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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mushroom (talk | contribs) at 08:13, 16 January 2006 (disambiguation link repair (You can help!)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Screen displays

The current article says:

  • Among the failures to predict future technology are the ship's computer interfaces, with numerous small screens displaying FORTRAN code, instead of screens with multiple "windows" and graphical user interfaces.
Actually, most displays of embedded systems applications do not feature screens with multiple windows and GUIs. Have a look at modern airplanes for example: very often, selection is done with buttons (around the screen), not with a pointer device. And as the screens are rather small, multiple windows partly hiding each other would prove horribly counter-productive (and dangerous...).
Industrial displays are far less eye-candy than what you'd have in a BMW car. The only goal is efficiency, there's no need to make something look better if it doesn't work better (ask an Unix-shell guy what he'd think of GUIs ;-) ).
--193.56.40.253 12:34, 25 May 2005 (UTC)


J vs I

In the book, Clarke sent Discovery to Saturn instead of Jupiter. The Big Brother monolith was found above the moon Japetus. I know the correct spelling of the moon's name is Iapitus, but Clarke spelled it with a J in the book. I had edited this into the article, but you undid the edit. Why? Robeykr 04:10, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I believe the correct spelling is Iapetus (eye-ap'-i-tus, Greek Ιαπετός) but the English spelling being Japetus. Similar effect with Jonah, in the Bible, who is written Ionas in Latin. A linguistic technicality issue.

... The writer of the above ("Verces"?) is correct. In Latin it's called the "consonantal I" or some such. It's also observable in the Latin "Iesvs" for "Jesus", which comes from the Greek "Iesous", which comes from the Hebrew "Yeshua" which is actually the same name as "Joshua". The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, hence the different names in English usage.

Some critics suggested at the time of the book and film's release that "Japetus" was Clarke's way of being funny, i.e. that he was making a "jape at us". Wahkeenah 22:25, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nonetheless, shouldn't book-related details be kept on the book page? I have removed it from the film Synopsis, which is certianly not a place for discussion of etymological details of the related book 202.126.102.3 02:12, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Don't you think this deserves to be nominated for a featured article? I can't do it because I'm not around regularly enough to respond to all the objections promptly. 68.118.61.219 15:14, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

==

I don't see any value in this new section of Simpsons references. This movie has ben parodied hundreds of times - are we going to include all of them? The heading doesn't make any sense either.

Pop Culture

  • On January 1st, 2001, at sunrise, a black monolith was found to be rising above a hillside in the Pacific northwest; it was measured and found to be 1' x 4' x 9'. It disappeared after sunset. News coverage of the event appeared at the time, but almost all of it has since evaporated.
  • At the end of the The Simpsons during which Homer becomes an astronaut, Bart throws a pen into the air that spins around much like the bone in 2001. It then cuts to Homer as the 'star child'.
  • One episode of The Simpsons features a home automation computer which resembles the HAL 9000 computer. It gets visual input from the familiar cameras with the red lenses, it talks with its inhabitants, the house can be entered through a round pod door, the computer tries to kill people and it finally gets disabled because its circuit cards are pulled out. The title of the episode is: Treehouse of Horror XII - "House of Whacks" (production code: CABF19) and was aired in the year 2001.
  • Episode 4ACV03 of Futurama features a talking red eye in the Planet Express Ship. This eye falls in love with the Bender robot then becomes irrational after Bender breaks up with it. The ship cuts off the oxygen and gravity for the crew and intends to kill everyone by flying into a quasar. Fry and Leela deactivate the ship's personality in similar manner to the one taken by Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey. There is also a musical montage with the song Daisy during Bender and the ship's courtship.
  • Yet Another episode of the Simpsons features a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. When Herbert Powell comes to the Simpsons Household, earlier in the show, Homer wins $2000 to which he buys a vibrating chair. When Homer turns the power level up to Maximum, he descends into a world much similar to the Psychadelic Stargate Sequence. Right up to the colorful eye. Another scene like this appeared in Futurama when Leela assumes that Fry is dead from a Superbee Sting, but comes to visit her in her dreams. When she opens the floating coffin in one of her dreams, the same sequence happens, right down to the colored eye again.
68.118.61.219 00:57, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"The film then leaps millennia (via one of the most innovative jump cuts ever conceived) to the year 2001" Sorry for being ignorant but can someone explain me why this was an innovative jump and what is the fuss about it? I'm sorry for being as young as I am. Helix84 04:35, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think innovative is the wrong word: 'startling' might be better. The fuss is that the bone turns into a spaceship, thus showing the consequences of the ape's discovery in one simple cut!!! If that doesn't excite you ... ah well... The Singing Badger 14:13, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone know the scene in You Only Live Twice that Sir Arthur is supposed to have a cameo appearance in? Kuralyov 02:33, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't have time to get involved with this article, but the film has been a passion of mine since it was first released. Somebody should get a copy of The Making of Kubrick's 2001 by Jerome Agel and study it carefully - it resolves many of the outstanding issues here and is a uniquely great film book.

