Joanna Gooch Opaskar

April 23, 2002

2001: Odysseys and Evolution

            Tales of exploration may narrate a simple journey, a life’s quest, or an encounter with something “other.”  Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel” tells a simple story of an explorative journey with a twist.  Stanley Kubrick took that story and expanded it into a film with extraordinary depth of meaning, reinterpreting man’s origins, evolution, and ultimate destiny.

            In “The Sentinel” the narrator is a scientist conducting a routine survey of the surface of the moon.  When he sees something reflective on a mountain in the distance, he turns aside from his course and investigates it.  He finds a glittering pyramidal structure surrounded by a sort of transparent force field.  It is a machine, still in operation, performing an unknown function.  The machine is taken back to Earth and disassembled in an effort to learn its function and understand its advanced technology.  The narrator recognizes that the machine was not made by man, and concludes that a superior civilization left the “Sentinel” on the moon, signaling to them, so that they would know when men from Earth had advanced to the point of space travel, since presumably a race less advanced than that would be of no interest to them.  He imagines that with the silencing of their beacon, they will return to see what mankind has made of itself in their absence.  As the story concludes:

Perhaps they wish to help our infant civilization.  But they must be very, very old, and the old are often insanely jealous of the young.  I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming.  If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have set off the fire-alarm and have nothing to do but wait.  I do not think we will have to wait for long” (Clarke 242).

            Thomas D. Clareson of The College of Wooster notes that Clarke here rejects a standard science fiction convention of man’s first encounter with intelligent alien life: that of warfare, and of an almost superhuman hero who defeats a more advanced enemy.  Clarke also rejects the common theme of a superior alien civilization rescuing man from a “twentieth century predicament.”  (Clareson 242-3)  By introducing the aliens only in terms of their one lunar machine, or sentinel, Clarke has left the aliens and their intentions a complete mystery.  Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey operates within this void, not answering questions, but asking new ones, about the aliens as well as man himself, and his evolution for good or ill.

            Kubrick and Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay for 2001, adhere generally to the plot of “The Sentinel.”  2001 includes a survey of the moon that turns up an unusual structure, the tall black rectangular monolith, which is sending out a signal.  But the rest of the film goes infinitely beyond that simple concept.  The film begins with a title for the first act: “The Dawn of Man.”  One sees landscape scenes reminiscent of creation, then apes and other animals foraging and competing for food.  Suddenly a monolith appears among the apes, and, apparently under its influence, one ape picks up a bone from a skeleton of another animal and begins striking the other bones, learning that he can use tools to kill and eat his former competitors for food, and eventually kill even his fellow apes.  As the ape tosses the bone into the air, the camera cuts to similar shape – a long, thin, white satellite, which some viewers have identified as a weapons platform.  This has been referred to by many critics as the greatest cut, as well as possibly the longest flash-forward in the history of cinema.

            The second act of the film pertains to a monolith found on the moon.  Dr. Heywood Floyd has been sent to examine the mysterious object.  He arrives first at a space station in orbit around the Earth, where he meets with other scientists who want to discuss rumors of strange events at the lunar research station, but Dr. Floyd is not at liberty to discuss this due to the information being classified.  He shuttles down to the moon’s surface and speaks to the scientists at the lunar station, swearing them all to secrecy about the existence of the monolith.  He ventures out to observe it in person, whereupon it begins to emit a loud, high-pitched signal tone.

            In the third act, entitled “Jupiter Mission 18 months later” one learns that the lunar monolith’s signal was directed toward Jupiter and a crew aboard the Discovery One has been sent to investigate.  Roger Ebert puts it this way: “Man is confronted with a monolith, just as the apes were, and is drawn to a similar conclusion: This must have been made.  And as the first monolith led to the discovery of tools, so the second leads to the employment of man’s most elaborate tool: the spaceship Discovery, employed by man in partnership with the artificial intelligence of the onboard computer, named HAL 9000” (Great Movies 2).  However, it is revealed at the end of this act that the crew has no knowledge of the monolith; they know only that they are the first manned flight to Jupiter and are aware of no other reason for their mission.  The crew consists of Frank Poole, Dave Bowman, several men in hibernation on the ship, and a super computer called HAL 9000.  By the end of this section HAL has turned against the crew and must be shut down.

            In the fourth and final act, “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite,” Dave Bowman reaches Jupiter, learns of the monolith’s existence on the moon and finds another monolith, apparently the recipient of the lunar signal, floating in space.  When he ventures out in a pod to examine the monolith, he is taken on some sort of journey through bright lights and oddly colored landscapes to eventually arrive in a futuristic-looking yet antiquely furnished room, where he finds himself as an old man, then an older man, then a reborn baby generally (and enigmatically) referred to in the literature as a “Star Child,” floating in space.  There ends the film amidst the triumphant sounds of Richard Strauss’ “Thus Spake Zarathustra.”

