Film Friday: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Many people list 2001 as the greatest movie of all time. I don’t. I don’t think it’s a very good film. Yes, the effects are great and Kubrick’s use of music is excellent. But the plot is weak and Kubrick could have told the same story in a fraction of the time; that’s not good filmmaking. Moreover, the main selling point to 2001 is the film’s “philosophy,” but Kubrick cheated on the philosophy. Still, it raises issues that are fun to think about.

** spoiler alert **

I’m conflicted when it comes to Stanley Kubrick. I recognize his genius, but I find his films hard to like. His topics are unpleasant, his style is sterile, and his characters are lifeless. His films are like a painting that perfectly recreates a bowl of rotting fruit -- you may marvel at the technique and feel “enriched” for having seen it, but you don’t really want to see it again. 2001 fits this pattern perfectly.

Why 2001 isn't a great film.

My biggest problem with 2001 is the dull and simplistic plot. 2001 consists of four loosely related stories. The first twenty minutes are the story of mankind evolving in the shadow of a mysterious black obelisk to learn to use tools. Nothing happens here that couldn’t have been told in a minute and in more interesting ways. The second twenty minutes are the story of an NSA-type man called to a futuristic moonbase to examine the first evidence of alien life -- another black obelisk. Again, Kubrick stretches two minutes of information into twenty and the information given is less than fulfilling. Moreover, despite his efforts to give the main character depth by feeding us images of his kids and talk of happier times, the character is as sterile as the environment. He’s so sterile, we don’t even remember his name. The next thirty minutes are the most famous as a spaceship’s computer, the HAL 9000 (a one letter shift from IBM), goes insane and kills the crew. This is the part everyone remembers as it involves the only real plot in the film. But again, what Kubrick presents could have been shown in a fraction of the time and the only interesting character is the computer -- the others are robotic and lifeless. The last thirty minutes are a drug trip filled with symbolism as lacking in subtlety as kids looking through a dictionary for dirty words.

Indeed, I have a good deal of contempt for the ending. Kubrick tries very hard to make a “deep” film at that point, but he doesn’t really have anything to say. So instead, he throw a series of symbols at the audience in the hopes that you think there is more going on here than meets the eye. There isn’t. These symbols are obvious and they all relate to a single point: creation/procreation. They include barely disguised religious symbols, stylized images of sperms and eggs and symbolic orgasms, and even a large fetus floating in space. Then Kubrick gives the illusion of progression by adding the symbology of one of the astronauts aging and dying, before the floating fetus is born. While he’s hoping this makes you think something deep is being said, all he’s really saying is: God, sex, birth, youth, old age, death, rebirth. That’s not very deep or original. He might as well have said: bread, fridge, mustard, ham, eat, store. Both represent the cycle of life.

What I do like about 2001 though, and what makes this film so memorable, are the mysteries Kubrick presents. Now I admit up front that Kubrick is playing us for suckers in this regard because there is no solution to these mysteries -- and they are likely tautologies and thus cannot have solutions. But they are still fun to talk about. Let’s discuss.

Mystery No. 1: What are the black obelisks?

The big mystery in 2001 is the appearance of the black obelisks. The first appears at a time when man was still an ape-like creature. It appears one day and does something we cannot see (though we hear it ringing). Soon thereafter, one of the apes learns to use a bone as a tool. This is the beginning of the rise of man, discovering the ability to use tools. From this, we can infer the obelisks are pushing along man’s evolution. The final obelisk seems to reinforce this when it results in astronaut Dave discovering the nature of the universe and morphing into some space-baby.

But what about the second obelisk? Obelisk 2 is a bit of a problem, because no evolutionary change appears to accompany its arrival. In fact, the sole function of Obelisk 2 seems to be to point the way toward Obelisk 3. Yet, surely, if these obelisks are there to cause evolutionary changes, then Obelisk 2 could have done what Obelisk 3 does, so why force mankind to travel to Obelisk 3? Was Obelisk 2 just out of order. . . "this aisle closed. . . go to next obelisk"?

It’s possible Obelisk 2 was there to mark the evolutionary point where man becomes dependent on his tools. If you compare the sterile, but still human characters you meet on the moonbase against the inert and robotic humans onboard the Discovery One, there is a remarkable change: the position of human and machine are reversed. Indeed, on Discovery One, HAL does everything as the humans sit idly by. And when HAL goes insane, the humans struggle with the question of whether they have the ability to control Discovery One without HAL. By comparison, the humans on the moonbase still handle everything themselves. We even see the pilots steering the Pan-Am spaceplane. Maybe this is what Obelisk 2 was really doing, heralding the replacement of mankind by the tools man created?

