The monolith beings decicided to give the apes a little push up the evolutionary ladder theorizing that this act would develop them to human status and one day be capable of space travel which the buried sentinel on the moon would deduce when unearthed. Human curiosity would then lead them to search for the signals source giving the monolith beings the opportunity to give humanity its next evolutionary "push" hence the new and improved "dave" being returned to earth for the next part of their experiment.
@@kevinharkness2108 Arthur C. Clarke's novel adaptation of his own screenplay is pretty much straightforward about what it all means -- there's no mystery to that end in the novel. The film version withholds narrative details supplied by the omniscient narrator of the novelization -- to profound effect. Alas as a teen sci-fi reader I read Clarke's novelization before seeing this film and unfortunately that spoiled the film for me mystery wise.
@@IbrahimHoldsForth Absolutely. The above quote from Clarke is completely wide of the mark. Arthur C. Clarke never confused anyone - he always explained the s.h.1.t out of everything. No questions unanswered, no mystery - everything wrapped in a (very boring) bow.
Fun fact: if you look at the chess board, Hal is lying about the chess game, he didn't have check. He's testing if the crew are reliable enough to spot his lies because he's got a secret mission to accomplish and needs to know if the crew can be relied on to act like him under stress, or if not, be disposed of without anyone noticing.
I'd not heard this before but it doesn't surprise me as I remember reading somewhere that Kubrick was an avid chess player and wouldn't make a mistake like that.
Why not just a mistake because Hal did not understand that by playing the recording when they got to the destination, he would not be breaking his mission. They were supposed to learn about the mission eventually.
This is an acquired taste. It's in my top 5 of all time. It has everything. Action, sex, violence, revenge, rape, redemption, drama, comedy, EVERYTHING. It's odd though. If you're afraid of human genitalia...stay away.
Notice the distorted voices heard in the 'hotel room' at the end? The 'aliens' do not appear so much as are audible. Some work was done on optical / digital shapes to represent the aliens, the few pictures suggest shapes like paper sculptures, but, like the hedge animals intended for The Shining, they were not good enough for Kubrick.
@@promnightdumpsterbaby9553 HAL. The calm, rational voice of insanity. In the sequel 2010, made in the mid 80's, a cyber psychologist on a mission to find out why the Discovery failed determines that someone had deliberately loaded a second program. The conflict between the 2 disparate programs caused HAL to go insane. He determines this using his own mainframe in his office on Earth, HAL's sister, SAL 9000.
The Monolith helped evolved the apes into modern humans. The hats the flight attendants wore served to hide their hair. Because the filmmakers couldn't do the 'hair floating in zero gravity' effects yet. The obscure ending has been interpreted many different ways. This is one... The Monolith evolved Dave into a new being, but it couldn't do that while Dave was still alive, nor could it kill him, so the Monolith created an environment where Dave could live out the remainder of his life, then after dying of old age, he could be transformed, evolved, ascended. I highly recommend that you watch the sequel 2010.
I've heard a theory that the monolith gave the apes the concept of technology. It eventually makes us somewhat devoid of humanity, hence the sterility of the acting. Eventually, in the form of HAL, the technology fails us and it is time for the next evolutionary step.
The monolith gave the apes the idea for the next step in their evolution. The use of tools. Allowed the consumption of meat, and therefore increased 'brain power'. Then on the moon, when discovered, sent a signal to Jupiter. Turned humanities sight towards Jupiter, creating new tools, and allowing travel to Jupiter. And a new generation of HAL computers etc. On observing the Large Monolith at Jupiter, 'different form of travel' perhaps? And observing the Monolith at the end of his days, becoming the Star Child. The next step in our 'evolution'. Evolved into a new being.
I think that was main reason why the flight attendants, who would have been called stewardesses at the time, wore the caps, can't exactly stick the hair to a pane of glass and move it about the camera frame. Other reasons a costume designer might use them would be that back in the Sixties many of the uniforms stewardesses wore included a hat or cap of some sort; plus, it would allow women not to have to deal with a Medusa mass hair moving about in microgravity. Another thought is it is a nod to the caps worn the astronauts/cosmonauts of the time in the real world.
@@vapoet My understanding (and I think Keir Dullea has affirmed this) is that not only do astronauts have to be at the absolute peak of physical fitness, they also need to be highly intelligent and - especially for a mission like this one in the film - highly self-controlled people. This may well mean that selection favours candidates with certain traits associated with psychopaths, such as a tendency to remain very calm in stress situations, and to be emotionally flat. Not only does this make sense for the astronauts on a technical level, it also heightens the sense that HAL is actually more alive and emotional than his human colleagues - he exhibits curiosity, for example. When it comes to a fight for survival between the organic and inorganic crew, it's easy to find more pathos in HAL's demise than the rather cold humans (no cryogenic pun intended). I personally see HAL's increasingly independent consciousness as perhaps being another gigantic step in human development, equivalent to that of the apes discovering tool use. Though of course, that tool use was immediately culminated in violence - and so it does here when humans have created artificial life...
Fun fact about vacuum exposure. During space suit testing a seal failed and the guy testing the suit was exposed to hard vacuum. He passed out within 15 seconds but before he did he said he felt the saliva on his tongue begin to boil in the low pressure. They got him out in less than 90 seconds and he was fine. The human body can handle a change of 1 atmosphere pretty well with just a few surface capillaries rupturing as long as you exhale. If you try and hold your breath it can damage your lungs. As for the story intelligence was the most important thing the aliens found in the universe. So they would help potential races gain intelligence via the monoliths. The second one burried on the moon was a test to see if the intelligence took in the human race. The signal to Jupiter (Saturn in the book) was to have a human follow it and meet the creators who then evolve him into the “Star Child” the next level of evolution for humans. Finally HAL’s issue was the creators of the Jupiter mission gave him conflicting orders. To protect crew and mission but hide the real mission from Frank and Dave. As he felt Frank and Dave were starting to catch on about the mission, the conflict in his orders that caused made HAL begin to act erratically and eventually homicidally to remove the source of the conflict.
@paratus04 That part about confusing orders i find very fascinating. That's exactly the kind of AI programming issues this series on Computerphile is all about. If you haven't checked this playlist out, i think you will find this very interesting. Cheers! th-cam.com/video/3TYT1QfdfsM/w-d-xo.html
@@TrentRidley That's the point of the quote. No matter how advanced you are, if something is sufficiently more advanced you won't recognize it as technology anymore. It might as well be magic.
@@frankgesuele6298 We’ll probably only know in hindsight, as a lot of Kubrick’s movies were panned on release, so there’s no telling who our current or next director is that always hits a homerun
@@frankgesuele6298 Christopher Nolan is probably the only director/producer even remotely close. Cinema is dead, and comics, shaky cam, and CGI killed the industry.
The monolith is a computer. When the apes touch it, they advance to the next stage of evolution. The moon monolith activates the one by Jupiter. The creators of it were ensuring that humans were advanced enough to achieve space flight. When that one is touched, evolution is advanced again. In the book, he finally becomes a being beyond space and time.
@@christopherbenassi7721 It is described as a device or machine in the book. The aliens that built it have advanced beyond matter though and become pure energy. How it works exactly is not explained.
This for me is one of the rare cases where the movie is better than the book (which Clarke wrote concurrently with the movie if I'm not mistaken) The whole ambiguity of the monolith and the ending is what makes it so powerful imo
@@danigar That was the source of conflict between Kubrick and Clarke... Clarke, as a writer wanted everything being explained in detail, Kubrick, as a photographer and movie maker, wanted everything to be insinuated. Whatever do you prefer, the story is pretty simple and clear, it's about alien intelligence guiding the human being evolution. If you like the way of Kubrick there's much more room to theories and specullation, but him and Clarke didn't diverge in the essence of the story.
Thank you for watching this. Been waiting forever for someone to finally react to this one. My take is that the monolith is a tool for the aliens to go to planets and instill a spark of intelligence in promising species thus kickstarting their evolution. It gave the ape (Moon watcher in the book) the knowledge of tools and weapons which is why the cut from the bone flying in the air to the satellite orbiting the Earth. (The satellite was supposed to be a nuclear launch platform thus the film cutting from one weapon to another) The second monolith (Or is the the first one. You never know because the first one just disappears) was a test for the apes to see if they had achieved space flight. When the Sun hit the monolith, it sends off a signal towards Jupiter for the next stage of the test. Thus the Jupiter mission 18 months later. Now HAL. The reason that HAL started to malfunction and decided to kill off the crew members is that he was given conflicting instructions. His primary function was to collect all the data and present it to the humans without error. However, he was also given a second instruction for this mission that he wasn't supposed to reveal to anyone until after they entered orbit around Jupiter. He started to develop the computer equivalent of paranoia. And when he caught Dave and Frank planning on disconnecting him, he saw the crew as a detriment to the mission and decided to kill them off and continue the mission himself. The Stargate. When Dave approaches the monolith, it activates a stargate and sends Dave across space to the aliens' planet where they set up a comfortable place for him to stay. While he's there, they start deconstructing him in order to build him into the next evolution of man, the Starchild which is what you see at the end of the movie. Anyway, that is my take on it. Like you said, the movie is open to numerous interpretations so your mileage may vary.