The article says that the monoloth was buried on the moon soon after the apes find it. I thought I remembered (don't have the book with me - can't check) that the original monolith in Africa was dug up in as well as the one on the Moon. So there were 2. Does anyone know if they were actually the same monolith, or 2 separate ones?

I seem to remember that in one of the increasingly silly sequels the one in Africa is found and placed in the UN. That makes it different than the one on the Moon.
The monolith placed in the United Nations Plaza is the original one dug up on the moon (TMA-1). TMA-2, the one orbiting Jupiter, went all von Neumann and turned the planet into a star. In 2061: Odyssey Three, a descendant of it has established itself on Europa, where it accelerates the local life-forms' evolution in the same way that the Africa monolith did for Homo sapiens. In 3001, a flashback shows an archaeologist digging up what they call TMA-0, which is implied to be the same monolith from the first movie's "Dawn of Man" sequence.
Anville 15:04, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The references to the Sentinal continue to be made. This misses the much stronger links to other stories, like Childhood's End, and most of Clarke's writing through the 1960s. There's certianly nothing about the greater evolution of man in the Sentinal!.

Was it Saturn?

No, the book's conclusion was set at a moon of Saturn, but the movie was set around Jupiter.

the psychological strain on HAL causes him to sabotage the ship's antenna control system, breaking the link to Earth; HAL's behavior becomes increasingly suspicious

First, this may be interpretation; I always thought HAL to be acting quite <borg>efficient</borg>, not strained. I can't remember one thing though: Why (in its own logic) had it severed the connection? Was it only a ruse to get Bowman and Poole into a vulnerable position?

Yes, perhaps I was interpreting HAL's actions a little too much - I was partly relying on the analysis of HAL's actions given in the novel 2010. If nobody else does it, I'll review this section.

Second, the second sentence doesn't quite follow up. After the 'destruction' of the AO unit, there was no reason to be only suspicious.

--Yooden

There was no explanation of HAL's actions in the film. Watching 2001 and not the others and not reading Clarke's fiction, it's not immediately clear why HAL is acting the way he is. --KQ

Interestingly, I've heard that HAL is malfunctioning from the beginning: in the chess game, it is not nessacerily mate in three - it's mate, but he could survive for four moves. Is this the beginning of HAL's problems?

And then there's the whole IBM - HAL thing... and the product placement! :D Dave McKee

This point was noted in the book HAL'S LEGACY, however I do not belive the chess game was an error. HAL had probably played many games with Poole prior to the one we saw in the film. This would make him familiar with Poole's move patterns and could predict his move choices. Robeykr 16:52, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia contains spoilers While it is true that HALs actions are not explained in the movie 2001, HALs actions *are* explained in 2010 a space odyssey (both the book, and the movie). Apparently HAL has the psyche of a young child. HAL is incapable of resolving the conflict in his orders. I somehow remeber a fragment of dialouge in 2001 about ground control explaining to Dave "We have been able to replicate the same problem in our own ground based computer...", and goes on to explain things. If someone could find a reference to this, that would be perfect! -- Kim Bruning

Wikipedia contains spoilers I have not read the book of 2001, but I believe that it is also explained there. It is definitely not clear in the movie, but once you hear the explanation given in the book or in the movie 2010, it makes sense. Note that HAL reported the device failure immediately after conversing with Dave and Frank about the nature of the mission, asking them if they thought there was anything funny or odd about certain facets of it. They said no, they didn't think so. Right after that, he said, "Just one moment, just one moment", and reported the failure. Later in the movie, after Hal was dismantled, Dave saw a tape being played that they weren't supposed to see until they reached their destination, and the tape made it clear that Hal knew all along what the purpose of the mission was.