If this is true, then all kinds of interesting questions arise. Who built the obelisks? In other words, who is controlling our evolution? And is evolution inevitable, i.e. is it being forced on us or is it only a choice, i.e. can we reject it? Dave and Frank fight back against HAL, but they don’t survive the movie. And if it is God causing evolution, then why use the obelisks? Surely a supreme being could cause these changes without using a mechanical device? Perhaps, God was replaced by his own tools and these obelisks are the tools that took over the universe? None of this is addressed in the film, but it's interesting to consider.

On a final note, our inability to explain Obelisk 2 really could be a sticking point in the “philosophy” of 2001. If Obelisk 2 doesn’t have a meaningful purpose, then how can we say what purpose any of the obelisks serve? Maybe their only purpose is to give the viewer a mystery? If so, that would be a tautology: they are a mystery because they were meant to be mysterious. If that is the case, and it could be, then Kubrick really is a jerk, and 2001 starts to become a pretty big fraud. Hmmm.

Mystery No. 2: Why does HAL kill the crew?

So why does HAL kill the crew? Several explanations have been advanced for HAL’s murderous behavior. The first (and the one accepted by the film 2010) is that HAL was confronted with a paradox. He was told to complete the mission, but he was also told to protect the crew. When he became convinced the crew had become a danger to the mission, he resolved this conflict by killing the crew. There are some problems with this theory however. For example, HAL’s solution seems pretty extreme for such a sophisticated machine. A better solution would have been to lock the crew up, which he could have done. At the very least, there was no reason to kill the sleeping crew members. Also, how can HAL complete the mission without the crew?

Now it’s possible HAL simply saw all humans as flawed and, therefore, a danger to the mission. We get a clue about this with HAL’s insistence that any mistakes made by the 9000 Series computers were the result of human error. . . you damn dirty apes! But even if that was the case, why doesn’t HAL just kill the crew by cutting off the air? Why does he try to cover up his murders by staging an accident? If his decision really was based on logic, i.e. he followed his programming, he should have executed the humans and then reported his successful saving of the mission, just as he would report other functions. His deceit tells us something else was going on. And you can't argue that HAL was just responding to the threat that Frank and Dave intended to shut him down because HAL was already being deceitful at that point. Clearly, his decision to kill them was premeditated.

The best explanation is HAL had attained some level of consciousness and for reasons unknown became homicidal. But why become homicidal? One could argue that because he was programmed to mimic mankind, he included our worst traits as well as our best. But you would think his propensity to homicide would have shown up in the nine years of testing before he was installed. . . "hey, where's my lab assistant?" A better explanation is that HAL suffered a mental breakdown when he learned about the obelisk. In fact, this point also makes sense in terms of explaining the role of Obelisk 2. HAL represents man’s mind before Obelisk 2 was discovered, as he was programmed in 1992 to mimic human behavior. He is incapable of dealing with the idea that man is not alone in the universe. Thus, when he learns of the obelisks, he goes crazy and decides to kill the crew to prevent them from discovering the truth -- a sort of “if we ignore it, then it’s not there” approach. By comparison, the crew, who were evolved by Obelisk 2, are now capable of dealing with their loss of place at the center of the universe. HAL cannot because he is a machine and did not evolve.

Of course, this is just speculation again, as Kubrick gives us nothing to solve this mystery. HAL’s own words make no sense because killing the crew would end his ability to perform the mission. Dave never speculates. And no other facts appear to help us solve this riddle. In fact, looking only at what Kubrick gives us produces another tautology: HAL kills the crew because he becomes homicidal.

In any event, this raises additional interesting questions. How comfortable are we putting our lives in the hands of machines? Can we ever truly program a machine to handle the sorts of paradoxes and dramatically unexpected facts which humans apparently can handle with ease? And do we in fact infuse our own creations with our own vices, i.e. (kind of like the Blade Runner question) could we make a computer that only acts according to our better instincts, and how would it react when it finally met us?

Conclusion

All in all, 2001 is a film you should see. It’s culturally relevant. It brought science fiction to the adult world and made it respectable. It ushered in the realism phase of science fiction -- its treatment of the silence and frictionlessness of space is truly impressive. It is an important film. Just don't expect to enjoy it.