Yes. I really liked it. Of course, a lot of the “punch” was lost having seen it so many years after it came out (and thus already knowing all of the jokes and lines). But I still enjoyed it.
There are not many Kubrick films I don’t like. Pre-Space Opera(Star Wars) 2001 was ‘THE’ film to see on the big screen. I was lucky enough to see it in the 3 screen presentation (the old version of IMAX) back in '74.
(I was 5, and had a cool dad) Snoozefest? No not really, now I find it sad that we have past the year, and never really reached for the stars like we thought we would.
Monolith- intelligence or agression? Well now I’ll have to chew on that- I always thought it was intelligence, but the agression argument is plausible. Kind of a cop out in that some outside entity is responsible for all the horrors that humans do to themselves.
Other Kubrick- Strangelove, Clockwork and the Shining are my favs, with Full Metal Jacket which I go back and forth on if I like or not. Strangelove is quite disturbing to watch in the current climate, what is old is new again.
My view on the monolith is that it was neither. It’s never explicitly shown to physically alter human evolution, though I guess you could argue that it was implied by the fact that the apes invented the tool after discovering the monolith. But consider this: when the humans discovered the monolith on the moon, it’s pretty obvious that it didn’t do anything to them. It affected them–inspiring them to venture farther into space–merely by existing. It was a confirmation that there was something more out there, and that was all the push that humanity required. Likewise, with the third monolith, I never got the impression that it transformed Bowman into the starchild. It just showed him the path; Bowman took the next step on the road of human evolution on his own.
I think the first monolith was the same as the other two. It didn’t make the apes more intelligent, or alter their personality to make them more aggressive. All it did was sit there–an obviously artificial thing in an otherwise natural world. It didn’t “do” anything to the apes other than to suggest, by the mere fact of its existence, that things can be made. The apes, by virtue of their ability to reason, took the next step on their own. If things can be made, then we can make things. And thus, the first human tool was created.
All three monoliths are basically just carrots, left behind by an extraterrestrial intelligence as an incentive towards further evolution. At least, that’s my reading of the film.
This is the most teh ghey 2001 theory ever. If major leaps in mental and physical evolution could be spurred by contemplating rocks, we’d all be flying and shooting laser beams from our eyes by now.
Er… you do realize that 2001 is a work of fiction, right? I’m not suggesting that we can, in reality, all turn into starchildren. I’m just saying that Kubrick’s message was pretty clearly that Bowman learned how to evolve into a higher form at the end, by observing and understanding the lessons that the monolith was trying to teach him in that series of scenes in the white room, and not that the monolith shot some sort of beam at him that turned him into the starchild (that, to me, seems like the “gheyer” interpretation).
That said, humanity absolutely has and does, in the real world, make mental leaps through a combination of reasoning and observation of the world around us. Kubrick’s story is an extrapolation of that particular human trait.
To each his own in terms of interpreting 2001 and all, but I’m not sure how much I can get into the idea of the prehistoric monolith appearing and having the relatively passive effect you describe. There’s a scene in the film that shows one of the hominds ever so slowly working up the courage to touch the monolith. Once he does, many of them do. I guess the courage to touch it coul dbe argued to lead to something more, but I’m not sure. They were barely-evolved primates - I’d imagine they encountered lots of new, strange things on a daily basis, and I don’t know if they could be assumed to have the ability to tell if something was a construct. It’s an intriguing theory, though.
Watch that scene again. They don’t just stumble across the monolith in their travels–it shows up right in the middle of their camp, while they are sleeping, which totally freaks them out. It think it’s pretty clear that they understand that it isn’t like anything they’ve encountered before. They work up the courage to touch it (illustrating two important traits that these protohumans have–courage and curiosity). Nothing happens. That makes them a little braver. They don’t stop with touching it–they are fascinated by it. They all crowd around it, studying it, running their hands along its edges, feeling how smooth the surface is. Then there’s an image of the sun inching into view over the top of the monolith, alluding back to the “dawn of man” metaphor. What’s really “dawning” here is their comprehension of what the monolith implies.
Next, we see the apes walking past the piles of bones. Most of them just keep going, but one stops and sort of pokes at the bones on the ground. He looks up at the monolith, then down at the bones again. Cut to a second view of the sun peeking a little farther over the top of the monolith. The ape is beginning to figure it out. He picks up a bone and sort of flails with it, knocking the other bones around. Then he whacks the animal skull, crushing it, and we have a brief flash of the image of a live animal falling to the ground. EUREKA! Understanding!