However, this is all a matter of piecing it together after the fact--after you've already heard the explanation of why HAL went crazy, and the explanation would not be clear to anyone watching the movie without that foreknowledge. -- Egern

I couldn't disagree more with the claim that "once you hear the explanation given in the book or in the movie 2010, it makes sense". It makes no sense at all. The "explaination" in 2010 is that HAL is nothing more than a talking robot, and there was a bug is his programming that caused him to fail.
This certainly isn't how 2001 (the movie) feels. The movie goes to length to suggest that HAL is a "real" thinking behinI always felt that HAL was entirely sentient; thinking, feeling, and making decisions. The "killing of HAL" scene is robbed of any emotion otherwise. HAL, for whatever reason, did what he did because he MADE a decision to do it.
2010 was employing a deux ex machina in order to avoid the problem of having him turned back on without having to worry about any lingering details. This theme continued in Clarke's later books, when even the monoliths are reduced to nothing more than robots, robbed entirely of their mystery. -- user:Maury Markowitz

I edited the article because it contained a number of mis-statements. It must be remembered that there is nothing in the Kubrick film itself to indicate the presence of beings from another planet - that's simply a hypothesis made by one of the characters.

Not at all. The book and the film were created simulatenously, and the intent all along was that the monolith was planted there by aliens. The characters in the movie and the book both had the identical realization; it had to have been created by aliens. The ambiguity in the movie was not deliberate; they simply didn't have voice-overs for what the characters were thinking. Kubrick and Clarke thought that the audience would be able to undrestand this part easily. RK

Likewise, the "reasons" for HAL's behaviour listed in "2010" are not mentioned at all in 2001 (frankly, I find them somewhat insulting to the audience's intelligence). To accept what Clarke says about Kubrick's film is not appropriate. --Alex Kennedy

I fail to understand what you find insulting. This explanation was implicit in the original book; HAL had two contradictory missions that HAL found increasingly impossible to carry out. HAL suffored a psychotic breakdown as a result. And you seem unaware of what the 2001 project was all about if you imagine that this was Kubrick's film. That's incorrect. Both the book and the movie were collaborative efforts all the way, and both Kubrick and Clarke were open about this. What you refer to is not to be Clarke's personal after-the-fact rationalization, but in fact was the actual intent. RK

This article says that HAL sabotaged the antenna system. I don't remember anything about that in the movie. Can someone refresh my memory? All I recall is that HAL incorrectly reported a failure, but that everything was actually working correctly.

HAL falsely reported a failure of the 'AE35 unit', which was part of the antenna assembly.

When Bowman and Poole look at it with a manual circuit tester, they can't find a fault.

Exactly! So where was this sabotage that the article talks about? -- Egern
After this event, HAL then deliberately burnt out the replacement part. RK
I watched the movie (for the 20th time or so) this weekend. Nothing is wrong with the AE35, before, after, or at any point. -- User:Maury Markowitz
But all the evidence points to the AE35 not being out of commission at all (although that is not established definitively, it appears that Hal was mistaken that there was anything wrong with it, and Hal decided to kill the astronauts after they had determined a plan to shut Hal down if the unit was not out of commision).
HAL's incorrect presumption that there was something wrong with the AE35 can be interpretted as sabotage. The sister 9000 didn't find a fault, so the on board 9000 must have lied to the crew about the fault, in my opinion to precipitate a crew mutiny which he could then quash with Poole space walking. --Commander Keane 09:09, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

On another note--the monolith on the moon was "deliberately buried". If it was not aliens who were behind the monolith, what was behind it? I advocate restoring mention of the monolith as being alien unless someone can convince me of otherwise. -- Egern


The monolith was deliberately buried by aliens. The idea of the monolith as an alien being itself was tossed around by Clarke and Kubrick, but the idea was eventually abandoned. The monolith was buried by aliens, and you can read the name of the alien who did it! Arthur Clarke wrote several scenes about how the aliens came to Earth; he also wrote scenes in which astronaut David Bowman, after going through the Monolith's Stargate, actually meets the aliens themselves. He and Kurbick decided to eliminate these scenes as they took away from the mystery and grandeur of the film. But these sections can still be found in the wonderful paperback "The Lost Worlds of 2001", which include many alternate scenes, earlier versions, and deleted material from the development of the book and movie. I can't reccomend it enough for fans of the film. RK


