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From: upstill@ucbvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: 2001: what it all means
Message-ID: <79@ucbvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Oct-83 19:20:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.79
Posted: Sat Oct  8 19:20:51 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Oct-83 05:55:03 EDT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Computer Science
Lines: 31


    For those who are bewildered at the themes of 2001, chew on this
next time you see it: (I haven't read the book, so forgive any repetitions)

    The film is about two great steps of man.  The first is the use
of tools and technology.  The monolith appears at the beginning solely 
to present this idea to the apes, who are otherwise qualified to receive
it.  The second great step is to transcend technology when that it reaches
a logical endpoint.  When is that endpoint?  When the tools take over.
Notice: in the movie every computer, every spaceship has much more 
interest and beauty than any of the characters.  The (human) characters
are so insufferably dull and banal simply because they are serving the
tools, not the other way around (the shuttle crew does nothing but watch
the machines do their jobs for them; the Jupiter crew eat food designed
for machines to produce, not for people to eat).  From this point of view,
much of the dialogue in the movie is hilarious (listen to Floyd's reactions
to the first contact with extraterrestrial life).

    This is my reading of the film.  Watched closely, almost every shot
deals with this theme in one way or another, observing humans stripped
of their humanity by the glorious tools which they have built.  The end
of the film is just about taking the next step, of leaving behind this 
shell.  Note that none of this is anti-technology, else tools would never
have been introduced in the first place.  The point is that what is
appropriate or necessary in one context may have a limited usefulness.

    In case it is unclear, 2001 is probably my alltime favorite film.

    Comments?

Steve Upstill