This act of the film is a story about humans making the first evolutionary use of their ability to reason. The monolith is a catalyst, but not in a “it used its advanced powers to alter their DNA when they touched it” sort of way. If Kubrick had intended to convey that, then there would have been some indication (even something subtle, like in the musical score) that something happened when they touched it. Also, you’d think that it would have affected all of them. Instead, most of the apes were curious, examined the monolith, then went on with their lives. Only one of them continued to ponder the monolith, and thus invented the tool. But that’s all it took.
Presumably Kubrick and Clarke figured most viewers would be astute enough to grasp that a giant slab of alien superscience was taking a slightly more active involvement than simply showing up.
It sounds more plausible with that expo, Ben, but that would make it the only monolith in the films that merely acts passively. The one on the moon sends a signal, the one near Jupiter is indeed a stargate, and the mass of ones that convert Jupiter into a sun do so by more than just staring at it.
Still, it’s an intriguing theory. I like it a lot more than I did when you first brought it up.
EDIT: And actually, both of our theories can co-exist. You expounded on the actual method or process, but it could still be argued the aliens knew the potential fallout from thier assistance, as I described. YAY WE BOTH WIN.
If you really want to burn your brain on Kubrick’s symbolism, consider this: when the ape looks at the monolith and then picks up a bone, that famous 2001 score starts playing. It’s a piece by Strauss called “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” which is an homage to the book of the same name by Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s philosophies come with a lot of baggage these days that probably isn’t relevant to the point that Kubrick was trying to make, but one thing that Zarathustra definitely isn’t about is man’s evolution to a higher form via the power of an outside agency. Nietzsche’s superman was a product of self-determination. Man’s capacity to reach this higher form, he believed, was a product of his ability to comprehend that there is more to existence than the known, and his desire to make himself into something more than he currently is (which Nietzsche called the “will to power”).
The apes, discovering the monolith, are confronted with something that comes from beyond the realm of their experience. It inspires in them (one of them, at first, and over time all of their race) this same craving–the “will to power”–and they begin to use their other abilities (i.e. reason) to move forward, in an evolutionary sense.
Here’s the kicker: Nietzsche later wrote that the inspiration for “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” came to him while he was walking in the wilderness and came across an oddly-shaped rock…
Now that’s a pretty big coincidence. Or not.
Nietzsche was a little brighter than a primitive homonid, Ben. But read my edit above.
And this is where I point out the the musical score that 2001 ended up with was originally just a set of temp tracks. An original soundtrack by Alex North had been commissioned, but 2001 was in production for so long that Kubrick came to think of the temp soundtrack as the “real” soundtrack. This was apparently a habit of his. In the words of Wendy Carlos, “The pain came when he insisted I change my best work into something that was not so good nor original and well-crafted; he often got locked into each temp-track. No departure from that, however superior I realized it to be, would then please him.” li[/li]
So in conclusion, seriously, put down the bong.
I read the first chapter in the book, and I remember it distinctly manipulating the minds of the monkies. It did make them evolve in a sense.
The book did indeed explain everything. The monoliths DID actively alter the brains of the hominids.
So you think that the parallels between 2001 and Thus Spoke Zarathustra (the book), along with the fact that Kubrick chose a musical piece inspired by that same book as the film’s main theme, are just a gigantic, 1000-yards-directly-into-the-bullseye coincidence? I know that the musical tracks were not originally intended to be the final ones in the movie. So what? Temporary or not, Kubrick still choose that piece, and then later decided that it was a better fit than the score that was composed specifically for the film.
I read the first chapter in the book, and I remember it distinctly manipulating the minds of the monkies. It did make them evolve in a sense.
Absolutely. But I think it’s a mistake to confuse the source material (or, in Bill’s case, the books/film that came afterwards) with Kubrick’s film. Kubrick’s adaptations rarely follow their original sources very closely. He’d take what he wanted from the original source and use it to tell the story that he wanted to tell, and the end result didn’t always have much to do with the original book (as Stephen King found out, to his chagrin). So if you want to analyze 2001 the movie, I think you have to take it on its own terms, and not assume that Kubrick took any of the supporting material as canon.
There should have more of these film disection threads. :)
I can’t remember my source any more, but I distinctly remember that Kubrick ended up disavowing a connection between the book and the movie (pissing Clarke off in the process). IIRC, Kubrick felt that the novel explained too much, and he didn’t agree with all the explanations.
So you can’t necessarily go to the book for explanations of the movie.
I’m not sure about all this argument over what the monoliths are. It is spelled out explicitly in the novels.
It’s odd that nobody has brought that up yet.
Also, they’re the novels.