            What happened to the plot?  What does all this mean?  Did I waste the last 141 minutes of my life?  All good questions.  Norman Kagan in his book The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick offers at least two answers, one of which will be examined here.  He proposes a “scientific-poetic” meaning to the film, stating that it is a “revised concept of evolution” in which an “extraterrestrial intelligence [appears] to give a helping hand whenever man seems to be at a dead end, by making a basic change in his consciousness” (Kagan 159).  The film suggests that the apes existed for a long time eating plants and foraging with four-legged herbivores without changing or developing much at all.  One sees scene after scene of the apes intercut with sunrises and sunsets and landscapes from different angles, giving the impression of the passage of time.  The monolith appears seemingly out of nowhere and almost immediately one ape begins to use a bone as a tool.  That the monolith initiated or inspired this momentous development is made clear by a shot-reverse shot technique used between the ape and the monolith to show that the ape is definitely reacting to it.  Ebert writes, “I have always felt that the smooth artificial surfaces and right angles of the monolith, which was obviously made by intelligent beings, triggered the realization in an ape brain that intelligence could be used to shape the objects of the world” (Great Movies 2).

            The first act identifies the moment when apes (read early man) learned to depend on tools (read reason) for survival.  In the second act one sees the mankind of the future: bland, boring people with banal conversations who seem fairly insignificant, as if they are working, yet somehow not really doing anything.  Dr. Floyd goes to inspect the monolith, but he cannot talk about it, cannot identify or explain it beyond what has already been done.  He travels all the way to the moon and looks very busy and important, but accomplishes practically nothing shown in the film other than to repeat the policy of secrecy regarding the monolith.  One does not get the impression that he knows more than he says, or has any depth.  None of the other scientists are any more interesting or seem to be accomplishing anything of substance either.  Few of them show much emotion, their lives so ordered and serene.  Kagan describes them as “sapped of vigor, wonder, or even meaning” (160).  Roger Ebert calls these characters “lifelike but without emotion, like figures in a wax museum” (Video Companion 867).  This is the result of generation upon generation of human beings valuing tools and reason above all else, of man “trapped in rationalism and technology” (Kagan 160). 

            Compared to these people in the second act of the film, the machines seem much more human.  Heywood Floyd’s shuttle docks with the space station in a beautiful dance set to Johann Strauss’ “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” waltz.  The shuttle floats gracefully toward the station which itself rotates in space, shaped somewhat like a wagon wheel with two circles connected by long spokes.  The space ships and machines in general prove more interesting and memorable than the characters.  The settings far outshine the faceless characters that inhabit them.  Margaret Tarratt in her essay on science fiction “Monsters from the Id” calls the film “moral and metaphysical speculation combined with a delight in technical virtuosity for its own sake” (348).  The virtuoso craft and performance come in the technology, not the characters.

            In the third act, the Jupiter Mission, one sees the true extent of mankind’s dependence on tools and reason.  The Mission aboard the Discovery One is completely controlled by HAL 9000, the ultimate, infallible tool.  HAL exemplifies humanity’s obsession with reason, that it is the most valuable of man’s endowments.  “He is actually put in charge of psychologically monitoring the humans, essentially because he is closer to this ideal state” (Kagan 160).  Man has attempted to build the perfect reasoning machine, to distill the best elements of humanity into HAL.  But this effort is doomed from the beginning because man, not being a perfect reasoning machine himself, cannot hope to build one that is perfectly infallible.

            Consequently, HAL does eventually make a mistake.  HAL tells Frank and Dave that a radio transmitter on the Discovery will fail within seventy-two hours and must be replaced.  They do replace the unit, but upon later examination can find no fault with it.  Another 9000 computer back on Earth, the equivalent of HAL, has also asserted that the unit has no defect, and that HAL has made a mistake.  HAL and other experts make it clear that no 9000 “has ever made a mistake,” except possibly due to “human error.”   HAL proposes the solution that they put the supposedly defective transmitter back into operation, then wait for it to fail, proving whether HAL was right or wrong in his diagnosis.  If the unit fails, HAL was right.  Frank and Dave, though, are not as confident as HAL, and feel he might have a fault, forcing them to shut him down, which has never been done before.  Frank ventures out in a pod to replace the possibly faulty unit, but a malfunction in the pod causes his oxygen tube to be cut, and he and the pod go swirling off into space.  Dave, registering no emotion, goes slowly and deliberately after him in another pod to retrieve the body.  Meanwhile, HAL shuts down the life support systems that have been keeping alive the rest of the hibernating crew of the Discovery.  When Dave returns, HAL refuses to open the pod bay doors, saying that he cannot allow Dave to “endanger the mission,” forcing Dave to re-enter the Discovery by way of a dangerous maneuver through an emergency air lock. Dave then shuts down the HAL 9000, and continues with his mission as best he can given the crippling loss of HAL.

