Identify a chain of causes and effects leading from one to another." I would probably most likely use the first or third one the most in my writings. Iliked the oreo demonstration in the book : ) and how it classifies the different types of oreos. The book mentioned two ways to compare and contrast. Their names are the block method, and the point by point method. I would personally use the point by point method because I think it gets the point across in a stronger sense. I also like to use figurative language to try to instill a mental image in the reader's mind.