It might be worth mentioning that the opening caption of the film "The dawn of man" is usually taken to refer to the opening act set in prehistory. However, an interesting idea is that "The dawn of man" actually refers to the entire film, right up to the point of Bowman's transformation. -- Tarquin, Saturday, July 6, 2002

Technical Note on the Technical Note:

In the original version of the Technical Note I said that that there was a theorem showing that strictly less than 1/3 of the nodes in a voting system could fail without compromising the system. I cannot find the relevant theorem, but I believe that that claim was slightly off and the actual logic is as follows. Assume you are one of n modules and you want to perform a sanity check on the state of the entire system by seeing how the other nodes vote. You do not count your own vote, because if you were confident that it was correct you would not be doing the sanity check to begin with. Thus the sanity check requires that your state be in agreement with a majority vote of the remaining n-1 modules. There will be a correct majority iff strictly less than (n-1)/2 modules have failed; otherwise there can be a tie or an incorrect majority. But when n=3, (n-2)/1=1, so strictly less than one node can fail without compromising the system. Thuse the three module system described for HAL does not protect against the failure of even a single node. (Someone please verify my logic!) -- B.Bryant

From the article:

In the movie HAL features a design with triple redundancy

Really? Where does it say this?

why hal went crazy

in 2001 the book it says (i dont no where) that hal went crazy because he had to keep the secret of the mission and could not stand being the only one that knew. in the book HAL first reports the error, poole goes eva and replaces it, they check on it and find nothing wrong with alpha echo unit, HAL reports another error with the new one, a few moments later AE has malfuncioned. He took out the AE unit because he knew that after he had reported the fake error people on earth were monitoring him, HAL wanted to escape the constant burnden of being watched by earth. Then HAL tried to kill the astronauts because he didnt want to be judged by them.

Copyright??

Is that image that someone just uploaded violating copyright? It was copyrighted in 1968. Greenmountainboy 23:34, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's copyright, it may be trademark. I'm still unclear on whether using a still image, poster or other promotional material, or "behind the scene" image, etc, from a film constitutes a "fair use." Even if it did, I'm sure if the copyright owner objected to the images, they would have to be removed, since fair use is only an affirmative defense and it really isn't worth it. I am personally not willing to upload "fair use" items because I'm not sure it's such a great idea; my opinion of what is a fair use may not be someone else's. RudolfRadna 15:58, 22 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Triple voting

Removed from the article:

In the movie HAL features a design with triple redundancy, so that if one of the three modules fails the other two can outvote it. However, the formal study of fault-tolerant computing shows that such a vote-based sanity check will not actually protect against the failure of a single node in a three-node system like HAL. Thus the failure of only a single one of HAL's redundant modules would be sufficient to compromise the system, as apparently happened in the movie. It is not known whether Kubrick and Clarke were aware of this fact when they wrote the story.
  1. Where is this mentioned in the film?
  2. This assumes that there the voting mechanism includes the failed node: usually fault-tolerant systems make sure that the voting mechanism is very simple and separate from the operating mechanism, and is itself designed to avoid Byzantine failure.

-- The Anome 08:38, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it was present in the book, if not the movie. However, I don't know where my copy is at the moment. Lefty 10:46, 2004 Apr 27 (UTC)
It is not mentioned in the film. Bungopolis
Yes, it is mentioned in the book (not only the programing hardware, but the power systems as weel!) -- in the chapter where Dave disconects the computer Robeykr 00:04, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I skimmed through the book just now, and I see no reference to it, but I may have missed it. It is, however, stated several times that there are 3 separate HAL-9000 units: one on Discovery, and 2 HAL units at Mission Control. (Is that what the above is referring to?) They don't use the units at Mission Control to do voting, though; they only start checking results against the other two once the AE-35 failure is predicted by Hal on Discovery. --anon

Seperate articles for book and film DONE!