            So, did HAL really make a mistake?  At least two possible alternatives come to mind.  The first:  Perhaps HAL did make a mistake, realized it, and was unable to admit his error.  Thinking himself infallible, he could not accept this development.  When Frank and Dave discussed the possibility of HAL’s error, they took precautions to prevent HAL from hearing them, yet he says later that he read their lips and heard them discuss shutting him down.  Perhaps at this point HAL decided to kill them in order to preserve his own life, knowing that when they proved his mistake, they would in effect kill him.  This interpretation compliments the notion that in this film the machines are more human than the men.  HAL demonstrates imperfections, jealousy, and fear of death.  When Dave eventually turns HAL off, HAL actually pleads for his life, saying that he is afraid, that he knows he has been wrong, that he is better now, and that they can work things out.  This is the most emotional scene of the film, as a cold, rigid Dave unplugs piece after piece of HAL’s memory.

            Not only is HAL the only character to display real emotion, he is practically the only character whom everyone recognizes as having them.  At the beginning of Act III, the Jupiter Mission, a TV news cast broadcast from Earth explains HAL to the audience via a recorded interview conducted earlier on the Discovery.  The interviewer asks Dave and Frank questions about the mission and life aboard ship, but asks only HAL how he feels.  Is HAL confident in himself and his abilities?  Does he get along with the crew and find them stimulating?  Is he bored?  Is he frustrated by his lack of physical presence?  Everyone attributes emotions to HAL, but whether he is programmed to imitate them or actually feels them is a question left unanswered.

            Is it possible that HAL did not make a mistake at all?  This second interpretation sees HAL not as an emotional, frightened creature, but as a cold calculating machine.  Perhaps HAL was correct about the faulty transmitter, but read the lips of Frank and Dave as they discussed the possibility that HAL was wrong, and that they might have to shut him off.  Since HAL was programmed to protect the mission above all else, he must get rid of the humans who could ruin it by disconnecting him.  The humans are somewhat unpredictable, make errors, and cannot be trusted or may not be able to carry out the mission without him, so they must be destroyed.  When HAL refuses to let Dave re-enter the Discovery, he says, “This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.”  This interpretation paints the opposite picture of HAL from the first interpretation.  This HAL would be the ultimate cold, calculating intelligence.  A reasoning machine which knows no other logic than that of its programming, and follows that programming even to appalling, unintended conclusions.

            It may seem that the film has two contradictory themes at this point.  One, that man values tools and reason above all else, and has come to depend almost entirely upon them.  And two, that HAL, as the pinnacle of man’s reasoning tools, actually has emotions and seems more human than the cold, mechanical men.  One would think that man’s attempt to create the perfect intellectual tool would not include giving that tool emotions, or even the pretense of them.  The newscast explains that HAL seems to have emotions so that the crew will accept him more easily.  But that explanation alone is unsatisfactory.  If HAL did make a mistake, then he indeed becomes the most human of the characters for all the reasons mentioned above; he displays emotions, whether real or simulated.  If HAL did not err and was simply protecting the mission from human error, then his actions were strategic moves to achieve his ends, including a last appeal to Dave’s humanity for mercy, and HAL becomes not human, but a machine which reasons well enough to imitate humanity to its advantage.  Whichever view of HAL one prefers, both themes are present in the film, and can co-exist up to a point, but depend mainly on one’s interpretation of HAL’s actions.

            In any case, the humans in this story do value reason.  “The Sentinel” suggests this quality of man when the sentinel is brought back to Earth for study.  Since the machine is beyond any technology known on Earth, it is taken apart to be deciphered, but ultimately destroyed in the process, and no scientific gain achieved.  Man would rather destroy an amazing creation than fail to understand it.  Man is obsessed with figuring things out, with logic.  2001 takes this idea much further, as has been discussed, even intertwining it with evolution.  “HAL, the ultimate tool, shows that tools and rationality con go only so far, are not enough” (Kagan 161).  Twice man has “reached an evolutionary plateau – the man-apes trapped in their instincts; the men, trapped in rationalism and technology” (Kagan 160).  Kagan suggests that reason may be an evolutionary dead end.  Mankind’s valuation of reason above all else leads him to create HAL, who reasons in greater quantity and quality than man himself could ever do.  Man loses interest in his other human qualities, preferring to create reasoning machines rather than multiplying as humans.  Instead of reproducing, man builds tools to mimic himself.  Followed to their most extreme end, reason and tools could stop man’s evolutionary development since man could stop multiplying, stop evolving, and eventually die out, computers being unable to evolve or reproduce themselves.

