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Re: 2001: Revelations
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hermanthegerm
2001: A Space Odyssey (where Man proves to be an Ingenious, Curious, Tool Making little Monkey.)
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Dec 18 10 2:51 PM
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Even though I agree with the general conclusion, the short film places emphasis on some strange things then ignores others, actually contradicting Kubrick's message.
For example, again and again, the floating pen is presented as a metaphor for "Man loses control of his tools," yet the floating pen scene immediately follows with the space stewardess, gently and effortlessly plucking the airborne pen and placing it again in the traveler's pocket (a scene which the analysis ignores.)
That, in my view, might then change the metaphor's meaning to "Tools have a tendency to get out of the control of Man, yet Man never loses the ability to regain control."
Had the floating pen caused a mechanical failure or some such, then I'd be willing to concede the point.
The revised metaphor is thematically valid, as that is exactly what happens in the penultimate drama between HAL and Dave. Man has always has it in him to cross the threshold.
Kubrick's themes of birth and childhood (in addition to old age and death,) are so obvious as to hardly need stressing (yet the short film
keeps doing this
,) so obvious, in fact that when
The
Final Programme
(The Last Days of Man on Earth)
came out they could not bear to repeat it, so they chose instead to show
Jerry Cornelius' evolutionary next step
as a 'Hollywood' Caveman/primitive Man (Man just starting up his evolutionary ladder,) rather than baby Man (Man starting a new life.)
This was seen by many a reviewer to be a joke. Trust me, folks, it is not.
Yet the analysis misses obvious things like mentioning
The Birthday Song
(even though it gets played twice in the short film!) before the actual birth of the Starchild, also see
Ikiru
: Kurosawa's bureaucrat also experiences a (re)birth as the song is sung.
Or even obvious ones such as HAL 9000 reverting to childhood when confronted by his creator and master, Man. Hal sings a children's song,
Daisy, Daisy
as he becomes senile (becomes child-like again.)
Man might revert to childhood in space... But then so does HAL.
What does breathing vs not breathing have to do with anything? Even if man needs to breathe, it
still
does not stop him on his quest. Anyway, HAL has his
own
needs and limitations. We are probably presented the breathing because that is the only sound Dave would hear on his spacewalk, and to emphasize that Dave, regardless of this particular physical need is still able to travel to Jupiter and to come up with the plan to blast thru the void (a scene contrastingly presented in absolute silence, as it technically should be) to defeat HAL, much to HAL's surprise. Man is not bound by his (physical) limitations, HAL is.
But HAL previously surprises the humans by reading their lips.
We are witnessing a chess match between the two species.
Personally I would say that the story's intent is to take take Man to a crux where his next evolutionary step might either be inherited by AI or remain Man's.
Man wins out, which agrees with the short film's analysis, but I would give it the different emphasis I've mentioned.
Why does Man win out?
It might be because
even
if he gets bored during space travel,
even
if we see a marvel such as TMA-1 merely get photographed and videotaped, Man has still not yet lost touch with the curious little monkey man of a few million years ago (also as seen as the Id in the Bozzetto short film
Bolero
from
Allegro Non Troppo,
) a fact which the short film analysis alternately denies and then stresses.
Where does the reviewer get that the alleged 'Afarensis' (is this out of Clarke's book? it certainly isn't in the movie,) is any more curious than Homo Sapiens?
If TMA-1 is so boring then why go to the expense and effort to travel to the Moon to see it?
Because it is not.
Man is doing
everything in his power
to uncover its secrets, up to the point of building a Moon Base around it and tripping beyond Jupiter to investigate the second Monolith (even if outwardly cool about it.) How does the reviewer get that H. Sap. is no longer curious (or a worthy successor of 'Afarensis')?
These scientists might be boring to us,
but they are not bored.
("How did you know they went to the Moon?" "Because I saw it.") Kubrick
shows
us the results of this racial curiosity, no need to
tell
us about it.
Man is not dead. Unless we are talking about a Cocteau styled Death, were death is necessary for rebirth.
Sure, we see the "coffins", but we also see humans exercising, drawing, sleeping, eating, voiding, celebrating birthdays, getting calls from relatives, playing, etc. a large enough sample of what being a modern human animal is
(animal=living.)
Surely this is not what being dead is.
Good or bad, it is merely the life we have chosen for ourselves.
What did we see the 'Afarensis' do (not historically correct, but wouldn't 'Habilis' (toolmaker) make more sense?)? Starve, cower, groom, get killed, discover tools. How is that better (or worse?) I don't necessarily feel judgment is intended.
Dave Bowman
is
the 'Afarensis', or at least of the same bloodline.
What about something as obvious as the name
David Bowman?
Bowman
implies the maker or the master of bows (tools) but a second meaning is that the Man himself is the bow (tool.) Without looking
David
up I'll take a shot (pun intended) in the dark and say that it means
God's Chosen to be King
(and guess who is destined to win the final chess match.)
Or even, how about the title of the film:
Odyssey
?
Odysseus was also a famous bowman, who fought inside a cave in an island against a Cyclops using his ingenuity and simple tools, (wow, what a coincidence the spaceship resembles a cave, an island and HAL has one eye, just like a Cyclops!)
None of these are accidents, folks.
AI is the evolutionary dead end, not Man. Because Man's best tool is Man himself, as shown when
David Bowman
propels himself (as a missile, as an
arrow,
a smart one
,
) thru the void into the airlock.
Janitors In Outer Space
?
Not likely.
HAL is a tool, but a Bow-Man is a better one. The highly educated, highly trained astronaut should be seen as Man's ultimate tool. And there is no shame in being such a tool. For those of us that were there in 1969, just remember how
proud
we were of our astronauts.
The Starchild is us, we have honed our tools (ourselves) to perfection. We are ready to go to the next step.
At least according to Kubrick.
How different this is to saying Man is a dead end, Man is dead!..
-.-.-.-.-.-
BTW, I saw one of the new episode of Dr. Who and there was this sound effect straight out of 2001, (also a Mars base named Bowie!)
"There is a lot of money tied up in this film and people
expect
to hear a boom when something blows up, so I'll give them a boom."
George Lucas as quoted by Harlan Ellison's WATCHING
Last Edited By:
hermanthegerm
Feb 13 11 12:54 PM. Edited 46 times.
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