It seems to me that the film and book need to have separate articles, or at a bare minimum separate sections in the same article. The fact that they were developed together is interesting, and references to the book ought to be contained in the article on the film, and vice versa. But the film should and does stand on its own; people can and do see the movie without reading the book, and vice versa. Any movie must stand on its own, and must be evaluated on its own terms; and the article on the movie should only discuss the content that is in the film, without resorting to explanations that are contained in the book. Any film critic who reviews or discusses the film only refers (or at least ought to only refer) to just the film. soulpatch

I strongly agree with soulpatch's suggestion, that Kubrick's film and Clarke's novel should each have their own article. Not only would this make the information in this article much easier to read, it would provide a much needed distinction between the two pieces. I am often frustrated as to the way in which Clarke's novel is used by many to "explain" the ambiguities Kubrick's film. As soulpatch says, the film most certainly stands on its own: in my view it is easily one of the greatest achievements in film history. Clarke's novel was written after the release of the film. To a great extent, therefore, I consider Clarke's novel an 'interpretation' of the original story, which was developed by both Kubrick and Clarke. Does anybody else have any ideas on this?
Bungopolis 00:52, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
Actually, both the book and the movie script were being written simultaneously. If Clark had written it as an interpretation of the movie, it would feature Jupiter like the movie, and not Saturn as the early script for the movie (it was changed because the special effects people couldn't make good enough Saturn). Ausir 08:14, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
That's why I didn't say it was an interpretation of the movie. I said it was an interpetation of the original story, which was developed by both Kubrick and Clarke. My point is that they should be seen as two branches from the same origin, rather than parallel media equivilents, as having the two in the same article suggests. It is a very common misconception that Kubrick's 2001 is a film of the book. They are entirely independent works with the same basic story and the same title, but you cant substitute one for the other. I also think there is sufficient content related to the film, as far as film-making technique goes, to have it's own article.
-- Bungopolis 17:29, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
Has anyone given any more thought to this idea? I still think it is entirely appropriate to seperate the film from the book.
-- Bungopolis 12 October 2004
I entirely agree that the film and the novel should be separated. There are plenty of "adaptations" which highly differ from the original book, Blade Runner being one example - and thus, no one should be using books as unique source to explain a movie. In the case of 2001, the novel was written "in parallel", but these are nonetheless distinct branches. Kubrick may actually have decided on purpose not to include some of the elements that are in the book.
As for sequels: these may be used as explanation, but if and only if are directed/produced by exactly the same crew, which is not the case for 2010 (neither novel or film). These (novels included) should be mentioned for additional, background information, but clearly stating they are not "THE" explanation for Kubrick's film.
--193.56.40.253 11:40, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Trivia

  • The psychedelic "stargate sequence" that concludes the film, subtitled "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite," has been cited as being more than coincidentally a match for the Pink Floyd song, "Echoes," similar to the match up of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon with the movie The Wizard of Oz. [1]

Is it just me or does the above read like complete bollox??? What does it mean????? I'm baffled, if you can shed any light please explain, if not, edit mercilessly... quercus robur 23:47, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It does make sense (although it's not very well written). Apparently if you watch 'The Wizard of Oz' with the sound turned down while playing Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' album, the music seems to match the action perfectly, so the album almost seems like it was designed as a soundtrack for the film (especially, I understand, if you smoke a lot of pot beforehand). So the paragraph is saying that the same happens if you play 'Echoes' while watching the Stargate sequence. The paragraph does makes sense, except for the 'more than coincidentally' bit, which is, I think, bollox. I think I'll go and remove it... The Singing Badger 00:46, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The forgetting of a helmet

HAL do clearly play a lethal game similar to chess with the two astronauts, every step predicted by the machine. The only thing he could not predict, is Bowman forgetting is helmet in the rush to enter space. I am sure the forgetting is an important point, I just cannot pinpoint exactly what is says. This is very similar to Dr.Strangelove in that the system (HAL / The Pentagon) is chess mated because man acts in unpredictable ways.

Actually, I think he does predict that Bowman would forget the helmet (e.g. by having studied him psychologically). It is essential to HAL's plot, if not, Dave would have easily been able to re-enter the spaceship (HAL: "Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult"). HAL's mistake is that humans are actually able to survive a few seconds in space vacuum (common belief that someone would instantly freeze or explode is scientifically wrong), and, more importantly, that Dave would have had the creativity and the courage to act that way.
In fact, HAL is a chess player that relies a lot more on deception, than raw computational power.