"Is he now one with the universe?" That's the closest I've heard anybody come to what actually happened. I absolutely love the book and the film but I think Kubrick could have explained the ending a bit better
I'd be willing not to disagree that if Kubrick stumbled anywhere it was at the very end of the film, representing the "Star Child" as a planet-size fetus. But to be fair, I don't think I would have come up with anything better. And considering all the other brilliant ways he managed to convey some very abstract ideas (SMASH CUT TO: EXT-SPACE, 4 million years later), I think that audiences could afford to take _one_ step towards meeting him in the middle.
Dave at the end wasn't on the ship; the aliens put him in a place to observe him in his natural habitat. The weird violin noises on the soundtrack were them discussing him.
The thing about this film is that, unlike most films, its story is told visually rather than through dialogue. It's mostly a visual and sensory experience. That's what puts some people off.
HAL’s breakdown is quite fascinating.. It seems to me stress programming went askew when he was confronted with something unknown, that he couldn’t compute.. Then emotion, real emotion and stress kicked in.. I don’t know..
‘I’m half crazy All for the love of you’ Hal went kind of crazy because while he had to hide the nature of the mission, he was programmed to care for the crew. His care for them literally drove him mad. It’s interesting on a rewatch how he hints to Dave that the mission isn’t what it seems on the surface, as if he wanted them to come to the conclusion on their own without him having to tell them. He was doing everything he could within the bounds of his programming, but because it made him seem glitchy and untrustworthy, it backfired. Truly tragic
so glad your camera bubbles are now not reversed and actually look corresponding to how y'all sit. great reaction as always. this is an epic film, deserves multiple viewings too. also, this film is better viewed not knowing anything about HAL, unfortunately, it seems like y'all knew enough to suspect from the beginning of HAL's introduction in the film.
I starting watching this video thinking “these guys aren’t going to get it”, then I was pleasantly surprised that you pretty much did. Your understanding and appreciation of the kraft of Kubrick makes me happy. One thing to notice is the continual reference to birth, Frank Poole’s birthday, Floyd’s daughter’s birthday, the birth of Man, the birth of A.I., the birth of the Star Child, even the docking with the orbiting space station is symbolic of the act of procreation.
"i'm sorry dave. i feel much better now." ~hal 9000 i watched this movie w my son when he was 11 and prefaced it w a stmt that it was very special and he needed to treat it as a hw assignment bc we'd talk abt it when it was over. he got a notebook and scribbled throughout. he got a kick out of hal, laughed at him begging for his "life", and kept asking why ppl back on earth didn't stop it. i asked him for his impression: he said the danger of unchecked tech, hal was kinda like a bomb for your enemy that you accidentally detonate in the lab.
That is impossible. I hate this statement, ass licking that does the opposite. If you are going to praise an amazing film, don’t insult it with bullshit statements. It was made when it was made and it was made brilliant. No need for the pseudo intellectual statements that doesn’t make sense.
@@Gnossiene369 Just 9 years after Plan 9 From Outer Space. An amazing leap forward in Sci Fi cinematography. "ahead of its time" is an idiom that isn't to be taken literally and there's nothing intellectual (pseudo or otherwise) about it.
@@Gnossiene369 Your interpretation of his comment strikes me as wilful contrarianism, probably in an attempt to differentiate your opinion from that which you perceive to be trite or obvious. I assume that, by doing this, you believe you will assert some degree of intellectual superiority over the masses who adopt a similar opinion. Well, I’m afraid it didn’t work. Your comment only succeeds in making you look like an idiot. The film is not only ahead of its time, it’s still ahead of our own time. No one before or since this has made a more visionary science fiction film.
I saw this movie in the theater with my parents back when it was released. I was 8 years old, and I can still picture myself walking out of the theater just in awe, just wanting to talk about what I had just seen. It changed my life.
The title of the opening music "Thus Spake Zarathustra" lays out a major concept of the film: "Zarathustra" takes its title from writings by Nietzsche about a Zoroastrian prophet who deemed that "God is dead" but that mankind had yet to know about it. What Nietzsche meant by this is that the Age of Enlightenment with it's development of science and reason should have ended mankind's need for religion and that man abandoning the idea of god is necessary for people to develop their own internal sense of morality & decency without having to depend on a set of rules put upon them by religion. This letting go of the "higher power" concept will allow mankind to evolve to it's next level, to become their own higher power, the "Ubermensch", basically meaning that the next important evolution of man is to become our own gods. Back to 2001, during the Dawn of Man sequence notice the colors of the sun, which represents the "all seeing eye" of God, and it's similarities to HAL's eye, which also represents God (note how like God/religion HAL is a man-made construct which is supposedly perfect and "above" humans, and is always watching/in control of the lives and very fates of the astronauts). When mankind (our astronauts) finds that God (HAL) is flawed, mankind then kills God and is then able to become God himself (Dave's eye is now the "all-seeing eye), evolving to a higher state of enlightenment.
LOL! The music was _filler_ added by the editor, because the _st_ wasn't completed on time and it was released with _public domain_ music. There is no connection between the music and any "major concept"...LOL!
@@malcolmdrake6137 LOL! I'm aware of SK's process, however the way he came to use the music doesn't automatically mean that he couldn't intend it to have a deeper meaning 😉 LOL! If you study Kubrick you must know that he sometimes piles on layers of theme and subtext, using everything from color, paintings, literature references, subconscious suggestions and yes, music, to do it. Given that many think of Kubrick as a genius & one of the G.O.A.T.s and given that the film is clearly about some form of mankind's evolution I think it's a stretch to write it off as merely coincidence ✌️
@@666ATB666 I'm reading that book right now and your analysis fits very nicely with it. The great thing about artists is that they don't mind if the rest of us interpret what they've done, and sometimes I think others pick up on things that artists maybe subconsciously put into their work. I don't see the point of arguing about that kind of thing, so well done you.
@@666ATB666 Yes, I tend to agree. Apparently Kubrick asked Alex North to come up with something with a similar mood to the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra, but was disappointed in the result and stuck with the Richard Strauss composition. I believe that while The Blue Danube was used as a filler, Kubrick immediately asked "I wonder if we dare?" There are plenty of examples of happy accidents becoming iconic moments in movies..
@@malcolmdrake6137 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(score) The soundtrack; composed by Alex North; who worked with the director for both Spartacus and Dr. Strangelove, was complete, Kubrick simply rejected it without a word to the composer that he did. North didn't find out until the movie came out. You can actually look up North's version; finally released in 1993, on TH-cam.
Congrats on being the first people to publish a bona-fide reaction to this film on TH-cam that I've seen. Trivia: the bone spinning into the air turns into an orbiting weapons platform. Best. Leo.
2001: A Space Odyssey is definitely the type of film that everyone should see at least once, and it definitely helps to be in the meticulous and attentive mood to sit through it. It's a beautiful film filled with many questions, but it's not something I'm just going to pop on for casual entertainment.
Don't know about "everyone". It's definitely my favorite movie by far, but have refused to show it to some mates. Remember, there are people who think van Helsing is a great movie
@@ItDoesntMatterReally this is a movie where I can fully understand it not being somebody's cup of tea. It has a specific flow and aesthetic that is just not for everyone. It may not be that They don't "get it", it is just outside their wheelhouse. I don't like liver. Cudo's for chefs who make wonderfull dishes with it. Just not for me. I think dr. Strangelove is a deeply boring and unfunny movie. But I can understand people that feel differently. And for those mates: why serve high cuisine lobster to someone who is allergic to it and thinks everything but chicken nuggets is shyte? Or make a good burger to someone who looks down on anything that isn't made from the most expensive ingrediënts you can find?
This was based on an Arthur C. Clarke story called 'The Sentinel' which is what inspired Kubrick to make the film, seeking Clarke's help in creating a story based on 'The Sentinel'. After this was out for a few years, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a sequel novel which was also adapted for film. '2010: The Year We Make Contact' was the film. Stanley Kubrick had nothing to do with the film, which was directed, produced, and co-written by Peter Hyams (who was also the cinematographer of the film). Roy Scheider (Chief Brody in 'Jaws') plays Dr. Heywood Floyd, John Lithgow plays the designer of 'Discovery', and Bob Balaban plays the programmer-creator of HAL 9000, and Helen Mirren plays the Russian captain of the 'Alexei Leonov', the Russian ship tasked with finding out what happened to the 'Discovery' which is in orbit around one of Jupiter's moons. Douglas Rain returned to voice HAL and Keir Dullea returns as Dave Bowman. It is not AS weird as '2001', but it comes close, and answers a lot of questions about what happened. Clarke continued to write other novels that extend the story...somewhat. '2061: Odyssey Three' and '3001 - The Final Odyssey' Spoiler...In '3001', Frank Poole's body is found in deep space and is able to be revived...and he goes back to Jupiter for more answers. However, even with the answers...more questions pop up. Which is the hallmark of the best science fiction!
Fun fact: As we leave The space child as it looks into the camera, we then get Stanley Kubrick's next film, A Clock Work Orange, with the opening scene of little Alex Looking straight into the Camera to pick up where 2001 leaves off.
@Formerly Paul I don't agree at all. Although 2010 is a sequel it doesn't try and copy 2001 it's a totally different movie. It really is a case of a sequel that actually doesn't go over old ground of the first movie. Each to their own. I'm glad you hold 2001 in such high regard. I do to. I just don't think the sequel suffers by comparison as it is just a totally different kind of film.
I can't believe how good this movie still holds up with practical effects while some newer movies like Star wars Phantom Menace aged horrible because of bad cgi .
