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.