Cult film

Is this really a Cult Film? A cult film is normally not as mainstream as this was, and I cannot think of many cult movies that had 10 million dollar budgets. I do not think that 2001 has a following as great as Forbidden Planet or the films or Solaris

I'd say it was a mainstream hit in 1968, but NOW it's a cult film. Most people can't sit through it these days. The Singing Badger 13:46, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I do not think it wasn't really a "mainstream" film (although certainly not "B movie"), even at the time. Critics were far from unanimous, and part of the audience saw it for the psychedelic sequences. 2001: A Space Odyssey was the first film of its genre (other sci-fi films did exist already, like Forbidden Planet, but without the same emphasis on special effects nor the silent-musical aspects).
Anyway, "mainstream" needs a clear and common definition. Wikipedia's article says: "something that is not out of the ordinary or unusual" AND "something that is familiar to the masses" (+ other "AND" criteria). Even in 1968, 2001 could not be said to be "familiar to the masses" and wasn't "usual" for sure...
--193.56.40.253 12:08, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Novelization

from which Kubrick created the movie and Clarke wrote the novelisation.

  • I object to the language here. Clarke wrote the novel, with Kubrick's input, as the basis for the film. A novelization is generally an ex post facto treatment (e.g., there exists a novelization of Jurassic Park, which follows the movie, not the book). Clark himself remarked in The Lost Worlds of 2001 that: "Other movies are based on screenplays specifically written for them, and no novel version (or even–ugh!–"novelization") ever exists." I'm going to re-word the intro ever so slightly to remove "novelization". Mackensen (talk) 20:01, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Theories

There should be either a large section added to this article, or a seperate article, detailing the many different theories and interpretations of 2001.

That's a great idea, I added some theories about HAL, but had nowhere to put them so I stuck them into the synopsis, which was the best place for them available, but maybe not the right place. I don't know how to add sections yet because I'm new, I'll try to figure it out if nobody else does it before I do. RudolfRadna 15:41, Jul 22, 2005 (UTC)

I figured out how to add sections and put one in about interpretations, and another about HAL. I think there should be a section on the monolith also, but I'd have to watch 2001 again to write anything that makes sense. I think I appreciate the film even more from working on the article and reading what others have added. RudolfRadna 16:41, Jul 28, 2005 (UTC)

Scientific accuracy: Weightlessness

Don't be too harsh on the film, it is actually quite realistic. The main critics which I removed were not really valid:

  • There is velcro everywhere in the spaceships -- that's why people walk so slowly
  • In a constraint space, you might want to walk vertically by using you hands, like the woman in Orion. Similarly, it's difficult to ay wether Dave in the pod is not only too constraint by the small room to float around
  • The pods are obviously fixed to their plateforms, who would want a space pod to float round ? Discovery has to undertake manoeuvers, you dont want a who-knows-how-many-ton craft to wander freely in the garage ! :p
  • If Floyd has fallen alseep with his head on hid shoulder (very possible, he might jut be accustomed to sleep so), it won't move
  • Floyd's arm is moving very slowly; could be only the movement of air displaced by the woman; or him moving in his sleep; or just his triceps being slightly more relaxed than his biceps.

So I wouldn't say we have obvious inaccuracies here -- there might be others, but those ones are very disputable. Cheers and happy editing ! Rama 18:35, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

--- These are all minor details and I'm being picky BUT I do think that the pod bay scenes do not appear weightless at all beyond a suggestion of sticky-velcro-feet:

  • During the AE35 diagnosis in the pod bay, the two astronauts are clearly leaning on the benchtop for support.
  • When he carries the AE35 unit in to the pod, his arm is hanging down, not in any way floating about as it would do in free-fall.
  • The lip-reading scene shows the two of them sitting comfortably inside the pod, having crawled in.
  • The enter the pod bay via a ladder, not floating freely, and they certainly look like they have weight as they come down.
  • If you notice the bottom of their boots (as Dave crawls into the HAL brainroom you get a clear view) - there's nothing remotely like velcro on the bottom - they look exactly like the soles of rubber boots. OK, it might be special 2001: Velcro... --Bignoter 6 Apr 2005

Separate articles for separate topics DONE!

In the next couple of days, I will create two new articles to solve some problems caused by two Stanley Kubrick ”film” pages.

Both A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey try to deal with both the book and the film when what’s really needed are individual pages for these two separate topics.

Though neither of these pages are anywhere near as confused or biased as the Dune page, for example, I cannot see how serious future contributions can be made without muddling things up even further.

As for the names of the new articles, ACO is straightforward enough: the book came first, and the film was adapted later. The case of 2001 is perhaps more controversial, since Kubrick and Clarke worked on the screenplay/novel(ization) simultaneously. In this instance, I’m going to favor Kubrick: 1) The film was released first and 2) The film is undoubtedly the more better known of the pair (and thus the more likely target of a search).