Movies like phantom menace should be given more credit though. Without those movies investing heavily and taking risks, the cgi technology wouldn't have come this far in such a limited time.
@@Bothandle70 CGI was a disaster for film just like shaky cam, so I'm still going to hold it against the prequels. Cheap, mass produced junk CGI will never match practical effects made by people that actually cared.
It's nice to see reactors that aren't thrown or turned off when the film's answers aren't obvious or when it requires thinking. You guys appreciate the challenge of trying to understand. I still don't understand everything in this movie, but a big part of the movie is trying to figure out the metaphors, even AFTER you have watched it. Great stuff, guys!
I gotta say, this film is notoriously baffling and cryptic, but you guys were incredibly cued into what was happening right from the start. I'd love to see you react to the sequel! 2010 is one of my favorite sleeper sequels, and a surprisingly quaint continuation of the original odyssey.
@@Juggernogger64 I don't think most modern actors would accept that type of treatment to be fair. I'm sure that there would be a director capable of pulling it off without terrorising the crew.
@@joebarlow1667 I'd heard that Morgan Freeman had had something to do with a possible project in the past. It is a shame that it never happened. In the era of reboot after reboot a well made series of Rama films would be so refreshing.
HAL's singing Daisy Bell which was also the first song to ever be sung by an IBM computer so him singing it as he goes is a reference to IBM and the progress of computers at the time.
When you said the Death Star at the beginning you weren't far off. They had just shown the part with the bone flying through the air, it then changes into a weapons satellite. It goes from man's first weapon to the latest weapon. I'm sure many wouldn't agree but you should also check out "2010: The year we make contact".
I definitely agree...2010 is not, can not, be as good as Kubrick, but it has a great cast, tells a compelling story, and is loaded with great moments. 💯
@wespozo It's a much differently paced movie. However, I have to say that 2010 would be a shit movie without 2001. I like them both, but realize that they are very different stories that relate to one another.
Now, watch all Kubrick. Highly recommended. All of them are fantastic. Eyes wide shut, Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange, Lolita, Spartacus, The path of glory, the Killing... Kubrick is god for cinema, amazing.
A common misunderstanding is that the film is based on the book. The film was jointly written by Kubrick and Clarke. Then Clarke wrote the book during filming. They both had different ideas, which they separately explored, but it is not true that the film expresses the same events or ideas seen in the book. Kubrick and Clarke have both stated this at various times. So you can’t easily cross reference them and say - oh this is better explained here. What you see in the movie is exactly what Kubrick wanted and you decide the rest. The book is a separate thing. Which makes this far more interesting in my opinion.
At the premier showing, actor Rock Hudson walked out halfway of the showing. While he was leaving, going down the aisle, he was complaining "“Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?'' Myself, I saw this as a teenager in the mid 1980s and was totally absorbed, even if I didn't completely understand it. It's probably the closest religious experience I've ever had watching a movie.
Kubrick was a genius. He was such a master of his craft and possibly the greatest filmmaker ever. You absolutely have to watch his other films. Particularly A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. All masterpieces!
I'm so relieved you liked it haha! I was worried you might just say 'what is this film trying to be?' It's definitely not a film you would want to watch regularly, it's a bit of an endurance test as it's so immersive. As the movie poster said at the time, it's the ultimate trip. As you mention, it's based on the work of Arthur C Clarke, one of the most influential science fiction authors of all time. This film inspired a lot of the visual design in Star Wars and the Star Trek movies and really kicked off a new style of cinema, not to mention special effects. For me, it's a great example of cinema as a source of wonder. It makes you think, it's thrilling, it's unnerving, it's everything that life itself can be, including the madness and chaos of dreams and nightmares. There is a sequel, 2010, which is not nearly as good in my opinion, but is worth a look if you're interested in digging deeper.
2010 is great but it's more a straight forward scifi drama/adventure than the heady art piece this one is. Wish we got adaptations of the rest of the book series.
This and Barry Lyndon are my current favorite Kubrick films. Barry Lyndon isn't for everyone - its slow pace is legendary, but it's phenomenally gorgeous and the entire narrative structure revolves around characters not being able to say what they think because of social restrictions. Subtext is huge.
What a bunch of horse shit. The transition from Connor McLeod's face after being ousted from his village to the mural of the Mona Lisa on the side of the building in New York is much, much better than this.
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do I'm half crazy, all for the love of you It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage But you'll look sweet upon the seat, of a bicycle built for two..."
There are literally tons of writings about the ending of this film. In a nutshell: Dave manages to survive, stumbles onto Jupiter, and encounters a species of highly advanced beings who try to give him the comforts of the good life. Dave, blown away by their existence, sees himself age in mere moments, goes on a color trail, dies, and is reborn as a star child.
Shaun, when I first saw it I had the same thought: great movie but I doubt if I watch it again anytime soon. I re-watched it after few years and I liked it even more, I noticed more things. After third viewing I have no doubt this movie is an absolute masterpiece, not only as a film but as a work of art.
The Stargate sequence was done with a mixture of slit-scan photography, various oils and dyes in a liquid (somewhat like 1960s concert light shows), and cross-processed film shots, like when photographers process a slide film in C-41 negative chemicals or vice versa. The flying double tetragons were projected light shows onto the surface of actual objects with multiple exposures to get each side by running the film back in the camera again and again.
Really science fiction cinema can be divided between before-2001 and after-2001. This movie defined so much about how SF movies look. The austere white ships, the omnipresent computer, the bright, flashing screens everywhere. It's definitely a slow burn film, but totally worth it IMO. It's not a film you necessarily get on your first watch, but it's meaning expands with each viewing. Star Wars couldn't have happened without this film. So many special effects were pioneered by Douglas Trumbull and his team, many of whom went on to work as SFX artists on other famous TV shows and movies, such as Space:1999 and Star Wars. They actually shot all the SFX shots on 70mm film and wound back the film for each new element, exposing them separately, which means no compositing; it's all on the same negative. That's why the quality looks so high.
It's possible. You have to remember the US and USSR were on the verge of an all out nuclear war during the 1960s. All you have to pick up on is the music indicates when the aliens were tinkering with the pre-humans to humans. Then later humans to the star-child.
I think I'd already read the book - I was probably ten when I saw this and loved Arthur C Clarke - so I think I knew. But the book explains, the film hints, so you are right! “Then he waited, marshalling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.”
I think 2001 a Space Odyssey is easily the greatest film ever made. Honestly, I might sound kind of pretentious but idc, Stanly Kubrick’s directing in this film is so beyond masterful, the kind of insane ideas that he thought up along with along Arthur C Clarke and how brilliantly he was able to convey it all through film, its so incredible. Its just so freaking dense with so many insanely profound philosophical themes and ideas, there isn’t a single film I think about more than this one. It’s really one that you have to watch multiple times and really think about to fully comprehend though.
I agree. I am pretty sure they used a bit of its music in the recent Godzilla vs Kong trailer. For purpose of suspense. Its quite effective and i noticed it as i have seen the movie so many times.
It’s not a horror movie, but it certainly uses horror elements and imagery to great effect. And some of the scenes are eery or downright terrifying: the music playing as the group of scientists are walking up to the monolith on the moon, HAL killing the entire crew with no fanfare or musical cues, and the brief flashes of Dave’s face contorted in terror as he’s hurtling through the star gate.
When this movie came out............many schools sent their 6th grade schools class on field trips to theaters. One of my trips was this movie. Upon returning our homework assignment was to right a report on what this film meant. We had many open class discussions. FUN time!!
The film received diverse critical responses, ranging from those who saw it as darkly apocalyptic to those who saw it as an optimistic reappraisal of the hopes of humanity. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, with Kubrick winning for his direction of the visual effects. The film is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.
Another Kubrick masterpiece: "Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb", a movie I can watch endlessly every time its on.
This channel is absolutely at its best when you watch interesting and challenging films... there's really only so much one can say about "Robocop", or "Fifth Element", or "Predator" - but to hear you enthuse about "Come and See", or "The Seventh Seal", or "2001" is fascinating. To hear you appreciate the craft, and ponder the meaning is really engaging. Not everything has to be arty cineaste films, but it just makes for a much more interesting watch for us [and possibly for you]
i agree, but i admit i had to watch some explanation afterwards and read the summary of the novel. some interpretation i did right, but some i just didnt figure while watching the movie.
Personally that's what I like about a movie like this. To interpret on what you see on your own. I like to draw my own conclusions and it's the kind of movie that lets me.
In a documentary on The Shining Kubrick said the end shows the entities which are pure light and they put Dave in what we would consider a zoo to study him. At the end of Dave's life they reward him with rebirth as the star child.
The ornate baroque style room Dave arrives in is supposed to be an alien creation designed to help the unseen beings observe the human in an environment he (Dave) is familiar with.
Always reminds me a bit of the ending of AI: Artificial Intelligence, which of course was originally going to be directed by Kubrick before Spielberg took it on instead.
I think both of your interpretations are spot on. You've gotten as much out of this film just as so many others have. To me, it's the best film of the 20th century. It's transcendant.
Great to see someone react to this film. I saw this in the theatre in the 70's and was absolutely awe struck. I tell people that to this day, it presents the best visual spectacle ever done. I remember hearing a story about real astronauts being asked how it was to be in space. They answered that it is like the movie 2001.