            When Dave Bowman journeys through the hole in space and time, or whatever one interprets it to be, and becomes the “Star Child,” what is happening in the film, and what does it mean?  Ebert terms it “the eventual passage of [man’s] consciousness onto a new level, symbolized by the Star Child at the end of the film” (Great Movies 1).  But is this new consciousness a rejection of reason, the ultimate fulfillment of it, or aliens rebirthing man into an entirely new form of life?  One must examine each option carefully, in detail.

            First, the Star Child could represent what man will eventually become if he acknowledges the limitations of reason, and continues to evolve as a more balanced, well-rounded creature.  This might mean that the aliens have once again reached out to man, through a monolith (the one floating in space near Jupiter), to inspire him or give him a push, to his next level of consciousness, or it could simply mean that the aliens are giving man a glimpse of what he could become on his own, if he chooses the correct path.  “Man will eventually outgrow his machines, or be drawn beyond them by some cosmic awareness.  He will then become a child again, but a child of an infinitely more advanced, more ancient race, just as apes once became, to their own dismay, the infant stage of man” (Ebert’s Video Companion 867).  Second, the Star Child could represent the ultimate reasoning being of pure intelligence and energy.  Perhaps the aliens are showing Bowman what man will become if he continues to seek only reason, inhabiting pure thought.  Or perhaps the aliens have been watching man, seeing that he aspires primarily to reason, and have decided to give man what he most desires, for good or for ill, thinking “if they want it so much, let them have it.”  It could almost be a parallel to the story of Midas who wanted everything he touched to turn to gold, then realized after he obtained that power, that it was but a curse leading to death.  The film does not tell the viewer what to think of the Star Child, whether it is a good change or a bad one, favoring reason or denying it, whether the aliens have changed man, or simply revealed his future, and whether they have meant to help or harm.

            The music of the film does lend some clues.  Ebert writes, “The classical music chosen by Kubrick exists outside the action.  It uplifts.  It wants to be sublime [!!!]; it brings a seriousness and transcendence to the visuals” (Great Movies 1).  Regarding Kubrick’s use of “Thus Spake Zarathustra” at the end of the film, Ebert says “its five bold opening notes embody the ascension of man into spheres reserved for the gods.  It is cold, frightening, magnificent” (Great Movies 1).  The music is unquestionably triumphant.  But whose triumph is it?  It is man’s because he finally got beyond the bounds of rationality?  Is it man’s because he reached the peak of rational thought to become a being of pure intelligence?  Is it the aliens’ because they prodded man to a higher level of existence?  Or is it the aliens’ because they have taught prideful, short-sighted man a lesson?  The first few meanings present a relatively happy ending to the film, but the latter possibility suggests pure tragedy for mankind.  As usual, the film poses questions, but no answers.

            The short story “The Sentinel” and its adaptation into the film 2001: A Space Odyssey transform a tale of simple exploration into a complex representation of evolution, mankind’s values, and the possibilities of alien influence.  It suggests the limitations of tools and logic, while presenting machines as beautiful, almost human creatures.  And what of alien influence?  Perhaps aliens have orchestrated the evolution of man from the beginning, or perhaps they just observe, occasionally revealing profound ideas precisely at a cusp of man’s development.  The film asks the questions of what man will become in the future, and if aliens will play a part, positively or negatively, but provides no answers to the questions.  It simply wants us to be aware, to observe, to consider.

Bibliography 

2001: A Space Odyssey.  Dir. Stanley Kubrick.  Perf. Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester.  MGM, 1968.

Clareson, Tomas D.  Commentary on “The Sentinel.”  Science Fiction: The Science Fiction Research Association Anthology.  Ed. Martin H. Greenberg, Patricia S. Warrick, and Charles G. Waugh.  Harper Collins Publishers: New York, 1988.  242-243.

Clarke, Arthur C.  “The Sentinel.”  Science Fiction: The Science Fiction Research Association Anthology.  Ed. Martin H. Greenberg, Patricia S. Warrick, and Charles G. Waugh.  Harper Collins Publishers: New York, 1988.  236-242.

Ebert, Roger.  “2001: A Space Odyssey” (review written 1968).  Roger Ebert’s Video Companion 1996 Edition.  Andrews and McMeel: Kansas, 1985.  867.

Ebert, Roger.  The Great Movies.  Rev. of 2001: A Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick. www.suntimes.com/ebert.  (Review written sometime between 1996 and 2001.)

Kagan, Norman.  The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick.  Holt, Rinehart, and Winston: New York, 1972.

Maltby, Richard.  Hollywood Cinema.  Blackwell Publishers: Oxford, 1995.

Tarratt, Margaret.  “Monsters from the Id.”  Film Genre Reader II.  Ed. Barry Keith Grant.  University of Texas Press: Austin, 1995.  330-49.