posted
Let's have a discussion about Kubrick's Space Odyssey. I want to read opinions, speculations, thoughts, and explanations. Let's be creative about this people.
-------------------- "Now there's a look in your eyes like black holes in the sky" Posts: 188 | Registered: May 2007
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posted
HAL: I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you. Dave: Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me. HAL: It's called "Daisy." 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.
posted
Wow, you opened up a can of worms for our forum's own Hal.
I like most all of Kubrick's movies, but this one didn't do it for me. Mind you as many times as I've started watching it I typically fall asleep halfway through it.
quote: Wow, you opened up a can of worms for our forum's own Hal.
Haha...yeah, I love this movie...it`s Kubrick`s best, in my humble opinion. The special effects are absolutely amazing for it`s time and the movie never gets boring (for me as a die-hard sci-fi fan) as I keep discovering new meanings to the plot every time I watch it again (which is probably once every 2 years).
posted
I read the book and wrote a report on it back in high school (and I graduated in '90, so my memory on all the particulars of the book is rusty to say the very least). As far as the movie, I think it got a little too artsy-fartsy at times, but overall I enjoyed it. I don't quite understand why they had to change the planet from Saturn to Jupiter for the sake of the movie though.
As for the story, I really wish it had gone in a different direction. I mean, you have the obelisk(s), and all those things are supposed to entail, but instead the story deals mainly with a super-computer gone bonkers, and that's been done before in other books and movies (Darkstar, Demon Seed, etc). I wish more time could've been spent on the obelisks and what they're about.
2010 was a decent follow-up...a bit faster paced and passed along a pretty good message. It dealt a little more with the obelisks and a bit less with internal politics of the characters, so that was a good thing. But Dave Bowman having a wife? What the hell? That's another book to movie change I don't understand.
My dad read the book to 2064, and he said it was kinda' anticlimactic. Said it mainly dealt with the terraforming of the new world (it was formerly IO wasn't it? Can't remember) and how the obelisks were trying to keep humans away from it. I'll have to bum it from him and read it for myself one of these days.
Since we're talking about glimpses into the future here, one book I highly recommend everybody to read is Heinlein's Starship Troopers. The movie was mindless but fun, with all kinds of violence and awesome special effects, but the book is infinitely better, and it portrayed a more hardline future for humanity. Check it out!
-------------------- Like Girls? LikeReal Barefoot Girls?! Then this place is for you! www.dennis-n-mara.com Your best source for some Real Deal Hardcore Barefoot Girls! Posts: 5427 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
"2001" is possibly the greatest film of all time. It is certainly a true masterpiece that ranks alongside the Mona Lisa, the symphonies of Mozart, the writings of Shakespeare etc.
To wit: While art is very much subjective, ANYONE that marks "2001" down for lacking in literalism, being "slow", being "emotionally distant", "dull", "pretentious" or anything else has . . . in this rare case . . . TRULY missed the point. I can only implore such people to read, see, hear, watch and ponder more.
Always remember: consciousness is a gift. From God . . . from the cosmos . . . from something. We are something rather than nothing. Rather than being a singularity with infinite irreducibility, or inert molecules scattered silently in a void of nothingness, we are here and we are aware. It would be the height of human arrogance to say that this only happens once or is the only existence we will ever have -- but who knows? Isn't it absolutely stunning that our bodies and our technology have evolved to a point where we know and experience things utterly undreamt and unimagined by our forebears just 100 years ago? 100 years in cosmic time is less than the blink of an eye, yet human history has changed more rapidly in this same stretch of time than anywhere else in our existence (so far as we know). "2001" is really the first film to put all of that together and offer comment -- even to the point of showing awareness of the artform it is expressed within. That's simply . . . A-MAZING.
And here we are talking about it. This is thanks to more technology -- technology that could barely be dreamed of when "2001" was made, which is even less of a less than a blink of the cosmic eye! Even the joy of our foot fetish works its way into all this stunning epicness. Again, if we were just a bunch of nothingness -- gas, debris, electrons, whatever -- then nothing would matter. We wouldn't even have consciousness to say that much. To FEEL that much. We wouldn't feel at all. We wouldn't "be". Yet at one stage, that's exactly what we were -- all joined together, all energy, then energy moving into matter, matter moving into stars, stars moving into planets, planets moving into people. Finally, us. Here we are. Do aliens have feet? Do aliens have foot fetishes? Do some aliens have feet? Do some aliens have foot fetishes? Have any aliens, at any time, or could aliens, at any time, have these experiences? Not even all humans have these experiences! And all of this exists because of BILLIONS of years of cosmic evolution.
I see all of that munificence in "2001". Yes . . . I see God in "2001". Or whatever "God" might actually be. Just a cosmic trick? A splinter in our minds? A flicker on a cave wall? A monolith? You really have to approach "2001" in a different way. It is a pathetically small statement about incomprehensibly big things. Yet it's also just about the biggest thing we've ever said on the matter -- our other achievements in physics, maths, astronomy, biology, psychology, social theory, art and literature aside. It's just huge. Stupidly huge. But also embarrassingly small. We have penile dysfunction of the mind. Heck, we have no penises. Our intellect isn't just flaccid next to the magnitude of the cosmos, it simply doesn't exist! Well, OK: it exists. Barely. As do the containers of that intellect. Those strange people, most of which have feet, a sparing few who even *jerk* off to them. It's an amazing fact -- but it's not saying much. Like "2001", it'll have to do for now.
quote: Wow, you opened up a can of worms for our forum's own Hal.
Haha...yeah, I love this movie...it`s Kubrick`s best, in my humble opinion. The special effects are absolutely amazing for it`s time and the movie never gets boring (for me as a die-hard sci-fi fan) as I keep discovering new meanings to the plot every time I watch it again (which is probably once every 2 years).
Awesome HAL! It seems that you have started at "The Dawn of Man". I want to discuss the monolith. Let's talk about the monolith. Overnight a monolith is planted near a tribe of sleeping apes......why? What is Kubrick trying to tell us at this point? Fellow forum members, your insights PLEASE!
-Hal-
-------------------- "Now there's a look in your eyes like black holes in the sky" Posts: 188 | Registered: May 2007
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posted
JayArr, I watched all the clips from your links and I unfortunately still didn't come away with the same zeal you guys have for the film. However, I did add a couple more Kubrick films to my Blockbuster Queue that I haven't seen yet.
I'll give it another try soon though with a pot of coffee at the ready. You see I enjoyed "Clockwork Orange," "The Shining," "Full Metal Jacket," "Lolita," and "Dr. Strangelove."
quote: For technical reasons...Kubrick said he couldn`t portrait the rings of Saturn realisticly enough via special effects, so he changed it to Jupiter.
Hmmm...that makes sense. Thanks for the clear-up.
-------------------- Like Girls? LikeReal Barefoot Girls?! Then this place is for you! www.dennis-n-mara.com Your best source for some Real Deal Hardcore Barefoot Girls! Posts: 5427 | Registered: Jul 2003
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You see I enjoyed "Clockwork Orange," "The Shining," "Full Metal Jacket," "Lolita," and "Dr. Strangelove."