Dudes! You must watch the sequel, "2010" to get a lot of your answers. I saw 2001 at age 14, in the theaters in 1968. It was dazzling on the big screen with that awesome surround-sound stereo. "2001" was THE most advanced sci-fi movie effort to date and started a new way of making sci-fi and its story telling. And everyone came away as puzzled as you guys. But that's what made it intriguing as we didn't understand what that fetus floating around in space was about, or the awesome light show vortex that Dave was sucked into. Of course the fetus is clearly Dave reincarnated somehow by whatever alien force brought Dave into their realm. We all felt there was a sequel to come on this one, but it took a long 16 years for "2010" to finally get made. Since I've read Arthur C. Clarke's books of "2001" on up, I can tell you some things that may not have been apparent in "2001" such as the scene of the pre-human digging around the bones then looking up at the monolith they had all gotten accustomed to. You may have noticed he looked at it puzzled as if he heard it say something. In the book that pre-human was getting a flood of imagery beamed directly into his brain, imagery most of which he didn't understand, stunning him with convulsions the others saw. When he recovered his fellows were amazed how he knew things, invented things like using that large bone as a tool/weapon, and other imagery like sharpening the end of tree limbs to make spears, and piling rocks together to make walls, etc. One other thing in the book that was not apparent in the movie was when the team was standing around the monolith on the moon. In the book they had dug it up at the beginning of the long lunar night so the monolith was still in darkness. And when the team was standing around it about to get their picture made, the first glimmer of sunlight in 4 million years touched the top of the monolith where it immediately sent that loud signal to the other gigantic monolith orbiting Jupiter. It was the moon monolith's way of telling the other monolith, "Hey! The humans made it to the moon and dug me up! Get ready. They'll be coming to see you soon." You will like 2010 a lot as it has a very cool, unexpected ending. I don't do spoilers so you'll have to see for yourself! I'll be looking for your reaction on "2010". Cheers!
I agree! I don’t compare it to 2001 because it’s almost like a different genre of science fiction, but I enjoyed the movie and the questions it raises and answers
Agreed, "2010" is a totally solid and very enjoyable sequel. It's not Kubrick masterpiece, but it is very respectful of the original while still being entertaining. Also, it's really pretty solid science fiction itself with an impressive cast. Well worth watching after having seen 2001
Paul, yes. I love the connection in the book between Moonwatcher and Bowman. He didn't know what he would do with his new world, "but he would think of something".
I saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" in an ex-Cinerama theater when it first came out. I found it head-and-shoulders better than run of the mill Science Fiction films of the time. Visuals were mind-blowing, even for me, who didn't do drugs. The Classical music soundtrack was original, especially The Blue Danube Waltz juxtaposed with a Pan American spaceliner landing at a double-torus-shaped space station. SF films after that wouldn't be taken seriously unless they were up to this level of polish.
A clue to interpretation...recall that the movie begins with a black rectangle and an eerie soundtrack, and if you watch it all the way through it ends with a black rectangle and an eerie soundtrack. You guys spoke of the monolith being a metaphor about acquiring knowledge. Now, how do we today acquire knowledge? Look at your rectangular cell phone. Look at your tv screen. You both noted how there were the two scenes of "humanoids" encountering the monolith and how the scenes were clearly designed to reflect each other. You also wondered where Dave went...you saw the monolith vanish into the blackness as the planets were all aligned...aligned just like at the start of the film. Where did Dave go? The same place that each one of us in the dark theater staring at a giant black monolith went...we went into the movie. We acquire knowledge by watching things. Our whole world is about looking into various sized black rectangles. -Erik
"I've never seen another Stanley Kubrick film except for The Shining" .....I see a series of reactions on the horizon.
You haven’t seen full metal jacket yet? Definitely watch that one. It’s a very accurate depiction of the marine corps in the Vietnam war.
Lil B Yeah, It's so heartbreaking.
I think a Kubrick series of reactions is called for!👍😁
Watch Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket. Kubrick knew how to show war more than he did outer space.
This one and Barry Lyndon are my favorites from him 🙌🏻but I enjoy them all besides maybe killers kiss and fear and desire.
" If you understand '2001' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered." - Arthur C. Clarke
The monolith beings decicided to give the apes a little push up the evolutionary ladder theorizing that this act would develop them to human status and one day be capable of space travel which the buried sentinel on the moon would deduce when unearthed. Human curiosity would then lead them to search for the signals source giving the monolith beings the opportunity to give humanity its next evolutionary "push" hence the new and improved "dave" being returned to earth for the next part of their experiment.
@@kevinharkness2108 Arthur C. Clarke's novel adaptation of his own screenplay is pretty much straightforward about what it all means -- there's no mystery to that end in the novel. The film version withholds narrative details supplied by the omniscient narrator of the novelization -- to profound effect. Alas as a teen sci-fi reader I read Clarke's novelization before seeing this film and unfortunately that spoiled the film for me mystery wise.
@@IbrahimHoldsForth Absolutely. The above quote from Clarke is completely wide of the mark. Arthur C. Clarke never confused anyone - he always explained the s.h.1.t out of everything. No questions unanswered, no mystery - everything wrapped in a (very boring) bow.
They didn't fail.
I understand that it’s shit!
Depending on what mood you're in, this is either the most boring film in the world, or its stunning.
Stunning... fucking stunning!!!
@@thelonelydirector Boring...fucking boring LOL
or both.
Also depends on what mind altering drugs you're on too!
@@m.e.3862 Who needs drugs for this film??? 😄
Fun fact: if you look at the chess board, Hal is lying about the chess game, he didn't have check. He's testing if the crew are reliable enough to spot his lies because he's got a secret mission to accomplish and needs to know if the crew can be relied on to act like him under stress, or if not, be disposed of without anyone noticing.
I'd not heard this before but it doesn't surprise me as I remember reading somewhere that Kubrick was an avid chess player and wouldn't make a mistake like that.
"Mmmm, could be. " Arthur C. Clark
@@toskvision Kubrick had been a chess hustler in his late teen years in Washington Square, New York City.
Why not just a mistake because Hal did not understand that by playing the recording when they got to the destination, he would not be breaking his mission. They were supposed to learn about the mission eventually.
That's Kubrick... genius.
You need to watch A Clockwork Orange by Kubrick.
That’s one my favorite Kubrick films
PLEASE
they wouldn't be able to put their reaction up on TH-cam tho
David Prowse RIP pre the Darth Vader days
This is an acquired taste. It's in my top 5 of all time.
It has everything. Action, sex, violence, revenge, rape, redemption, drama, comedy, EVERYTHING. It's odd though. If you're afraid of human genitalia...stay away.
"It's all gone a bit weird."
2001, ladies and gentlemen.
Swifty followed by "well, it was the sixties"
Notice the distorted voices heard in the 'hotel room' at the end?
The 'aliens' do not appear so much as are audible.
Some work was done on optical / digital shapes to represent the aliens, the few pictures suggest shapes like paper sculptures, but, like the hedge animals intended for The Shining, they were not good enough for Kubrick.
And the practical affects are awesome🙌
the one thing that makes this movie good an creepy. is the calmness in HAl'S voice
Even when hes scared.
@@promnightdumpsterbaby9553 HAL. The calm, rational voice of insanity. In the sequel 2010, made in the mid 80's, a cyber psychologist on a mission to find out why the Discovery failed determines that someone had deliberately loaded a second program. The conflict between the 2 disparate programs caused HAL to go insane. He determines this using his own mainframe in his office on Earth, HAL's sister, SAL 9000.
@@davidmarquardt2445 yeah,i own It ;) i love that film too.
@@davidmarquardt2445 the third book also has floyd,hal,and dave in it. Its pretty good.
When he says "I'm afraid" it always sends a shiver down my spine.
The Monolith helped evolved the apes into modern humans.
The hats the flight attendants wore served to hide their hair. Because the filmmakers couldn't do the 'hair floating in zero gravity' effects yet.
The obscure ending has been interpreted many different ways. This is one... The Monolith evolved Dave into a new being, but it couldn't do that while Dave was still alive, nor could it kill him, so the Monolith created an environment where Dave could live out the remainder of his life, then after dying of old age, he could be transformed, evolved, ascended.
I highly recommend that you watch the sequel 2010.
I've heard a theory that the monolith gave the apes the concept of technology. It eventually makes us somewhat devoid of humanity, hence the sterility of the acting. Eventually, in the form of HAL, the technology fails us and it is time for the next evolutionary step.
@@vapoet While that opinion is different, I like it. It's unique and a very valid interpretation.
The monolith gave the apes the idea for the next step in their evolution. The use of tools. Allowed the consumption of meat, and therefore increased 'brain power'.
Then on the moon, when discovered, sent a signal to Jupiter. Turned humanities sight towards Jupiter, creating new tools, and allowing travel to Jupiter. And a new generation of HAL computers etc.
On observing the Large Monolith at Jupiter, 'different form of travel' perhaps?
And observing the Monolith at the end of his days, becoming the Star Child. The next step in our 'evolution'. Evolved into a new being.
I think that was main reason why the flight attendants, who would have been called stewardesses at the time, wore the caps, can't exactly stick the hair to a pane of glass and move it about the camera frame.
Other reasons a costume designer might use them would be that back in the Sixties many of the uniforms stewardesses wore included a hat or cap of some sort; plus, it would allow women not to have to deal with a Medusa mass hair moving about in microgravity. Another thought is it is a nod to the caps worn the astronauts/cosmonauts of the time in the real world.