The new articles will be named:

I’m sorry that this necessary editing job will result in some tedious manual labor thanks to the (hopefully few) link changes that need to be made. (Of course, there’s really no rush, since all the pages will still link to each other.)

See Talk:A_Clockwork_Orange for more discussion. 62.148.218.27 21:02, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Use of AND

What do Americans call "2001: A Space Odyssey"? I've never heard anyone call it anthing other than "Two thousand and one: A Space Odyssey". I've never heard it called "Twenty oh one: a Space Odyssey". , but apparently Americans don't put and in number descriptions. What about One Hundred and One Dalmatians? Jooler 10:09, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Generaly, we call it "Two thousand one: A Space Odyssey." Robeykr 06:55, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

In conversation I usually just call it "2001" and let the context make people realize I'm talking about the film, not the year. RudolfRadna 15:35, 22 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Magnusson Park references

My kind thanks to whomever replaced my half-vast third hand memory of the New Year's 2001 incident with *actual* references. I felt it was important, but I was a little uncomfortable with the self-referentiality of it. --Baylink 23:53, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Theatrical Format

I was lucky enough for 2001 to be broadcast on television recently, on SBS, and the presention began with the following:


"At Stanley Kubrick's request, 2001: A Space Odyssey will be telecast in its orginal theatrical format which includes Overture, Entr'acte (Intermission) and Exit music.
During these section of music the screen will be black"


There was 5 mins of black at the beginning, in the middle (just after HAL read the crew's lips), and at the end. All with music. In keeping with this particular TV network, no ads were shown during the film.

Has anyone come across this phenomenon before? I assume this was how it was shown at the cinema, was this common in 1968? I would appreciate any comments. --Commander Keane 09:09, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Commander Keane, this was how it was shown in its 1968 release. The theater that I saw it in kept the curtains closed and the lights dimmed while this music played. The only thing to add is that just after the intermission title came up there was a 15 minute break before the Entr'acte music began to play. As the years went on these three segments were usually dropped and the intermission would show up and disappear depending on the print of the film shown.
As to whether it was common or not, that is a debatable point. Many movies, from this era, of 90-120 minutes in length did not do this. But a large number of movies did include them. They were fairly prominant in the late '50's and early 60's, Ben-Hur, Spartacus and Lawrence of Arabia spring to mind as containing these music features. They seemed to phase out by the early 70's, the last one that I can remember having them was Paint Your Wagon, although I feel sure that there were a few others after this one, maybe other wiki readers will remember them and add them here. My experience of the films that did have these features, and later readings about them, have lead me to understand that, in order to compete with television, there was a move to make films a larger than life experience. In some ways including this extra music was a return to the roots of live musical theater (which many older film houses of this time had actually been built for originally). Of course, there were other factors involved, too.
Your SBS and, in the U.S., Turner Classic Movies, as well as DVD releases of these films are restoring these features and, I for one appreciate it. It brings back such fond memories.
Two other small points of interest. First, this film was one of the first in the latter half of the 1900's (yes, I know Citizen Kane did it earlier) to move all the credits to the end of the film. It is so common today that its hard to remember that films used to have the bulk of the credits at the beginning. Second, on a far more personal level, I'll just say that when I was young films had an intermission. Now that I'm older I know why (as I explained to the row of people that I excused myself to get by, in both directions, a few minutes before LOTR: The Two Towers was about to start). MarnetteD | Talk 08:34, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)


  • Yes, I have encountered it. On that Saturday following Kubrick's passing, a local PBS station aired 2001, complete and uncut, in widescreen without pledge break interuption. Robeykr 06:58, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
  • I saw it in the theater on a re-release around 1970 or so. The black screen at the beginning was underscored with a portion of the music from the "trip" segment. I think The Sound of Music also played music during its intermission segment. Wahkeenah 23:38, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
  • If I'm not wrong, the intermission was partly due to the 70mm format - making the (physical) film support longer than for 35mm prints. Anyway, most Cinerama releases did have such features (intro, intermission and outro music).

