2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke which was being developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version. The story is based in part on various short stories by Clarke, most notably "The Sentinel" (1951). Kubrick and Clarke collaborated on the screenplay, from which Kubrick created the movie and Clarke wrote the novel. For an elaboration of their collaborative work on this project, see The Lost Worlds of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke, Signet., 1972.
Synopsis
In the background to the story in the book, an ancient and unseen alien race uses a mechanism with the appearance of a large black monolith to investigate worlds all across the galaxy and, if possible, to encourage the development of intelligent life (the monoliths are perhaps Von Neumann probes, although the segment explaining this was cut from the film). The film shows one such monolith appearing briefly in ancient Africa, three million B.C., where it influences a group of our hominid ancestors, causing them to learn how to use weapons.
The film then leaps millennia to the year 2001 (via a widely famous and much-parodied jump cut), showing humans travelling to Clavius base on the Moon and investigating a magnetic anomaly in the Tycho crater, dubbed TMA-1 (Tycho Magnetic Anomaly #1). When excavations there uncover a second monolith and expose it to sunlight, it emits a powerful signal toward the outer solar system. As Kubrick told interviewer Joseph Gelmis, "you have a second artifact buried deep on the lunar surface and programmed to signal word of man's first baby steps into the universe—a kind of cosmic burglar alarm." The movie then focuses on a subsequent manned mission to the Lagrange point between Jupiter and its moon Io to investigate the signal's receiver.
(The book version instead details a trip to Iapetus—a moon of Saturn—by way of Jupiter, using an interplanetary navigation technique known as a gravitational slingshot.) According to Clarke, in the foreword to the 30th anniversary edition of 2001, this destination was removed from the movie version because Kubrick felt the special effects created to depict Saturn and its rings were not realistic enough. Special effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull eventually re-used much of his early designs for Saturn in his 1972 film Silent Running.
The ship is manned by a crew of astronauts and an on-board computer called HAL 9000, designed to function as an artificial intelligence, which sees through several distinctive wide-angle cameras located around the spacecraft and speaks with a human-like voice. The scientists sent to investigate the signal's receiver have been placed in suspended animation, and the live crew—unlike Mission Control, HAL, and the sleeping scientists—are unaware of the discovery of the Tycho monolith or the nature of their mission.
On the outbound trip, after discussing apparent anomalies in the ship's mission with the ship's captain, David Bowman, HAL reports an unverifiable error in the ship's antenna control system. Two of the members discuss the possibility that HAL might be malfunctioning and should therefore have his higher brain functions disabled. HAL discovers their plans, and because of contradictions in his mission plans and directives, decides to eliminate all the humans on board. Kubrick explained, "In the specific case of HAL, he had an acute emotional crisis because he could not accept evidence of his own fallibility... Such a machine could eventually become as incomprehensible as a human being, and could, of course, have a nervous breakdown—as HAL did in the film."
To do this, he attempts to work around several safety measures in the ship, but Bowman manages to outwit him. These events gave rise to the catch phrase "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that", when HAL refuses to allow Bowman back into the ship.
A video recording then informs Bowman of the truth about the mission, whereupon he proceeds to complete it in one of the most memorable film conclusions ever. In a special-effects-laden sequence he travels through a stargate to meet the creators of the monoliths. Kubrick explained, "When the surviving astronaut, Bowman, ultimately reaches Jupiter, this artifact sweeps him into a force field or star gate that hurls him on a journey through inner and outer space and finally transports him to another part of the galaxy, where he's placed in a human zoo approximating a hospital terrestrial environment drawn out of his own dreams and imagination. In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death." The creators are never seen directly: Bowman arrives into a hotel room, which has since become a science fiction cliché for situations where a vastly powerful being must construct a benign environment for a human. He undergoes a transcendence, ending the story as a "star child" with some of the godlike powers of the monolith creators. According to Kubrick, "He is reborn, an enhanced being, a star child, an angel, a superman, if you like, and returns to earth prepared for the next leap forward of man's evolutionary destiny." However, many choose to interpret the imagery towards the end of the film as ambiguous and metaphoric, ignoring the literal account in Clarke's novelization.
Sequels
A sequel to the film, titled 2010: The Year We Make Contact was based on Clarke's book 2010: Odyssey Two and was released in 1984. (The book was published in 1982.) However, Kubrick was not involved in the production of this film, which did not have the impact of the original. (Nonetheless, Kubrick makes a cameo appearance in the film, after a fashion; a photograph of the director is used to represent a Russian premier, seen on a magazine cover. Also, the name of the captain on the Leonov is "Kirbuk".) Clarke went on to write two more sequel novels: 2061: Odyssey Three (1987) and 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997). To date there has yet to be any serious discussion of filmmakers adapting either for the screen.
Trivia
- It has been frequently noted that "HAL" is "IBM", shifted one letter back. Clarke insists that this is a coincidence; see HAL 9000#HAL wordplay.
- The book's description of the moon Iapetus curiously closely describes another Saturnian moon, Mimas; this was a coincidence, as close-up images of Saturn's moons did not become available until 1980.
See also
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