@@vapoet My understanding (and I think Keir Dullea has affirmed this) is that not only do astronauts have to be at the absolute peak of physical fitness, they also need to be highly intelligent and - especially for a mission like this one in the film - highly self-controlled people. This may well mean that selection favours candidates with certain traits associated with psychopaths, such as a tendency to remain very calm in stress situations, and to be emotionally flat. Not only does this make sense for the astronauts on a technical level, it also heightens the sense that HAL is actually more alive and emotional than his human colleagues - he exhibits curiosity, for example. When it comes to a fight for survival between the organic and inorganic crew, it's easy to find more pathos in HAL's demise than the rather cold humans (no cryogenic pun intended). I personally see HAL's increasingly independent consciousness as perhaps being another gigantic step in human development, equivalent to that of the apes discovering tool use. Though of course, that tool use was immediately culminated in violence - and so it does here when humans have created artificial life...
Fun fact about vacuum exposure. During space suit testing a seal failed and the guy testing the suit was exposed to hard vacuum. He passed out within 15 seconds but before he did he said he felt the saliva on his tongue begin to boil in the low pressure.
They got him out in less than 90 seconds and he was fine. The human body can handle a change of 1 atmosphere pretty well with just a few surface capillaries rupturing as long as you exhale. If you try and hold your breath it can damage your lungs.
As for the story intelligence was the most important thing the aliens found in the universe. So they would help potential races gain intelligence via the monoliths. The second one burried on the moon was a test to see if the intelligence took in the human race. The signal to Jupiter (Saturn in the book) was to have a human follow it and meet the creators who then evolve him into the “Star Child” the next level of evolution for humans.
Finally HAL’s issue was the creators of the Jupiter mission gave him conflicting orders. To protect crew and mission but hide the real mission from Frank and Dave. As he felt Frank and Dave were starting to catch on about the mission, the conflict in his orders that caused made HAL begin to act erratically and eventually homicidally to remove the source of the conflict.
The Expanse is good at this sort of thing if you like hard sci-fi.
@@antonycharnock2993 way ahead of you there. Read all the books and finishing up season 5
@paratus04 That part about confusing orders i find very fascinating. That's exactly the kind of AI programming issues this series on Computerphile is all about. If you haven't checked this playlist out, i think you will find this very interesting. Cheers!
th-cam.com/video/3TYT1QfdfsM/w-d-xo.html
"What year was this film made?" Mentions my birth year..."1968! Oh, so it's REALLY OLD." Ouch, LOL.
Yep, same here.
Me too
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke the writer of this move/book
/ mcu Thor
😂
Though only from the perspective of a far less advanced civilisation that does not understand the technology.
Hogwarts is just M.I.T.
@@TrentRidley That's the point of the quote. No matter how advanced you are, if something is sufficiently more advanced you won't recognize it as technology anymore. It might as well be magic.
Kubrick I believe tasked Clarke to write prior to the film.
Many view it as Propaganda to spur the "Space Race" to the Moon.
Add "A Clockwork Orange" to your future Kubrick viewing. He's a director that never disappoints.
Who today is his equal?
@@frankgesuele6298 We’ll probably only know in hindsight, as a lot of Kubrick’s movies were panned on release, so there’s no telling who our current or next director is that always hits a homerun
@@frankgesuele6298 Christopher Nolan is probably the only director/producer even remotely close. Cinema is dead, and comics, shaky cam, and CGI killed the industry.
The monolith is a computer. When the apes touch it, they advance to the next stage of evolution. The moon monolith activates the one by Jupiter. The creators of it were ensuring that humans were advanced enough to achieve space flight. When that one is touched, evolution is advanced again. In the book, he finally becomes a being beyond space and time.
@@christopherbenassi7721 It is described as a device or machine in the book. The aliens that built it have advanced beyond matter though and become pure energy. How it works exactly is not explained.
Even more so in the sequel novels, Clarke explicitly describes the monoliths as computing machines, even with reference to von Neumann architecture.
This for me is one of the rare cases where the movie is better than the book (which Clarke wrote concurrently with the movie if I'm not mistaken) The whole ambiguity of the monolith and the ending is what makes it so powerful imo
@@danigar That was the source of conflict between Kubrick and Clarke... Clarke, as a writer wanted everything being explained in detail, Kubrick, as a photographer and movie maker, wanted everything to be insinuated. Whatever do you prefer, the story is pretty simple and clear, it's about alien intelligence guiding the human being evolution. If you like the way of Kubrick there's much more room to theories and specullation, but him and Clarke didn't diverge in the essence of the story.
Clarke's version of the story leans toward the mundane and the explanatory. Kubrick's cinematic interpretation is not dependent on it at all.
Thank you for watching this. Been waiting forever for someone to finally react to this one.
My take is that the monolith is a tool for the aliens to go to planets and instill a spark of intelligence in promising species thus kickstarting their evolution. It gave the ape (Moon watcher in the book) the knowledge of tools and weapons which is why the cut from the bone flying in the air to the satellite orbiting the Earth. (The satellite was supposed to be a nuclear launch platform thus the film cutting from one weapon to another)
The second monolith (Or is the the first one. You never know because the first one just disappears) was a test for the apes to see if they had achieved space flight. When the Sun hit the monolith, it sends off a signal towards Jupiter for the next stage of the test. Thus the Jupiter mission 18 months later.
Now HAL. The reason that HAL started to malfunction and decided to kill off the crew members is that he was given conflicting instructions. His primary function was to collect all the data and present it to the humans without error. However, he was also given a second instruction for this mission that he wasn't supposed to reveal to anyone until after they entered orbit around Jupiter. He started to develop the computer equivalent of paranoia. And when he caught Dave and Frank planning on disconnecting him, he saw the crew as a detriment to the mission and decided to kill them off and continue the mission himself.
The Stargate. When Dave approaches the monolith, it activates a stargate and sends Dave across space to the aliens' planet where they set up a comfortable place for him to stay. While he's there, they start deconstructing him in order to build him into the next evolution of man, the Starchild which is what you see at the end of the movie.
Anyway, that is my take on it. Like you said, the movie is open to numerous interpretations so your mileage may vary.
I really really would like to see a clockwork orange reaction
Not me. Another 2 hours of my life I wasted at the show.
@@greg5775 Uh..huh....
"Is he now one with the universe?" That's the closest I've heard anybody come to what actually happened. I absolutely love the book and the film but I think Kubrick could have explained the ending a bit better
What .. didn't he put "THE END" ?
Yes, he could have. And I'm so glad he didn't.
Kubrick did in a phone interview he didn't give away completely.I just saw the movie first time today
I'd be willing not to disagree that if Kubrick stumbled anywhere it was at the very end of the film, representing the "Star Child" as a planet-size fetus. But to be fair, I don't think I would have come up with anything better. And considering all the other brilliant ways he managed to convey some very abstract ideas (SMASH CUT TO: EXT-SPACE, 4 million years later), I think that audiences could afford to take _one_ step towards meeting him in the middle.
Yessssa this movie STILL HOLDS UO TO THIS VERY DAY. Kubrick was a genius. A mad mad genius.
Dave at the end wasn't on the ship; the aliens put him in a place to observe him in his natural habitat. The weird violin noises on the soundtrack were them discussing him.
This film is the perfect fusion of science fiction and art.
Perfect fusion of shit!
@@andymac7663 like superhero movies?
@@michaelcorleone7297 No I don’t!!!! space odyssey is 💩💩💩
@@andymac7663 i feel marvel is 💩
@@michaelcorleone7297 I agree!
The thing about this film is that, unlike most films, its story is told visually rather than through dialogue. It's mostly a visual and sensory experience. That's what puts some people off.
Poor Hal was driven mad by being given conflicting orders. His death never fails to reduce me to tears.
'His' pleading with Dave is heart breaking.
HAL’s breakdown is quite fascinating.. It seems to me stress programming went askew when he was confronted with something unknown, that he couldn’t compute.. Then emotion, real emotion and stress kicked in..
I don’t know..
‘I’m half crazy
All for the love of you’
Hal went kind of crazy because while he had to hide the nature of the mission, he was programmed to care for the crew. His care for them literally drove him mad. It’s interesting on a rewatch how he hints to Dave that the mission isn’t what it seems on the surface, as if he wanted them to come to the conclusion on their own without him having to tell them. He was doing everything he could within the bounds of his programming, but because it made him seem glitchy and untrustworthy, it backfired. Truly tragic
That's from the sequel that Kubrick had nothing to do with.
HAL doesn't "die." He's turned off. And turned back on in 2010.
so glad your camera bubbles are now not reversed and actually look corresponding to how y'all sit. great reaction as always. this is an epic film, deserves multiple viewings too. also, this film is better viewed not knowing anything about HAL, unfortunately, it seems like y'all knew enough to suspect from the beginning of HAL's introduction in the film.
I like how the story goes from the introduction of tools to tools becoming aware and turning on man.
I see it more as the tools starting to define man, and then us having to outgrow that stage
Also like how the tool is almost indistinguishable, as mentioned in Arrival, from a weapon. Depending on word/verbiage and intent.
Good point!
Of the many genius ideas put into this film...the thought that centrifugal force could be used to overcome the lack of gravity was just amazing.
I starting watching this video thinking “these guys aren’t going to get it”, then I was pleasantly surprised that you pretty much did. Your understanding and appreciation of the kraft of Kubrick makes me happy. One thing to notice is the continual reference to birth, Frank Poole’s birthday, Floyd’s daughter’s birthday, the birth of Man, the birth of A.I., the birth of the Star Child, even the docking with the orbiting space station is symbolic of the act of procreation.
