Landyn Waugh
Professor Evans
English 103
3 December 2009
?Title?
2001: A Space Odyssey is a Stanley Kubrick film that was released in 1968. The film is about a space mission to Jupiter in which things go wrong once the very intelligent computer turns against the crew and it decides that the crew is destroying the mission.
Overall, I was very confused with the entire point of the movie. It seemed like there may have been multiple messages that the movie was trying to portray but I was lost in trying to figure out the main message.
The movie starts out with the “Dawn of Man” sequence in which apes are portrayed as the first ‘man’. A monolith appears over night and the apes are fearful of it. The movie later progresses to when the evolved human is now on the moon. Again the monolith makes an appearance but this time the humans are not fearful, instead they are filled with curiosity and excitement. I would interpret the monolith as something that aliens had planted to watch the evolution of our species. I am, however, still confused on what role the monolith really had in the movie. Later during the movie the space crew is on a mission to Jupiter. There are 5 human crewmembers and then a sixth member that is a computer. The computer is one of the most intelligent computers in the world. The computer can simulate human emotions and it has never once had the slightest malfunction. The computer is a HAL 9000, which is referred to as HAL throughout the movie. To sum up the end of the movie, HAL takes over the spacecraft but HAL is eventually destroyed by one of the crewmembers, Dave.
The spacecraft does make it to Jupiter but the confusing part comes when Dave is sent into a very white room. I was completely lost at this point because it seemed like Dave had traveled either forward or backward in time and then suddenly appeared in this room. There was another man in the house but I am unsure of who it was to represent. The man in the house dies and then a child is born.
That was what I initially thought about the movie the first two times I watched it. I watched a flash show of the explanation of the movie on the website www.kubrick2001.com. I then watched the movie for a third time and then things finally began to make sense.
I understand now that the message that Kubrick was trying to make was that without tools humans would not have evolved and with too much tools we may just see our death. This was a very clever message but to me it was much too hard to understand without really thinking in-depth. However, it may have made more sense to someone living back in the late 60’s. That is because back in the late 60’s no man had ever stepped foot on the moon, therefore it seemed like landing on the moon would be much too advanced for our own good.
Overall I did like the movie once I was able to understand what was going on. To me, without knowing the message behind a film is kind of like not knowing why one must eat, what’s the point? Once I understood the message I was able to enjoy the movie and what it stood for. I thought the movie was very well produced and the graphics were fantastic for being such an old film. However, many times throughout the movie the repetitive music and/or breathing became annoying. I would recommend this movie to friends only if they first watched the show about the meaning otherwise the movie is really not worth your time.
i though this was a very strong rough draft. the fact that you could actually watch this movie more than once was impressive to me. You show very good points and explain what you think very clearly. i also liked how you watched a show on the explanation of the film. Overall it was a nice paper and very informal.
ReplyDeleteHAL is trying to destroy the mission, not the crew.
ReplyDeleteThe other man in the white room is an older Dave.
The film didn't make any more sense to people in the '60s than it does now. People were confused then, too. Also, we were just a year away from landing on the moon.
So maybe you can frame your judgment as being a great film that takes some effort to understand? That you wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they reviewed some background information first?
I do like how you suppourt the idea that through the progression of human tools and mankind has evolved.. But I feel I do at times that at times you are all most searching each others depths and that does not make for a good story.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you explained what you thought Kubrick's message was with the film. I also cannot believe you watched this three times, that is pretty impressive. Maybe you could organize the four sections of the movie in a more clear way, so a reader who has never seen the film could better understand it. Also if you did not understand who the dying man was you could have looked it up on the internet so you weren't so lost, and you could explain to the reader that it was Dave. I thought you did a good job of putting your opinions into the essay and backing them up.
ReplyDelete