--193.56.40.253 12:21, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Transcendental mysticism

What is transcendental mysticism? Isn't it the same as saying a huge giant or a smart genius? --Eleassar777 21:27, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Or redundant redundancy? Wahkeenah 21:48, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I think it should be removed. --Eleassar777 22:49, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I removed transcendental and left only mysticism. However, I asked before removing and there was no reply yet. Can you explain why it is not redundant? Thanks. Eleassar777 16:55, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

It's a Transcendental Mysticism Anomoly. Wahkeenah 23:22, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Eye pic

Isn't there a better opening picture we can find, other than the ugly eye pic? It's not really representative of the movie's atmosphere (the psychedelic sequence is kind of an aberration compared to the whole movie) or appearance as a whole. Revolver 22:01, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree. The original poster was used in the earlier version of this article and reflects more the general feel of the film. (see image:2001 movie poster.jpg ) Where and when does the Eye picture come from? Is it a general rule that we should use images from the original release rather than re-releases or DVD covres? If nothing else, original artwork helps to place a film in context with the time of its creation.
I believe the eye pic is from the beginning of the "psychedelic" sequence at the end of the film. Revolver 01:12, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
No -- it's from the second and third parts of the ULTIMATE TRIP sequence. Diring the light-tunnel sequence, brief cut of Bowman reacting in terror are used. These shots did not use any colour-fitration effects. -- Jason Palpatine 29 June 2005 07:23 (UTC)

Production History

Can we consolidate a lot of the trivia as a proper Production History section. According to James Howard Kubrick had the "How the Solar System Was Won" idea while working on Strangelove and decided that first contact was the most interesting plot element. Clarke was recommended later and aside from Kubrick identifying "The Sentinel" as a good episode the two made little connection during production.

Advertising

In the spoof section, recently I added the lego-based "One: A Space Odyssey," and it was deleted by another user for "advertising," possibly because I linked to the page that had O:ASO. I restored the entry, without the internet link, as it certainly is a spoof of 2001. I was just curious is it acceptable without the link, or is there still an issue? Personally, I don't believe it can be considered advertising without the link, any more than the other media "2001" has been referenced and spoofed in are. I am going to try to find the 'advertising' policy on wikipedia to better understand this issue. RudolfRadna 16:05, 23 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Another thought just occurred to me. I just went to the "Lego" wikipedia page, and there was a link at the bottom of the page to the official Lego website. Isn't that advertising also? I'm really confused on this now. RudolfRadna 16:10, 23 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Here's another one I noticed awhile ago. On the book of kells entry, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_kells), there's a link to a company that sells the book of kells on cd-rom. I'd never heard of that before, and found out about it solely because of Wikipedia. Isn't that advertising also? I'm just unclear on what the policy is, because it seems like this stuff is all over the place. RudolfRadna 16:25, 23 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I think I found the policy (WP-NOT) or something like that:

"Advertising. Articles about companies and products are fine if they are written in an objective and unbiased style. Further all article topics must be third-party verifiable, so articles about very small "garage" companies are not likely to be acceptable. External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they can serve to identify major corporations associated with a topic (see finishing school for an example). Please note Wikipedia does not endorse any businesses and it does not set up affiliate programs."

Seems like an odd way to draw the line for external links. Is it a content concern? RudolfRadna 00:47, 23 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Original research?

The section headed 'Interpretation of the Film' looks like the speculation of contributors, which would qualify as original research. It's not a survey of notable interpretations advanced over the years.

Quite agree - and much of it is based on interpretation of the book, which should not be here.

I would strongly agree if the issue were one of fact, but the main issue regarding original research being problematic (that of verifiability) is absent when it comes to a subjective interpretation - such is inherently unverifiable. I do agree that the material is in violation of the original research prohibition, but it is unclear to what extent it is doing any harm, since it contains inherently unverifiable material.

Given the fact that the material is still original research, it would be a good idea to shelve the interpretation section, and possibly some other parts of the article, and replace them with whatever is available from outside, citable sources that accomplish the same goals of providing a sense of the richness of meaning of the film. Although, personally, I think to clear up further confusion, it would be better to rename the term "original research" to "original thoughts," since I think that is a better description of what should apparently be excluded under the intent of the rule, and which would clearly apply to, as the instant example, subjective commentary on the interpretation of the film, which is inherently exclusive from the issue of verifyability.

So, is there consensus on changing "original research" to "original thoughts," and naturally, still banning the same? Or should this be an issue for the "original research" talk page?

RudolfRadna 16 September 2005 19:50 (UTC)

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