And the Discovery looks a sperm cell
Which is headed for Jupiter, which is like a big egg.
@@porflepopnecker4376 Which is why the film is secretly about the destruction of the native American peoples.
There's also one particular shot in the star gate sequence that looks suspiciously like a sperm.
@@petersvillage7447 This comment is so good it went over too many people's heads.
Never thought I’d hear a Daddy Day Care reference in a Stanley Kubrick reaction
this movie is a masterpiece, so many technical innovations, so many layers of interpretation.
I wish I could like it.
@@d3l3tes00n Its not for everyone and that is cool. You do you !
It’s shit! You’re welcome
@@andymac7663 What is your favourite film ?
@@AchtungEnglander Rita, sue and Bob too
"i'm sorry dave. i feel much better now." ~hal 9000
i watched this movie w my son when he was 11 and prefaced it w a stmt that it was very special and he needed to treat it as a hw assignment bc we'd talk abt it when it was over. he got a notebook and scribbled throughout. he got a kick out of hal, laughed at him begging for his "life", and kept asking why ppl back on earth didn't stop it. i asked him for his impression: he said the danger of unchecked tech, hal was kinda like a bomb for your enemy that you accidentally detonate in the lab.
This was so ahead of its time.
U Right
That is impossible. I hate this statement, ass licking that does the opposite. If you are going to praise an amazing film, don’t insult it with bullshit statements. It was made when it was made and it was made brilliant. No need for the pseudo intellectual statements that doesn’t make sense.
@@Gnossiene369 Seriously.....? Good grief.
@@Gnossiene369 Just 9 years after Plan 9 From Outer Space. An amazing leap forward in Sci Fi cinematography. "ahead of its time" is an idiom that isn't to be taken literally and there's nothing intellectual (pseudo or otherwise) about it.
@@Gnossiene369 Your interpretation of his comment strikes me as wilful contrarianism, probably in an attempt to differentiate your opinion from that which you perceive to be trite or obvious. I assume that, by doing this, you believe you will assert some degree of intellectual superiority over the masses who adopt a similar opinion. Well, I’m afraid it didn’t work. Your comment only succeeds in making you look like an idiot. The film is not only ahead of its time, it’s still ahead of our own time. No one before or since this has made a more visionary science fiction film.
I saw this movie in the theater with my parents back when it was released. I was 8 years old, and I can still picture myself walking out of the theater just in awe, just wanting to talk about what I had just seen. It changed my life.
Technology is going to kill us.
@@kellyroberts7268 It's possible. That's why your mother taught you to look both ways before you cross the road.
The title of the opening music "Thus Spake Zarathustra" lays out a major concept of the film: "Zarathustra" takes its title from writings by Nietzsche about a Zoroastrian prophet who deemed that "God is dead" but that mankind had yet to know about it. What Nietzsche meant by this is that the Age of Enlightenment with it's development of science and reason should have ended mankind's need for religion and that man abandoning the idea of god is necessary for people to develop their own internal sense of morality & decency without having to depend on a set of rules put upon them by religion. This letting go of the "higher power" concept will allow mankind to evolve to it's next level, to become their own higher power, the "Ubermensch", basically meaning that the next important evolution of man is to become our own gods.
Back to 2001, during the Dawn of Man sequence notice the colors of the sun, which represents the "all seeing eye" of God, and it's similarities to HAL's eye, which also represents God (note how like God/religion HAL is a man-made construct which is supposedly perfect and "above" humans, and is always watching/in control of the lives and very fates of the astronauts). When mankind (our astronauts) finds that God (HAL) is flawed, mankind then kills God and is then able to become God himself (Dave's eye is now the "all-seeing eye), evolving to a higher state of enlightenment.
LOL! The music was _filler_ added by the editor, because the _st_ wasn't completed on time and it was released with _public domain_ music. There is no connection between the music and any "major concept"...LOL!
@@malcolmdrake6137 LOL! I'm aware of SK's process, however the way he came to use the music doesn't automatically mean that he couldn't intend it to have a deeper meaning 😉 LOL!
If you study Kubrick you must know that he sometimes piles on layers of theme and subtext, using everything from color, paintings, literature references, subconscious suggestions and yes, music, to do it. Given that many think of Kubrick as a genius & one of the G.O.A.T.s and given that the film is clearly about some form of mankind's evolution I think it's a stretch to write it off as merely coincidence ✌️
@@666ATB666 I'm reading that book right now and your analysis fits very nicely with it. The great thing about artists is that they don't mind if the rest of us interpret what they've done, and sometimes I think others pick up on things that artists maybe subconsciously put into their work. I don't see the point of arguing about that kind of thing, so well done you.
@@666ATB666 Yes, I tend to agree. Apparently Kubrick asked Alex North to come up with something with a similar mood to the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra, but was disappointed in the result and stuck with the Richard Strauss composition. I believe that while The Blue Danube was used as a filler, Kubrick immediately asked "I wonder if we dare?" There are plenty of examples of happy accidents becoming iconic moments in movies..
@@malcolmdrake6137 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(score) The soundtrack; composed by Alex North; who worked with the director for both Spartacus and Dr. Strangelove, was complete, Kubrick simply rejected it without a word to the composer that he did. North didn't find out until the movie came out. You can actually look up North's version; finally released in 1993, on TH-cam.
6:23 "If I got told to put on that hat I'd tell 'em to F-off!" LOLLLL probably me too!
Congrats on being the first people to publish a bona-fide reaction to this film on TH-cam that I've seen. Trivia: the bone spinning into the air turns into an orbiting weapons platform. Best. Leo.
Come on guys do more Stanley Kubrick masterpieces!
2001: A Space Odyssey is definitely the type of film that everyone should see at least once, and it definitely helps to be in the meticulous and attentive mood to sit through it. It's a beautiful film filled with many questions, but it's not something I'm just going to pop on for casual entertainment.
Don't know about "everyone".
It's definitely my favorite movie by far, but have refused to show it to some mates.
Remember, there are people who think van Helsing is a great movie
@@user-zh4vo1kw1z All the more reason to at least attempt to show them something good. If they walk, it's their loss lol.
@@ItDoesntMatterReally this is a movie where I can fully understand it not being somebody's cup of tea. It has a specific flow and aesthetic that is just not for everyone.
It may not be that They don't "get it", it is just outside their wheelhouse.
I don't like liver. Cudo's for chefs who make wonderfull dishes with it. Just not for me. I think dr. Strangelove is a deeply boring and unfunny movie. But I can understand people that feel differently.
And for those mates: why serve high cuisine lobster to someone who is allergic to it and thinks everything but chicken nuggets is shyte? Or make a good burger to someone who looks down on anything that isn't made from the most expensive ingrediënts you can find?
@@ItDoesntMatterReally I wouldn't call it a loss, the film is boring as fuck
The film is shit!
This was based on an Arthur C. Clarke story called 'The Sentinel' which is what inspired Kubrick to make the film, seeking Clarke's help in creating a story based on 'The Sentinel'. After this was out for a few years, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a sequel novel which was also adapted for film. '2010: The Year We Make Contact' was the film. Stanley Kubrick had nothing to do with the film, which was directed, produced, and co-written by Peter Hyams (who was also the cinematographer of the film). Roy Scheider (Chief Brody in 'Jaws') plays Dr. Heywood Floyd, John Lithgow plays the designer of 'Discovery', and Bob Balaban plays the programmer-creator of HAL 9000, and Helen Mirren plays the Russian captain of the 'Alexei Leonov', the Russian ship tasked with finding out what happened to the 'Discovery' which is in orbit around one of Jupiter's moons. Douglas Rain returned to voice HAL and Keir Dullea returns as Dave Bowman. It is not AS weird as '2001', but it comes close, and answers a lot of questions about what happened.
Clarke continued to write other novels that extend the story...somewhat. '2061: Odyssey Three' and '3001 - The Final Odyssey'
Spoiler...In '3001', Frank Poole's body is found in deep space and is able to be revived...and he goes back to Jupiter for more answers.
However, even with the answers...more questions pop up. Which is the hallmark of the best science fiction!
If you are into Kubrick, Clockwork Orange and Dr Strangelove are your next movies
Ooh yes!
Also Barry Lyndon.
Barry Lyndon is peak Kubrick.
Fun fact: As we leave The space child as it looks into the camera, we then get Stanley Kubrick's next film, A Clock Work Orange, with the opening scene of little Alex Looking straight into the Camera to pick up where 2001 leaves off.
i really hope you watch 2010 it's very different but i love it.
I'm a big fan of 2010.
2010 is worth watching just for the cast...the performances are excellent.
For me 2010 is a great film in its own right but I feel is sadly overlooked due to being a follow up to this classic great film.
@@archie7T8 Totally agree. I get the feeling that I'd be facinated in Cinema Rules reaction to 2010. I think I like it just as much as 2001.
@Formerly Paul I don't agree at all. Although 2010 is a sequel it doesn't try and copy 2001 it's a totally different movie. It really is a case of a sequel that actually doesn't go over old ground of the first movie. Each to their own. I'm glad you hold 2001 in such high regard. I do to. I just don't think the sequel suffers by comparison as it is just a totally different kind of film.
this is simply a cinematic masterpiece way ahead of its time. So many questions, few answers, just like life itself...
I can't believe how good this movie still holds up with practical effects while some newer movies like Star wars Phantom Menace aged horrible because of bad cgi .
Movies like phantom menace should be given more credit though. Without those movies investing heavily and taking risks, the cgi technology wouldn't have come this far in such a limited time.
People who did the SFX for this movie later worked on Star Wars, and in between worked on the TV series Space 1999.
@@Bothandle70 CGI was a disaster for film just like shaky cam, so I'm still going to hold it against the prequels. Cheap, mass produced junk CGI will never match practical effects made by people that actually cared.
It's nice to see reactors that aren't thrown or turned off when the film's answers aren't obvious or when it requires thinking. You guys appreciate the challenge of trying to understand. I still don't understand everything in this movie, but a big part of the movie is trying to figure out the metaphors, even AFTER you have watched it. Great stuff, guys!
I gotta say, this film is notoriously baffling and cryptic, but you guys were incredibly cued into what was happening right from the start. I'd love to see you react to the sequel! 2010 is one of my favorite sleeper sequels, and a surprisingly quaint continuation of the original odyssey.
Still can’t believe this is a film made in the 60s
It literally doesn't look like a 1968 film, it could've been made today!
I'm reading ArthurC Clarke's Rama series just now and I think it could be the next 2001, IF made right.
@@MG-bs5mr that would unfortunately require a director to go full perfectionist and in the process harass and mistreat the actors like Kubrick.
@@Juggernogger64 I don't think most modern actors would accept that type of treatment to be fair.
I'm sure that there would be a director capable of pulling it off without terrorising the crew.
@@MG-bs5mr David Fincher tried for years to make Rendezvous with Rama, starring Morgan Freeman. Breaks my heart the film never happened.
@@joebarlow1667 I'd heard that Morgan Freeman had had something to do with a possible project in the past.
It is a shame that it never happened.
In the era of reboot after reboot a well made series of Rama films would be so refreshing.
The fetus is him, at the next level of human evolution, coming to reclaim the Earth.
Apocalypse Now. A Clockwork Orange.
Dr. Strangelove? Barry Lyndon ? :D
Apocalypse Now is directed by Coppola not Kubrick.
Full Metal Jacket.
21:50 that moment you know you watched a Stanley Kubrick film
This movie is like a fine wine you only pull out a few times a year
Or once every 10 years if you are like me like me. I hate this movie and I understand very little of it.
@@kokomo9764 Glad I'm not like you.
HAL's singing Daisy Bell which was also the first song to ever be sung by an IBM computer so him singing it as he goes is a reference to IBM and the progress of computers at the time.
Apparently IBM were rather annoyed that the computer was named HAL: as it implied that they were lagging one step behind! lol
I worked for IBM when they actually made a 9000 series.
When you said the Death Star at the beginning you weren't far off. They had just shown the part with the bone flying through the air, it then changes into a weapons satellite. It goes from man's first weapon to the latest weapon.
I'm sure many wouldn't agree but you should also check out "2010: The year we make contact".
I definitely agree...2010 is not, can not, be as good as Kubrick, but it has a great cast, tells a compelling story, and is loaded with great moments. 💯
@wespozo It's a much differently paced movie. However, I have to say that 2010 would be a shit movie without 2001. I like them both, but realize that they are very different stories that relate to one another.
2010 takes something wonderful and makes it mundane and pedestrian. One of the worst sequels of all time.
I think the idea is that Hal was made not to lie, but was told not to talk about the mission, causing him to go mad
This is THE masterpiece
Imo thats se7en or blade runner: the final cut
@@Charzy1230 lmao no
Now, watch all Kubrick. Highly recommended. All of them are fantastic. Eyes wide shut, Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange, Lolita, Spartacus, The path of glory, the Killing... Kubrick is god for cinema, amazing.
A common misunderstanding is that the film is based on the book. The film was jointly written by Kubrick and Clarke. Then Clarke wrote the book during filming. They both had different ideas, which they separately explored, but it is not true that the film expresses the same events or ideas seen in the book. Kubrick and Clarke have both stated this at various times. So you can’t easily cross reference them and say - oh this is better explained here. What you see in the movie is exactly what Kubrick wanted and you decide the rest. The book is a separate thing. Which makes this far more interesting in my opinion.
It all started with Arthur C Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel”
The book is even better.
Unfortunately the second book disregards the first book and instead uses this movie in it's place.
@@tj_2701 thanks for that information
Yes. The film is not based on the book.
@@pathatfield2543 Indeed and it really is quite short but the atmosphere it creates is exactly what Kubrick homed in on
At the premier showing, actor Rock Hudson walked out halfway of the showing. While he was leaving, going down the aisle, he was complaining "“Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?''
Myself, I saw this as a teenager in the mid 1980s and was totally absorbed, even if I didn't completely understand it. It's probably the closest religious experience I've ever had watching a movie.
This is a film that you like more every time you watch it.
It also gets funnier every time you watch it.
Kubrick was a genius. He was such a master of his craft and possibly the greatest filmmaker ever. You absolutely have to watch his other films. Particularly A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. All masterpieces!
They called the computer HAL to be only one letter off from the biggest computer company in the world at the time.. IBM.
This has been firmly denied by everyone involved in making the film.
The human brain seeing patterns where there is none.
this has been debunked. it was just a coincidence.
Coincidence is correct. It's short for Heuristically-programmed Algorithmic Computer
2010 - The Year We Make Contact is worth watching too.
I'm so relieved you liked it haha! I was worried you might just say 'what is this film trying to be?' It's definitely not a film you would want to watch regularly, it's a bit of an endurance test as it's so immersive. As the movie poster said at the time, it's the ultimate trip. As you mention, it's based on the work of Arthur C Clarke, one of the most influential science fiction authors of all time. This film inspired a lot of the visual design in Star Wars and the Star Trek movies and really kicked off a new style of cinema, not to mention special effects. For me, it's a great example of cinema as a source of wonder. It makes you think, it's thrilling, it's unnerving, it's everything that life itself can be, including the madness and chaos of dreams and nightmares. There is a sequel, 2010, which is not nearly as good in my opinion, but is worth a look if you're interested in digging deeper.
Well said
2010 is great but it's more a straight forward scifi drama/adventure than the heady art piece this one is. Wish we got adaptations of the rest of the book series.
I thought 2010 was pretty damn good. Its definitely worth a look.
This and Barry Lyndon are my current favorite Kubrick films. Barry Lyndon isn't for everyone - its slow pace is legendary, but it's phenomenally gorgeous and the entire narrative structure revolves around characters not being able to say what they think because of social restrictions. Subtext is huge.
4:18 Not just a great edit. THE great edit. Pretty much universally considered to be the greatest cut in filmmaking history.
And it’s the simplest idea. The simplest little thing to do and still to this day, it is so breathtaking.
What a bunch of horse shit. The transition from Connor McLeod's face after being ousted from his village to the mural of the Mona Lisa on the side of the building in New York is much, much better than this.
@@milescoburn1845 Next level comment. Well done!
Please forgive me for not remembering names. The gentleman in white was so spot on.
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do
I'm half crazy, all for the love of you
It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage
But you'll look sweet upon the seat, of a bicycle built for two..."
Adam Driver has sang this some time ago.
There are literally tons of writings about the ending of this film. In a nutshell: Dave manages to survive, stumbles onto Jupiter, and encounters a species of highly advanced beings who try to give him the comforts of the good life. Dave, blown away by their existence, sees himself age in mere moments, goes on a color trail, dies, and is reborn as a star child.
Shaun, when I first saw it I had the same thought: great movie but I doubt if I watch it again anytime soon. I re-watched it after few years and I liked it even more, I noticed more things. After third viewing I have no doubt this movie is an absolute masterpiece, not only as a film but as a work of art.
The Stargate sequence was done with a mixture of slit-scan photography, various oils and dyes in a liquid (somewhat like 1960s concert light shows), and cross-processed film shots, like when photographers process a slide film in C-41 negative chemicals or vice versa. The flying double tetragons were projected light shows onto the surface of actual objects with multiple exposures to get each side by running the film back in the camera again and again.
Some of the questions in this film are answered in the sequel, 2010.
Really science fiction cinema can be divided between before-2001 and after-2001. This movie defined so much about how SF movies look. The austere white ships, the omnipresent computer, the bright, flashing screens everywhere. It's definitely a slow burn film, but totally worth it IMO. It's not a film you necessarily get on your first watch, but it's meaning expands with each viewing.
Star Wars couldn't have happened without this film. So many special effects were pioneered by Douglas Trumbull and his team, many of whom went on to work as SFX artists on other famous TV shows and movies, such as Space:1999 and Star Wars.
They actually shot all the SFX shots on 70mm film and wound back the film for each new element, exposing them separately, which means no compositing; it's all on the same negative. That's why the quality looks so high.
the people that told hal to lie about the purpose of the mission basically drove him mad, as he was not designed to lie
But you only find that out in the sequel.
I haven't even watched the reaction yet but just the fact that they would react to this is why I love this channel.
If anyone says they understood the ending of this movie the first time they watched it, they’re lying
Or they were tripping. "Hey man, far out interpretation of the existence of human life, mannnnnn😜
i dont think i ever understood it.. and never will because the me that watched in the 90's is not the same me that watched it last year..
It's possible. You have to remember the US and USSR were on the verge of an all out nuclear war during the 1960s. All you have to pick up on is the music indicates when the aliens were tinkering with the pre-humans to humans. Then later humans to the star-child.
I think I'd already read the book - I was probably ten when I saw this and loved Arthur C Clarke - so I think I knew. But the book explains, the film hints, so you are right!
“Then he waited, marshalling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.”
Benjamin Button's ending is similar to this.
I think 2001 a Space Odyssey is easily the greatest film ever made. Honestly, I might sound kind of pretentious but idc, Stanly Kubrick’s directing in this film is so beyond masterful, the kind of insane ideas that he thought up along with along Arthur C Clarke and how brilliantly he was able to convey it all through film, its so incredible. Its just so freaking dense with so many insanely profound philosophical themes and ideas, there isn’t a single film I think about more than this one. It’s really one that you have to watch multiple times and really think about to fully comprehend though.
I think 2001 a space odyssey is easily the shitest film ever made!
It's the best piece of art of the last century.
@@ricardocima 💩
@@andymac7663 lol
I'm 100% with you. This is the greatest film in cinema history. It condenses the whole history of human life into one single piece of marvelous art.
Despite the U certificate, i find the movie terrifying. The tension, the sound design, the unknown, its all so intense.
I agree. I am pretty sure they used a bit of its music in the recent Godzilla vs Kong trailer. For purpose of suspense.
Its quite effective and i noticed it as i have seen the movie so many times.
It’s not a horror movie, but it certainly uses horror elements and imagery to great effect. And some of the scenes are eery or downright terrifying: the music playing as the group of scientists are walking up to the monolith on the moon, HAL killing the entire crew with no fanfare or musical cues, and the brief flashes of Dave’s face contorted in terror as he’s hurtling through the star gate.
When this movie came out............many schools sent their 6th grade schools class on field trips to theaters. One of my trips was this movie. Upon returning our homework assignment was to right a report on what this film meant. We had many open class discussions. FUN time!!
The film received diverse critical responses, ranging from those who saw it as darkly apocalyptic to those who saw it as an optimistic reappraisal of the hopes of humanity. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, with Kubrick winning for his direction of the visual effects. The film is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.
One of Thee Greatest films of ALL time.
Lol tom being reduced to screaming during beyond the infinite reminds me of Robert Pattinson at the ending of The Lighthouse
You guys need to watch Westworld (1973)
Another Kubrick masterpiece: "Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb", a movie I can watch endlessly every time its on.
This channel is absolutely at its best when you watch interesting and challenging films... there's really only so much one can say about "Robocop", or "Fifth Element", or "Predator" - but to hear you enthuse about "Come and See", or "The Seventh Seal", or "2001" is fascinating. To hear you appreciate the craft, and ponder the meaning is really engaging. Not everything has to be arty cineaste films, but it just makes for a much more interesting watch for us [and possibly for you]
Agree -- you guy are astute observers and a better match for serious cinema.
The navigational graphics screens are amazing for 1968. The whole thing is a Kubrick artistic indulgence along with Clarke's story. Wonderful stuff!!
‘Under the Skin’ is another mind blowing, atmospheric sci-fi - would be great to see your reaction to it!
Absolutely second this
I agree! I saw it at the theatre! It's an incredible movie!
i agree, but i admit i had to watch some explanation afterwards and read the summary of the novel. some interpretation i did right, but some i just didnt figure while watching the movie.
Personally that's what I like about a movie like this. To interpret on what you see on your own. I like to draw my own conclusions and it's the kind of movie that lets me.
Jonathan Glazer is an incredible director
THAT scene with all the visuals still gives me chills
Show you the Movie of James Camerons The Abyss from 1989 (Special Edition with running time of 165 Minutes)
In a documentary on The Shining Kubrick said the end shows the entities which are pure light and they put Dave in what we would consider a zoo to study him. At the end of Dave's life they reward him with rebirth as the star child.
Gentlemen... outstanding reviews!!
PLEASE!! Make your next Kubrick movie "Dr. Strangelove"
"We'll meet again. Don't know where. Don't know when.
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day..."
The ornate baroque style room Dave arrives in is supposed to be an alien creation designed to help the unseen beings observe the human in an environment he (Dave) is familiar with.
The "aliens" put him in a zoo in the end.
That room he was in is what the "aliens" imagine humans live like.
Always reminds me a bit of the ending of AI: Artificial Intelligence, which of course was originally going to be directed by Kubrick before Spielberg took it on instead.
That was weird. The brightly lit floors & ceilings juxtaposed with 18th century classical stylings.
Yes, its oddness is because the aliens didn't do a perfect job recreating a human house.
Ya, the aliens knew there was nothing more Dave could do in that form. So they waited on his transcendence. Made him comfy, like hospice.
I think both of your interpretations are spot on. You've gotten as much out of this film just as so many others have. To me, it's the best film of the 20th century. It's transcendant.
Great to see someone react to this film. I saw this in the theatre in the 70's and was absolutely awe struck. I tell people that to this day, it presents the best visual spectacle ever done. I remember hearing a story about real astronauts being asked how it was to be in space. They answered that it is like the movie 2001.
Dudes! You must watch the sequel, "2010" to get a lot of your answers. I saw 2001 at age 14, in the theaters in 1968. It was dazzling on the big screen with that awesome surround-sound stereo. "2001" was THE most advanced sci-fi movie effort to date and started a new way of making sci-fi and its story telling. And everyone came away as puzzled as you guys. But that's what made it intriguing as we didn't understand what that fetus floating around in space was about, or the awesome light show vortex that Dave was sucked into. Of course the fetus is clearly Dave reincarnated somehow by whatever alien force brought Dave into their realm. We all felt there was a sequel to come on this one, but it took a long 16 years for "2010" to finally get made. Since I've read Arthur C. Clarke's books of "2001" on up, I can tell you some things that may not have been apparent in "2001" such as the scene of the pre-human digging around the bones then looking up at the monolith they had all gotten accustomed to. You may have noticed he looked at it puzzled as if he heard it say something. In the book that pre-human was getting a flood of imagery beamed directly into his brain, imagery most of which he didn't understand, stunning him with convulsions the others saw. When he recovered his fellows were amazed how he knew things, invented things like using that large bone as a tool/weapon, and other imagery like sharpening the end of tree limbs to make spears, and piling rocks together to make walls, etc. One other thing in the book that was not apparent in the movie was when the team was standing around the monolith on the moon. In the book they had dug it up at the beginning of the long lunar night so the monolith was still in darkness. And when the team was standing around it about to get their picture made, the first glimmer of sunlight in 4 million years touched the top of the monolith where it immediately sent that loud signal to the other gigantic monolith orbiting Jupiter. It was the moon monolith's way of telling the other monolith, "Hey! The humans made it to the moon and dug me up! Get ready. They'll be coming to see you soon." You will like 2010 a lot as it has a very cool, unexpected ending. I don't do spoilers so you'll have to see for yourself! I'll be looking for your reaction on "2010". Cheers!
"2010: They year we make Contact" is actually a good sequel based on the second book of the trilogy
I agree! I don’t compare it to 2001 because it’s almost like a different genre of science fiction, but I enjoyed the movie and the questions it raises and answers
Agreed, "2010" is a totally solid and very enjoyable sequel.
It's not Kubrick masterpiece, but it is very respectful of the original while still being entertaining.
Also, it's really pretty solid science fiction itself with an impressive cast.
Well worth watching after having seen 2001
A more enjojable watch... but.. well... 2001 isnt really that enjojable i would say... masterpice.. yes... enjojable to watch.. hmm. Well a bit less
Agreed. The film does "answer" some questions while opening up so many more.
I know its blasphemy, but I enjoy 2010 more than 2001. I enjoy good stories more than good art.
A Masterpiece which brings up more questions than answers
The ending to me represents the next evolution of our species. Human - AI combined.
Paul, yes. I love the connection in the book between Moonwatcher and Bowman. He didn't know what he would do with his new world, "but he would think of something".
@@bluesreign I've never read the book, you have me interested now. Thanks!
I saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" in an ex-Cinerama theater when it first came out. I found it head-and-shoulders better than run of the mill Science Fiction films of the time. Visuals were mind-blowing, even for me, who didn't do drugs. The Classical music soundtrack was original, especially The Blue Danube Waltz juxtaposed with a Pan American spaceliner landing at a double-torus-shaped space station. SF films after that wouldn't be taken seriously unless they were up to this level of polish.
If your gonna react to War Films, you should react to Paths of Glory (1957) or Full Metal Jacket (1987)
You cannot go wrong with any Stanley Kubrick film. He truly is the master. David Lynch is another director with some masterpieces worth checking out.
I’m really glad that you loved this movie.
A clue to interpretation...recall that the movie begins with a black rectangle and an eerie soundtrack, and if you watch it all the way through it ends with a black rectangle and an eerie soundtrack. You guys spoke of the monolith being a metaphor about acquiring knowledge. Now, how do we today acquire knowledge? Look at your rectangular cell phone. Look at your tv screen. You both noted how there were the two scenes of "humanoids" encountering the monolith and how the scenes were clearly designed to reflect each other. You also wondered where Dave went...you saw the monolith vanish into the blackness as the planets were all aligned...aligned just like at the start of the film. Where did Dave go? The same place that each one of us in the dark theater staring at a giant black monolith went...we went into the movie. We acquire knowledge by watching things. Our whole world is about looking into various sized black rectangles. -Erik